In fact, half the time I really don’t think I know what the heck I am doing. I just somehow make it happen, half the time, on a whim. I reach out and try to move the world. I bite off more than I can chew, I make myself overwhelmed. I spread myself too thin.  There has to be some crazy reason why I do. I realize that it’s probably an unhealthy compulsion, but I can stop. I don’t think I want too.

I Was a Very Good Birthmother

I am not proud of that fact anymore. I used to be, a long time ago when I wanted to redeem myself and show those nice people at the agency how strong I was, how worthy I could be, how selfless I tried, but now it seems like I was stupid and foolish and let my need to prove something take away something precious.

Then I Became a Very Bad Birthmother

I broke the rules and contacted my adopted son, Max, before his 18 birthday and without the blessings of his adoptive parents. People gave me a lot of grief over that including my agency and also Max’s parents, though not directly since they have yet to ever speak to me or answer my letter when I asked for understanding. I know some people might think that I have no right for any of that since I did break the “rules”. But to be honest, I don’t see it that way. It was just that for the first time I did not put everyone else’s needs before my own. And I don’t think that I suddenly went from selfless to selfish, I just think that I let us be all equal for once. What I wanted, what had happened, was not more important or less, but finally equal. I saw myself as not lesser than them, not the scared young girl anymore, but worthy and worth it.. important enough to contact my child.

I had a Great Beginning Reunion

Storybook like it was with the blogosphere hanging on to every post as it happened. It was great to share it all online and have the support of so many who helped me get there. I had such high hopes. I had such dreams, but now, it’s kind of fizzely. Is that a word? I don’t know, but now.. I feel stuck, confused, lost again…mother, not mother what does it all mean?

But Now I am Some Reunion Expert?

No, not really. Oh, I am thrilled to have this chance to collect and edit the adoption search and reunions stories with GIMH’s own Melanie Recoy, but I am no expert.  I know probably none of us are. We cannot be. Adoption reunions are complicated and fraught with pitfalls which is why I know this collection is so needed and will be such an excellent recourse. Even in reunion, even with this ever growing adoption community online, it’s still so hard not to feel isolated and alone in our feelings.

Muddled in the Middle Reunion

I have to admit, I am lost. Oh, worry not.. I can collect and edit this book like no bodies business. I can present proposals and will talk like sorrowful lightening at the Adoption Initiative where I know my fellow blogging birthmothers and I will make people think and probably cry. But my own story.. I know not the ending or even where it might be going.

Oh I am lucky, I know that. To find my son happy and healthy, I am thankful. To find him at a young age and so welcoming , I am blessed. To have had the chance to meet him, to talk to him, to touch him, top smell him. to see his smile,. to have all my four children together, to hear him laugh.. yes, I hold that dear to my heart. But I want more.

Suz called it adoption  reunion survivor’s guilt and I can totally get down with that. I mean, I feel even worse sometimes when I think of those who NEVER had a reunion, or would give anything to have the combined less-than-one-week-of-his-life-time-together-with-my-child, yet.. I want more. It’s not enough. You know what? I am not happy and content and peaceful about my “decision” at all.

I have two close birthmother friends whose son’s came and LIVE with them! Can I admit how jealous I feel?  But, I am happy for them too.. and yet, it makes me miss my own child just that much more. And I don’t expect him to give up his whole life and live with us.. I know that’s not realistic for us, but wow, what I would give for a good long visit now and then. It’s so hard to think.. well, he’s happy and that good and he doesn’t need you, but then in the same thought think.. he’s happy and too busy and he doesn’t need you.. or think about you or call you or send notes or letters or even bother being online because that is where I live and wow.. he says everything is cool and it really sounds like that but then how come we don’t hear from him more and I don’t know what to do!! Should I be more persistent? Or should I give him space? What if he really is just too nice to tell me to go to away? But then why can’t he just say that? I don’t really want to hear that! So,  maybe he is just busy, but do I have a right to say hey.. what about me.. you’re  killing me here! Or will that just turn him away? I have no right to put guilt on him.. he’s not here for ME.. so argg.. it’s not his job to fix it..rinse, wash, repeat..

And really.. you have to read that really fast to know how garbled that thought is as it runs through my brain like ALL THE TIME.

I want him to write a reunion story for the book I think just so I know what he feels, but I also want to be all nepotistic and get my son published. I want him to go to Kentucky with me for the Adoptee Protest,  so I can get him around more adoptees and maybe he can unburden himself, but I also want to see him. I want him to want to met his father but I wonder if that is because I still feel guilt for denying that man his only child and then telling him 19 years later and rocking his world. I want my daughter to stop bringing him up every five minutes like she does, but I can’t quell her natural emotions without feeling like poop.

I mean, my two youngest play this game that they call “Maxie”. Tristan is the young kid and Scarlett is his mother. Can you hear the weird mental play acting that these two are working through.. or am I just being weird because they choose, of all the names in the world, their oldest brothers who they don’t really get to see at all.. so they play a game in his name. Ouch. Even my dear hubbie, who is not known for being Mr. Sensitive, kept on telling them to play some other “game”. I didn’t dare to do that, it felt wrong to me. And finally, one day he asked, ” Don’t you think it’s weird that they play that? Doesn’t it bother you?” and I had to admit that it did, but what was I to do? they had a right to work it out somehow. I can’t tell them not to And really, what difference does it make.. it’s not like I don’t think about, wonder, worry about what is not happening in our reunion ALL THE TIME.

He made them stop playing it and now I feel guilty about that too.

Yup, I am a Lucky Reunited Birthmother

Everything worked out just as it should, but still.. I spin in my own mental circles worrying myself over everything and wondering what to do next; half the time so paralyzed with fear for doing the wrong thing that I do nothing at all, except bite off more than I can chew and spread myself too thin. I have to put this energy someplace.

***

The best place to keep track of Claudia and her none stop adoption induced insanity is on Facebook where she will friend everyone and like everything while constantly marketing and updating you one all things adoption realted….really, look her up!

If you have an adoption search and reunion story to tell, even as confusing and mudduled as the one above, please consider submitting to EMK Press by October 1, 20210. The Adoption Reunion Book will be stories from all members of the adoption journey: birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents.

Related Posts

• “Mother and Child” Upcoming Adoption Movie Review
• Miracle on Social Network: Facebook Adoption Group Finds Family in Record Time
• Fending Reactions to ABC’s Finding My Family
• There is No Escaping Mother’s Day
• Getting Ready for My Gotcha Day

Hollywood  tries it hands at an Adoption movie again in this film by Rodrigo Garcia due to open May 7th.

Critics Rave for Performances by Adoption Triad

Shown already at both the  Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance, “movie” reviews hail the performances of the main characters played by Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Kerri Washington as both Oscar Worthy and also sang praises for Garica who was both writer and director.

I, however, do not pretend to be a true film critic, but rather look upon anything adoption related for it’s true views and media portrayals of adoption. It was with my “adoption eyes” that I viewed the Screening of “Mother and Child” at the Sony Private screening room in NYC this past Monday evening.

Not Another Typical Hollywood Birthmother

We are first introduced to Karen played Annette Bening. The first scene shows her, at 14, daring to love a boy, then sitting among many pregnant teens in maternity home and then, painfully giving birth. The year is about 1973  and the snapshot images of the unwed mother’s experience is frighteningly true to what many other mother’s describe all too clearly in both Baby Scoop Era blogs and The Girl’s That Went Away. I worry that I did not bring tissues.

Bening, who I have always admired as an actress, seems to understanding some of the finer nuances to life as a birthmother. We are brought back up to the present day where she cares for her invalid, aging mother and the left over tension from things left unsaid is clearly felt in their interactions.

“It’s going to be her birthday soon”, Bening brings up with a hopeful sound in her voice.

Her mother ignores her completely.

Quickly, I can see that she has not “moved on’ from her experience, but continues to be haunted. In fact, in many ways she has frozen to that time when she relinquished; waking up from the often reoccurring nightmare of birth and quickly going to her own mothers bed, like the child she probably still is in many ways. Still, the anger is there in Bening and the avoidance is there in her mother.

As Karen, Bening is emotional shut off. She is going through the motions of life; working as a physical therapist, caring for her mother, but it’s obvious that she derives no enjoyment from anything at all. She is stiff and cold with co-workers, her mother’s caretaker/housecleaner, Maria, and clearly resents/ fears Maria’s young daughter as many birthmother’s also report wanting to avoid all other children and the pain that they bring up.

When her mother dies suddenly, it becomes even more obvious how far apart the adoption rift has caused them. Maria tries to tell Bening that her mother was a good woman and Bening is shocked that the housekeeper is obviously closer to her own mother than she is. Desperately, she asks what did her mother say about her, and when Maria tells her that her mother took responsibility for ruining Bening’s life and had made a terrible mistake by forcing her to give up her child, Bening  breaks down and sobs in a most realistic way.

“I needed for HER to say that!” and indeed, the betrayals of our own families during pregnancy, relinquishment, and the ongoing grief is very difficult to both mitigate through and find true forgiveness from. Waiting for the acknowledgment for 37 years and then losing the chance to ever get it, Bening’s response is pretty true to life.

Overall, I really appreciated how Annett Bening played a birthmother. Difficult, broken, stuck in the past ( constantly writing to her daughter in letters never mailed), cold, removed and knowing that she had nothing left, I think it was an accurate portrayal of a mother in that situation. A chunkier, graying  Jimmy Smits plays her co-worker who is trying to get her eye and you can see that not only does she not know how to interact with him, but she doesn’t know what to do with him at all. However, he persists and upon finally picking her up for a date, she explains what she is about:

” When I was 14, I had a baby and gave her up for adoption, I think about her all the time. I dream about her.  I buy presents that she will never see. I write letters that will never get mailed. I have nothing else”

Somehow, Bening was able to get it and show it well.

Naomi Watts Gives Us an Adoptee Nightmare

Watts plays Elizabeth, Bening’s daughter, now 37. To create this character someone must have read The Primal Wound and took every adoptee issue and wrapped it up into one scary package.

We met her upon a job interview with Samuel L Jackson and she describes upon his request her personal life:

‘My mother was 14 and gave me up at birth. My adopted father died when I was ten. My adoptive mother and I are not close. I left home at 17 and have been on my own ever since. I am not married or have children nor do I have plans to do either”.

She is frighteningly sexual aggressive, cold, calculating workaholic. She runs away from any situation before she can get hurt. She uses her sexuality to control those around her. She is adoptee trust issues personified. She seems to have no real connection to other people, unless she is in bed with them, and even then it’s a stretch, and no connection to her own issues or the adoption at all. Of course, she shows no sign of waiting to search for her roots even though there is no sign of any adoptee loyalty to her adoptive family either. Bonding, closeness, family, connection all seem to freak her completely out, yet she keeps returning to Los Angles, the city of her birth, and doesn’t seem to question why.

Elizabeth is full of extremes, however, and upon finding out that she is pregnant ( though not knowing of it is her boss Jackson’s child or her married neighbor’s), she quickly goes from ” I can’t be; I had my tubes tied when I was 17″ to cursing out the Gyn-Ob who assumed that she would want an abortion. Determined to keep this baby, she runs away from her job, Jackson who is scared of getting attached and hurt by her coldness, and her life.  Now softer, as her belly grows, she strikes up a friendship with Violet her blind 14 year old neighbor who asks probing questions.  When Violet inquires if she was angry upon being given up for adoption, Elizabeth answers “All that anger washed out of me”.

Violet suggests that she should search for her birthmother and sure enough, Elizabeth writes the letter that will go into her adoption file.

While it IS typical for many adoptees to re-examine their feelings of their own births during pregnancy, the 180 degree flip that Elizabeth experiences is almost hard to believe. It’s just a tad too much change in my opinion and too quick, however I think even the unseasoned viewer can see that adoption has somehow effected Elizabeth quite negatively.

The Entitled Prospective Adoptive Mother, Lucy

I found Lucy, played by Kerry Washington, hard to like, not because she was playing the adoptive mother, but because she was sooooo almost predatory in her quite selfish portrayal. I should have like the movie for showing that side of adoption, but I don’t know if it would come across sympathetic or not?

In the segments of Lucy’s story, there are nice attempts to represent some adoption stereotypes especially in her interactions with her own mother who blurts out things lifted from  the “What not to say to adoptive parents” handbook. Lucy prattles in feel good sound bites like ” It’s the  time spent together that counts” or something to the Nun at the Catholic Adoption agency (surprise.. the same nun who was there for Bening!).

We get a little wonky when, her husband leaves the 4 year old marriage mid-adoption because he really wanted a child of his “own” and she continues on with the same perspective birthmother at the same Catholic agency and it all seems ok. I would like to think that a pending divorce might cause any agency to at least have Lucy take some time off to process that emotional upheaval of any divorce, but maybe not? After all the nun does say to Lucy ” You don’t want to lose momentum” pursuing Ray and her baby earlier.

Ray, the birthmother that Lucy connects with, is portrayed  as a very in control “making a choice” type of girl. She is 20 and is determined to place the baby, rejecting a few families before connecting with soon to be single mom Lucy. They never offer any reasons really that she must place except that she is determined to and does not “want” this baby, though she has a list of what she does wants for this baby boy.

One of my personally favorite scenes though is Ray and her own mother in her mother’s store. Her mother says to her:

“I was 20 and single and pregnant just like you and I didn’t want you either and now, not a day goes by that I don’t think about you all the time”

I have to say that Ray’s mother’s wisdom regarding the mother child bond plays in after. After giving birth, with Lucy present in the delivery room, Ray refuses to feed, hold, name or even look at her baby. Lucy and her mother, delighted, leave for the night and Ray’s mom goes to visit her daughter and granddaughter. The next scene shows Lucy and Ray returning to find the Nun and a a guarded door waiting for them: Ray has “changed her mind”. I don’t know quite what to think of the drama shown next. Lucy freaks the heck out and throws a fit screaming about it’s “MY BABY!! It’s MY baby.. YOU PROMISED!!” to the agency nun and the closed door as the guards pin her down on the floor in a heap of crying screaming mess.

I wanted to scream about how pre-birth contact and prospective adoptive parents in the delivery room was unethical and bad for many reasons to both parties involved..

I am not sure if there are prospective adoptive parents would act like that ever no matter how disappointed they might be. I know from reading adoption forums for years that they can be hurt, disappointed, angry  and sometimes downright nasty towards the mother that dares keep her own baby to raise, but to act like that in the hospital?   I also don’t know if the scene played out like that to show how gross Lucy’s reaction was or to make her seem sympathetic? In either case, it’s Ok because the nun, who really likes to play God too much for my taste, has another prospective baby for her that very night!

What I Hated About “Mother and Child”

My BIGGEST complaint overall is that we see both the Bening and Watts characters beginning to search for each other and the film fails to provide any accurate search information much less give any insights into adoption laws and adoptee legislation.

Rather, both characters return to the Catholic Charities Adoption Agency to do the extremely passive search method of “leave a letter in the file and if your daughter/mother returns we’ll give it to her”. Now, I can see that the Bening character might accept that since she dared not search at all until Jimmy Smits not only accepts her, loves her, marries her and agree when his own daughter encourages Bening to look before she “loses more time”. However, Watt’s Elizabeth is supposed to be aggressive, demanding, smart, and loaded with money, so how could a lawyer in this day and age never even think to turn to the internet for finding her own mother?  Watt’s character would never accept the “wait” concept, but would hire a private investigator to find her mother in a heartbeat once she decided to search. So not only was it unbelievable, but for any non informed birthmother/adoptee, they are encourage to go back to the very industry that caused their separation and be pawn again of an imperfect system. Huge thumbs down for that, Mr. Garcia.

What I Liked About “Mother and Child”

Aside from the interwoven adoption line, the movie really did examine many aspects of the Mother and Child relationship, motherhood in general and many emotional aspects of regret, forgiveness, humanity, etc. We see:

• Bening and her estranged Mother
• Maria and her young daughter
• Watts and her unborn daughter
• Smit’s daughter to Bening
• Lucy and her mother played by S. Epatha Merkerson

In fact, one of my other favorite scenes is between Lucy and her own mother. Lucy is shown frantic with the now adopted baby girl crying hysterically in the middle of the night desperately calling her own mother for help. After the baby gets put down by Grandma, Lucy goes off an amusing tirade that I KNOW many new mothers, both adopted and biological have felt and though yet never dared to say:

“I don’t love her. I just don’t love her. She is so demanding. All she does is want,. She wants to eat. She needs to be fed. She needs to be changed. She doesn’t sleep and all she does is cry. I hate her. Who does she think she F*67ing is?”

And to that S. Epatha says, stronger than she ever says in any Law & Order rerun:

“Do you think you are the first woman to ever have a baby? This is what’ mothers do. This is what it means to be the mother. So stop your whining and crying and BE the mother!”

Of course, being that this is Hollywood’s version of life, that is all Lucy needs to be ok from that point on. While a bit harsh in the delivery, I do think that the very same words should be not only expressed by other frantic mothers but said to some other moms as well and not just adoptive either. I would like S. Epatha’s words said to any woman considering adoption because they are “just not ready”.

What Annoyed Me About “Mother and Child”

Overall, despite the sometimes unbelievable drama, stereotypes, and characterizations, I thought it was an interesting and decent representation of many aspects of the emotions attached to adoption from all sides. Clearly Garcia did his homework on some level to make this film, however, because it is Hollywood, it all ties up neatly in the end.

I won’t provide any more spoilers and will just say the expected mother and child reunion scene does not happen which was kind of a letdown as I wanted to see what the characters would do.  However, for most of the main characters, there seems to be a somewhat happy, though bittersweet ending that was a bit farfetched and too pat for my liking. A shocker to two, a few questions left unanswered, a time line that sometimes didn’t quite make sense ( the two pregnancies either went on too long or someone found a worm hole in time) left me feeling Ok, but wanting a bit more in terms of closure.

If it wasn’t for the true lack of adoption search and reunion options, I could say that finally we have a movie that provides the general public with a much more realistic view of the emotions attached to adoption than Juno ever could.  If you plan on seeing the movie, due the world a favor and print out some facts about searches from the ISRR and leave them on the theater seats. You never know who might be helped by this simple gesture.

***

Claudia Corrigna D’Arcy, also known as FauxClaud, writes about her real very non-Hollywood life as a birthmother at her blog:

Musings of the Lame

Related Posts

• Reunion Confusion Strikes All
• Miracle on Social Network: Facebook Adoption Group Finds Family in Record Time
• Fending Reactions to ABC’s Finding My Family
• There is No Escaping Mother’s Day
• Getting Ready for My Gotcha Day

I watched a miracle happen on Facebook.  Just now. It was amazing.

A friend of mine, who is an adoptee, put together a Facebook group asking for help finding her birth family. Yesterday.

By now there are 259 members of the group. All from different parts of the adoption community who came together for help with this one simple plea:

Please Help Me Find my Birth Family

And they did.

Less than 28 hours later; not only were dead ends forgotten, multiple comments relaying information, and a phone number been obtained for the lost birthmother in questions; but one single post said it all:

IT’S HER!!!

Adoption Search Complete

And now, 258 group members wait to hear the next part of the journey. No longer are this mother and child lost to each other; now a new dance of reunion must begin.

I was writing another blog post and watching it happen. I say the post hit my wall, but didn’t get the full gist that people were actively search RIGHT NOW as I was writing. Finally I stopped writing and realized the full magnitude of what I had witnessed. Her search was ended. Success.

Amazing Adoption Community

That alone is beautiful enough, but what brings tears to my eyes is the act of the community here.  People banding together to face an impossible task and not only completing it, successfully, but in record time.

Sharing the emotions of the moment as you live it..online.

It brings back my own happy, crazy memories of when for three days I, with dedicated wonderful online friends, also searched for and found my son.

It reminds me of when I was first making contact with Max and before I would go into MySpace and check for a message, I logged into MSN chat and there was 30 of us waiting, ready to talk me through it, as I read my son’s words for the first time.  One of the most intense moments of my life and I shared it with my sisters online, adoptees, adoptive moms and other birthmothers, before I had spoken about it to friends, family, or even my husband.

It was a  beautiful thing to live through. It was beautiful to watch today.  I could just feel the excitement radiating though every comment as they got closer and closer to finding her.

Hats off my friends. You did good!

And yes, this quote posted means just as much on a small personal scale as it does for all things worth fighting for:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Related Posts

• Reunion Confusion Strikes All
• “Mother and Child” Upcoming Adoption Movie Review
• Fending Reactions to ABC’s Finding My Family
• There is No Escaping Mother’s Day
• Getting Ready for My Gotcha Day

I  find myself really almost perplexed  by the idea people actually have issues with just the name of the dern TV show: Find My Family.  The controversy is getting allot of attention  as even the New York Times took note.

If the public overwhelmingly finds that Find My Family is an emotional tear-jerker and  filled with such wonderful stories, why do some adoptive parents find it necessary to find fault with a lovely happy ending adoption story where everything was perfect?

Find My Family Finds Adoptions Happy Happy Spot

I mean, if we look at the general responses of people; the show makes people think adoption is so lovely and heartwarming.  Doesn’t that help in reinforcing how wonderful adoption can be? If  we take the show on the same level that it represents itself on, then this view of adoption is the kool aid drinking, rainbow farting adoption bedtime story.  Really it was like the perfect adoption reunion three act play written to make adoption come out clean.

The adoption professionals such as  the National Council for Adoption, fully committed to the  promotion of a well executed adoption plan, should like stories and media sensationalism that help give the common folk that warm and fuzzy adoption feeling. After all, that promotes adoption, right?  Look at all the happy endings!

So far, I admit, I could only make myself watch the first pilot episode. Besides making me burst into tears, the story of the Steinpas Family on the first episode of Find My Family did read perfect. They surrendered for all the” right reasons”, went on to be “happy”, the adoptee was happy too, blah blah, if you don’t know what I mean, then watch it.  Everyone said the right things.

No Obvious Put Down to Adoptive Parents

Perfectly written in all 360 degrees of adoption.  Adoptive parents were played out in a glowing positive light. I can’t make myself watch it again to pull out the quotes, so you’ll have to take my word on it I just fail to see why it is truly that horrible to adoptive parents to watch the show. Why be up in arms? How does the implied choice of name “Find My Family” imply a devaluation of the adoptive family?

And we begin, again, the debate of what family is in adoption.

“What About the Adoptive Parents?”

While perhaps this particular show emphasis the search and reunion aspect of adoption and the foundling relationship between families separated by adoption; there have been and are other adoption shows that merely concentrate on the adoptive parents journey and feelings during an adoption.  I don’t know how sympathetic I feel that the adoptive parents in the families were only side bars in the show.  I guess I have been the forgotten part of the triad for too long  to feel that pull at my heartstrings.

Does it always have to be about you?  Can we say narcissistic much? I’m not trying to be mean, but let’s remember that adoption is suppose to be child centered and based on the best met needs of the adoptee.  You can ignore the fact that many adoptees really feel the need to know their whole truths, but no one can guarantee that your child won’t be among those who feel that way no matter how perfect you parent. I know I have heard too many adult adoptees say that their adoptive parents were fabulous and they love them to pieces and wouldn’t trade their lives in for the world, but still, they just have to find out something.

“My Children are with their REAL Family”

I have seen this said quite a few times. Oh, adoptive parent; do you not see that you are choosing to inject the word “real” into the mix?  I don’t understand why you even hear that word?  How is one family more real than another? Both the adoptive family and the family of birth are real walking talking feeling human beings.  The reality of adoption is, no matter how you slice it and what the final happy ( or not so happy) ending is, that a child has two families.  I am not saying that to devalue your parenting through adoption either , but by bringing in the word “real”, you are  doing exactly what you accuse ABC of doing; making one of the families “un-real”.

Find My “REAL” Family

By adding the quantifier ‘real’ you are now creating a situation where if one kind of family is “real” then the other must by default be “fake”; therefore there will be a winner and a loser in adoption rather than the act of love that you claim it can be.  How can you desire to participate in this emotional loss? Why make it a losing situation for someone?

“How can I Explain the Show to my Adopted Children?”

How can you not? How can you not take this chance to open up the doors of communication regarding adoption issues? ABC just made that aspect of your parenting that much easier!  If you are so deeply offended by the show, then how is it that you think your children will feel that they can openly speak to you about adoption should they every remotely have these feelings to search and know? Unless you have an Oscar on your mantel, I am betting that your acting is not as good as you might think and whether subtly or unconsciously, you child will pick up on the fact that you don’t like this kind of discussion.  Use the show as  practice with your own adoptee. Take out those emotions and feelings in a safe non threatening way and explore them together. Give your adopted child the change to think about what it means to be an adult adoptee because no matter what you want to believe that’s what they are.

Can you not see the connections? Clearly as an adoptive parent, I assume, you feel that your children are where they are meant to be in your life.  How is it then, that the thought of your children finding their own roots be that offensive.  Unconditional love is a major component of parenting on any level. Every human being deserves and yearns to be accepted and loved for all that they are especially by their families. The adoption is part of what made your child who he or she truly is. Her biologically background also plays a major part just as your daily love and caring does.  Yet, the adoptee knows that thier life began with another source and the desire to know and connect with their beginnings is often a natural and unavoidable feeling.  Can you, as parents, not accept that in your own child? Can you not see that by rejecting the reality of the other family, that you are rejecting part of your child as well?

As a mother of an adopted child and someone who believes 100% in the  civil rights of adult adoptees to have what all US citizen have; I cannot see how any other parent of an adopted person could not support that Find My Family can help adoptees understand and accept themselves.

Adoption can be a very isolating event that greatly colors many aspects of one’s live no matter how one participates. We owe it to each other to examine and process all our feelings in the healthiest manner possible so we can better support our children as they mitigate though the  world.  For all involved in adoption, I would like to think that we can see though the scripted settings and emotional pulls to find the positive value to a show that brings adoption into the eyes and minds of the public and can open up and demystify so many of the secrets we still carry.

Anger Driven by Fear

Like I say with many things adoption related; if you find yourself really angered by something, then that’s the thing that you need to work on the most.  If you find yourself as an adoptive parent, really upset by biologically families reuniting, then I would advise that you take out those feelings and figure out what they stem from before they trip you up.

***

Claudia’s Inital Reaction  can be found on her blog  where she writes from a birthmother’s perspective regading Find My Family

Related Posts

• Reunion Confusion Strikes All
• “Mother and Child” Upcoming Adoption Movie Review
• Miracle on Social Network: Facebook Adoption Group Finds Family in Record Time
• There is No Escaping Mother’s Day
• Getting Ready for My Gotcha Day

I don’t really like Mother’s Day.

There. I said it. I know I am supposed to be grateful. I know I am supposed to be joyous. I know I am supposed to be thrilled with any aspect of being remembered and appreciated on this one day.

But I’m not and I don’t like the idea of whole dang day.

Mother’s Day is always filled with disappointment. Mother’s Day is never enough.

First, I can blame it on the media and commercialism. This wasn’t the way Mother’s Day was supposed to be. Mother’s Day was intended to be a day when you wrote your mother a handwritten letter and told her how much you honored her. It wasn’t supposed to be the biggest dinning out and gift shopping bonanza for the local mall. They really have gotten out of control with the perfect Mother’s Day on TV. It used to be burnt toast in bed and then mom got up and donned her apron to cook eggs. Now Mom gets a spa day and Dad gives her diamonds. Yeah, I want her life because my Mother’s Days are not like that ever.

Most of my Mother’s Days are spent gardening, alone. I like it like that. See, I was a single mother raising a small boy for many years and it wasn’t like my ex was good at making sure the child bought me appropriately appreciative presents.  I would allow myself to splurge on annuals for my garden on Mother’s Day and then I would spend my day planting them. It was better than giving my son money to buy me something I would have to pretend to adore like a fake Australian crystal mouse. Usually I made him accompany me to the farm stand and help me drag around the blooms.

Then, after a day in the dirt, I would wash off and we would go to Friendlies and have ice cream for dinner.

Just ice cream.

I figured that there was no way I was cooking dinner on Mother’s Day and since there was no one but me to pay for my own dinner, we should make it fun. Needless to say, my kids have all always enjoyed celebrating Mother’s Day just for the Ice-Cream-for-Dinner Tradition.

Remarried now with two more kids, it’s not  like my dear husband is good at making sure the children buy me appropriately appreciative presents, nor is he going to pull out diamonds yearly. I do have lovely sapphires from him and my pearls, but not from a Mother’s Day. He expects me to go out every year to the farmers market and buy a ridiculous amount of plantings and then spend my whole day in the dirt, alone, because that is what I do and I like it like that.  And I do, but an occasional pedicure and a card might be nice.  Just saying.

My own mother has been dead since I was 26. I am 41 now. You do the math.  It’s a long time to live without your mother. I become jealous of people who still have mothers alive on Mother’s Day. Thankfully, most of the people I know have living mothers, but it means that I feel even more out of the loop. I can’t celebrate with my mother. I can only think of her and miss her. When I worked in restaurants that had service on Mother’s Day for years and years after my mother had died, I would refuse to work.  It was not so much that I couldn’t stand being sad, because really I could enjoy the sweet tender-look-like-a-kay-jeweler-commercial moments; it was the nasty Mother’s Day people that made me insane enough to take the day off.

Besides, I had gardening to do.

Yes, I know. I sound like an ungrateful wretch, but I have more. Really.

I have given birth to four children. Three boys and a girl, all beautiful smart and mostly healthy. My first Mother’s Day I experienced as a mother, I was separated from my baby. Two days after giving birth, my son and I left the hospital and two days after that he went home to his adoptive parents.  Aside from the nine months of gestation, I held him close for a total of 48 hours. I would not seem him again for over 19 more years.

Hence, my first Mother’s Day I had to pretend did not affect me at all. Going through the motions of honoring my own mother, buying gifts, signing cards, and then after the cake, as we always had an excuse for cake, alone I cried and missed my baby, wondering when I would begin to get relief from the grief that entered my life along with adoption. No one even whispered a quiet happy mother’s day.  It was as if the stretch marks on my body were caused by some life threatening accident rather than the miracle of birth and if no one talked about it, it might all go away and I could forget.

I could never forget.

For a few years, that was my Mother’s Day until I was pregnant with my second son. Newly married and very hopeful, feeling that the sacrifices I had made for my first son’s relinquishment qualified me for good Karma and happiness, Mother’s Day was hopeful for a little while. Perhaps, after these first years that we struggled, young and in love, we would have our own media moments. But it turned out that love wasn’t quite what we were in and hence, became my years of a single mother.

I had the Mother’s Day routine down pretty good for a number of years.  Handling my own my mother’s death in a grounded way. Trying to make the best of an emotionally change day. Still, on a day meant to honor motherhood, you can’t help thinking of the one you never get to see. You can’t help missing those who are missing from your life.  Mother’s Day, like birthdays and holidays of any sort, become a time to reflect and wonder where your child is and who he honors on that day. Does he think of you? Does he wonder? What is his name and are his eyes as blue?

There were lots of those, spent in the garden. Planting life, breathing spring, remembering. It does not matter when your tears hit the dirt. The earth quickly absorbs them all.

Eventually, my questions were answered. I searched and found my near adult son. We wrote each other messages, rejoiced at our similarities and eventually met and reunited.  Almost sounds like a happy ending, bust out the diamonds and call it a wrap, but adoption, even near perfect situations like mine, almost never have true happy endings.  It’s still very weird.

Your own child, whom you feel like you know, but ultimately, you do not know what you should. You don’t know without thinking whether he prefers creamy or chunky peanut butter. You don’t know how he sleeps when he is dead tired. You don’t know that what the scar is from on his elbow and how many stitches he had from what fall.  Somehow, because he is made of the same stuff, you understand how he thinks, but still, with so much weirdness, you don’t really know what you can expect, what you dare to want.

And so, comes another Mother’s Day.  And while he calls you mom and you acknowledge how lucky you are to be able to share that title, you have to admit that yes, a card would be nice, but there will be no expecting,  only more hoping.  And hoping, I find, often leads to disappointment. Just like thinking that maybe there will be diamonds and spas just like the commercials said.

That’s not my life, though. And really I don’t care about the diamonds. I have my pearls, four small peas in a pod, hanging around my neck for my four babies, all beautiful and smart. My four pearls are always together around my neck, but only once in my life have all four of my children been together in front of my own eyes. I can’t celebrate that. It’s just not enough. I want more, will always want more, and that’s nothing something I can hope for.  Realistically, I can’t even hope for a card.

I am birthmother and Mother’s Day is hardly a celebration of what we have, but what we have lost.

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• Reunion Confusion Strikes All
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This isn’t a “Gotcha is yucky for “some” people so we have to find a new word and enforce it on everyone and judge those harshly who use it” post .

It’s a way for people to share how they feel…hopefully as an adoptee I know so beautifully put it: “All we can do is listen and try to hear each other, and then be open to reexamining stuff if we hear something that makes us think twice.”

My son was born Nov 14, I saw him for the last time on the 16th, and signed off on the 18th. I went home the next day. He went to his new family on the 18th once all was signed off. I imagine that they were thrilled beyond all belief when they got the call to come pick up their new baby. For THEM the 18th is probably a wonderful day in their memory..whether they acknowledge it in any way or not..I don’t know.

I don’t do well the month of November at all.

I had a friend call it recently “the season of Max” and it is well put. Not thinking about it, being totally happy and content with life in general, putting the positive “spin” on it…nothing matters..around Nov 4th, a deep unrest starts. Often I have not been even mentally aware of the cause. It’ like a bad PMS come home to roost…for a long time. I get irritable, weepy, nasty, unrest, depressed, unable to sleep..Eventually, I realize the date and recognize my old friend…ah, yes…that is why I feel this way. Even if my brain tries to forget, I swear the cells of my soul remember and go into mourning. It is like they shut down.

I cannot ignore my relinquished son’s  birthday no matter how much I might try.

I become anxious about “the day”…by time it is here..I am in a bizarre mental frenzy of sorts. Things come back to me that have been dormant all year…new thoughts and memories surface. I always write to my son on his birthday. I always cry. The next few days, I go though the motions but I am living in the past….I go back to the precious 48 hours in the hospital when he was him and still mine…no longer a resident of my body but firmly entrapped in my heart..when I could hold him, smell him, watch his butterfly lashes flick in his minute baby dreams..when I whispered over and over again how sorry I was, how I could see no other way out, how I loved him and how I must do what I would soon do, how I had no choice. The 16th is worse that his actual birthday…I remember the last time I held him, the blinding searing pain of walking ut the door hits me all over with new freshness. Hands down…watching my mother die, young and racked with Cancer, the broken heart and confusion from having my best friend boyfriend of almost 4 years, fiance for one week announce he was gay and drop out of my life forever, living though a crumbling marriage/ divorce, having my next child have open heart surgery…..nothing beats walking out of that hospital and leaving my new born son behind. I still shudder when I think about what compelled me to even be able to do it. I can’t imagine, even been there, lived it, how I pulled that off.

Then there is the muddled blur….the next few days…my memory is hazy though the non stop tears. I remember walking though the mall, shopping for the perfect gifts to leave with my son. The small trinkets that would somehow convey the endless mother love for him and keep me somehow warm and alive to him. My legs still jelly from the birth, stitches inflamed, belly soft but now void and empty, my breasts engorged and leaking..I walked the mall..painfully choosing the perfect pen to inscribe the perfect book, with the prefect stuffed doll for my perfect blue eyed son.

And then the day of the signing…over and over the lawyers? agency reps? judge? I have no idea where I was and who I was with nor anything..but their endless repetition of “no longer your son, no longer any parentla rights, forever ,forever, forever”..untill I wanted to scream from the pain that “forever” brought forth and would do anything..even sign the blasted paper never in my possession..to make them stop.

As an unmet, joyful and excited couple marvelled and cooed over my precious baby, now theirs; I then packing all my meager belongings, waiting for my mother, sad goodbyes, uncomfortable silence, more feelings of shame. As they fussed over the first diapers changed, and made happy phone calls, I was on the cold drive back..5 hours due to traffic into a winter evening sun…mindless chit chat while my body ached to scream “TURN AROUND…I FORGOT MY BABY!” Words never uttered. I was showing them all how “good” I was by being so strong and determined. And with that thought I pushed myself back into regular life and did what I must..I lived. But I was never the same again..and November comes..no matter what has transpired in the 22 years since then.. even with an eventual search and a dear reunion with my now grown man boy son…..and reminds me..No I am not the same. I never will be. I can’t undo it. The day I broke my life in two..I left part of my heart back along that cold winter road..I was permanently blinded by the setting son, the fog of tears…

Yeah..”stomped” on is a pretty accurate way to describe it. There are no words that really convey it. “Stomped” is as good as any. And I guess if “stomped” is just as good as any other word, then “gotcha” is as good as it’s opposite. Just a word? Sure…many meanings..yeah.

I say “Gotcha’” makes me feel yucky all over again..even for just a tad…it makes me shudder. I see it on board, in a thread, a post, a card..and my stomach flops.

Yes, my breath catches. I am not your child’s mother..so your word for your day should not effect me…but is the loss of a child different across international borders? Is the feelings of separation and emptiness any less though different years, different eyes? Are my tears any less bitter, more sweet?

You say “Gotcha” and my mind races back to those days….with no regard to what it might be like, was like, is like. There is no room in the word “gotcha” for me. And while I can understand the feelings of joy my son’s parents had…heck, I comforted myself with the fantasy of what it was like for them..to balance it out, to give the pain some meaning, some purpose besides myself…I like to think that they did think of me..wondered too..if I was sad and feeling alone, empty. Like I thought of them..full of joy..loving my child.

The word hurts me. I have as much control over that small sharp feeling from Gotcha as I do over how I feel during the month of November.

Whether you care or not is up to you.

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One night, look upon your sleeping child and say these words to yourself.

“My child is growing up in a world where they will be denied the same rights of every other American just because he /she came to my life through adoption.”

If that feels like it’s OK to you, then don’t bother reading the rest of this post.

If, though, that statement feels inherently wrong, then please do take notice.

Now I want you to think about if the above statement did indeed, as it is now set up, become the reality of your child’s future. Imagine your child, as an adult, being denied their civil right to their full identity and imagine trying to explain to your now grown child why you never did anything about it.

“Yes, I was aware that you wouldn’t have the ability to obtain your original birth certificate, but I thought.. ( or I was.. or I couldn’t…).. fill in blank here…”

Again, if your reasons feel ok to you, stop reading.

If that feels like a position that you never want to be in, then keep reading.

Right now, 6 Million Americans don’t have access to their Birth Certificates.

If we don’t do something about it, then your child will join those numbers. That’s just the stark reality for Adoptees in The United States.

The truth is though, is that it is really easy to actively take part in the fight for adoption records.

That's me on the left! With Adoptees Linda and Mia

I don’t just climb up on my soapbox and yelled about these issues. I just came back from attending the Adoptee Rights Protest in Philadelphia where I participated in the protest, handed out flyers, spoke to state legislators and aids, and helped man the National State Legislators Convention exhibit booth.  I adore being involved on this level. Honestly, being able to speak to the state representatives and legislators who can assist in changing the current adoptee rights laws in this country is something out of high school social studies class. It really is crazy empowering. I spoke directly to state reps and they were a) often totally unaware of this issue 2) interested in righting the wrong 3) needing more encouragement to make this a winning issue.

I don’t mind at all using my vacation time to physically go and do the leg work in the fight for adoption records; I just need some help from you.  Simple steps really, but often even more important because I can tell you that most politicians are sympathetic to the issues of adoptees, but they are even more concerned about unsetting the birthparents, and often they care allot about the adoptive parents feelings, too. If they hear the support form adoptive parents in numbers, they are likely to listen.

Even if you live in one of the eight states with updated and decent adoptee access laws, you can still be a voice in this issue just by caring enough to spread the word.

Easy Steps to Help the Restore your Child’s Access to their OBC:

• Join “Adoptive Parents for Open Records” on Facebook or Join the Cause to Promote the Adoptee Rights Demonstration and make a point of sharing the information posted to your own profile. Don’t hesitate to invite friends and family members to join either; you would be surprised at how many people really are interested and will support something that they know matters to you.
• You can also go to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration Website where there is a whole page of simple instructions to help the fight.
• On Adoption Voices, there is also an Adoptive Parents for Open Records Group, too. In fact the official Adoptee Protest video has been uploaded and entered to win their contest there and by voting for the video you can help the group win. Since it is a monetary award, the prize would go towards some of the fees for next years demonstration in Kentucky, so giving it a high rating and a positive comment is a quick and easy way to help.
• You can also join Change.org and sign the petition to Restore Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates . Again, ask friends and families to do the same.
• Set up Google Alerts for the words “adoptee and birth certificate”; then make a point of following the links to newspaper articles and blog posts, etc, make a point to shaing your views and state how you support adoptee rights. Again, if you can, share on Facebook, post to Digg, Tweet it, etc!
• Want to directly help out you own state? Chances are in your own home state there is a group which is already trying to get a bill passed:

Arizona
California
Colorado
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Texas
Washington

I know that no matter what state you live in, a quick phone call, letter, postcard or email to your local state capitals greatly helps to put to pressure on the legislation. The groups above usually have information regarding the status of the bills, their numbers and ways to help.  The best thing you can do is put pressure on your state and then ask friends and family to do the same. Once again, Facebook is great for asking folks to care.  Pretty much every state has an easy lookup for your state reps and then an email contact form that you can just fill in, and then cut and paste a request to have them support adoptee rights bills.

Most of the laws that are pending are well supported, like NY, but lack the overall interest to get them called for votes. Or, the legislators are unaware of the overall support and are hesitant to rock the boat. What they need is just a little push.. or a lot of little pushes.  Honestly, this is one area where you could invest an hour and actually know that you have contributed to solving the problem!

Bottom line: There is no excuse NOT to do something for your child’s best interests!

Oh I know there is no guarantee that they will actually be one of the millions of adoptees who care about the rights being denied, but there is no real guarantee that they won’t be either. And really, if only a few more states actually open up their records, especially if they were big states like NY or CA, or Texas and Florida, then chances are the other states will quickly follow precedent! It’s getting close to the tipping point; be part of the solution! We can change the future for all our children and that is something to be very proud of! !  And even if for whatever horrid reasoning, it takes longer, at least, when the time comes, you can look your child in the eye and say:

“I did what I could for you. I fought for your civil rights to end discrimination”.

And for any parent, that is what we are expected to do; the best we can for our kids.

*****

Claudia often stands on her soapbox for adoptee rights over at her blog Musings of the Lame. If you would like to see her in action; check out her YouTube Video montage of the 2009 Adoptee Rights Protest in Philly.

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“But adoption is different these days. Surely, you must think that open adoption is better. Adoption just not the same as what you went through”.

“Really?” I want to say in my best snarky roll my eyes to the god’s way, “Really? You mean human nature has changed so much that mommas actually like giving away their babies?”

But I don’t say that because it’s not nice and then I seem snarky, as I naturally am,  and angry, as I am  naturally not,  and I know no one will ever listen to me. So I try most calmly to explain, once again, that even with open adoption comes the pain from the loss and separation. That even with an open adoption, the birthmother has her primal role as the mother removed and that hurts. That even with open adoption, there is a weird power thing that can happen just based on human nature and what we as society still have ingrained as far as acceptable adoption practices and that the stereotypes are very hard to break.  That even with open adoption, in the most logical of circumstances, that even in a “modern adoption”, the “perfect birthmother” (just like I stove to be during my time), could have feelings very much like mine and frequently do.. though so many will admit to fearing ever letting one iota of a negative thought get heard from the parents of her child least they get wiggy and begin to shut her out.

So, I don’t say it at all snarky, but I try to make sure that it is clear that while I do think an open adoption is better; I still think that there are issues and difficulties invoked and honestly, if at all possible, from a birthmothers perspective and long term well being, one really does want to avoid adoption at all costs. It’s no cake walk and I would not wish this life on my worst enemy.

Bottom line, from my perspective, the foundation of adoption has NOT changed in that way.

A mother and child are still separated by terrible circumstances of life and while often great joy and the best of all intentions are all around, often it really hurts all too much to relinquish and the grief should be avoided. There needs so major overhaul in the adoption industry to get rid of all that, if at all.

But I can tell you that I do see how adoption had changed.

When I began this journey into adoption research and becoming part of this community, I was just as clueless and full of topical stereotypes and societal teachings as the nest person in line.  My first postings at adoption forums back in 2001(?) were honestly full of pride for being a birthmother and I enjoyed, still, being told how strong and selfless I was.

It was when I began to listen to the adoptees, and rethink what I thought to be true, that my own truth was given free reign and I began to feel the grief and loss for what it truly was, not what I desired it to be.  And so, I began to write about that and adoption truth as I learned it.

Back then.. unless you were on a real hard core “anti-adoption” site, no one wanted to hear anything about the pain and grief of being a birthmother. No one.

Max was still a young teen then and still a complete unknown to my life. Just my boy out there, somewhere.. but at least I didn’t get the “your adoption was over 20 years ago” as I do now. No, there were better ways to dismiss me and my words:

• I’m sorry you had a bad experience, not everyone feels as you do. ( but it wasn’t a “bad” experience..it was exactly how an adoption then was suppose to go down)
• You should talk to someone about your anger ( I’m not really that angry).
• You need therapy. (been there, done that..can’t bring back all the years that I missed)
• My (child’s) birthmother is grateful.. you should be too. (okkkkay.. nah)
• You should be happy that someone wanted to be a good parent to your child and did your dirty work.
• The nerve of you to even insinuate that birthmothers ( or usually this came from another birthmother who would be really angry at me!) who make the choice of adoption is anything but courageous.
• And numerous various other forms of just really often vicious commentary.

Inevitably, I would get banned or kicked out of whatever adoption group I was in even if I spoke very very kindly at all times.

There was even a time when I successfully (and then very un- successfully) went undercover just to get to speak my mind as some places banned me on site. For the record, that was a real bad idea though it was not my idea, I do regret that instance.  Needless to say, whether it was other moms, or adoptive parents or adoptees, I was told I had no idea what I was talking about. But I refused to shut up.

Slowly, even on the most “happy-we-love -adoption” kind of places, I noticed that the agreements stopped being all so one sided. And if someone told me I had no clue what I was talking about, they were told otherwise. I had people who could back up what I was saying.  And then there were more people who not only accepted that being a birthmother often means that you get a great big dose of horrendous grief, but they were saying it too. In fact, after a while, there were adoptive parents who I knew and THEY were saying things that I would say about adoption.

When a considering mother would come on new to a board asking about adoption, there would not be a whole bunch of waiting parents sending her to their “Dear Birthmother” web address, but rather adoptive parents telling her to seriously consider parenting, wait till after birth to make her decision, and do her own research.

These changes, as well as working side by side with wonderful and dedicated adoptive parents, being so openly accepted on this blog, and so many other small rays of light on this almost 10 year journey of speaking out,  have given me great hope for the future of adoption and the true possibility of understanding and a real ethical change.

Today, another nugget of pure hope has fallen into my lap. The executive director of an adoption agency has requested permission to have one of my pieces on birthmother grief be included in their required reading for both prospective adoptive parents and also for considering mothers.   The piece is harsh, raw, emotional, and not favorable to the goal of relinquishment at all.  Honestly, it goes against what I would imagine every agency having as one of their main criteria for “pre adoption surrender” reading.

In this, I can say, yes, I see a change in adoption.

Oh it might be small. It might not be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It might not be a game changer. But it is something I never would have imagine happening.

People are accepting what is the real foundation and truth of adoption and there is a true understanding and often compassion to the suffering of a birthmother. People are re-thinking what they think they know about adoption. I see it. It’s incredible.

And I tell you; this internet is a wonderful thing. No one can ever tell me that real change in the world cannot happen with merely a keyboard and 26 letters. I’m watching it unfold and it is truly a sight to behold. In this, it has been a wonderful journey and hope, she carries me on…. next stop Protest in Philly!

***

More glimmers of hope and a healthy amount of natural snarkiness can be found on Claudia’s blog about her life as a birthmother fighting for ethical adoption on her blog, Musings of the Lame.

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As I read my own words of Max’s birth, of the hospital stay, of leaving him, and signing those papers; it all comes back. I see things in my mind with such clarity, such detail, as if they had happened yesterday. I smell things that are not in the room I now inhabit. I feel the sensations still. And with that, the pure raw emotion is still very there.

In truth, I am horrified that I lived this. I do not want this to have been my life. I reject this experience now, but it is ever too late. And I can no more undo the past than I can shed it’s affects. I can only know, by the deep and still lasting emotional hold on my soul, that nothing ever has been so hard and nothing ever has scarred me so.

Trying now not to be affect is almost impossible. Telling this part of the story is like letting a demon out of a box and now it flies all over the room shedding it’s blackness. It is only with great practice now that I can resist, but in all honesty, right now, if I were alone in my house, I would give in.

One crack in my resolve and I will be still in the same place I was 21 1/2 years ago. I will be 19 again and saying good-bye to my baby. One falter, at this second, and the wall will break and I will tumble. Right now, I could throw myself on the floor and, with out a care, allow the deep wailing to errupt from my gut. The sounds that I would make would be animal-like and not human at all.

It would be the cry of a mother who wants her baby back.

I feel so disassociated from this life now.

Like it something that I saw once in a movie or read in a novel. It is hard to remember that it is me and I did live it. It is very hard to remember the true feelings that I had then. It all hurts. It looks and sound’s exciting, but the essence is sadness. I get the sense I was running, running away from my life and trying desperately to find some other life to live. My writings at the time, aside from being horribly adolescent, are overwhelmingly bleak. Constantly questioning why was I not good enough for anyone. I go from great excitement when facing anything new, an abundance of hope and exuberance at the thought of a chance and then quickly and repeatedly betrayed, the despair at that being an reoccurring theme. I am obviously depressed and frequently suicidal. The words are written in haste and running from tears. I am saddened to recognize it in myself, yet angered when I remember that no one else seemed to notice and I was left alone to war with myself.

It seems astounding that no one around me acted as if they were aware I was utterly failing and flailing about in some dramatic spiral.

It was assumed that I would be fine and maybe act like I should. No one told me this, but no one said anything really. Nothing was discussed, or maybe I just blocked it all out? Even now it is more appealing to me to find the fault my own rather than live the reality that no one even noticed. It can make me feel dirty and unloved even now. I can’t believe that I saw this all as normal. Did they all honestly think that that these kinds of things were something that all girls my age went through? All my friends were successfully working their way through school. Laura was parting just as hard, but making the grades. Everyone else was hacking it and I, I dared to fall flat on my face. There was something wrong with me that I was unable to complete things. It was all me. My mother was right. I was truly self destructive as my mother constantly proclaimed.

No matter what the complex clauses, the rational, at 18 my exciting and romantic affair with my boss quickly resulted in conceiving a child while using birth control..

Every time I would tell myself that I just had to tell him and I never could though it stuck on the tip of my tongue like a bad sore.

Now I am a small person and I was even smaller then. I don’t know how I hid that pregnancy as long as I did. It was the end of February when I conceived, and by April I had a pot belly. I know I went to the beach in early summer, wearing a one piece suit that had a huge open cutout for my midriff and kept sucking my stomach in all day until it hurt. I know I wore cardigan sweaters, even in the hot Manhattan summer months, for they would fall straight down from my breasts and just skim my growing belly if I held it tight. No one else ever said anything to me. Not my mom, not my friends. They all admitted later that they thought I was getting fat. There were two other pregnant women at the office and I, as the lowly receptionist, got the errands to run for them. I got their food since they were so tired. I carried their bags since they should not lift. All the while, I knew I was in the same condition they were, but still I obeyed rather than out myself.

I know, in my heart, that he knew I was pregnant.

One night, towards the end, we were in his apartment and he was nosing around my pretty obvious belly. He looked up at me, with a tender questioning look..like “tell me”. I think he even kissed my baby bulge. My eyes again, must have spoken of deep panic, for even with this sweet prompt, I was frozen.  Again, I said nothing.  I can only assume, that my refusal to speak of it, made clear to him that he had no concern regarding the parentage my child. He teased me so about other nonexistent boyfriends, and wondered out loud to Jeffery. I suppose, in his head, it was someone else’s child. After all, if it wasn’t wouldn’t I have told him. That’s only logical, right? But logic was not to rule the day. In frustration, probably as much frustration with myself as with him, I stopped seeing him. It was probably June. He asked me to go out and I refused, angrily, meanly. Maybe he asked once again, maybe not, but he never asked me why. Just accepted that I was done with him and didn’t seem at all concerned. This, of course, made me all the more angry. I was curt and rude to him every day now, every chance I could get, and still, he never asked even why.

It was about this time that Marina confronted me about being pregnant.

I protected my secret with a crazed determination, though for what I did not know. Poor little baby, I would feel it swishing about inside me and, despite all, would feel something close to joy and excitement with each movement. It was like having a real, yet imaginary friend, who I would speak to throughout my day. This little life meant that I was not truly alone.

Working late one night, she called me into her office and in her lilting accent as she was Columbian;

“Cloudia, are you pregnant?”

Of course, can you expect it, I denied it completely. Though I can still hear her words, over 20 years later, rattling in my skull. Somehow I managed to convince her that there was no way I was. Sucked my stomach in tighter and bought even baggier clothes. How could she not have known, how could he not have known, how could my mother not have known when people on the buses and trains knew enough to offer me their seats as I waddled about.

“Tomorrow,” she again proclaimed,” you will go to the abortion clinic. I will lend you the money. You cannot have this baby”

And so I agreed. I tried not to care that I was going to lose my secret friend. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that someone else was finally taking charge and telling me what to do. Someone actually cared enough to make something happen. Someone was going to take me and my terrible mess and fix it. I was relieved to have someone else making decisions. I was relieved that finally the secret was out.

No. Simple as that, it was a no. I resigned myself to having this baby.

I could not hurt my little squishy swimming secret friend.

“Then what will you do? This baby will ruin your life!”

“I will have this baby and I will give it up for adoption”

I had no firsthand experience with adoption. No one in my family had adopted. I knew people who had been adopted, that went to my school. Adoption seemed almost glamorous. They had an air of mystery about them. But that all I knew, the air, I never knew anyone well enough to scratch the surface and speak of what it was really about. I based my knowledge on made for TV movies and novels in the young adult section that were always full of conflict. Reunions sounded terribly exciting and I romanticized the whole event.

Adoption for this baby would be much more noble and dignified.

Besides, it was an answer. I was not going to ruin my life, plus I knew there was no way I could begin to think about taking care of a baby. Win Win. I believed that 100%. I didn’t think long and hard about adoption in order to come to my “decision”. It was more as though once that other road was impassable, and then my brain happened upon the next option in line. Not meaning to make it sound flippant, but once it occurred to me as the only viable solution, then that was it. My mind was made up and my fate was sealed. After announcing my plan to Marina and also, practically, to myself, I had to find out how to set it in motion. Still going in blind, but now with a mission, I at least did some research as to where and how. I don’t think I had a definitive plan worked out when I told my mother. It was still in the “here’s the problem and here’s the solution” kind of mode. Once I had Marina behind me, I was able to make myself deal much more. It wasn’t just me having to force myself to do the impossible; she was keeping tabs and making sure that I kept moving along.

Days before announcing my “condition ” and adoption plan to my mother and friends..

Sitting by the pool below the great fall, walking and ambling along the creek, I was struck by the grand sense of time and my own insignificance. I imagined Native Americans standing in the same place, their everlasting footprint directly below mine, crossing though time, and connecting, as our parallel thoughts were engrossed in the magnificence and the power of nature.I imagined the child I carried standing in the same shadow, years into the future, and tried to infuse the feelings of love and sorrow into the environment. I wanted this spot to call to him, place dreams of waterfalls in his head, to be able to speak to him though the years. My head and heart were filled with such musings, for now, with a plan in mind, and life for the babe ensured, I could allow myself to begin to really explore my feelings for the small being inside me. Knowing that there was a future, began to allow a connection to the presence. It was that weekend among the beauty of nature that the nature of my body took over. In my head, in my heart, I became a mother.

I was forbidden to tell my friends of the pregnancy.

They would tell people and then everyone would know. My mother didn’t want people to look at her funny. Not even Laura, my best friend. Laura would tell her mother, she would and then Maureen would look down on my mother even more. It was bad enough she was divorced and Laura’s family was so perfect. No, no way. I was not going to be able to see my friends again. I begged one night. We were planning on going to the movies to see the Lost Boys, an 80’s Vampire movie. It must have been days after she was told, but enough time had passed that the plan had become more concrete. Just this one more time. No, I promise I won’t say anything, but I have to tell them something. I can’t just disappear. They will freak out; I have to see them first. After many promises, she gave in.Of course, I lied and once in the car, I announced my plan. Actually, there were other future plans being made, either more camping or a concert, something. I know the poll was being taken to see who could go, I boldly announced that I would not be able to join in on the next great adventure.

Why?

Because I will be in Boston. I am moving to Boston to have a baby and place him for adoption.

silence..utter silence……

I still have my plane ticket sent to me by the agency. The date says August 21st so I know that is the day I went to Boston to have my baby.

My mother and I were barley existing together at that time. There was at least two weeks between leaving work and getting on the plane. During that time, I had to pretend that everything was just hunky dory. That meant pretending to go to work everyday, but not going. My brother would go to school, my mom would go to work and I would stay home alone all day. That part wasn’t too bad. It was when my brother would get out of school that things got tricky. My grandfather would come over to meet my brother and hang out with him till my mom got home. It was about three hours a day. I was supposed to be at work , and couldn’t dare let Grandpa see me in my pregnant state. So from three thirty to sixish every day, I would have to hide out in my room ala Anne Frank: “just lie on my bed, can’t move, can’t walk, can’t go to the bathroom, no TV, no eating” just wait it out in silence. It was unbearable. I felt like a leaper.

The other thing that I do, to this day, feel uncomfortable with was how the adoption agency handled my baby’s father.

For whatever reason, I was still very sure that He could not be told. Since I did know who my baby’s father was and where he was, I was advised to not declare him on the birth certificate. He would be listed as “Unknown” even if he was, indeed, very known. The agency knew how to deal with this sort of situation and I was assured not to worry at all. It would be no problem. And as long as I didn’t tell him, I was happy. I didn’t care what they did.  What they did do was run an ad in a NY newspaper in the legal section. So much for any promises of confidentiality. One of those smarmy things that sometimes can be see even today that means that a man is being denied his chance to parent his child. If He ever saw the ad, which I doubt, he did not respond and he lost any right he could have and was made, legally, unknown.

And then it happened, the feeling of release, then the quick shoulder push, and then the swoosh as he slid out of my body. I can still feel that.

It was the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced.  Quickly went the cries of, “It’s a Boy!!” which shocked me, as in the days before ultra sound, I was convinced to his femaleness. A boy?? Who would have thunk? And then in the requisite white receiving blanket with pink and blue stripes, donning his blue hat, I held my son for the first time. His eyes were open and he was very calm, just taking it all in. Big blue eyes, looking about with his hands folded in front of him, fingers entwined. He looks much more together than me in the pictures as I still looked terribly stoned, but that was it. He was born.

I have from that time, and outfit that I had purchased for him before hand.

A little baby bunting with a hood that I dressed him up in and took pictures. He promptly spit up on it and I have kept it, never washed, the stain now brown, ever permanent mark of it’s singular brief tenant of its warmth. I have a bottle of water and disposable hospital nipple that he was fed. The water long evaporated, but perhaps his residual DNA remains. I have this silly blue bear stuffed animal that came from somewhere…One of the nurses, found me scissors and we carefully tied off a lock of his hair and snipped it off for me. Still tied in a bit of blue embroidery floss from all the silly bracelets I wove, it has that baby softness and delicate shine. It has never seen the sun, nor shampoo..always lived it’s existence in a pure white envelope.

I made the most of my brief time with him.  Talking to my new son, loving him beyond all reason, trying to explain what must come to pass. Only recently have I recalled the words I whispered as I held him close,

“I am so sorry. I have no choice. This is what must happen. But I will never forget and I will find you again my baby. I love you. I am so sorry”

Leaving that hospital was the single hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life.

Minutes before walking out of the hospital, saying goodbye and praying for forgivness.

I was dressed, showered, and ready, but sitting in the rocking chair having my final moments with my baby. I know that I did not feel that I could physically manage to do it. I had no clue on how I was going to be able to walk out of that room and away from my baby. I think I said something to that effect. I doubted if I really could.  We took some last photos, and I knew that they were all waiting for me to do it. There were people watching, but they were trying to let me find the moment and strength. Finally, one of the nurses got the bassinette for me and brought it in. I am thinking she was kind of pushy and brightly insistent on my putting him in.  I held him and I cried now. No longer strong, no longer brave, just broken. And somehow, I walked over to the bassinette and placed him in. Somehow, I communicated that they could walk him out. And somehow I stayed within the confines of my body and managed to hold myself upright as she pushed him out and closed the door.

The click of the latch still rings in my ears. Final.

The next day marked the end of the 72 hours that had to pass before I could sign the relinquishment papper. It was the 18th of November.

I don’t know where we went to. It could have been the agency; it could have been a lawyer’s office. I think that either Jeanne or Liz from the agency was there. And someone else..a judge, a lawyer?? I have no idea. I HATED this part. I wanted it to be over. I don’t know how I could have done it either. I know that they read it all to me, over and over again hearing the words.:

“You will no longer be the legal mother of this child…no more..forever, forever, forever”

It rang though my ears like a harsh tolling bell of death. The words cut me like razors, I just wanted them to shut up and be done with it. Yes, yes, whatever…just be quiet, stop saying that, where is the pen? I signed…witness signed? I think maybe Joan signed. I recall it being dark. Maybe it rained that day? The room was dark and depressing. I knew that after this, after I did this part, he would go home to them. He had been released from the hospital and was in an agency foster home until he was legally free of me. I know I signed custody of him over to the agency, but I have no idea if then, I received copied of the paperwork. I know I do not have them now. I very well could have thrown them out, so hated was the papers. The very thought of them, what I had to do, made me sick inside. I disassociated from it all, and just went on automatic. I would be strong and do what I ought, what would make them all happy and cleanse me, make them proud. No tears, no wavering, determination.

As an unmet, joyful and excited couple marveled and cooed over my precious baby, now theirs..

I was then packing all my meager belongings, waiting for my mother, sad goodbyes, uncomfortable silence, more feelings of shame. As they fussed over the first diapers changed, and made happy phone calls, I was on the cold drive back..5 hours due to traffic into a winter evening sun…mindless chit chat while my body ached to scream “TURN AROUND…I FORGOT MY BABY!” Words never uttered. I was showing them all how “good” I was by being so strong and determined. And with that thought I pushed myself back into regular life and did what I must..I lived.

But I was never the same again..and November comes..no matter what has transpired in the almost 22 years since then..and reminds me..No I am not the same. I never will be. I can’t undo it.

That day, I broke my life in two with adoption.

I left part of my heart back along that cold winter road..I was permanently blinded by the setting sun, the fog of tears.

All I remember of the drive was the sun. Traffic and the sun. Wanting so much to put it behind me and move on like I was promised I would. Wanting to just go back and start anew. Wanting to never have left the confines of the hospital where we were still together.

Coming home, after relinquishment, I tried to live the life adoption have given me.

It was when I tried to sleep that the ache began. An ache like no other. Broken heart, grief of death and mourning, sickness and despair all rolled into one. It physically hurt. Like one’s soul and heart was truly breaking. It was a battle against the tears, for once they started to fall, then nothing could make them stop. So often, I lost. I would cave to the awesome power and it just would fly out, full force, like a monster out of the box. All the demons, self doubt, hate, despair, sorrow..and oh..to miss him.

The silent screams of a birthmother in my pillow. That deep hiss when you allow force to be expelled, but will your vocal cords to not make a sound..just a squeak..and then that gasp on fresh air. The choking on the breath, as if you could turn your skin inside out. Tears just falling, soaking my pillow, snot running down, into my mouth..exploding the tissue when I would break and blow. Fetal position. Curled up in a ball. Whole body shaking. Pain. Pain. Pain. Oh God, just make it stop.

I need this to stop, I can’t do this. Who can make it stop, Who can I call. Stare at the phone and wish, think of everyone I know, but there is no one. no one, no one. Alone. everything is tense. My body is a rock. My hands clench so tightly, that my nails cut into my palms, but the pain is good. The blood is right somehow. It least that pain has a cause, a reason, and it will heal. Punch the pillow. Grip the edge of the bed for dear life The room spins.

Oh God, my baby, my baby, I want my baby…

****

Even More sordid details about her journey into the Life of a Birthmother can be found at Claudia’s blog, Musings of the Lame. While never ending, the full birthmother confessional is there.

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My dear friend and adoptee, Celeste Billhartz, had a lovely article about her work in a recent article on the Akron Beacon Journal’s Ohio.com. Celeste is the author and performer of The Mother’s Project, multi media tribute to the Mother’s who have relinquished children to adoption. It’s an amazing and deeply moving, heartfelt moment when Celeste reads one of her poems or songs, as her compassion and true empathy and sorrow draw you in. She understands the mothers of the Baby Scoop Era so well as she was as a baby a product of this machine.

Ann Fessler who authored “The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade”   is, by nature,  a multi media artist, and like Celeste, Ann, was also an infant adopted during the Baby Scoop Era. Also like Celeste, Ann traveled around the country, finding and talking to the women who had been forced to give up their children to adoption during the Baby Scoop Era.  For anyone who is going to have adoption in their lives, then this book is a must read for them to understand the very foundation from which modern adoption is built on.

Both Women are truly amazing to be around. Both The Mother’s Project and TGWWA are strong in a truthful message that adoption is not all what it seems. It’s not always a good thing at all and often, when you hear these stories, we have to admit that some things were very, very wrong.

The Baby Scoop Era was a Dark Time for Adoption

Usually define as the period post WWII spanning until Roe vs. Wade, the Baby Scoop Era produced almost 5 million adoptees . Go to any adoption related event and you will see them all. It seems like everyone you meet is from 1964, or ‘67, or ‘68.  Mothers, fathers and the now adult adoptees, sometimes, together, sometimes apart, but so many from the 60’s alone; it’s remarkable.   One study reported that 1 of every 40 children under 18 years in the United States is adopted (Kreider, 2003)and the number of American domestic infant adoption birthmothers is somewhere around 10 million. Though officially over in the early seventies, I personally know Mother’s as late as 1980 and 1986 who were treated with true lack of choice and coercion, not unlike the mother’s of the defined Baby Scoop Era.

The Central theme in the BSE, is the use of shame, lies, and outright fraud used by most religious or charitable maternity homes of Post War America.  Bottom line was that if you were a blue collar or above, white “nice” girl from the  shiny new suburbs, and you got yourself pregnant, then either you were getting married real fast and might never live it down, or you went away. In 1970, for instance, 80% of the infants born to single mothers were placed for adoption and it’s not because these girls wanted to. It’s because, By the end of World War II, the adoption industry in America had all their ducks in a row. It was considered one’s “patriotic duty” to reproduce and create greater numbers of free American’s to combat the numbers born in communist Russia and China. The American dream was in full force, creating the suburban sprawl and the perfect family values we now hold dear. Coupled by war wounds and just general infertility as suffered by women, being “barren” and unable to produce the requisite 2.5 children was seen as a social flaw, but not openly addressed

Before the Baby Scoop Era, women who succumbed to love and found their fertility to be an enemy, had little hope of finding home nor employment and turned to various charitable organizations in desperate need of help. Some of these homes, such as the Florence Crittendon Homes, had ethical beginnings, housing and caring for women and children together until they were able to move on. They gave them support and medical care, parenting and job placement, but changed their focus as society’s and various “professionals” views were redirected.

Social Workers Experiment with Adoption

Newly embracing the study of the human mind, social work become a true profession and many a social worker thought themselves more knowledgeable and infiltrated the maternity homes which were dens of social woes waiting to be ‘corrected”. With Freud as their guide, a woman who dared to exercise her sexuality was seen as “immoral” and deviant in mental nature. Rather than helping mothers and children, the shift began to move to the realm of punishment:

“Unwed mothers should be punished and they should be punished by taking their children away.”

Dr. Marion Hilliard of Women’s College Hospital, Daily Telegraph, (Toronto, November 1956)

The stereotypical story of the girl who goes off to “visit her aunt” in the middle of junior year and comes home to whispers, is hauntingly accurately true. We all know that girl or, if too young, know someone that did. I always found it amusing when people would criticize the methodology of Fessler’s work by accusing her of only picking the mother’s who regret the relinquishment of their babies, but as I have heard Ann say, “If I had found some mother’s with a different story I would have told it. I never found any.” Sadly, in my almost ten years of being involved in the adoption arena, my experience is sadly the same. Most mothers I meet are regretful that they lost their children to adoption and most mothers’ from the Baby Scoop Era were forced.

In the Baby Scoop Era, mothers were shamed into surrendering their children if born out of wedlock and given no choice at all.

” Illegitimacy is taboo in our society. A child born out of wedlock carries a stigma for life, while his unwed mother is often treated as a social outcast – an irresponsible, sexual delinquent who must be forced into seclusion as punishment for her flagrant violation of our most sacred principles.“

Forced by their own families into maternity homes, ostracized by society, denied employment and a place to live, mothers signed away their children because they were “bad girls”. There was no redemption, just secrecy and false stories “moving on” and “getting over it”. What the professionals thought about adoption at that time was wrong. What they believed was truth for child rearing, child abuse, most diseases, addicyion, wife beating and rape was wrong,  too. Adoption during the Baby Scoop Era was Pop Psychology results in a social experiment gone wrong.

The Baby Scoop Era and Today’s Adoption

Personally, I am sure that this is one of the main reasons the agencies lobby so hard to continue sealed records. If adoptees have access to their OBC and wish to find their birthmothers, there is a good chance that the story that mother tells is much closer to one you would hear from Celeste at TMP rather than the vanilla version reported down from the adoption agency file.  I think they fear the sheer numbers who will tell their stories and realize that there was a great miscarriage of justice. The adoption agencies know that they have secrets and lies to cover up, and open records would expose the truth.  Don’t people have the right to the truth? It might not be about you, but it is because you have a stake about what it means to be involved in adoption.

I think we have to do more than just say “well, adoption is different now” and try not to see the dark side of adoption as shown by the Baby Scoop Era. It not only was very real and caused much unnecessary heartache, but also shaped current adoption practices today. After many years of making substantial monetary benefits from the practice of adoption, the decline in the number of relinquishments, caused these now long established agencies to examine adoption and repackage the message. Studies were conducted on Baby Scoop Era mothers and the results of those studies were used to help redefine how the public views adoption.

Studies like such continue into “modern adoption”. Also using Mothers who had previously surrendered A well know public research marketing group advertised for mothers to come forth for research from Texas and Chicago areas. They paid 51 mothers $100 each. Mothers did not know what they were being question for or who the final “client” was.  They report being blindfolded the whole time, making them relive the trauma of their experiences so that the researchers could

“take an inside look at the psychological pressures that come to bear when a women decides how to address the painful question of abortion, adoption or motherhood….and understand more about how the counseling process can affect women’s choices as they decide their futures.”

The results of this research became the grand NCFA publication, Birthmother, GoodMother: The Heroic Story of her Redemption. The findings conclude that:

“After working through their fears and conflicts, birthmothers choose adoption because they believe that it is best for their children. They realize that adoption is not abandonment; it is a loving, responsible act. By choosing what is best for their children, birthmothers see themselves as good mothers. Instead of feeling like bad mothers for abandoning children or “giving them away,” they now begin to see that placing their children with loving couples is what it means for them to be good mothers. They redeem themselves, transforming their mistakes into positive outcomes. Adoption allows them to recover their self-esteem, restore their identity, and renew their dreams and goals.”

I don’t know. That still sounds like social engineering to me.

Understanding the Baby Scoop Era means Understanding US Adoption

No matter how much we want adoption to be ethical and right, we cannot achieve that until we see what is dark and wrong. You can’t fix something if you refuse to see that it can still be broken. What’s more, you can’t truly fix what has been broken until we acknowledge that people have been wronged.  It can’t be denied in existence, or dismissed in its importance, nor ignored as an influence. You are here, you are involved in adoption in some way or thinking about it, this is the history, this is the heritage.

This is the Baby Scoop Era and it is your story too.

***

When not found  ranting about life as a birthmother for over 20 years on her blog, Claudia longs to attend adoption related confences where she can talk about adoption for days at a time. Her next public appearence will be at the Adoptee Rights Protest in Philly on July 21st.

To read more about the Baby Scoop Era:

Adoption Healing… A Path to Recovery for Mothers Who Lost Children to Adoption

Unlearning Adoption: A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection

Related Posts

• Reunion Confusion Strikes All
• “Mother and Child” Upcoming Adoption Movie Review
• Miracle on Social Network: Facebook Adoption Group Finds Family in Record Time
• Fending Reactions to ABC’s Finding My Family
• There is No Escaping Mother’s Day