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Hi everyone. This is the first time I have ever joined a forum of any kind. I guess when you have such a huge decisions facing you and an unborn baby's future in your hands, reaching out to people that have been through (hopefully) similar situations is the only advice I'm confident on relying on.
Here's my story...I'm 28, three months pregnant, and terrified. I have a boyfriend of 1 1/2 years that is a drug addict; addicted to oxycodone and xanax. He hid it very well for the first six months we were dating and once I found out, I had already fell in love with him...drug problem or not. He is currently in a 28 day program for himself, me, and the baby (although I think its more for me because I'm not sure he's ready to stop what he's been doing). He says he wants to keep the baby but I'm not sure if its because he wants to keep me around or genuinely feels he can handle it and, most importantly, be a good father. I'm terrified that if I decide to keep the baby and raise it with the father, he'll continue using or relapse, putting the baby's and my life in danger.
I have no financial backing. No health insurance. No license due to a DWI years ago that I could never seem to financially recover from. Nothing to really give to this child except all the love I have in my heart. It seems I owe everyone something...luckily (or unluckily) my cell phone was turned off, so bill collectors don't know how to reach me. I'm staying with my parents while he's away. Once he returns, the plan is to move in with his parents (who are Muslim and want me to get an abortion...the father threatening to have nothing to do with his son, me, or the baby...can anyone suggest another forum for this prediciment?) where we can get jobs, save, and hopefully be ready for this child with less than five months to prepare.
My parents suggested adoption because my boyfriend has shown to be very unstable (I've decided to cut this down from a novel to a short story otherwise I'd go into the anguish and personal toll his addiction has caused his family and I...yet another forum perhaps). They suggested adoption also because it could provide me with the financial stability to restore my license, finish school, and pay off bills that have been outstanding forever. Everything I've been reading over the internet about NJ adoption is all medical expenses will be compensated and I could apply for a scholarship that may grant me enough tuition to cover the rest of my schooling (which is about two years...degree in biology), however, this is not guaranteed. I absolutely HATE to even ask about the monetary gain from giving a baby up for adoption but if my life has been off course, my liquid assets non-existant, and my confidence in myself diminished so severly, am I capable of providing this baby with the life it deserves considering I may end up doing it as a single mother?
I apologize for the lengthy post and I do understand there is still time to make this decision...but I would love nothing more then to either begin telling people I'm pregnant and be excited about it or start mentally preparing for adoption. Any advice will sure help. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you Zarah for clarifying your feelings.
Perhaps if I just let you know why I said what I did. I am quite content - I have a very nice adoptive family and very nice bfamily - all is good. However, the one thing that does frustrate me is that when I do mention to people that I'm adopted (mainly in the last year or so since making contact), I often get people TELLING me how I should feel - they don't ask how I feel but just say how I should feel. It is not just me, you see it all the time in letters attached to articles, in the blogosphere etc. Admittedly, I could possibly read some things the wrong way, eg I could take this "Be glad you are even here today" to mean that being an adoptee I should be grateful for not having been aborted (something many adoptees are told) but I am quite sure that, in fact, you just mean all people, adopted or not, should generally be glad about being alive. I can tell you that I am very glad about having made it to 47 - I have certainly lived longer than others in my family.
Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that your daughter will be allowed to feel what she wants to feel. Looking at her family's blog, it sounds like you have a wonderful open adoption and I am truly happy for you that that is the case :).
Btw Crick has given some great advice and Jillie and Belle have given you some insight into how other bmothers feel. Belle is both a birthmother and adoptee so has a unique insight that is worth listening to.
Btw sorry to the OP for hijacking your thread, hopefully Jamas will be able to get what help she needs to make whatever decision she needs.
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I have a very dear friend who is an adoptee that has worked with adoptees for the past 25 years. She said that the one thing most adoptees want to know is that their birthmother exhausted all her options to keep them together. That has stayed with me as the barometer in the decision making process.
bromanchik
I have a very dear friend who is an adoptee that has worked with adoptees for the past 25 years. She said that the one thing most adoptees want to know is that their birthmother exhausted all her options to keep them together. That has stayed with me as the barometer in the decision making process.
That is how I feel and I know others that feel that way too.
I know every experience is different, as I said in an early post. I know I am "young" But I did still have a hard time giving up my child. I don't think it is easier or harder with age. I am happy with my decision, I do still have my hard times where all I do is cry and find it hard to do things. But overall I do believe it was the best choice for her, not me. It is different for everyoneee. People should not tell you how to feel, I understand. I was not saying anyone should feel a certain way. I was just stating how I feel, and how I "hope" my daughter will feel. I am prepared for any thing though.
And by any means I did not say: "Be glad you here today" because you are an adoptee. I am not an adoptee and I am very glad I am living and breathing today. "Be thankful for eachday". This is my last poston this site. Best of luck to everyone. Jamas hope you find your looking for.
zarah.marie
I know every experience is different, as I said in an early post. I know I am "young" But I did still have a hard time giving up my child. I don't think it is easier or harder with age. I am happy with my decision, I do still have my hard times where all I do is cry and find it hard to do things. But overall I do believe it was the best choice for her, not me. It is different for everyoneee. People should not tell you how to feel, I understand. I was not saying anyone should feel a certain way. I was just stating how I feel, and how I "hope" my daughter will feel. I am prepared for any thing though.
And by any means I did not say: "Be glad you here today" because you are an adoptee. I am not an adoptee and I am very glad I am living and breathing today. "Be thankful for eachday". This is my last poston this site. Best of luck to everyone. Jamas hope you find your looking for.
It's OK, sweetie, I wasn't trying to get at you, I know you placed her because you were thinking of everyone but yourself and I know it must have been a very difficult decision (((hugs))). I hope you have some special people to help you through your sad times.
I wish you a lot of luck, Zarah.
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Jillie_sweetheart
I think that every adoption is different and while that may be your experience it won't be the same for others.
I placed my son and I have my good days and bad days. Some days I am really happy that he is living a good life and not going through the chaos of my life but on other days I wonder if he is going to resent me for not being able to be the mother he deserved. I am still in his life and I love seeing his pictures and his visits are like crack to me and I crave them. On bad days though it's hard to get out of bed. I miss him so much and wish I could have kept him everyday.
Also I think we should acknowledge that it is a very different situation to place a baby at 14 than it is to place a baby at 28. Both are very tough situations however they are very different.
This is so sad. This is the real pain we somehow never hear about. I am so sorry you have these bad days. I have them too as an adoptee. I have always said smelling my son's hair is like crack. It is the best smell on earth. (I've smelled my nephew... not the same ;) )
Knowing what we know now we may make different decisions in our lives. Knowing what we knew then is why we made the decsions we did.
In a way Zarah is correct. As a search angel I deal mostly with the closed adoptees of the late 60's , 70's and 80's. What I can say from all of my expierences is that adoptees suffered from the effects of the closed adoptions for no good reason. Birth mothers also suffered.
The theme I hear the most is that either could have passed away without the other one's knowing. The loss of identity and not fitting in in either family is the main hardship.
Adoption is a lifelong issue for all members involved. When adoptees have children of their own, it triggers intense feelings. It is only when they have gone though what their Birthmothers went through and met their actual genetic families that most adoptees can see what the loss truly is. 80 percent of who I am is nature the rest is nurture.The shame and secrecy of adoption was also unnecessary and a stigma still exists today.
My own Bmother was very young in highschool as well. Both she and I believe to this day that if our adoption were open that we would have saved ourselves years of pain. When I told her that I thought of her everyday and had the traditional side effects of adopted children, her views forever changed. She said all of her suffering was for nothing. She went on to be a great parent to her other 3 kids, but the trauma from the adoption still haunts her today. Some birthmothers find it too painful to see their child and adoption slowly closes.
In my expierence as a search angel the best relationships that form out of reunions are Bsibling relationships.
Here are three things you didn't know about adoptees:
[LIST=1]
[*]Most adult adoptees aren't traditionally religious
[*]Most adult adoptees are pro-choice
[*]Most are against safe haven baby drop off sites.
[/LIST]
Most polled said that "being dropped off in a safe haven dooms the child to a life of never knowing where they came from, their heritage or their medical history...and that is no way to live."
We have an entire generation of closed adoptees now grown up. In twenty years we will be able to compare these open adoptees that we have as children now and see if the effects were lessened. In my all of my dealing with adoptees and Bmothers... the more open, the better. For all involved.:yoda:
I would like to hear more about adoptees' reasons for opposing safe haven baby drops off sites. Obviously, it is far preferable for a birth mother to go through legal means and for the child to know as much as possible about when he/she came from. I support open adoption, and have even searched and found one of my kids' birth mothers, and would like to do that with others of my kids, but I don 't have sufficient information. However, I think of safe haven drop off sites as something to help prevent girls who are feeling desperate from leaving their babies somewhere to die. A friend of mine adopted a newborn baby girl who was discovered abandoned on a beach, early one morning. She was cold and near death, when discovered, and would not have been able to last much longer. She is now a beautiful young woman and mother of two children. Many other babies who have been left somewhere like that have never had a chance at life. One of my children was left at a hospital, where the hospital staff quickly realized that she had been abandoned and wasted no time taking care of her.
I guess the question is whether there would be many who would choose to anonymously drop a baby off somewhere, rather than go to an agency where they would be required to tell something about themselves. I wouldn't really think many would.
We have safe haven in SD, it hasn't been utilized once since it was passed ten years ago. However, three women have murdered their babies, I just don't think it works.
There was a safe haven law in Nebraska that passed a few years ago however they failed to specify an age limit when passed and had people dropping off children that were in their teens.
Doesn't have a lot to do with the topic but I thought it was interesting and can't imagine the emotional toll that would take on an older child.
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caths1964 wrote:
I know you placed her because you were thinking of everyone but yourself and I know it must have been a very difficult decision (((hugs))).
You know what she was thinking about.
You know she was thinking of everyone but herself.
You know it was very difficult.
A few posts back, wasn't this child being chastised for daring to suggest she might know how her daughter would feel in the future, or how any other person alive might feel?
Would you have said that to someone who was 30? Really?
Whether or not, although zarah wisely plans not to post again, I'm posting this in case she's reading.
alys1
caths1964 wrote:
You know what she was thinking about.
You know she was thinking of everyone but herself.
You know it was very difficult.
A few posts back, wasn't this child being chastised for daring to suggest she might know how her daughter would feel in the future, or how any other person alive might feel?
Would you have said that to someone who was 30? Really?
Whether or not, although zarah wisely plans not to post again, I'm posting this in case she's reading.
I used "know" for the above paragraph because I was paraphrasing things she had said herself.
Also, if Zarah's child had said to her "I appreciate you placing me for adoption" and she had said " I am selfless. And I did give my daughter a family, and things I could never give her. And I know she appreciates it." - I wouldn't have had a problem because that would be Zarah taking a lead from what her daughter might hypothetically have said.
So in the above paragraph, I was paraphrasing something Zarah said and I would have had no problem if Zarah had been paraphrasing something her daughter had said.
However, I was merely saying that it is not a good idea to say that "she knows she WILL appreciate it" because that is making a prediction and makes it sound as if the child should be grateful for the decision. I actually wasn't saying that she wouldn't appreciate the decision but that that is for her daughter to say.
Btw her age made no difference - in fact I almost didn't say anything because of her young age and tried to be gentle in my initial reply (though obviously didn't succeed). However, I did feel it was important people don't make their child feel beholden to them for being placed - I have seen it too often in the blogosphere. Also as I pointed out, adoptees are often TOLD how to feel rather than asked how to feel. For example, a hypothetical adoptee "may" be grateful for being adopted and that is their prerogative but that adoptee may feel less happy about others telling them they should be grateful. (that was supposed to be the point of my parent analogy in a previous post).
So all I am saying is that as much as I hope that Zarah's child remains the happy little thing with no worries in the world that she seems to be now, if she does have any sadness at all about being born into one family and raised in another, then her parents must listen to her and not invalidate her feelings.
Anyway, I am sure that my explanation is as clear as mud lol. I know what I'm trying to say but it is hard to explain it to others.
noelani2
I would like to hear more about adoptees' reasons for opposing safe haven baby drops off sites. Obviously, it is far preferable for a birth mother to go through legal means and for the child to know as much as possible about when he/she came from. I support open adoption, and have even searched and found one of my kids' birth mothers, and would like to do that with others of my kids, but I don 't have sufficient information. However, I think of safe haven drop off sites as something to help prevent girls who are feeling desperate from leaving their babies somewhere to die. A friend of mine adopted a newborn baby girl who was discovered abandoned on a beach, early one morning. She was cold and near death, when discovered, and would not have been able to last much longer. She is now a beautiful young woman and mother of two children. Many other babies who have been left somewhere like that have never had a chance at life. One of my children was left at a hospital, where the hospital staff quickly realized that she had been abandoned and wasted no time taking care of her.
I guess the question is whether there would be many who would choose to anonymously drop a baby off somewhere, rather than go to an agency where they would be required to tell something about themselves. I wouldn't really think many would.
Noelani, you might like to read this link:
[url]http://aia.berkeley.edu/media/pdf/discarded_infants_literature_review.pdf[/url]
This is the conclusion (though I think the rest is well worth a read):
Discarded infants are a substantial social problem, and a
number of factors contribute to the phenomenon. In this
paper, we have discussed a specific and unique area of
discarded infants: victims of neonaticide. Neonaticide has existed throughout history, though motivations behind the act have evolved, at least to some degree. Unfortunately, the nature of neonaticide makes intervention difficult: women who commit neonaticide usually are socially isolated, they often deny or take action to hide that they are pregnant.
Neonaticidal women are usually young and unmarried, with no pre-existing mental disorders, and are part of a social network that does not provide sufficient emotional support.
Developmental and social dynamics, such as emotional
immaturity, social isolation, and pregnancy denial, are
usually factors in the act of neonaticide. In all but one of the cases (that of Amy Grossberg) reported in the literature, the women experienced labor and delivery in seclusion.
Responses to the problem have not been met with a great deal of success. Safe haven laws, though rooted in
magnanimity, have not proven to be effective because they are not designed in such a way that will affect the decisions and actions of those most likely to discard infants. These
laws have also met with much criticism from adoption
advocates. Punitive responses, while punishing a woman for her actions, will also not likely affect decisions or events leading to neonaticide. Some scholars have argued that while perpetrators of neonaticide should doubtless be held accountable for their actions, their situations demand therapeutic intervention rather than punishment.
Doctors, teachers, and social service providers are called
upon to be alert when women, especially young women,
exhibit characteristics putting them at risk of committing
neonaticide. Action must be taken both before an
unplanned pregnancy occurs and, if such a pregnancy does occur, before labor and delivery. Oberman (1996)
suggested that, in the end, preventing neonaticide requires that society somehow reduce the vulnerability that is felt by women who commit this act of desperation.
I think for a woman to use a Safe Haven, they have to actually acknowledge they have given birth to a baby. I bet most babies left at Safe Havens are clothed, thus showing that their mother did actually accept their pregnancy/birth. In the past, these same babies would probably have been left in a porch or somewhere where they would be found.
Those who leave their babies exposed to the elements seem to be those that have disassociated themselves from the whole "ordeal" and thus leaving them in a Safe Haven, let alone anywhere safe at all would not even have crossed their minds as they may not have even accepted that they had given birth to an actual baby.
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Dna testing has shown that women who abandoned babies have done so more than one time with different fathers. The problem was never fixed and these babies could be born in a hospital if an adoption plan were in place.
The new study, researched and published by the Adoption Institute, concludes that contrary to the assertions of their advocates, there is no evidence that “safe haven” statutes are working – principally because they do not address the causes of the problem. They also appear to be causing negative, unintended consequences.
Safe haven laws not only do not solve the problem of unsafe infant abandonment, but actually may encourage women to conceal pregnancies and then abandon infants who otherwise would have been placed for adoption through established legal procedures or been raised by relatives.
Safe haven laws are having other serious negative consequences and undermine established child-welfare and protection practices.
hi we are melissa and hayden and we are a couple in our thirties eager to complete our family through the amazing gift that adoption can be. we would love to get to know you better and possibly be a good match for you and your situation. i look forward to hearing from you please feel free to email us at haydenhawkins76@yahoo.com and /or check out our profile on cafemom my profile name on there is wifeofhawkins. have a great day.
sincerely melissa and hayden:fish: