abandonment

I truly empathize with the pain that you must have gone through when you relinquished your child. You did the best that you could under the circumstances. After reading Evelyn Robinson's perspectives/experiences as a relinquishing mother, I've come to begin to understand the immense pain and grief that women such as yourself go/have gone through. I can understand how the word abandonment makes your blood boil. When I think about my (now deceased) birth mother, I can only imagine the anguish that she must have gone through as she and my birth father were just too poor to afford keeping me and my 4 other siblings. Thank-you for sharing your feelings - I'm sending you hugs as a way of saying I hear you.

Of course that was not abandonment. You made a conscious, well-thought out decision with the well-being of the child as your goal. Abandonment is what my son's birth mother did to him. Repeatedly leaving him with relatives in a filthy diaper with an empty tummy until he was about 6 months old -- when she left him for the last time and refused to come back to get him. She never saw him again, despite being offered chances to do so during the course of the adoption proceedings. When you compare that to your loving decision, you know the two things aren't even in the same universe. Robin

Of course you did not abandon your child !!. It looks like the one who was abandoned was you !! Where was the somebody to help you keep the child who you obviosuly loved and wanted??These mothers who don't care about anybody but themselves and who dump their child because they are lousy mothers, well those are the children who need adoption. But somehow this system fails us so completely when it cannot help the young mother who wants her baby and will be a good mother but for her financial position. It makes me so incredibly sad for the mother and the baby to see a lifetime of suffering because there was no one to help or the only help they had to offer was to take the mother's baby for their own or for a profit.

Although my birthmother just didn't want me, I truly admire you for being selfless and doing what you thought best for your child. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to do what you did, knowing that you wanted to keep your baby, you went through (and probably always will) the pain of giving away your daughter because you knew it was the best thing to do. There are some birthmothers who just didn't want their babies. I would have been thrilled to meet my birthmother and heard that she even cared a little bit. However, even though she didn't want me, I have never thought of it like she abandoned me. I'm no orphan, just a gift that she gave to someone else. She could have done worse, like you said...just left me somewhere, but she chose to give me to someone who could love me and care for me better than she obviously could. You didn't abandon your daughter. You gave her life.

Adoption is not abandonment. It is giving a couple the chance to be a family. I think God is in control. You give a wonderful, great, and loving gift. Please don't ever think of it as abandonment. If my daughter would not have lived because the bmother died during labor, I would have never held her in my arms. She has given my husband and me the greatest life as her parents. I have enjoyed every minute of the last 18 years. The bmom is important and I think of her with love. I have met her and she is part of my daughter's life now. She attended our daughter's graduation. I said our daughter. She is both my daughter and her daughter. She gave her life and I was able to be her parent. This is not abandonment. This is unselfish love. Thank you for givng a child life.

As an adoptee whose mother was raped and here I am, I realize my birthmother gave me the best gift she could then..a chance at a better life which I indeed had. The abandonment thing comes from the adoptee not knowing any history as to what happened and it doesn't help that for most of us those records are closed to us. So from our stand point, we were given away and don't know why,. If we did and didnt have to go to the cost of searching to find our birthfamily and the truth of things, we wouldn't feel this way. I think in most cases adoptive families just aren't given much history in the first place so no one knows but the birthmother and agency and the agency sure as h*** wont tell us anything.

Perhaps the circumstances of your conception aren't the best,but you in this world is the best.I've thought about that, a rape scenario and the natal mother keeping quiet about it , not wishing the child she relinquishes to know that. It must have been devestating for you to find that out.I"m sorry, but, I'm a big marshmallow, I don't know that I would ever reveal that to a child that I had relinquished. I probably would take that information to the grave with me, rather than have the child know that. Yeah, some natal mothers do keep secrets that they don't ever want to get out and never want the children they relinquished to know. Perhaps this another reason why some women refuse contact with their relinquished children.They dont' want them to know they are a product of rape, or have mental illness in their families etc.Irish eyes, I doubt many women just "give the children away". Perhaps I'm naive but I really believe that most children that were relinquished were relinquished with agony on the part of the natal mother. That mother wanting the best for the innocent child.The agency's can't tell because their is an implicit understanding that the natal mother's privacy will not be violated.I've asked before but got no answer so far. Was there no medical information asked of the natal mother about her, her family and the father and his family in the USA? Even in the 60's I was asked about medical information and answered as best I could, honestly.If the information was asked for by the agency and answers given, why wasn't that information given to the adoptive parents?dmca

DMCA, I personally, growing up really never felt abandoned or rejected. I'm not sure that when the issue of abandoned comes up regarding adoptees it really is not meant as a blame, or fault finding thing. Altgough I am aware that there are some adoptees that do blame...waste of time IMO...I have always known that MY birthmother did the best she could with the tools she had. My story was not one of a newborn..I was in foster care for 2 years.... But anyway...The issue is kinda going to the primal wound therory..that when an infant is seperated from their mother it causes a deep feeling of fear, mistrust and their ability to look at the outside world has changed from a baby that was kept with mother. What I don't like about that therory is the exent of patholgy that they ascribe to a baby...although I have come to beleive that yes,,,the baby does feel something...fear....confusaion. and abandonedment...the resulant care after the seperation does play ahuge role in how a child will cope with all of that. Imagine as an adult being shifted from house to house, different voices, smells and experiances and not being able to sayhEy...whats going on?!? Where the heck am I suppose to be anyway..IMo..there has to be some degree of feelings that cause confusion ect. I think one of theings from these forums that I have learned is that although we are a triad the lest understood is the adoptee....because we had the least say and are pretty much told HOW to feel, act..our situations are very different from the parents but often immersed in the adults of the situation. The funny thing is in my own personal situation...I had good experiances from my life with my family and my reunion...But I am very sensitive to the lack of insight given to adoptees. We are totally seperate indivuals but are looked at often as extensions of either family, with expections going with that. Now I am totally aware that is not always the case and I have seen MANY parents really try to understand..but it is often condescended to I think with me its the lack of control, my lacl of control is very different from my bmoms...or my amoms...my lack of control started at birtth and di effect my life...IMo THATS why I am so senstive(surpised?;) ) to peole telling me or any adoptee you can't know...it will hurt to many peole...or you "should" feel, act or do anything regarding my life in order not to hurt people... Again everyones elses needs ...not the one most impacted. I can only imagine the pain you had. and I really am sorry that anyone has to feel that...but when an adoptee is voicing their issues(some I don't agree with, some I don't understand) it is theirs seperatly and needs to be looked at as such..I for one would not lump all birthmothers, or question their experiance.... I don't beleive that abandonedement is meant to hurt mothers here...just an issue that some adoptees may feel..

As an adult I would want to know...but thats just me..the contol thing again. I am 49 years old..and really don't want to be protected...altough I understand your compassion and why you would not tell certain thing. But for many adoptees its about being truthfulll...just tell me the truth....good or bad.

[FONT='Times New Roman']I work in a hospital. Recently, a young mother came to us, after being turned away by two other hospitals, to give over care of her beloved child. As one who grew up knowing she was adopted, I had to take special care to maintain my own boundaries as I worked with the staff and the mother over the several days the child was in our care. I have pasted below a letter I wrote to the child and gave the agency representative to travel with him/her to the family whose prayers will be answered when she/her is delivered into their care. I hope it helps with your healing, I know it did with mine:[/FONT] Dear Little One,I just left your room here at the hospital. It was filled with nurses offering you their love and care. You were being rocked in the arms of our nurse supervisor. You are beautiful and perfect, and in these moments deeply loved and cared for. It was she who loved you enough to bend the rules to care for you when your mother realized the greatest gift of love she could give you was to give you away.As you grow up, in the family that will be blessed by your presence, it might be hard for you to understand how your birth mother could love you and still give you away. As strange as that might seem, it takes great love and courage to give the life of your precious child, who was nurtured in your own body and whom you cared for day and night for over a month, into the care of others who can give the child what you know you cannot.I don't know your mother well, but by this one act, I know she spent many hours searching her heart and mind before she brought you here. I know that on that journey she was guided by one thing and one thing onlyher deep and abiding love for you. Only in such deep and abiding love can any woman find the strength to search her own heart and mind and spirit and make the unselfish decision to give over a child of her own body into the care of strangers who can care for the wellbeing of that child in ways she has come to realize she cannot. This and your own life are the two great gifts your birth mother has given to you. You may never know what legacy of hers you have come into as far as temperament, talent, physical characteristic and intellect. What you can know is that in your heart is her heart, for you once shared the same blood, and from her heart on this day has come an act of love and compassion, courage and unselfishness which prays only for you and that you may grow and mature into a person who can make real in your own life these same great gifts.This world can seem a difficult place sometimes, and though I pray it will not be for many, many years, you will at points in your life feel alone and afraid. That is simply the lot of we human beings. When you face those times with whatever other comforts you may come to know along the way of your life, my prayer for you is that you know your birth mother for her gift of love and that you be comforted by the knowledge that when you could not care for yourself you were delivered into the arms of so many others here, who though they did not know you, loved and cared for you with the same tenderness and devotion as if you had been born to them. With their hearts you are never alone and yours will always be a part of theirs as well.Know, dear Little One that the hearts and prayers of all who have been called to care for you are with you all your days.God's Best all your days.

Dear Irish eyes, This may be hard for you as a man to understand. You are not responsible for the way in wich you were concieved but rape is an act of violence that was seldom reported years ago because wemen were accused of inticing men into it. Your mother may not even know the guy's name. If she does know and tells you I doubt the guy is going to admit to it. He is a criminal convicted or not. She may be protecting you or herself. I don't know which- but I think it would be cruel to bring the subject up again. This is one of those times when in my opinion her judgement should be trusted regardless of your need to know.

So then Irish eyes is not old enough or competent enough to make a decision? How does he know that her judgement is to be trusted? We are all indivuals here and adult ones at that. Withholding info for the best interst of the adoptee is condescending......I WANT to know if my birthfather is a criminal..so then I will figure out how to handle it...if I want her opinion I will ask but let me do the deciding on how to procedd..with my info...with my life.

I disagree. The reasons why the natal mother keeps a secret and does keep that secret are hers.It's her decision to share or not, IMO. For instance, to this day, my mother has secrets and kept one of them from us for over 53 years. I did NOT berate her for keeping that secret from us at all. It was HER experience and HER decision. My brother and I just took it in and left it alone. By the way, my mother ( father siblings/relatives that knew) kept MY secret ( my natal daughter ) for almost 40 years. Now THAT'S respect. When I DECIDED to share my secret I did.Nobody forced the issue.To this day, I know "secrets" of my family but be DARNED if I will be the one to expose them. It's simply not my place. When and if THEY decide to tell, I will support their decision.dmca