Monday, December 17, 2012

The 14th of December, 2012



My heart bleeds for everyone in Newtown, for the family and friends of all those murdered last Friday. I cannot begin to imagine the horror, the trauma...

With thoughts and prayers for all involved, of course my thoughts also turned to my own family. As did everyone, I'm sure. I would imagine that every one hugged their loved ones a bit longer than normal, there were many more statements of "I love you" than usual that night and in the days to follow.

Then the wondering began...

Were any of those murdered adopted? Were or will their natural families be contacted with the horrible news? Or will the mothers/fathers/extended natural family go on the rest of their lives with no idea that their child lost their life in the senseless murders?

Or maybe one of the adults murdered were natural mothers who had lost a child to adoption... Will their children be told that they are gone? Or will they search one day only to find out the horrible news years later?

What about the many natural mothers in the U.S. whose children are now 6 & 7 years old? How many have children that age and have no idea where their child is living? How many are now living with the question "Was my child one of them?".

My heart goes out not only to everyone affected by the massacre last Friday, but to every mother/father/family member out there who is wondering tonight if one of the victims could be their loved one.


A beautiful song. a wonderful tribute...

On the 14th of December ~
  the angels were crying
     as they carried them away...


Thursday, November 22, 2012

Adoption ~ Is NOT Among The Blessings I Name


So many blessings, it would be impossible to list them all one by one.

While I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I find myself keeping busy tonight to stop my mind from wandering. I know I am avoiding bed in order to keep my brain busy so that I won't dwell on the fact that I didn't hear from Christopher today. I knew I wouldn't get a phone call, but why does the heart still hold out that possibility? I thought for sure I would get an email, or text, or even just a message on Facebook...

*Sigh*

 Today is not only Thanksgiving,  Christopher's heart surgery was one year ago today.  He is doing wonderful ~ is enjoying his second lease on life.

As I said, I have so many blessings.  But the heart continues to break, the loss of my son to adoption continues to tear me apart.  Despite reunion, despite the many blessings in my life.

How can anyone say that adoption is a blessing??

Monday, November 12, 2012

Young? Single? Pregnant? Considering Adoption?

I came to the decision for adoption on my own.  Granted, it was still expected so it wasn't much of a decision.  Only a few "rebel" girls were beginning to buck the expected and raise their babies.

I hated my home life.  There was no way I was going to make an innocent baby grow up in that.

How much of that was normal teenage angst, I wonder?  The hating my family and home life?

What if I hadn't become such an independent soul at such a young age?  What if I had still depended on my parents for help and advice?  What if I had asked them what they thought about adoption?  What if I had asked them what they thought about the possibility of me raising my baby?

Would they have told me they would help me?  
Would they have told me I would be a great mom?

 If only I had asked...

Another reason I was convinced adoption was my only option ~ I wanted my baby to know the love of a dad, as I didn't have that and craved it badly.  Tom was long gone, I had no idea where or how to find him (1979 ~ pre-internet era).  Little did I know that I was going to meet the man who would become my husband just 7 months after losing Christopher to adoption.  Ron would have been a wonderful father to Christopher...

If only I had known.

How might my life have been different if I had just been able to reach out and ask for help?
To ask for advice?  
To think outside of fear?  
To think beyond the first months, the first year? 

Are you a young pregnant mom?  

Are you a single pregnant mom?  

Are you considering adoption for your unborn child?

Are you scared to ask your family and/or friends for support?
(By support I mean beyond financial support.) 

Chances are there will be many who would be willing to help you, 
to cheer you on to be the best mom you can be.

Chances are that this pregnancy may just be the best thing to happen to you ~ unexpected joy!

Asking for help and advice is NOT being weak.

It's being strong.

It's being a great mom.

It's doing whatever is necessary to be the best mom you can be to your child!!




Thursday, November 8, 2012

Was It "Meant To Be"?

They say things happen for a reason. 

Did my pregnancy at 15 years old happen for a reason?  

Was I meant to give birth to Christopher?  Was he a gift from God that I tossed away? 

As crappy as my parents were at parenting, 
they were/are fabulous as grandparents.  

Just short of three years after I had Christopher, I gave birth to our daughter.  Though we were engaged, I was still unmarried, still living at home.  It could still be pretty ugly at home, although I wasn't there often by then. 

My mom and dad loved Trishia with all of their hearts.  They watched her while I went to work, they watched her to let me have a night out a few times a month.  My dad would sit her on his lap and feed her, he would come home from work in the winter time and put his hat on Trishia's little head and they would both laugh.  My mom would sing to her.  Everyone in the house doted on her. 

Having a baby in the house brought laughter back 
to the house and made it a home. 

My relationship with my parents changed after I became a mom.  You know ~ a  real mom ~ a mom raising "kids of my own" as the adoption agency told me I would do after giving my firstborn up for adoption.  We got along, we showed love towards each other (even if those words were never spoken).  We became a real family. 

Was Christopher's birth a gift ~ 
meant to heal our family instead of tear it further apart?  





Friday, October 5, 2012

Friends I Haven't Met (Yet!)


Last week ended with getting my mail and finding a huge surprise ~ snail mail from someone I only know here on the www.  I think I smiled all day!  I'm so glad that I have gotten to know this wonderful woman, while at the same time I wish that the reason we have come to know each other didn't exist.  Friends like this are the silver lining to my adoption story.  I am so very happy that I found all the wonderful moms and adoptees who have helped me through getting to know myself again.  Many of them are over to the right on my blog list, some I have come to know through a couple of forums and facebook.  I truly don't know where I would be today if not for the support and encouragement from many of them!

The week also ended with someone who is more of an acquaintance than friend here on the www.   I have gotten to "know" him mostly through common friends on Facebook.  I doubt he even knows my name.  He is a late-discovery adoptee, only finding out he was adopted when he was 41; I believe about 5 years ago.  He is a staunch supporter of adoptee rights and last week due to his collection of names for the adoptee rights demonstration, another mother and son found each other.  I was so happy for the reunited family, but especially happy for Jeff.  I think he was overwhelmed by the response to his call for help in locating the mother whose name was on the necklace, as well as by the positive outcome in that reunion.  Although Jeff is a huge adoptee rights supporter, a supporter of helping find family members lost to adoption, he himself had only hit road blocks in his own search. 


Until two days ago.


Wednesday I was on FaceBook and noticed a lot of comments being made onto a Jeff's page.  When the comments kept being made, curiosity got the best of me and I clicked over to his page to see what was going on.  I quickly found myself with a huge smile and tears of happiness running down my cheeks.   Tears of happiness for a man I have never met, never "spoken" with.  Jeff received in the mail a package with his non-identifying information.  After waiting over 4 long years for it.  As I read through all the comments of joy and happiness from Jeff's many friends, I couldn't stop the flow of tears. 

I am so happy for Jeff, I hope that this new information leads him to even more long-awaited for answers. 

I am so blessed to have found the on-line world of adoption support.  So many of the people I have "met" here have made such a difference in my life.   Not only the two I have written about here, there are so many more. 

While some people may say that this on-line world is full of negative people ~ you know...  those bitter birthmoms and angry adoptees... 

I see the on-line world of adoptees and natural moms (even some natural dads and a grandma, some adoptive moms as well) as a loving family in and of itself.  People from all over the world, from all walks of life, all ages and colors coming together to support each other in their losses due to adoption.  While they may not always agree on things, at the heart of it all there is encouragement and support for others living life with adoption loss. 

While I wish that adoption loss had never entered my life, 
I am so very thankful for the friends I have come to know through that adoption loss. 


Sunday, September 30, 2012

"Silent Voices" Art & Poetry by Carlynne Hershberger

is graciously offering her beautiful book of 
paintings and poetry as a free Kindle 
download on Amazon today.

The paintings and words are hauntingly beautiful, 
heart-wrenching in emotional honesty.

Go visit Carlynne's blog for a link to the free download here:


Thursday, September 6, 2012

Another post that I want to share here...  (Carlynne's work is beautiful.  If you don't know her blog, go read.  I was just lost in reading some of her oldest posts again...)

18 Years




Is it meant to be.....

   that a baby cries for the only voice she knows?
   that a mother grieves for a lifetime?
   that sisters can't share secrets?
   that brothers can't protect?
   that a child loses trust?
   that what's primal doesn't matter?
   that the wound is ignored?
   that birthdays become burdens?
   that her childhood is stolen from her mother?
   that the state says no to who she is?
   that lies become ordinary?
   that a baby can't have the milk made for her?
   that the mother is stolen from the child?
   that a child lives life wondering?
   that a mother lives life searching?
   that strangers hold while family sits empty?
   that children become chattel?
   that money matters more?



 


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

How To Live Through The Discovery That Your Teenager Is Pregnant

Since I continue to get hits from searches for what to do if your unmarried/teen daughter is pregnant, I want to share an article I read today.   Believe it or not ~ adoption isn't mentioned once in this post!



It was just a little over a year ago when I found out that my teenager daughter was pregnant.  It was just before her 16th birthday and she told me she needed to go to the doctor.  I immediately knew that this wasn't a casual visit and when she confirmed that her period was 10 days late it took everything within me not to completely freak out.
Today she thinks that I am just very calm.  What she doesn't realize is that my silence was an indication of just how mad I was.  And if you find out that your teen daughter is pregnant you will know exactly what I am talking about.  It's beyond wanting to yell and scream. It is beyond wanting to lock her in her room for the rest of her life or send her away to boarding school.  It is beyond anything you can imagine.
And that makes sense because she's about to go through something that is unlike anything that she could possibly ever imagine!
This is only the beginning, please go read the original article and comments here:
a

Friday, August 10, 2012

Adoptive Parents Are Also Victims of the Adoption Industry

After reading Barbara's comment on my last post I had to go back and re-read it.  The last paragraph in the post from Adoption Lies was pretty harsh on adoptive parents. I guess I was just so moved by the main point of the post (using love against us) that I didn't really pay attention to the end. 

In my opinion, prospective adoptive parents are also victims of the adoption industry.  I think that most people who consider adopting are loving, caring people.  I think that if they knew just how deeply being relinquished effects someone for their entire life, they wouldn't want to see that happen unless absolutely necessary.  I think that if it was known how adoption loss truly effects the mother (as well as the rest of the natural family), they would look at adoption as less than the "loving option" it's sold to be.

I don't know.  Maybe that's just a Pollyanna way of thinking?

I do know that Christopher's mom was not one of those who felt she deserved another mother's child simply because she was unable to have one.  When we met last May, we talked for four hours.  She was very open with her feelings, she shared many of her experiences as an adoptive mom.  I think she was and is truly grateful every day of her life for the chance to be a mother ~ I don't think she looked at it as her right, she looked at her motherhood as a privilege.  I would like to think that there are more adoptive moms like her than the ones who will stop at nothing to obtain an infant from a vulnerable mother facing an unexpected pregnancy.

I have great compassion for women who cannot conceive or carry a pregnancy to full term.  I cannot begin to imagine the deep, crushing disappointment and sadness that must bring.  I have a friend and a cousin who would be fabulous mothers but have not had that joy in their lives.  I wish that nobody had to suffer from infertility, for any reason.  I wish that there was a cure for all infertility.

This is where I think the adoption industry comes into play with prospective adoptive parents.  They have to "sell" adoption to society as a whole, targeting even children so that when they grow up they view adoption as a parenting option.  There are hundreds of adoption agency websites whose main purpose is to lure in those suffering from infertility problems.  Google infertility and adoption ~ I just got 6,580,000 results!

The adoption industry sells adoption to women suffering with the heartbreak of infertility in their life.  Just as they have spent millions learning how to convince a mother facing an unexpected pregnancy to give her child up for adoption, I'm sure they also invest in finding ways to "sell" adoption to those who are unable to give birth themselves. 

I know of at least one prospective adoptive mom who was torn between what she wanted to do to help a mother in crisis and what the adoption counselor was telling her to do/say.  I'm sure there are many more who are manipulated by adoption workers/counselors to go against their instincts.  This mom is blogging about her experience, I hope that other prospective adoptive parents read her words and begin to realize the manipulation also. 

The adoption industry is just that though.  An industry.  Looking to make a buck (or a billion...).  And the only way adoption agencies make money is by finding people who want to adopt (demand) and are willing/able to pay a "fee" for the infants of mothers facing an unexpected pregnancy (supply). 

I completely agree with what Adoptionvictims said here, except I would add "the prospective/adoptive parents" to "birthmothers" and "adoptees":
 And they count on us the "birthmothers" and "adoptees" to forever be divided. They count on us to have so much pain and anger that we will never come together in numbers and end what adoption is in the US. They have created the perfect money making, amoral institution and they call it "adoption".

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Using Love Against Us

I read a fabulous blog post today and wanted to leave a comment, but they are disabled.  I decided that I would post it here, in honor of Adoptee Rights.  Just as well turn the entire week into a demonstration!

Although this is written by a natural mother, she makes many great points about the way "love" is used to alter an adoptee's life.  From being "given up because your mother loved you so much" to "If you loved me you wouldn't need to search" and more.

Enjoy this post from "Adoption Lies, Adoption Victims"

I think the true face of evil is to use someone's love for another against them. And it is rampant in adoption.

First they use it on the birthmother. "If you really loved your son/daughter you would do what is best and give them to us".

In open adoption they say "You need to be absent and go away so that we can bond with the baby."

Then in reunion they say "If you loved me you wouldn't search, or love your natural parents." Or "if you loved your son/daughter you wouldn't interfere in their life because they are not ready or they have no need for you."

As time goes by I realize what evil truly is. It is not getting pregnant and raising your child without a father or support. It is not being sick with post partum depression. It is coveting something that does not belong to you. It is dividing and tearing families apart to create new ones for the privilaged. And to do this in the name of God is the most depraved of acts.

This Friday I will be honored for my good deeds that I have done for others. And it really got me thinking. I know what good is and what evil is. And I will not longer use "positive adoption language" to protect the evil and confuse the vulnerable.

There are certain instances when adoption is good but I think it is a rare situation. I think that for the most part infant adoption is done to traffic babies to those who can pay the fee while using a vulnerable mother's love for her child against her. And years later using the adopted person's love and loyalty against them if they try to belong to the family they were born to live in.

And the only people who profit from this are those who claim our children, make money off them and exploit the birthparents and adopted people. Have you ever noticed that most popular adoption forums are ripe with advertisements to buy a baby or to get "help" if you are pregnant? Have you noticed the same forums advertise to find your birth relatives for a fee? They are making money off of us coming and going.

And they count on us the "birthmothers" and "adoptees" to forever be divided. They count on us to have so much pain and anger that we will never come together in numbers and end what adoption is in the US. They have created the perfect money making, amoral institution and they call it "adoption".

Pitting birth mother against adopted person. The ones who are abandoned and the ones who abandoned. Counting on the loyalties of adopted people to their adopted parents to show that since they love their adopted parents they love adoption. Counting on the shame of those who "gave your own child away" to keep us silent. Crucifying those "angry adoptees" and "bitter birthmothers" who dare speak about the evil that is adoption.

And I want to say something that is rarely or is ever said to prospective adoptive parents. God did not intend for another woman to give her child to you so that you could have a family. Perhaps God intended you to be infertile so that you would not have a child. Or that your previous abortion or pelvic inflammatory disease left you infertile and you lost your chance to be a mother. No one ever tells you that because they want your money. They want you to buy a baby and put money in their pocket. But unless you know without a doubt that the child you are adopting truly needs you and you are the last resort then you are not in any way doing "God's work". It might be hard to hear but you need to hear it because in the end you will have to answer to him. And the praise you get in this life, the savior complex you enjoy now might not be there for you when you reach those pearly gates.







Monday, August 6, 2012

Adoptee Rights Demonstration

Adoptee Rights Coalition


The Adoptee Rights Demonstration was in Chicago today. I wish I could have been there in person to protest, but writing here on my blog today is going to have to do.



So what is the big deal?  Why are people fighting for adoptee rights?  What rights don't adoptees have in the first place?

Original Birth Certificates
When a baby is born, a birth certificate is issued to legally record the birth details.  The mother and father, time and place of birth, weight, height, name, etc.

Amended Birth Certificates
When an infant (or older child) is adopted, a new birth certificate is issued which replaces the mother and father's names and information with the adoptive parents names and information.  Sometimes other information is changed or deleted altogether.

So Adoptees Have Two Birth Certificates?  What's the big deal about that?
When the amended birth certificate is filed, the original is sealed, usually never to be seen again. Only in Alaska and Kansas have the OBCs never been sealed. Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Alabama have restored equal OBC access to adult adoptees. Other States, such as Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Illinois, allow access with some restrictions. In all other states, the OBC is sealed forever from the public, including both the adoptee and the natural parents. 
 
Why is the OBC sealed?
Follow the links at the bottom to Amanda's Adoptee Rights Guide or to the list of other bloggers who have written on the subject to get more info.  I will give you one reason that is often touted, but is false.  It is often said that it is because the mothers were promised confidentiality.  The ones fighting against equal rights argue that there are natural mothers out there cowering in corners who don't want to be found by their children given up for adoption.  All of this couldn't be further from the truth in my opinion.  For one, I was never promised anonymity, nor did I ever want it.  I have gotten to know many, many moms over the last three years who also were never promised nor wanted it.  As a matter of fact, the majority of natural moms would love to know their children, would welcome any contact from them.   
 
Even if that weren't the case, why would the rights of the mother be given more importance than the rights of the adult who was given up for adoption by no choice of their own? 

Why do adoptees need/want to have access to their original birth certificates? 
Since I can't speak for an adoptee, here is an answer to that from an adoptee herself, Karen Pickell.  The rest of this post is from her blog "Between".

Why are original birth certificates so important to adoptees?
This issue is important to me because knowing my true family identity is important to me. As a child, I was acutely aware of the differences between me and my adoptive parents. We looked different. We were interested in different activities. We reacted differently to situations. We processed information differently.

In doctor’s offices, I had to write “N/A” on the lines for family medical history, then explain that I was adopted. The first picture of me is as a three-month-old; what happened in my life before that time is a black hole. I felt no connection to my adoptive parents’ family trees; I could not join the conversation of who looked like which cousin or who acted like grandma.

I saw the first person who looked like me when I had my first child at the age of thirty-three. And I realized that he would have the same black hole of missing information about his ancestry and family medical history that I had.

I was lucky to be able to locate my birth mother without having my original birth certificate, because I had some pretty detailed non-identifying information from the agency that handled my adoption (every adoptee is legally entitled to this) and a key piece of identifying information my adoptive parents were accidentally given when they adopted me. Many adoptees are not as lucky as I was and are not able to figure out who their biological families are without their original birth certificates.

Even after I reunited with my birth mother, I still wanted a copy of my original birth certificate. I wanted that written proof. I wanted to feel like a whole person, like I was really born from another human being just like everyone else rather than picked from a lineup of cribs, which is how I had always pictured my adoption. And my birth mother wanted it too, to prove she wasn’t crazy, that she really did have a baby, that it all wasn’t just some nightmare she had imagined. Together we petitioned the Ohio probate court, and I now have my original birth certificate. But I couldn’t have gotten it without her consent. And she hadn’t even known she could file her consent until I made her aware of that fact.

So, if you have yours, what’s the big deal now?Before I went through my own birth family reunion, I didn’t understand how big this issue was. I had no idea how many other people like me are out there struggling to come to terms with their own identities, held back by these antiquated laws that serve no one’s best interest. I didn’t know that even though we hear the term “open adoption” a lot today, altered birth certificates are still being issued, and open adoptions often don’t remain open very long after the adoption transaction is finalized. I stand behind the effort to unseal all adoptee original birth certificates because every person deserves to know where they come from. It is not the business of any state to keep family members from knowing each other or to protect those who never asked to be protected.

Most of all, I support the Adoptee Rights Coalition because adoption should be, first and foremost, about the children being adopted and what is in their best interest. It is not acceptable to violate the rights of adopted people in order to protect the rights of either birth or adoptive parents. We adoptees have the right to know where we come from and to deal with our own family business.

If you would like to read another adult adoptee viewpoint on Adoptee Rights, Amanda has a great guide.  This guide answers many questions:  who opposes equal rights and why?  who supports it and why?  Amanda also answers the three main myths about adoptee access to their OBC in this guide. 

Several other bloggers have written about the Adoptee Rights Demonstration and Adoptee Rights.  If you’d like to read some other adoptee and natural mom views on adoptee rights, they are all linked on this list of blog posts.

If you would like to learn more, here is a link to a summary of the laws in each state.

One last note ~ I can walk into the courthouse and get a copy of all three of my raised children's birth certificates, even though they are now adults.  I cannot get a copy of Christopher's ~ since it is sealed.  What could I possibly do with that obc?  All it has on it is my own information, which I obviously already know.  It would have Christopher's birth information, which I also know.  So WHY can I not get a copy?  It simply makes no sense.  Why would I want to have a copy of it?  I want to see if my suspicions are correct.  I only remember a few things from my days at the hospital.  One of the clearest memories I have is filling out the form for his birth certificate.  I had spent a couple of days thinking about the perfect name to give him, as I thought that it was the only thing I was EVER going to be able to give him.  I remember filling out the required information on the father.  However...  all the paper work I received regarding his adoption came with his name being Baby Boy.  I want so badly to know if they took his name away from him.  I would bet that they left the information on his father off the obc also.  In effect his obc could be full of lies...  I'm so thankful that our search angel brought us together.  If Christopher had somehow gotten a copy of his obc first, he could very well be thinking that I didn't give him a name and that I didn't know who fathered him.  Neither of which are true.


Wednesday, August 1, 2012

He Calls Her Mom

Amanda has a post today titled "Does It Hurt You When I Call Her "Mom?"".



To be completely honest, yes.

It even hurt just to read the title of her post.

It's nothing against Christopher's mom.  At all.

It's just that it hurts so much to have a son out there, but you are not the mom...


Even though your heart, soul, and every cell in your body  knows that you are.


You aren't his mom...

Your son cried mommy in the night.
Someone else comforted him.

You son yelled out "what's for dinner mom?".
Someone else answered.

Another mom was there for all of it.

All of the big things and little.

All of the wonderfully fabulous things and the gross messy things.

Even though all I ever wanted to be when I was growing up was a mom.

I wasn't my first born son's mom.

That hurts.

More than you will ever know.  (Unless you are also living this life...)

It hurts.

Even 33 years later.

Every day.

Always.

I wish that I could live one day without the pain of the loss of my motherhood.

Just one day.

Just one.

Just...

*sigh*

a

Monday, July 30, 2012

It's Not Anti-Adoption, It's About The Institution of Adoption

As usual, Amanda's latest post is a great one.  She writes about adoption reform being about the Institution of adoption, not the people of adoption. 

I sometimes worry that people reading my blog will think that I write about adoption only out of regret or anger.  When I write about the problems in adoption I am not necessarily speaking about my actual adoption experience, I am speaking of the institution of adoption.  I am not speaking against Christopher, nor his parents, nor am I wishing to deny him any part of the life he lives.  I am speaking out against the institution of adoption. 

Here is what I am trying to say, but Amanda says it so much better!

Adoption is an institution, not a person. As an institution, it impacts just about every vulnerable population in this world that one could imagine. Because of this, we need to be critical of it. We need to expose its flaws, discuss its triumphs, and be realistic about its global impact. We cannot mistake these things for being egregious assaults against parents who have adopted, surrendering parents, or other adoptees themselves.  In truth, there is nothing "anti-adoption" or "anti-adoptive parent" about wanting an adoption that works well, works better, and works more effectively to serve those who are connected to it.

Thanks for putting words to my thoughts again Amanda! 





P.S.  If you don't already read Amanda's blog, you should!


a

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sharing The Words Of An Adoptee

So many times in the last week or two I have attempted to write about that stupid new show on the Oxygen Network, but every time I try I just end up getting mad and my writing turns into a rant.  Reading on their FaceBook page, I found some great posts by an adoptee.  I sent her a message for permission to share her words here as she doesn't have a blog and she said yes! 

I think it's important to know that it's not only the moms who are objecting to this show, it's also the ones who have grown up adopted.  I try to not write about the adoptee experience since I haven't lived it, so I'm happy to be able to share some thoughts from that side of adoption.

From Renee, an adult adoptee, in reply to some adoptive mothers on the "I'm Having Their Baby" FaceBook page:

Laura, I do, actually. Have you ever been an adoptee?

And yes, I do feel that the adoption industry should be abolished. Because it is not focused on the best interest of the children. I don't see it going away in my lifetime, though. So for now, why not consider a few things.


Most of the children adopted at this time are not TRULY unwanted. A few are, but in the majority of these situations, moms have found themselves in a frightening and overwhelming position and are unsure how to handle it. If a FRACTION of the money, time, and resources that are spent facilitating adoption were spent helping, educating and supporting the young women, there'd be even less. Also, there are many other ways to ensure that genuinely unwanted and at-risk children are cared for. Fostering, conservatorship, guardianship, etc. These options can give children stable homes, care, and love without revoking their identities and the very real bonds they have with their families.


If you think that your adopted child is safe from abandonment and attachment issues, you're wrong. Your child bonded with her natural mom while she was growing inside her, and she will grieve that loss throughout her life. People are not plug and play. Her loss will manifest in many ways throughout her life. Your love is not a magic Band-aid that can heal all her wounds. You are one of her mothers, but you will never be her only mother. A woman whose baby dies can never erase that baby's loss by having another. It's precisely the same for your daughter. She lost her first mom. Replacing her with another will never negate that basic and profound loss.


I reunited with my natural mother after both my adoptive parents passed away. I never lacked for love. But I never felt whole until the day I hugged my first mom. I knew her. I recognized her smell. I felt at home in her arms. Those facts would have devastated my adoptive mother--but bottom line, the cold, hard truth is why should I care? Why did I always labor to protect her feelings? It was supposed to be about me, right? The best interest of the child? Remember? Not the best interest of the adopting parents. THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD.


It's not, of course. Adoption is not about the children. Which is why I'm against newborn adoption.


That and the fact that it's wrong to sell people. It's WRONG to SELL PEOPLE. It's also WRONG to BUY PEOPLE.


It's pretty simple. I have four objectives:


We need to teach sex education and family planning and make sure contraception is easily accessible.


We need to make it a criminal offense for ANY MONEY AT ALL to change hands when an adoption does occur.


We need to establish a strong system of support, education, and encouragement for moms.


And we need to make separation of mom and baby an undesirable last resort; putting the focus on keeping families together and gearing all solutions toward that goal.


If we do these four things, we can make domestic adoption the rare exception instead of the rule. There'll be fewer unwanted pregnancies, young mothers will learn to believe and trust in themselves, fewer families will be separated, and more children will remain where they belong. For me, it really is about the children.
A later reply:
You know, it's bizarre to me that when talking with adoptive mothers on the subject of corruption in the adoption industry, they ALWAYS seem to feel comfortable dismissing my arguments by saying I'm unhappy, miserable, angry, bitter, etc. I'm none of those things. I have everything a person could want and more: an awesome husband; a smart, funny, talented son; a beloved family; two sweet pups; a beautiful home in freaking paradise--and to add to my good fortune, I was able to retire from a career I loved at only 45, allowing me the bandwidth to work for a cause that means the world to me: Advocating for sweeping changes in the adoption industry. This is not an angry or unhappy life. This is a joyful life--and a fortunate woman.

Personally, I think you have to dismiss my words by claiming I'm unhappy and bitter in order to rationalize the wrong--and the damage--you've done. But you're lying to yourself. And to your children. And someday, your children will come to you with some very hard questions. Almost certainly, a lot of the same ones I've asked. For their sakes, I hope you come up with some better answers between now and then.

The truth is, though, that one doesn't have to be angry or unhappy to recognize the corruption in this system OR to be willing to work to change it.

I know where to place blame. I place blame on the system and those who enable and support it.

And I'm not trying to change your mind, Laura. Nor am I trying to change Holly's or any of the other women in this thread who clearly don't mind buying children.

I realize this is a foreign concept, but IT'S NOT ACTUALLY ABOUT YOU.

I work to reach young women considering relinquishment. If ONE young woman reads this thread and thinks,
"Wow, maybe I should get MY OWN lawyer and ask her about the laws pertaining to open adoption"
or
"It IS actually wrong to buy children--why would I ever give my child to someone who'll do something so wrong just because it gets her what she wants?"
or
"Why are these people who claim to be so 'good' willing to support such a corrupt system?"
or
"Maybe I should ask for the help I'll need to keep my baby instead of allowing these people to help me give it away"
or even
"Why are these women who haven't lost their mother OR their baby so incredibly rude and dismissive to women who have?"
then it's all worth it.

Those young women are reading these words. My words AND the adoptive mothers', and they ironically, both support my argument. Your unwillingness to answer simply questions, your arrogance, your rudeness and dismissiveness, your sanctimony and superiority--those are your true colors. And you're showing them to everyone. Please keep talking.
One last post I would like to share.  In reply to IHTB asking where you stand on adoption:
Where do I stand? The adoption industry should be shut down. It exists because selling babies is extremely lucrative. It serves itself. It doesn't care about the babies or the mothers.

One important thing to consider: There is no such thing as open adoption in this country. It is an inaccurate term that's used to falsely assure women considering relinquishment that they will always have access to their children, but by law, they'll actually have access only as long as the adoptive parents allow it. When the adoptive parents cut the first mother off, she's done. She has no legal rights. Until the first mothers' rights are equal to those of the adoptive mothers, there will be no such thing as open adoption. And that will never happen, because it simply cannot work. This is one of the issues that needs light shined on it.

A big part of adoption is about ego. It just is. I realize people don't like to admit that, and I understand why, but bottom line, it's just a fact. If the motivation truly is to love and cherish a child and give it a good life then why not offer that love and that home to kids already in the system? Why not help kids who are GENUINELY without parents, without love, without security? Those kids unfortunately exist. Why is it so important to get an infant fresh out of the oven? Why is it so important to OWN that child, to change its name and alter its birth certificate? If it's really about GIVING--if it's really selfless, if it's really about the needs of the children overriding the needs (wants) of the adults--adoption is not necessary. There is fostering, managerial conservatorship, guardianship, and other options.

Bottom line, though, all these things aside, buying children is wrong. It's wrong, and it's dirty, and the system that facilitates it is corrupt and evil, and supporting that system because it gets you what you want is despicable. Adopters can pretend they're on the side of the angels all they want, but that's just spin. They're willing to support a corrupt, profit-driven system that remorselessly damages human beings left and right for one reason: It fulfills their selfish desires.

One of the things that bothers me the most about adoption is that no one EVER seems to openly discuss that the circumstances of these young, pregnant moms is TEMPORARY. They aren't always going to be 16, 18, 20 years old. They aren't always going to be scared and overwhelmed. They aren't always going to be alone. With a little support and encouragement, they won't always be uneducated and/or broke! But no one tells them that. Caseworkers coerce them into giving away their children by making them feel as if they're inferior and irresponsible and incapable of stepping up to the job of mom. But most of them aren't. Most of these moms are no different than the moms waiting to adopt--it's just that their immediate situation is less than optimal. But that situation can--and typically does--change SO EASILY. At this point, I know dozens of original moms. With only a couple of exceptions, they all went on to marry, have careers, make money, buy homes, have stable lives. Most of them had more kids--many of them within just a year or two of relinquishing. And yet, they were told they were unfit to raise their first baby. They were not. They were capable. They were young women in a tough but TEMPORARY situation.

They got no support or encouragement, though. No one looked for solutions that would keep the families together. The moms were disparaged and bullied--and pushed to give up and give in. "You're not as mature, you're not as wealthy, you're not as educated, you're not as whatever." As if this were a permanent state--and as if adoptive parents were some magically superior species. Neither of those things were true, but no one ever admitted that. Why? Because they wanted their babies. The babies were worth a lot of money to the adoption industry. No one cared about the babies or the moms. They wanted to make money. And it's exactly the same way today. It was true when I was born, it was true when my son was born, and it's true today--and it will always be true until $$ is taken out of the equation. It really is that simple.

We need to teach sex education and family planning and make sure contraception is easily accessible.

We need to make it a criminal offense for ANY MONEY AT ALL to change hands when an adoption does occur.

We need to establish a strong system of support, education, and encouragement for moms.

And we need to make separation of mom and baby an undesirable last resort; putting the focus on keeping families together and gearing all solutions toward that goal.

If we do these four things, we can make domestic adoption the rare exception instead of the rule. There'll be fewer unwanted pregnancies, young mothers will learn to believe and trust in themselves, fewer families will be separated, and more children will remain where they belong.

What a wonderful world it would be if we could make some major changes in domestic infant adoption in the United States using these four things as a guideline!

Thanks for letting me share your writing here Renee, I consider it an honor.


Tuesday, July 24, 2012

"Why Our Birth Matters"

I found an interesting article that I thought I would share here.  The article has nothing to do with adoption, yet has everything to do with it...

If you are considering adoption for your child, or if you are a mother of a daughter facing an unexpected pregnancy, you should read this.  It is becoming more and more known that events during pregnancy and early infancy have profound effects on a person's life ~

Here is the article from Spirituality & Health Magazine:

Why Our Birth Matters



By: Paul Sutherland

Issue: 2012 July-August

Showing that our earliest moments in life matterand that we can access those memories to heal ourselves as adultshas made Barbara Findeisen a pioneer in the field of perinatal and prenatal psychology.
As the founder of the Star Foundation, Findeisen has “helped transform the lives of thousands of people,” says colleague Marti Glenn. The center’s 10-day therapeutic retreats, guided by Findeisen and her staff, have a 30-year history of helping patients accelerate healing. “You turn a corner when you’re able to do that,” Glenn says.

Now in her 80s, Findeisen was presented last year with the Thomas R. Verny Award by the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health. The award recognizes her more than four decades of  studying how our minds and emotions are shaped by experiences at and before birth.
Paul Sutherland learned about the Star Foundation from an S&H colleague while urgently seeking referrals for a suicidal friend. “It was a profound experience for him and changed his life forever,” Sutherland says, “which affirmed to me how our paths intersect with people in random and mysterious waysand that sometimes the briefest of moments can change, or even save, a life.” Sutherland interviews Findeisen about her remarkable life and work.

How did you become interested in perinatal psychology?
I became a psychologist and then went to work in a clinic in Palo Alto, California. At that time in my own therapy, I had several strange, inexplicable out-of-body experiences. A profound panic came up over and over again in my sessions where I was totally terrified and shaking; I didn’t know why my body was doing this strange thing. I didn’t know why my body was trembling. I didn’t know why I was so scared. There was no container for it in my consciousness; I had no intellectual explanation.
And then it got even more confusing: I started saying things out of the depths of my unconscious, like “Don’t puncture me!” and “Let me live!” I didn’t know why this was happening. And as it unfolded, it was clear that I was having an experience from the wombwhich at the time I didn’t understand, nor did my therapist. From that point on, I went on a quest to see if there was any truth to this, because in those days there was little consciousness of prenatal psychology. 

What did you find?
Prenatal development is the most neglected source of some of the problems that show up later. Babies are being born already in a fear response. We start protecting ourselves before we’re born if the environment is toxic, if the mother is injecting too many drugs, if the baby is unwanted, if the mother gets beaten by the father and the baby gets to know the father’s voice. If there’s a trauma at that level, it gets very hidden and covered because the baby is helpless. We must find coping mechanisms to survive. Some of them are pretty disastrous, and some of them work. 
The work we do at the Star Foundation uncovers that. I see therapy as an archaeological dig to the soul. Some place within our consciousness is the memory of wholeness or divine essence. 

What is the process of getting there?  
I work with adults, but emotionally I think sometimes we’re children. I have them take a look at what were the early experiences. For instance, suppose their mother died when they were four and they were not allowed to go to the funeral, they were not allowed to grieve, nobody gave them the support to just feel. So many of us were taught not to feel when we were young. So we allow people to go back to traumatic events or even mildly traumatic events and look at the way it was: What couldn’t you say? What couldn’t you feel? Let’s redo that: Say it now. Feel it now. And then we look at how is this still showing up in your life and relationships? Perhaps you don’t want to get close to anyone because you believe they’ll die or abandon you. We take a look at how it’s manifesting in your life in a very practical way, because we all have threads that go back to the womb and childhood.

By examining these issues, can people really change?
Yes, I’ve seen it time and time again. And when we change, we hope everybody else changes, but they don’t necessarily. So how are you going to deal with going back to a partner, for instance, and you have reworked a pattern of being subservient, and all of a sudden it’s like you’re now working on being more authentic and standing up for yourself.  You cannot guarantee that the other person is going to be happy with that. When people come to groups, what comes up is, How are you going to go back and be different in a world where everything is set up for you to be the old way?
It’s not easy to go back into a life that has been habituated. For example, the way you survived as a child was being a little mouse, and all of a sudden you don’t want to be a mouse anymore. But that’s the way you learned to survive with a drunken father and a mother who is mentally ill. You just became a little mouse.  

Are we overdiagnosing or labeling?
I think diagnoses are sometimes more for the therapist than for the client. I don’t want to put people in yet another therapeutic box, as I might actually be limiting their experience. We do resonate with people. We do pick up nonverbal communications.  So I think the therapist has to really keep their mind as open and clear as possible so that they can go into the depths. 

You have a gift for making people feel safe and mirroring people, listening deeply, and this is one of the hallmarks of the staff and work at Star. How do you do this?
The first thing a therapist has to do is establish some sense of trust. One way is to explain and model that “I don’t have your answers. You do. I’m here to help you uncover the things that you’ve had to do, for good reason, that are now limiting you, and I’m here to help you discover what’s hidden within you.” I don’t know if Jung or whoever else said this, but it’s not my job to bring the light to you, but to help you lift the shade, because the light is alwaysyou might say God or whateverthe light of consciousness, it’s always there, but we live with so many shades pulled down in protection and distrust and emphasis on what’s wrong with us.  

What keeps you going?
Being able to witness over and over and over again the power that is within usthat we are not powerlessis so inspiring. But we listen to this voice in our head which denies us and says, “I want to be right all the time, I want to dominate you, I want to have more money than you do,” and that sort of stuff. But it’s all almost a coping mechanism for something underneath it. With some people, I work a lot with self-compassion. That’s not narcissism, but it’s a gentleness with yourself. So maybe you’ll never be a gourmet cook. Stop scrutinizing yourself. Stop the constant barrage of self-judgment.
I have people sometimes that have had profound spiritual experiences or real traumas and they have never talked to anybody about it, because when they did talk about it, they got ridiculed or humiliated or laughed at. And so it’s like there’s something that’s very vulnerable and very naive about some spiritual experiences we have. And so we get protective of them, because when we talk about them, we get judged. So what I like to do is give people a big space for their experience.

What is the crisis point that brings people to a place like Star?
Sometimes it’s a marriage that’s falling apart, and they want some place that’s a sanctuary, where they can drop into the issues instead of having a 50-minute hour.  Sometimes they’re in recovery for some kind of addiction, but their problems or some of their old feelings are coming up.  
And sometimes I wonder why people are coming in, because they look like they got it made. They had good childhoods and often they’re successful, but they have a sense of emptinessan internal sense of loss. And very frequently what they’ve lost is a piece of themselves. Maybe it’s the innocence of their childhood, maybe it’s their memory of wholeness, maybe it’s a real genuine inability to be intimate with somebody else, and it shows up in their relationships. Whatever it is, there’s something out of alignment within them. They feel dis-easenot necessarily physical ailments, but there’s dis-ease about something going on with them.  

How do people react to the element of spirituality as part of our personal growth? 
Some people think it’s just California woo-woo in the beginning. We are always trying to support people having their own personal experience of “soul” or put it in a frame that fits their belief system and vocabularynot what I think it should be, but whatever it is for them. And sometimes they have that “essential self” experience, the wholeness we talked about earlier. I call it “essence” or try to use energetic words. I try to present spirituality in a way that is almost secularmaybe that is an oxymoron, but it’s secular spirituality. 

Do you think our psychological development is intertwined with the spiritual?
I do. I don’t believe we end at death; I don’t believe we began at birth or at conception. There is something, whether it’s collective unconscious or soul or whatever it is. That, and the first brain that develops is the right brain, and that is the brain of the senses. And what I have just noticed often is when people get in touch with their right braintheir senses, their intuition, their smell, their touch, their seeing, their hearing, their tastingthere seems to be a balancing of the two brains that opens the person to a genuine experience of the spirit. Like washing a window and the light comes through: it’s like lifting the shade and the light is just there. We don’t have do anything to get it; it’s just addressing what has been blocked in us.

Are we always working on childhood stuff?
Neuroscience is now corroborating what I have been feeling and thinking. What happens to us in the womb and in early childhood lays out a template that influences the way we think, the way we feel about ourselves and the worldand our place in it. I don’t want to say everything has a childhood root, or a birth root, because it comes from a lot of different places. But at the right-brain level, from zero to age two, things get imprinted at a physical level, at a sensual level, in the body. I have had people come in and they have done 40 years’ worth of therapy, but they never got to the very original loss or trauma because it was not at the verbal level. That’s why the body is so important: it stores information and emotions and trauma and tells our story.
Sometimes we get people at Star who are radically one direction or the other politically, or devoutly religious to the exclusion of other religions. A lot of fundamentalism is just an extreme method of surviving or coping. They feel they are much safer in the world if they are absolutely sure they are right, and then they don’t have to deal with their own personal issues.
But when they become aware of the experiences they had at a preverbal or a very, very young level, they are the same as the person on the other end of the political spectrum or the other end of the religious spectrum. When we were traumatized by an abusive father or a mother who was distant and unavailable, it doesn’t matter who you are, a Tea Party member or a liberal Democrat. Sometimes I think if I could get everybody at that level, we would have a little bit more harmony.S&H

Monday, July 9, 2012

"All In The Family Adoption"

I continue to get hits on my blog from people searching with terms such as "my unmarried daughter is pregnant". 

There is a wonderful new blog written by one such mother.  Kellie writes about her role in her grandchild being given up for adoption.  She writes about the coercion that happened, which she was also a victim of. 

I think that her voice is an important one.  I'm glad that she is writing about her story and I hope that the people searching for advice about their own pregnant daughters find her brutally honest writings and think twice before allowing adoption to be chosen as anything other than a last-choice option for their grandchild.

Here is Kellie's own description of her blog: 

One person looking to spread the news about the tragedies of adoption. My oldest daughter got pregnant at 19. I searched a lot on the Internet about adoption before our granddaughter was born, but I didn't get the information about the grief that first mothers experience. We were totally unprepared. My daughter relinqueshed her daughter to her uncle, my husbands brother, and his wife. This is referred to as "kinship" or "relative" adoption. I want to try to inform others of the pain and grief involved in all adoptions.

I believe others need to stand up for first mothers and adoptees.   They are denied some of the basic rights that we take for granted. Those of us who love and support those who've relinquished or have been relinqueshed need to add our voice to theirs.
Go check out Kellie's blog "All In The Family Adoption".

Welcome to adoption blog-land Kellie!  You are a fabulous writer with an important viewpoint that needs to be read and known about.

On a personal note...
I can only imagine what my life might have been like if I had been able to talk to my own mom after the loss of my son to adoption.  Was she suffering as I was, as Kellie is?  What difference would it have made if I could know of my mom's own possible regret over her part in the loss of my son to adoption?  What difference would it have made to have the compassion and understanding from my mom when I was floundering through the loss of my son alone?

My mom passed away almost 10 years ago while I was still deeply entrenched in the denial.  My mother never spoke to me about the loss of my son to adoption.  I never spoke to her about it either.  I wish it was possible now...

Monday, June 25, 2012

These Words Are My Diary...

I've been discovered.  By my daughter.  I have told nobody in my real life about my writing here.  My daughter knew I was active on-line in the adoption world as I have spoken to her about some of it but I had never told her about this blog. 

In this blog I spill all the deep, dark secrets of how I came to be a mother of adoption loss.  I spill my guts here.  In real life I have never spilled it all to anyone.  Not even my husband ~ which is fairly easy because he doesn't ask about any of it, he avoids most adoption talk because he avoids the role that adoption plays in his own life.  I've only just begun in the last year or so to talk to my best friends about how deeply losing Christopher to adoption has effected my life.

My daughter told me that she had found my blog and that she had read it all.  At first I felt sick to know that she knew my deepest-darkest thoughts and feelings.  But her reaction to my writing was so positive, I soon felt relief that she had found my writings and realized that maybe my world wouldn't end if more people in my real life ever found me here. 

Last week I got a new comment on my post about deciding to go or not go to Chicago.  At first I was leery seeing the comment was from "anonymous" ~ usually it's negative replies left that way.  As I read the first words "Seriously Mom?"  I was thoroughly confused for a second.  Why would someone write a comment on here and call me mom?  Then it dawned on me that it was probably my daughter ~ and it was.  Her full comment had me laughing.

Seriously Mom? Go. Just go. What is the worst that might happen? You might cry or something? You might find yourself a little bit closer to healing? Terrible!!! Go. Go for yourself and for all those young mothers out there that don't have amazing supportive parents like I have. It will be good for you. Plus you can stay at Donna's for free and verify that her husband is a real life person and not a cat!

(To explain the last sentence ~ one of my best friends lives near Chicago, we had never met her husband over the years ~ making us jokingly wonder if he really existed)

 After getting used to the fact that my blog had been found, I've started considering telling some of my friends about it.  But I just couldn't get further than a fleeting thought of "maybe one day...".

How many people really spill their guts on their deepest-darkest feelings?  That's what I felt that my blog was ~ my diary where I spill it all.  The stories behind the loss of my son (and the feelings behind those stories) have been hidden in the dark for over 30 years.

I do tell people of my firstborn son lost to adoption now.  I think that most people in my day-to-day life know of him and his place in my life.

But the deeply personal stuff?  The stuff of diaries?  Written here, but not really spoken of...

I have been starting to let my adoption world mingle with my real-life on FaceBook.  I wasn't really prepared for the first time my blog might become a part of my real-life FB page, although I should have been I suppose...  I have to admit that I panicked, didn't approve the tag request linking to my blog.  I wrote a quick email to my daughter telling her what happened and that I wasn't sure how to feel/react/not react.  Here is her reply:
I do want to say, while you have come an amazing far way, maybe this is the universe pushing you to the next step in your journey. I know your feelings and opinions about adoption are personal to you and you keep them separate from your private life, but I hope that's a genuine choice and not one driven by fear. Fear of others with differing opinions disagreeing and therefore judging you, fear of letting people in real life know you (gasp) stand firm on a big issue. 

I started to reply to her that it wasn't my opinions on adoption that I was fearful of, it was fear of everyone reading my deeply personal feelings and thoughts.  In replying that, it dawned on me.  Was what I wrote really too terribly personal, too terribly private and deep?  Or was it that I just felt as though it was too deeply personal? Did it only seem to be so horribly "deep" because of the decades spent being silent on anything related to the loss of my son to adoption? 

So I spent the next couple of nights going back and reading my old posts.  Yes, some of my writing in the beginning was the personal details of how I came to be a mother of adoption loss.  But the majority of what I write here is far from personal.  It's mostly my thoughts and opinions on adoption that I am more than comfortable speaking out about now.

I spent so many years, three decades actually, hiding my truth from everyone in my life that speaking out at all about adoption felt so deeply personal.

In reality it isn't.

I'm still not too sure about letting people in my real life know about my blog. 

But the idea is a little less frightening now.

Although... a soundtrack plays in the back of my head ~
I'm hearing these words from one of my favorite songs:

"2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to.

And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud"

Thursday, June 14, 2012

"The Strings of Life"

I stumbled onto the writing of Dabeshim a couple of days ago.  One of his poems caught me from the very first stanza.  I again am amazed at how the words of someone adopted can be so meaningful to me as a mother of adoption loss.  Below is the poem, interspersed with my own rambling thoughts brought to mind as I read the words. 


There once was a day
The winds were cold, darkness creped as far
As the inside, It had its say
We did as others wished
Serving them on a golden dish.
We knew no other way.
Like marionettes we lived,
Upon the Strings of Life.
Giving no thought at all.


The Florence Crittenton building was a big, old brick building. Dark. Cold. Always. Not the temperature, it was the atmosphere in that building…

I did only as they wished. As society expected of me. I made sure to let them all know that I wasn’t “one of those girls”. I really was a good girl, not a crack-whore. I really did love my baby, I really only wanted the best for him ~ It wasn’t at all that I didn’t want to be a mom, it wasn’t that I wanted to have a life full of fun instead of responsibility. I proved that I really did love my baby, loved him even more than I loved myself. I served my son up to the adoption industry on a golden dish…

What a good marionette I was, right in line being the good birthmother without any further convincing necessary. I already knew that there was no way I would raise a child in the way I was living. I knew that the only way I would be able to raise my child would be to move out of the house, and that would have been impossible on my own. I gave no thought towards the future, only to finishing what I had started by becoming pregnant while unmarried and young. No thought was given to what it would actually be like to give birth to my child, much less live without him. No thought was given to the fact that I couldn’t really ensure that my child would have a better life. No thought was given to what an adoptees life was like, how their life was affected by adoption. I was just following along with what was expected of me, like a marionette I lived…

I returned to school that fall unable to really be myself. I was sure that any classmates who knew of my pregnancy thought of me as either the classic whore or as a heartless person who gave her child away. I never breathed a word of my son to anyone afterwards, losing the freedom to be myself. Always fearful that someone would find out the truth. In addition, without even realizing it, my heart was locked up tight in order to not fully feel the loss of my son. How heavy was the weight of that prison I imposed on myself…

For our own freedom, our own call.
Now after so many years
I awoke to see that the power to live is
In you and in me.
We could be
Light as the air
With the wind through your hair

Free to move, here and there.
There and here, everywhere.
Now that we are no longer tied to the loom.
We can go from room to room.
We are Free at last,
no more strings of life to hold us down,
making us like clowns


In the moment of reading the first emails telling me that my son was looking for me, I awoke. I awoke from 30 years of denial and felt the power, the freedom, of living in my truth. I felt as light as air ~ the weight of that self-imposed prison was lifted. Once I had the chance to bask in the joy and treasure this new life that now included my first born son, I wanted to share the news with everyone. Christopher himself told me that I could go stand on the sandhills of Nebraska and yell the news out to the world. I was no longer tied to the loom that was labeled birthmother. The loom of shame. Shame that wasn’t mine to take on, but that I willingly accepted from the judgment of our society. The loom of despair and grief from the loss of my son ~ loss that I wasn’t even allowed to speak of. Loss that nobody in society sees, much less understands to have any empathy for. (Except for the others who live with the loss of adoption that is)

In talking to the search angel who matched our profiles, I felt as though I had beaten the system. Even though deep down I knew it wasn't true, the remnants of former beliefs were still there. I had believed the social worker when she told me it would be against the law to ever look for my son. Taking on that lie, it tied me further to the loom of adoption loss. Now here I was, being told by an angel named Kim that my son had been searching for me for a while, was very excited and waiting to finally hear from me. Just as I had been tied to the loom of adoption, so had he. In the finding, we were both freed from the looms, we were free to go from the room of secrecy into the room of truth.

The past is the in the past
None of that matter anymore
Yesterday is out the door
Let’s make the most of now
Since time doesn’t last

We made our own many mistakes
Sacrificed the best of ourselves at the stake
Yet we are free now to move every which way
To say what we want to say
no more strings of life to tie us down
making us look just  like clowns


Yes ~ the past is in the past. I can’t get back those lost years with Christopher. I made my mistakes. Many mistakes were made in the years after I lost Christopher to adoption. My biggest wish is that I had been strong enough to live my truth, instead of hiding from it.  For I wasn't really hiding from it.  It was always there, just under the surface, just out of reach of my conscious being.  I not only sacrificed my son, I sacrificed my authentic self. Being silent after the loss of my son to adoption only allowed the myths to continue. Being silent gave the impression that losing my son to adoption was ok. Being silent kept the tremendous loss and grief hidden. Did another mother go on to choose adoption because she saw that my life did seem to go on as before after losing my son to adoption? I will never know. But I do feel that I fed the adoption industry with my silence. The strings tying me down are gone, I am free now to speak of my experience. I am free to speak of the child, now a grown man, forever lost to adoption. There are no self or society imposed strings keeping me silent now. I speak out of the truth of adoption loss on my life. I speak out not because it can change anything for us ~ but maybe I can change something for another mother, for the children of that mother. I speak out now to help another living with the loss of adoption to free themselves from their own loom, to no longer be a marionette of the adoption industry.



We are as light as the air
With the wind through your hair
We have no more cares
That will hold us and keep us,
From ourselves,
like marionettes up on the shelves.

Oh you must believe me!
Oh can you see me?
Can you hear this song I sing?
It brings me here to you!

The strings of life have all disappeared
The strife we lived, sheared and blown away
We are free now to move every which way
To say what we want to say
no more strings of life to tie us down
lifting us high above the ground

We are free now to just be. The strings of adoption no longer control us as though we are only marionettes. I am his mother, he is my son. I love Christopher no less than the children I raised. The strings of adoption could take away my legal rights, but could never take away my love for him.

Oh come with me
And Fly! You will see
The music is playing, the choir is saying
We are Light as the air
The wind through your hair
Free to move, here and there.
There and here, everywhere.
With no more ties
Gone are The Strings of Life.

………………………………

© 2012 Dabeshim

Thank you for sharing these beautiful, yet haunting, words Dabeshim. Thank you for allowing me to ramble on and write of how the words touched my heart.