Adoption LIES!

When I read that I have to say to myself, my biological mother was the same way. I never met her I never wanted to. I was in foster care for 5 years after my biological father couldn't take care of me any more. I was adopted by a great family, who helped me through my difficult journey. Deal or No Deal kind of thing. They wanted me to go with the Deal but deep in my heart I wanted to go with No Deal. I had my son a year ago and I had him adopted. I wanted to be nothing like my biological mother but more like my mother. My fiance was there through the whole pregnancy and I was an ever faithful mother. I wasn't deemed unfit or mental. I wasn't able to support the baby because of the money and I wanted to go to school. I wasn't self involved. I hope you know that not all birth mothers are from the gutters and look at them as human beings who had to make the world's most difficult decision ever.

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.

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.