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I'm sorry, I'm at it again in my anger at adoption and the lies that are SO flooded into the system and the agencies. I keep reading these CRAP ads on adoption and how WONDERFUL it is and how "right" it is for "everyone" who is in the triangle. Right for the girl because SHE can "go on with her life and do everything she wouldn't have been able to do if she kept her baby"! Right for the child because being raised in a "single parent home" is just "Wrong" after all, a baby DESERVES to be ripped out of their mother's arms who has been brainwashed to beleive she isn't good enough to raise her OWN baby so some OTHER MARRIED woman can take care of that child! Right for the "loving couples" who "want a family" and would be able to give that child "everything" they will ever need or want". They make it out like adoption is the ONLY loving thing to do for this "poor child" who couldn't POSSIBLY be happy with their OWN mother if she isn't married to some man! :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: At the agency where I gave my baby up for adoption they say things have changed but the ONLY thing that's changed is the fact that they allow the girl to look through hundreds of "dear birth mother" letters and choose the family she will surender her child to. There is a book in the waiting room that has things in it about how the Lord allows girls to get pregnant so couples who can't have children can have a family that these babies are meant for them. (I read the book while in the waiting room when I was in there for counseling a few months ago) They say in the book that although it might be hard to do, that if your daughter gets pregnant do not take on the responsibility to help her raise it because that child deserves a loving two parent family! They say the girl has the right to live a "normal" life without the "burdon" of a baby. She deserves to be child free so a "decent" "loving man" will someday "marry her" and she need not tell anyone about her child. What the crap is NORMAL about giving your baby away!? HOW do they expect the girls to go home and "forget"??? After you give your baby away, there is no more NORMAL for you! You are forever scarred. You will NEVER go back to the way it was before you gave that child away!!! My GOD sometimes I think about that and I want to scream and throw things through the walls and break all the windows I see and beat the living HELL out of someone for it. Doesn't that child DESERVE to be with it's OWN mother and if the grandparents have the ability to help in raising that child isn't that better than giving it away to strangers and take the chance even in an OPEN adoption that you'll never see your child again??? HOW the crap can it be better for a child to be taken from it's mother and given to another woman to raise if there are other ways for that child to be able to stay with it's OWN mother!? AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just so angry thinking about this right now I can't stand it! I just CAN'T STAND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just hate adoption and what it stands for. It stands for several things but the two things that stands out in my mind is: Birth mother = rotten, no good, unfit, run-around, tramp who doesn't deserve to raise her OWN child. Adoptive family = Perfect, great parents, rich, virtuous, deserving to raise someone else's child. For one, just because a girl gets pregnant without getting married does NOT mean she is a tramp or anything else. It means she had sex! Plain and simple she had sex and got pregnant!!! Her personality or ability to raise a child should NOT be measured by whether she had sex without being married and ended up pregnant! I'm possitive that there are a LOT Of adoptive parents who at one time or another had sex outside marriage but because they didn't get pregnant they were never considered tramps or anything else that those who do get pregnant outside marriage get labeled! She is just as good as anyone else married or not! She has the RIGHT to raise her own child and the RIGHT to be treated with just as much respect as anyone else who just happens to be married when they have sex! Also, Adoptive parents are NOT perfect. They are humans who make mistakes just as much as anyone else in this world. Not all of them are rich! Not all of them really know how to be parents anymore than a young newlywed couple having a child and learning to raise it! And they don't "deserve" to raise someone else's child just because they want a family. If they adopt fine, but there is no one in this world who "deserves" to have someone else's child just because they are able to afford it or because they are at the time stable. Life changes and things happen. There are LOTS of people who get divorced who adopt children just like people who are married and have biological children. No one is beyond change in family situation. No one! The person who DESERVES the most is the child! It deserves to be with it's own bio mother and know that that woman loves them. If circumstance truly are that the child can't stay with the mother then by all means adoption is better than abortion, but NOT because the girl is "unwed" and "undeserving" of raising her OWN child! If that child would truly starve to death, be in the streets freezing to death or anything else and the circumstances would never change, then they deserve better but they can be just as happy and productive with their biological mother as she is willing to give of her time and effort to make that happen and if someone is willing to help her learn what she need to do or help her finish school or whatever else then she has the RIGHT to keep that child without guilt or presure from everyone around her trying to brainwash her to believe she isn't good enough JUST because she's young and unwed! Sorry to have gone on like this, I just can't help it right now. I'm SO angry I can't see straight and I want to scream until my voice is gone! :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: Rylee
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Hey Rylee, God has been blamed for our homosapien shortcomings since Cro Magnon man first walked upright. I doubt there's much any of us can do about that. You are under too much stress with your mom to put yourself through this. Raven's right. Try to either stop reading or ignore the ads as much as possible. ((( Rylee ))) Take care of yourself today!
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God gives people free will, it is only when peopel make the wrong choices do they blame God. I have stopped reading the ads myself because as another mmeber said, they are a business and this is their marketing strategy to target girls and make adoption as appwaling as possible. I recently got chewed oout on a non adoption related forum(It was a prayer forum) for simply telling an PAP that I pray God would bless them with ababy which ever way He saw fit. The I mentioned tha Adoption was about finding homes for babes not finding babies for homes. Well needless to say the woman went bezerk,you would never think this was teh same woman requesting prayer.. Caregiving is grueling and will bring you to stress like you have never known. Try and take some chill out time away from the forums with ads that will set you off. I hope and pray that you are feeling better. EZ
I never had bad feelings about adoption, other than when I was younger, and my friend was adopted, and her parents yelled at me for saying she didn't look like her adoptive parents. Maybe that should have been my first hint as to the type of people adoptive parents can be. Anyhow, I never had bad feelings until the adoptive parents of my son agreed to write and send pictures, and then never did. It hurts deeper than you can ever imagine to not know, to have no paths to take that don't turn into dead ends. I also know GREAT adoptive parents, who hold birthparents in the highest regard. I had one adoptive mom tell me that her birthson's mother wasn't incapable of raising her son, she just didn't feel ready, and wanted her son to be cared for in the way that she couldn't care for him. I try to believe my birthson is loved and happy, but I do feel betrayed by the adoption process. Nobody prepared me for being effected by it years later. Nobody prepared me for having failed relationship after failed relationship because the adoption pretty much ruined me emotionally, and changed me in ways I never thought it would. No amount of counseling can change that. I feel like I never grew up beyond that 15 year old girl sometimes, I feel like I'm stuck in that time some days. It's not fair.
Hey AlisonMarie, Sometimes it feels like that line we were told.....that "forget and go on" crapolio? I would like to see the people who said that go knock on the door of a woman who's son/daughter is MIA and say, "Hey! Just forget them and go on! What's your problem?!" I mean, yeah of course it's not the same in reality. Those children were raised by their parents and they're MIA. But when I think about it....deep down inside...that's how it feels ya know? Forget and go on. Evil little sentence.
my daughter has bought the agency's line hook line and sinker. I think she should raise her own baby or let us raise it until she feels ready but she is planning an "open" adoption and apparently we are not fit in her mind because we are currently un-employed and we were too rough on her. she has convinced herself that this is what the "Lord" wants and every time I try to express my opinion she threatens to cease all contact with me. Amy W:coffee:
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my daughter has bought the agency's line hook line and sinker
Rylee45
I'm sorry, I'm at it again in my anger at adoption and the lies that are SO flooded into the system and the agencies. I keep reading these CRAP ads on adoption and how WONDERFUL it is and how "right" it is for "everyone" who is in the triangle. Right for the girl because SHE can "go on with her life and do everything she wouldn't have been able to do if she kept her baby"! Right for the child because being raised in a "single parent home" is just "Wrong" after all, a baby DESERVES to be ripped out of their mother's arms who has been brainwashed to beleive she isn't good enough to raise her OWN baby so some OTHER MARRIED woman can take care of that child! Right for the "loving couples" who "want a family" and would be able to give that child "everything" they will ever need or want". They make it out like adoption is the ONLY loving thing to do for this "poor child" who couldn't POSSIBLY be happy with their OWN mother if she isn't married to some man! :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: At the agency where I gave my baby up for adoption they say things have changed but the ONLY thing that's changed is the fact that they allow the girl to look through hundreds of "dear birth mother" letters and choose the family she will surender her child to. There is a book in the waiting room that has things in it about how the Lord allows girls to get pregnant so couples who can't have children can have a family that these babies are meant for them. (I read the book while in the waiting room when I was in there for counseling a few months ago) They say in the book that although it might be hard to do, that if your daughter gets pregnant do not take on the responsibility to help her raise it because that child deserves a loving two parent family! They say the girl has the right to live a "normal" life without the "burdon" of a baby. She deserves to be child free so a "decent" "loving man" will someday "marry her" and she need not tell anyone about her child. What the crap is NORMAL about giving your baby away!? HOW do they expect the girls to go home and "forget"??? After you give your baby away, there is no more NORMAL for you! You are forever scarred. You will NEVER go back to the way it was before you gave that child away!!! My GOD sometimes I think about that and I want to scream and throw things through the walls and break all the windows I see and beat the living HELL out of someone for it. Doesn't that child DESERVE to be with it's OWN mother and if the grandparents have the ability to help in raising that child isn't that better than giving it away to strangers and take the chance even in an OPEN adoption that you'll never see your child again??? HOW the crap can it be better for a child to be taken from it's mother and given to another woman to raise if there are other ways for that child to be able to stay with it's OWN mother!? AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just so angry thinking about this right now I can't stand it! I just CAN'T STAND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just hate adoption and what it stands for. It stands for several things but the two things that stands out in my mind is: Birth mother = rotten, no good, unfit, run-around, tramp who doesn't deserve to raise her OWN child. Adoptive family = Perfect, great parents, rich, virtuous, deserving to raise someone else's child. For one, just because a girl gets pregnant without getting married does NOT mean she is a tramp or anything else. It means she had sex! Plain and simple she had sex and got pregnant!!! Her personality or ability to raise a child should NOT be measured by whether she had sex without being married and ended up pregnant! I'm possitive that there are a LOT Of adoptive parents who at one time or another had sex outside marriage but because they didn't get pregnant they were never considered tramps or anything else that those who do get pregnant outside marriage get labeled! She is just as good as anyone else married or not! She has the RIGHT to raise her own child and the RIGHT to be treated with just as much respect as anyone else who just happens to be married when they have sex! Also, Adoptive parents are NOT perfect. They are humans who make mistakes just as much as anyone else in this world. Not all of them are rich! Not all of them really know how to be parents anymore than a young newlywed couple having a child and learning to raise it! And they don't "deserve" to raise someone else's child just because they want a family. If they adopt fine, but there is no one in this world who "deserves" to have someone else's child just because they are able to afford it or because they are at the time stable. Life changes and things happen. There are LOTS of people who get divorced who adopt children just like people who are married and have biological children. No one is beyond change in family situation. No one! The person who DESERVES the most is the child! It deserves to be with it's own bio mother and know that that woman loves them. If circumstance truly are that the child can't stay with the mother then by all means adoption is better than abortion, but NOT because the girl is "unwed" and "undeserving" of raising her OWN child! If that child would truly starve to death, be in the streets freezing to death or anything else and the circumstances would never change, then they deserve better but they can be just as happy and productive with their biological mother as she is willing to give of her time and effort to make that happen and if someone is willing to help her learn what she need to do or help her finish school or whatever else then she has the RIGHT to keep that child without guilt or presure from everyone around her trying to brainwash her to believe she isn't good enough JUST because she's young and unwed! Sorry to have gone on like this, I just can't help it right now. I'm SO angry I can't see straight and I want to scream until my voice is gone! :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: :hissy: Rylee
Hi Rylee, I am an adoptee with great adoptive parents. They love me more than anything in the world. In saying that, there is nothing that made them more deserving of me than my birthmother. I have not met my birthmother yet so I don't know every little detail, but I know for a fact that she loved me - if she didn't, I wouldn't be here today. She made a choice to put me up for adoption, giving me life & breaking her heart. I will forever admire her for that. Something my adoptive mum always said to me was how hard the adoption process was. My parents were in the database for more than 8 years trying to adopt a child. They spent more than 300 hours in interviews, medical exams, psychological exams, etc, trying to convince the agency that they were good people. A friend of ours got rejected by the agency because she was deemed 'too fat'. Another, because she had a tattoo of an angel on her arm. Keep this in mind, yet any drug dealer or wife basher can go and get pregnant, have a child & abuse the hell out of that child & no one says a thing. I'm not saying adoptive parents are 'perfect'. More than likely, a lot of adoptions could go badly, and children could be placed with parents who treat them terribly. Adoptive parents are not 'hero's. They are simply human beings who wanted a child so much that they are willing to take in someone elses who cannot be looked after by their biological parent at that time, for whatever reason. My parents used to tell me all the time that I was extra special, because they 'chose' me. I choose to believe this, but I also believe that my birthmother chose me. I'm just lucky that I have two mothers that love me. I hope this helps somewhat. I have read some pretty horrible things about adoption, about how adoptees dont really belong anywhere - we dont belong with our biological parents because they gave us up, and we dont belong with our adoptive parents because they didn't give birth to us. If I chose to believe this, then as an adoptee, who the hell would that make me? A nobody. I do hope you are okay. I think you do need to try and stop reading the negative articles, etc, because you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders, and after all - does anyone else's opinion count when it comes to your life and your personal circumstance? Only your opinion counts, because you have lived it & do live it every day. Take care. Emma
Emma, I understand where you're coming from on this and I'm glad that you had parents who raised you to think the way you do. I think that's wonderful. My situation and why it makes it so much harder on me I think is my daughter was raised by crazy people! Mentally incompetent people who should never have had a child in the first place. They abused my daughter in every way you can imagine. My daughter turned out to be a very disturbed person. She was and still is a drug addict, alcoholic, child abuser. She was a prostitute in her late teen years and was homeless and in the streets for awhile becuase her adoptive mom didn't want to deal with her. She was in group homes and mental institutions during her teen years as well. They blamed me for her problems and said it was all biological but I know better! Some biological stuff came from me obviously but upbringing and the way you are made to feel about yourself has a LOT to do with how you turn out as an adult! It isn't all biological and birth parents aren't the only reason kids turn out with their personality. But my daughter's adoptive parents threw it in her face all her life that she was the product of rape (not true but was what she was told) and therefor had "bad genes" etc. She was abused sexually, mentally, and physically during her lifetime by her adoptive parents. When she was 5 years old and asked about me and who I was that was when it all started. Her adoptive mom didn't want to deal with the fact she wasn't the FIRST mother and that MY daughter had another mother she wanted to know about. She wanted me to look as bad as possible to my daughter so she wouldn't want to know who I was. I don't know how, because the adoption was a closed adoption, but her adoptive parents knew everything about me and when I had my children and everything. She told my daughter that I had other children I kept because I loved them but I gave her away because I didn't love her! The list goes on and on. So, when I read the ads about how "wonderful" adoption is it makes me sick because the only experience I've had is horror and pain due to the adoption. The pain is still strong because of the adoptive mom and her tight fisted grip on my daughter even at 33 years old! That woman told my daughter several years ago, if she contacted me again she'd take her out of her will and the woman is filthy rich. My daughter was raised to believe money was more important than love and family. So she chooses money over me. Occasionally she does sneak to contact me but it's so seldom and so far between contact it makes me want to scream and cry and throw things. I hate what adoption did in my life. I've also known other people in my life who were adopted and they were also mistreated. But I did know people who were good parents too so it's not like adoption can't be good but it wasn't good in my life and I know the brainwashing these young naive girls get from everyone wanting to steal the baby from her. They truely are told they aren't good enough to be the one who raises the baby. Maybe not in direct words but you can insinuate something without actually saying it and make someone believe something that isn't true by presenting it in a way that doesn't sound bad. They are convinced of so much they believe it and do it in some cases. Other's are forsed because of parents who don't give a crud about their child and make them give the child away to strangers so they don't have to deal with it. I'm sorry to say, but any parent who forses their child to give the baby up for adoption is selfish, self centered, and uncaring about anything of any value. A parent who forses their child to give the baby up for adoption and can live with it has no heart! They don't care about the lifetime of pain they are inflicting on their child when they forse her to give her baby away. No ammount of "explaination" "reason" or anything else is good enough in my opinion for a parent who would do that REGARDLESS of their reasons. That parent could help raise the baby, teach their daughter how to be a good parent, and help her "grow up". If a parent can't do that they shouldn't have ever had a their own child in the first place. If they could purposely ruin their own child's life forever by making her give her baby away because "it's the right thing" and not because the girl wants to give it away, then they don't love their own child! If a girl truely wants to give her baby up (in spite of the reasons) that's her choice but the forse, or brainwashing etc by anyone is absolutely wrong and unacceptable! Rylee
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I seem to be one of the few people on these forums who is actually better off without her birthmother. I know that this will make me extremely unpopular, but it is simply the sad truth.She is only in her mid 40's now, has 9 children, and has raised none of them. Most are now in foster care, but a few of us were placed for adoption soon after birth (I was placed when I was 3 months old because of bio father's family's urging.) She has been incarcerated multiple times, is wanted in 3 different southern states, and is bipolar and has severe drug and alcohol issues.I have met her many times. I have spoken to her on the phone for hours. She goes through fazes- sometimes she'll call me often, sometimes I won't hear from her for years. I haven't spoken to her in about 2 years. She is incapable of giving herself to any of her children.She loves fiercely, but is absolutely incompetent and has trouble keeping relationships with anyone. None of her children hear from her often- many hate her for what she's done to them -for how she's left them.I am grateful everyday that I was adopted. Not because I like it- because I certainly do not. The knowledge that I am "better off" does not do me any good. It seems here that on the forums, 99% of the birthmothers here would have and have been perfectly wonderful mothers. I read posts like this- and I agree with you all. I am disgusted by the things I read on here. I am also saddened- saddened that the OP is so angry, and that her daughter has suffered at the hands of incompetent parents- I am saddened by all the pain on all sides of the traid. I am saddened, too, that my birthmother will never post here. I am thankful everyday that I was placed for adoption.But I do not thank my adoptive parents, even though they have loved me since the day they laid eyes on me.I do not thank the adoption industry, or the lawyer who facilitated my adoption. They were just doing their jobs. Some of them for the wrong reasons.I do not even thank God- because I know that I am no more deserving of blessings than my siblings who remained in my biological family. No. At the end of the day- I thank my birthmother. She did not have to do it. She did not WANT to do it. She changed her mind multiple times before finally submitting to the adoption. Was it the best thing? Absolutely. By looking at the siblings after and before me who she attempted to parent- I can safely surmise that it was for the best. Was I special? No. She had given up babies before, and did it multiple times since.Was it one of the hardest things she's ever had to do? Maybe, maybe not. She's had a hard life. Did she do it for me? Yes. For those few months that she acted as my mother- she made the best decision that she could. She is absolutely beautiful, physically and temperamentally. She is kind, generous, and emotional. She loves intensely, and has such good intentions. She has had a hard life. She has made poor decisions. I may never see her again. I may never get to thank her, properly, for what she's given to me. But when I think of her- I think of these things. I think of all the things I know about her- about the time we first met- about the blanket she made me and the stuffed animal she sent me home with. I think about all the letters she wrote me, and the poem she wrote me the day before my relinquishment that I still have."New Life" it is called. Silently, I've watched you growBut now I'll set you free sweet soul.You are so small,so big. So young, and so old.I hold onto you tightly, as if to never let go.But soon, little sweet, my heart will open wideas the magic of your new life is unfurledas you push yourself into your world.Go ahead, little one, I'll wait here to cheer you on.Society tells me that she was wrong- that she was unfit. That she could not have raised me, and that she was smart for not trying. That may be true. I admit that it probably is true.But When I see my birthmother, that is not what I see. I do not see the addict, the sad woman, the lonely soul, or the poor decisions. I see my mother, the first one I had. I see the look on her face when she saw me for the first time in nearly 2 decades. I see that poem she wrote only for me- and I don't know how anyone can tell me she was "unworthy"- or that her decision was made out of anything but love.I am sickened that the industry has trivialized and compartmentalized all the women who have placed children from adoption.Rylee( and everyone else who posted-) I am sorry for this. I agree with everything you have posted, even if it is not easy for me to do so. What a sad state we have found ourselves in. We live in a very small world, all of us who are a part of the adoption "triad"- and what a bleak and sad world it can sometimes be.Adoption can be beautiful- it CAN be good. But it is never easy.
Amandak249
I seem to be one of the few people on these forums who is actually better off without her birthmother. I know that this will make me extremely unpopular, but it is simply the sad truth.
I am an adoptive mother. I find it unconscionable what some adoption businesses do. Rylee, what you have been through is wrong. The fact that other young women may be going through it is wrong. I am answering you here because I want you to know that there are a lot of adoptive parents out here that agree with you. I also hope you can channel your intense energy to do something to stop this. Start a grass roots movement to make some positive changes in the adoption process. Maybe there should be laws governing the type of counseling that is offered to expectant moms. Maybe an agency where more than 25% of the emoms place needs an audit. The focus on the agencies should be to help the moms figure out what works for them. If too many of their moms are placing rather than parenting, maybe they need to have their license revoked. I don't know. I'm making this up as I go along. I just think you would feel better and the adoption world would be more...right...if you did something constructive with your experience. If someone had told me the only way I could have a baby was to rip the soul out of another woman, I would have said stop the process. I ached so badly for a baby, but I wouldn't put someone else through the pain of placement just to get it. That is one of the many sadnesses an adoptive mother must live with. Her greatest joy came from another woman's greatest sorrow. I come to the birthparent section here to remind myself what my baby's birthmom must be experiencing. (She limits contact with us.) I often worry about our baby's birthmom. I hope she made the right choice. Given the circumstances, I understand why she placed. Ours was a private placement so there was no agency pushing her. Her decisions was exclusively hers. I think there are times when adoption is completely right for everyone. Adoption needs to be easily available for these people. It just needs something to prevent all the horrors you've discussed. Is making a change something that could fit into your life right now? Maybe write a letter to your senator. Maybe start a letter writing campaign? There are so many possibilities.
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Whirled Peas Always good to hear from an amom. The idea of writing letters would be like adoptees trying to get sealed records opened worldwide, IMHO. I am both an adoptee and a bmom. People approach me terribly differently knowing that I am an adoptee vs a bmom. You see, society still has this concept of bmoms abandoning their children and aparents as being saviors of a poor, helpless baby. Until that changes, trying to change anything in the adoption agencies will be almost impossible....my opinion. Emoms are given counseling now. Can't tell you what kind or how much as I didn't receive any. They also receive counseling after relinquishment. But how much or how good, I can't say. I had to seek out my own counseling to get through the grief and learn to live with my decision. But the grief doesn't go away... Education of society outside of the triad is needed, from all members of the triad. Yes, there are adoptees and bmoms that don't want to be found, but that is their decision and should be honored. I don't know about all states, but mine does give either party the power of veto to giving out any info if someone doesn't wish to be found. Until society accepts that adoptees search (to find what every human being deems as right and theirs to know) and every bmom has a story (that includes love and loss) and doesn't just abandon their children, and aparents (who also suffer love and loss) love, nuture and raise these babies into productive citizens, where will we be? It is just another form of discrimination and degredation that is tolerated by all sides.
I may be Pollyanna about this, but I do believe that change can be made through effort. I also believe that something good can come out of something bad. In my spiritual world, we may not see the good, but it is there. Maybe that's not true, but I like to believe it. It makes life a whole lot easier. For example, the two worst things that ever happened to me were the death of my friend at 27 and my husband's ex-wife (don't even get me started on malicious mother syndrome.) Yet if those things hadn't happened, I would not have delayed having children. I would not have the children I have and I would not be as good a mother as I am at this time in my life. Also, we filed a complaint with the state regarding a counselor that the ex-wife took the children to. As a result of our actions, that counselor signed a plea agreement and is undergoing intense interventions. It appears the courts have stopped utilizing her because of what she did to us. Our children were victimized, but we were pro-active to stop that from happening to other children. If I had been given the choice--do you want your friend to die so you can birth and adopt a baby, do you want to see your (step)children suffer--I would have said no. The living must be prioritized over the fantasy children. I would have given up children all together to stop either horrible event. However, I wasn't given that choice. These bad things happened. The only thing I could do was look for the gifts that came later and be proactive when I could. The complaint we sent to the state had so much documentation included it was literally about 2 inches thick. It took a lot of work to compile that and we were not certain how the state board would respond, but we needed to do it to try and prevent others from being harmed as we were and it did work out for us. So as I was reading last night about all the pain and suffering birthmoms are living with, sometimes for decades, my proactive side kicked in. I am a stepmom. I think that is pretty much a judged category just like birthmoms. We get to be the evil one in all the Disney movies. I have to be aware of that, but I do not let it stop me. Someday when my little ones are older I may write a book called, "Three types of mom" talking about what it's like to be a stepmom, bio-mom, and adoptive mom. (The love for each type of child is the same, there are just different realities that must be attended to with each way the child entered my life.) So I say, don't accept societal judgments. Be aware of them so you can edit what you say, but don't allow yourself to be victimized. Don't allow others to be victimized. Make something good come out of your suffering. It is a whole lot easier for me to get up in the mornings knowing that I took on a very shrewd woman. It helps that I was victorious, but even if I'd lost, I could live with myself because I tried. Maybe letter writing isn't the answer, it was just a train of thought. Maybe someone out there is talented enough to write a book. Maybe someone out there will raise her head high as she talks to the cashier in the checkout stand about how much she loves her baby. And oh, by the way, I found the perfect adoptive family. I am so glad I gave my baby the best start in life possible. No willingness to be judged. No acceptance of the cashier's possible discrimination. An in your face attitude. I am a great mom because of how much I love my child. And maybe that cashier has a brief moment of, "Oh, maybe birthmoms do love their babies." Not a huge step, but a necessary one. The Berlin wall came down because a bunch of courageous people banded together to say ENOUGH. Just like the clink in the wall of the above mentioned cashier, those people all clinked the wall down with little motions. We have choices in life. I say choose to turn the suffering into something positive. The other choice is to accept the suffering. Where does that get anyone except miserable? I hope I'm not coming off as, well...something. Remember, I was attacked for loving children I did not birth. I was accused of loving them too much. I did not accept that and now I have a very happy life. There is sadness over what happened with the (step)kids, but I cannot let that rule my life or it would destroy me. Life is too short for that. I am glad I found the good that came out of the bad (and believe me, it took a very long time to find the good, but it is there.) I have to go and I hope these words are helpful and not hurtful.