New Beginnings of a Girl just trying to make it in the world.: October 2015

REAL EXPERIENCES:

Adoptee and natural mom voices-

Take it from a nmom do not surrender your child. It's a grief that never goes away. It does affect the child contrary to beliefs." (nmom means natural mom) It's what the adoption community uses.
"I would say to her, that no other person can substitute the bond she has with her child, that having your natural mother means more than money, things, and toys, being with your natural family gives you the security and identity that nothing else in life can, and that she was made to be the mommy for her baby, I would also ask her to think how she would feel if someone made a choice for her, without her being able to input anything (like what is done to the adoptee), & how does she know should she choose adoption what the outcome for her child would be... I am an adoptee just please consider."
"I am both....i have mixed feelings but need to know the situation to really comment. Adoption can be healthy, but that's rare."
"This is a temporary "challenge" and such a forever and ever "solution." Think about how you would feel knowing nothing about your own child, no name, if they are happy, where they are, if they are alive. This would go for your child's children - your grandchildren. Adoption issues carry on to the next generation. I am a 44 year old adoptee and I feel very sad that I don't have that genetic reflection on my side not only for me but my kids as well. It would really help me raising them to know where I come from- good bad or ugly. Having my aparents does not fill this. There is absolutely no guarantee that the aparents even have more money , stay married or have dealt with their infertility. Having been brought into a family to help with infertility doesn't work. There is always the sad shameful experience of trying to pretend there is a bond when there can't be. The only real bond is between a mom and her own baby. Its physiological and its the ONLY real bond possible - its the way we are meant to grow and develop. Interrupting this goes very much against the way we are made to be. Having two "moms" is hard- presently - I have none. Being a mom should never be such a question mark. It should not be a choice. It just is. Even if everything is not perfect- i hope this helps and you realize how very very important you are to your baby."
"I am an adoptee, my entire life there has been emptiness, a hole where my Mother should've been. I hurt and cry for her every day. No mother was or is better for me than mine. I need and miss her, it's horrible. I'm 36 years old and it's still horrible. My children are without their Grandmother. This will always haunt me. I can't put into words the pain inside me. I would give anything to be with her. Please keep your baby. You are best for your child, no one else."
"Don't make a temporary situation permanent."
"I am an adoptee from the early Baby Scoop Era. From my experience I would say to keep your child if at all possible. Reach out to all possible positive resources. Even with so-called open adoptions, which usually close, there is too much room for secrecy and lies. No matter how much the prospective aparents pretend their adopted child is a natural child, as someone else mentioned, 'The physiological bond can happen only with a natural mother and her natural child.' There is also the chance that the prospective aparents want a child to replace a younger age child who is deceased.This is what happened to me. I am currently having DNA done so as to prove my correct age so as to obtain my correct Soc Sec. My abducted identity has been a lifelong hassle for me; the amom I ended up with never stopped trying to prove me mentally incompetent in order that I could not bring her to justice. She passed away about three and a half years ago. My natural mother, who was a child bride, I am suspecting passed away almost two years ago."
"As far back as I can remember, I told God that I would give up every gift, my home, my clothes.....everything.... just to be with my mother. I'm an adoptee, 48 yo still searching for my mother. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING can replace a mother. "in the best interest of the child" ... the only thing that is in the best interest of a child is for her/him to be with her mother. I have a hole in my heart where my mother lives. I still pray I might find her in time. Temporary difficulties can be overcome. Losing your childhood can't. I am a mom now too. I struggle financially, but my children are happy, loved, and whole. On this Christmas Eve, I know my children 17 &13 are not making bargains with God. I'm so grateful for that. I'm 48 and this Christmas Eve I'm bargaining with God. Please, please bring my mother and I together, please God, time is not on our side."
"I am an adoptee who struggles each and every day over the loss I experienced as a baby. I feel that things would have been so different for me had everyone known about the effects of the "primal wound". I think an expectant mother considering adoption should read the book Primal Wound, before she makes her decision. If these issues were addressed when I was a child, I don't think I would be an emotional basket case - collecting social security because of my mental health issues. My adoptive family was good to me. They gave me a much healthier stable home than my bmom could have.I could never personally walk away from my children, but I can understand a woman knowing she couldn't provide for her child, or knows that her lifestyle would put the baby's life at risk. I can respect and admire her courage, if she faces this kind of dilemma.I think she needs to ensure she does everything she can to insure the child's mental health as well. Oh and Above all, DO NOT DENY A PERSON THEIR HERITAGE. One of the worst things about adoption is having your truth, your birthright stolen from you. I would remind her that us babies who are adopted, we grow up to be PEOPLE. It sucks being 45 years old And still going through an identity crisis. Emotionally, I'm still an adolescent. Its ridiculous."
Think about where you were and what you were doing 18 years ago. How much has changed in your life? Your life could change just as much in the next 18 years, as could the lives of the hopeful adopters. For the first few years, babies really just want their mommies. They don't care how much money you have, how big your house is, if you can buy them the latest brand name clothes or expensive toys. By the time your baby is old enough to care about those things, you could be happily married, have a great career, and be able to give your child everything they could possibly want. On the other hand, the hopeful adopters could have gotten divorced, lost their jobs, or met with a variety of other misfortunes- but if they have your child, they will not give that child back, no matter how messed up their lives are, or how perfect your life is. Adoption means giving up all control over your child's life, and not being able to take it back no matter how much you regret it, or how awful the adopters turn out to be. Sure, you can agree to an open adoption, but it's not legally enforceable, they can cancel anytime, as soon as the ink is dry, the second your child shows any preference for you over them, or when you start getting uppity because you can't stand how they're treating your child. Adoption means it's their child now, you're just an incubator, a birth thing with no rights."
"I would tell her that these adoption agencies are really dealing with child selling. I resent being a product that was sold and having my entire identity stolen. She will have NO guarantee that the adopters will not abuse her child. Her child will not have a better childhood, only a different one. Her baby will be raised by complete strangers. Her baby will be at risk for suicide. The pain of being given away can be unbearable. This will cause lifelong issues for her and for her child. She will have post traumatic stress disorder. She will NOT be able to undo this. As an adoptee, I wish with my whole being that I was kept with my mom instead of being raised by strangers. Finances are temporary. The adoptive parents could go bankrupt too. The only guarantee is she and her baby will experience life long loss."
"I write this as an adoptee after 42 years. I have healed from the fracture of the separation. I have also seen the love and joy of my adoptive parents. I am now closest to my adoptive mom than I have been my entire life. I have a family and the hole that was I my heart for those many years is no longer. I found an answer to the pain a couple of years ago. I offer this if you can find it in your heart to raise your child do so. If it is not, then somehow supply this child with the resources to heal from fractures and answers to their questions. There are challenges that cannot be seen from someone who has not been an adoptee. With Love and guidance."
"I wish all of society could see the real truth behind adoption. Look at the statistics of adoptees in mental institution, and suicide rates. We are a way above average statistic. Adoption is not the solution to anything. I wish so much my mother had had help. I know my mother tried to keep me. I know she tried very hard for a year to beat the system. But in 1966, the term single mom didn't exist. Yet my mom tried, and still lost me to adoption. But not today, I am a SingleMOM, and proud of it. So proud of it that I named my very small business on ebay after it. Mom's want their babies. Babies want and NEED their moms."
"As someone that was separated at birth from her nmom, I would say to her that she is the very best person to raise that baby. The wound that the baby experiences from the separation never fully heals. Babies that are separated by adoption have life-long trauma.Invite her to read The Primal Wound to understand just what it is that she is considering.Our culture is still learning the impact of this experiment. It's not working. Stats say that the children do better with their poor mothers than with strangers, even strangers of privilege."
"I'm a reunited mother (23+ yrs). I would tell her that NOTHING is more important to her baby than she is as well as nothing is more important to her than her baby. Tell her that she will NOT remain this age forever and her baby will not be a baby forever. Life will go on, opportunities will come along, things WILL get better! I would tell her to take advantage of every possible program available to keep her and her baby together and they will make it.I don't know of anyone who wishes they'd lost their child/ren to adoption or lost their parents through adoption. I know untold numbers of people who are forced to go through life bearing the burden of endless regret.I wish you and ultimately her and her baby well. After 47 yrs all I can say is I wish there had been just one person in my life who helped keep families together. Mine and my son's life would have turned out completely different and life would have turned out fine...much, much better than it did."
"And I'm a 57 year old adoptee, still searching for my mom. It NEVER goes away. I was 21 myself when I gave birth to my first of four children. It wasn't easy but we made it on the other side. Adoption isn't the answer it never will be. I have a terrible time with my a parents. Never bonded with them. Makes me sad that I was put in this situation. Guessing my mom had no say so back in the that 1950's. Moms today do have a choice. They should know their rights. The selling of babies is horrible and what follows down this path is an everlasting situation that never seems to go away. I will always be an adoptee searching for my close family. Adoption should not be an option in 2014."
"The statistics for long term risks for mental health issues are about 4-5 times worse for the natural mom who relinquished!"
"Adoption is traumatic on both the mother and the child. The nmom experiences emotions such as guilt, shame, ANGER, and rejection. When I placed my son for adoption, I had nobody I could talk to. My parents acted as though the pregnancy did not happen and the baby did not exist. I felt lost in this nightmare, having to find my own answers to why I felt the way I did. It was nothing more than a emotional roller coaster that wouldn't stop. The PTSD was unbearable at times. I would totally lash out at anyone. It could have been them wishing me a good day and I would still rip their head off. The ANGER almost destroyed me. I could not be around babies without crying, yet nobody understood why I was crying. My heart was breaking from yearning for my baby. Even sitting here writing this is hard, I have tears streaming down my face. Keep in mind it was 40 years ago that this happened. It took me 34 years of searching, opening sealed documents, and joining organizations like ALMA before I received the phone call. Our reunion was bitter sweet. I had such a wall built up to prevent any more pain, my natural son felt as though I didn't want him in my life. OMG! I let down the wall and the emotions came flooding out. It is hard to get what needs to be said in one sentence or two. I haven't even talked about my natural son's feelings. Long story short, he felt rejected, didn't belong to the afamily, but didn't know why until his amom finally took him aside and told him that he was adopted as a baby. He was brought up in a Christian home with all the love a child could want. But like he said, it wasn't enough. He knew there was more but did not know how to deal with the emotions he was feeling. He was fighting the bond that we had. There is nothing stronger than a bond between mother and child. Today, my son is 40 years old and lives maybe 5 miles from me. He has given me a beautiful grand daughter. While the road is still bumpy, we are trying to achieve a mother/son relationship that was denied to us both many years ago. The scars are still there, the pain is still real. I would encourage any woman considering adoption to seek out all the information she can. Visit a home for unwed mothers, such as, St. Annes Maternity Home located in Los Angeles, CA. I would fight for my baby and try to find a way to care for the baby."
"I'm being very brief here, but I can tell you that adoptees are over-represented in addiction; being separated from your natural mother, no matter how fabulous the circumstances in which you grow up, will give you problems and issues you never otherwise would have had. Please keep your baby. Your baby will be so much better for it!"
"I didn't speak about the long term mental health issues that I've had to deal with since I was 8 years old and all the way to today 57 years later. All due to the fact that the bond between mother and child was broken. That is another area that many don't even know about. Today is Christmas Eve in Denmark this morning I asked my husband if my mother was thinking about me that's how strong this subject is. It never goes away. Never. I will continue my search with nothing to go by. No name, no non- identifying information. Nothing but my DNA. Montreal Canada can't find me in there system. Isn't that nice and convenient all trails are deleted. So they say. I truly hope that saying this helps even just one little baby to stay with his or her mother."
"I'm an nmother. I would let her know I understand her fears. Adoption is not the solution it's promoted to be for mother or infant. The adoption is a multi billion dollar a year industry that won't tell mothers the truth of what happens psychologically to the mother or her infant, it's a life sentence of pain for generations."
"Both my children were adopted. Well actually one was stolen and one was adopted and now that we have contact they both told me to go to hell for giving them up!!!!! So I am not sure Adoption is best."
"I'm a natural mother who lost a daughter to a closed adoption. The pain and trauma of that loss is indescribable and it never goes away. Year after year, day after day, every holiday, every Mother's Day and especially her birthday- the grief was overwhelming. Not a single day of my life went by that I didn't search the faces of little girls in the grocery store or playground, wondering if that girl could be her. I spent 22 years not knowing if my daughter was alive or dead, if she was being well treated or abused, if she was sick or healthy. No mother should have to suffer that simply because she doesn't have much money or is single. Those are the 2 reasons I lost my daughter, yet when we reunited I found out her adoptive parents divorced when she was only 3 yrs old and her mother never remarried. The father moved out of state. She ended up being raised by a single mother anyway. If she had stayed with me, neither of us would have suffered the trauma of separation and she would have been raised with her brother, sister and step-dad because I married a year after she was born and have been married for 33 years. Things change. Situations are temporary. I would urge her to please understand that if she's being told that she could have an open adoption- that could change in a heartbeat too. The a-parents have all the power and could close the door on her at any time."
"I would urge her to please find the help that's out there for her. As an adoptee, the "things" or materialistic objects I had growing up with from Aparents pale in comparison to the humanistic pull to bond and belong. While I am smart and a self-sufficient success according to society, I have a hole remaining in my heart that seems unsatisfiable without my nparents. I always thought it was only adoptees that felt this way because it is my experience but I've become educated that nmoms have the same experience. My brother was kept by his nmom almost a year and then let him go because of financial reasons. Sorry to say he's a messed up man. Always has been. Have comfort in the fact that there is help for you . I see many people using it and doing great. Peace and love to you in your decision making."
"Adoption isn't what it's promoted to be by a multi billion dollar industry, a woman considering adoption should know the facts before making a decision."
"What I wish I had realized before I placed is that NO family is perfect. I just found out that my son lost to adoption has been watching the afather abuse the amother physically and mentally. There's nothing I can do but sit here helplessly. And situations are temporary. Only four years after I placed- I had a new home, car, and job. However the hole in the depths of my heart and mind has never healed and with this new info, I'm physically sick."
"I am an adoptee, there is nothing I couldn't have gotten through, if I had gotten to stay with my natural family. I have always felt like a visitor in a distant land. My a parents divorced, a dad is an alcoholic, normal life stuff. My natural parents went on to marry and have three subsequent daughters. I want to cry as I write this. I want my mom and my sisters and Grandparents. I want my children to know them. I don't want all of the adoptee related issues. I want to fully love my husband without the walls I've built around me to keep me safe from being abandoned again. I wondered ALL THE TIME, if she was looking for me, if she had wanted to keep me. If she was thinking about me on my birthday. And oh birthdays. That day you imagine for your child to be celebrating with his adoptive family buying him lots of gifts. No that's not what birthday is for adoptees. It's worst moment of their life day. The day they were taken from you day. Inner keening, grief, and loss day. Your child will be told to pretend to be happy on that day. I want to fast forward every year from sept to the new year. That's half a year of my life I'd rather not live. Which adds up to half my life. I've lived my whole life with ghosts, and what ifs. My life has been FAR from perfect. The only way to know your child is safe and happy, is for him/her TO BE WITH YOU!"
"No one can guarantee you that your child will be better off. Have faith in your own ability, don't believe them and (I want to write this in caps) do not do it!!"
"What do "they" know, the people telling you adoption is the option? They don't know anything, I can tell you it's a lifetime, of guilt, grief, ;self hate, and shame. My daughter had been gone 19 years. They slammed shut in December 19 years ago. It's supposed to be a time of celebration, yet yesterday, I was in a heap, sobbing uncontrollably as the words they said to me that day came flooding in. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. That's only how you may feel the pain an adoptee can go through, it's equally as damaging."
"I would say that ...you can't begin to wrap your head around what is truly "best in the long run" right now. But adoption is not it (best said by an adoptee that it should be a last resort). It is as simple as this...countless women could be asked, if you knew then what you know now would you have done the same? and those that surrendered their children would say NO --through their tears, and those that kept their babies would say YES, in a heartbeat! Ironically, all the so called pain, suffering, inconvenience, interruption in life, emotional agony...ALL happens whether you surrender your child or not. Know that you and your baby will be damaged beyond comprehension...you just wont know the depths until later and who knows when, how or how hard it will hit you both. Struggling through it while having all the joys and irreplaceable moments cannot be compared to the life of anguish of 'un-becoming' a mother."
"It is detrimental to both mother and child to be separated and I am really angry and sad that as a 53 year old adoptee I am still trying to deal with my mother leaving me. And my mess of history that I had no idea about .. I am sad I was lied to manipulated and abused by the afamily I was placed with and I am sad that it led me to a youth filled with alcohol, sexual and drug abuse ... I am actually really sad that adoption is an option at least with an abortion it does not sentence someone to a life time of misery."
"It is a [VERY, IRREVOCABLE] permanent solution to an [OVERWHELMING] temporary problem."
"I would say to her that there is nothing like a mothers love. True mothers love. Something only YOU can give to your child. It is an awesome thing to hold your child for the first time, to hear them call you mommy for the first time. I was 18 when I had my first child. All my fears disappeared when I held him. I knew I made the right decision to keep him. He's now 28 and he is my joy. To see the young man he's turned out to be. I did it. You can too. I am also adopted. I never received that unconditional love from my adopted parents. Not like what I experienced with my own child. That kind of unconditional love goes a long way. I wasn't able to give him everything he wanted but he knew I did my best and that I loved him. You can do it! And it is so worth it!"
" “The bond between a mother and her child is naturally sacred. It is physical, psychological and spiritual. It is very resilient and very flexible. It can stretch very far - naturally. Any artificial or violent injury to this "stretch" constitutes a serious psychic trauma to both mother and child - for all eternity. This means that children need their mothers and mothers need their children - whether or not a mother is married or unmarried.” - Mothers On Trial, The Battle For Children and Custody - by Phyllis Chesler"
"Whatever your decision, may you be Loving."
"Simply this: adoption is a permanent solution to what are (most likely) temporary situations/problems in your life (I.e. poverty, lack of education, being single, etc.). Those are all things you can overcome in life. Placing a child up for adoption can never be reversed...and that pain is un- imaginable! You can do this! You can parent your child & be successful! Have faith in yourself!"
"If she feels she can emotionally parent and if she at all wants to, I would tell her that letting finance be a reason to adopt out her child will be one that most likely will haunt her forever. She can get state help. Also, while I very luckily went to a terrific family, I could have ended up with one of the horrible ones I've read about. And in anycase, I would tell her DO NOT make the decision to adopt out her baby until AFTER she gives birth and holds her kid and really feels what being a mother might be like. She doesn't owe anyone a child. But, that child is owed a mom. Again, as long as she is emotionally able to and wants to mother, she should move heaven and earth to do so. Even in the best of circumstances, adoption is a trauma and so unless that baby is truly better off with a total stranger, I hope she doesn't do it."
"I would tell her to read "The Primal Wound." I'm a natural mother from the Baby Scoop Era, and there were NO books available back then about the devastating effects adoption can have on the child or the mother. If she places her baby for adoption, she's going to suffer enormous grief and loss every single day for the rest of her life. Clinical depression and suicide rates are phenomenally high for both mothers and adopted children. I have been to too many funerals for natural moms...even several who were in successful reunions. Her baby needs her just like we all need oxygen to breath and water to drink."
"As a nmother take it from me... And thousands of others ..... Don't surrender your rights!!!! Its an emotional roller coaster that never ends in some cases!!"
"I am an adoptee. No one will or can love your baby as you do, no one."
" I am a 54 year old adoptee from Baby Scoop Era, and I would tell her that though I had a wonderful adoptive family, it does not balance out the pain and wondering and feeling like you are not good enough you whole life - because adoptees, though they are told how special they are to their adoptive parents, tend to internalize the feeling of "not good enough for my mother to keep me" and the belief that they are not worthy of love, "if my own mother doesn't love me and gave me away". I didn't find out until I was 23 that she cared...that she loved me and tried desperately to keep me. I remember getting back in the car with my a parents, (who took me back to the agency for a meeting with a social worker to tell me "non- iD" info,) and telling them " she actually cared about me!" And they were shocked that I had ever thought she didn't. For 23 years, all my life up to that point, I never, ever told them how it really felt as an adoptee, or that I felt unloved by my first mother. Even after I found my mother and heard from her the whole story, and have been in reunion for 30 years, and just in the past three years have learned how the adoption industry really works to get babies away from their mothers, my deep psyche and my body still does not believe I'm lovable, even though I now know my mother loves me. I have terrible PTSD and so does my mother. We both have way more than the normal amount of medical problems; our bodies turned against us. Having heard her story over and over from her, I know that losing me pretty much ruined her life, even after having my sister and keeping her 15 months later. She was a great single mom to my sister, even though they didn't have much money, and my grandmother then helped her, after my grandfather died. She knew she couldn't go through losing another baby. She raised my sister very well, in spite of the odds in 1961. She wanted me back, after she realized she could do it, but it was too late. It killed her watching my sister grow up alone, knowing there should be two little girls together. She never got married or had any more children after my sister . She says she trusted no one after her experience with our father and the adoption trauma she suffered from the agency, the hospital, her own family at the time. It affected my sister, as she always wanted siblings and says Mom was angry a lot of the time, even though mom did all the right things raising her and worked hard to give her all the things she needed. I always longed for a sister and always felt I had a twin out there somewhere - she practically is. That connection is there. Mom also had a bit of a drinking problem. When I found them, our meeting had to be out off due to her planned week of rehab. She continued to drink for years even after I found her. She was a closet drunk - it wasn't enough to render her incapable of working or anything, but she'd drink at home or when out or on vacation. Then it was pain pills, after she retired. All to numb her adoption pain. She'd sneak it in her suitcase and keep it beside her bed when she would travel to visit me. All these years, she thought she was the only one- she knows nothing about the Baby Scoop Era, and knew no other nmothers. She never knew it was a scheme to get babies. She's blamed herself , and my father, all these years. Now at 80 she has very early Alzheimers and lives with my sister, who feels it's unkind and pointless to get her help for her adoption trauma now. My sister refuses to discuss adoption anymore - she prefers denial to talking about things - but Mom continues to recall things and bring it up, at least when I'm around. This kind of pain NEVER goes away, for mother or child. You and your baby are meant to be together. It's not worth the pain of separation, to either of you, even if your child would go to a loving couple who could provide a bit more. Being together will save both of you from the kind of trauma I describe. There are ways to make it work, and it'd so worth it. I have a daughter who was born to me as a single mom, after my husband died, and I had started dating again; in fact , I was engaged to someone, but he would not follow through on his commitment and was not the man I thought he was. My former inlaws tried to talk me into giving her up for adoption. There was no way I was going to do that to my daughter, or myself , having been an adoptee, and knowing what my mom went through , NO WAY. Yes. It has been more challenging being a single mom , but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Better a loving, involved single natural mom with that physiologic and psychic bond than to lose her to adoption, have her suffer being an adoptee , or be married to the wrong person. A "married couple" does not trump a single mom. 50% of marriages end in divorce, some in death of one or the other parent, and the rest of the marriages are not perfect - there are plenty of dysfunctional marriages that stay together and the kids suffer, or have an un-involved dad, so don't feel like you aren't good enough for your own baby. You will be , because you belong to each other."

Stop, close your eyes. Imagine, just IMAGINE having to make this choice for yourself and your baby.Or FEELING like you do. Remember what it was like, how you felt right after delivering your baby. Remember what it was like holding your baby for the first time. Remember that moment when they opened their big bright eyes and looked right up at you, acknowledging you as mother. Remember when your baby would cry and your simple "shhh" of love and comfort would sooth them right back to sleep? Remember how adorable they looked when they took that first big yawn? Can you remember? Now imagine strangers swooping in and gobbling up your child. They're brought backup - more family members along. You're pushed to the far corners of the room, feeling like a ghost in the room. You watch all their happiness flood in as your sadness creeps out. You don't know if you can go through with it anymore. You don't want to leave your baby - you need them and you feel in your heart that they need you. But you don't dare say anything. How dare you give a couple 'false hope'. How dare you force them to place so much of their time and wishful thinking into you. How can you tell these people that you want your baby back? How can you tell the agency that you can't do it after they've told you over and over again to not go back on your word or past emotions based on fear. You feel like not only a bad person but a bad mother. You lose all sense of self, all sense of being. You lose faith in yourself and worse - faith in your relationship and bond between you and your own child. A lawyer comes in and takes you into a room. A few other people come - staring you down and helping the lawyer urge you to sign. The whole thing is a fog as you sign over your life to these people. Do you even have a choice at this point? You walk out of the hospital alone, tears dripping down your face, get in your car and drive home. That night - there is no baby, not a peep in the house. No cries for your engorged breasts which have filled with milk and ache to feed the baby you've left behind with the strangers. The next day you go out and nobody acknowledges your pain. Cheer up ! They all say. You'll get over it! They encourage blindly. At least your baby didn't die! They ignorantly push your pain aside. Now come back. How does that feel? Look at the child you've birthed RIGHT now and imagine them not being there, imagine you feeling like you didn't have the choice, even when it was considered your choice. I ignore it though, all the time, everyday. Because I don't like to think these things and feel sad all the time, nobody gets it. MY baby is gone.You don't think so? Ask Ap's who's baby they have. And they tell me to be happy? You lose your baby and then tell me to be happy! You be happy about it after going through the loss and pain. I dare you. People tell me it was my choice, like that's supposed to make it easier. Let me tell you something - it doesn't. And I'm supposed to just go, "Oh forget about me and my pain, I did what was BEST for my baby! I was so unselfish!" How? How was him leaving me what was best for him? How was him entering strangers arms what was best for him? Would it have been selfish if I had kept him? Would I have been the awful mother everyone made me feel like? No. I wouldn't have been. I have a beautiful, bright, amazing little girl who is 5 and I did it. We made it. When nobody believed in me. We struggled and we still are.. but I have her and she has me and we don't have her brother. And now I'll close this back up and I'll act as if I've never suffered and that I'm not everyday. I'll wake up tomorrow with a smile and continue on with life just as everyone else has. And crying? Who does that? Crying doesn't exist.

Here's a letter from an adoptee:

"I'm an adoptee.

Dear burnt out, broken down mother,

Its so hard. You are struggling hard, maybe with other children, probably with your baby's father. You wonder how you'll keep the lights on and your car running. Pregnancy hormones are doing a number on you. You are trying so hard, despite all that's happening, to do the very best for your baby.

Some people have ridden in on a white horse and assured you that your immediate problems will be solved. There is help for housing and food and medical care and if your baby is healthy and partially white some mothers have even gotten a car out of the deal.

When your baby is born, you won't need to worry about the impossible difficulties of day to day parenting, which you clearly aren't "ready for." A nice person or couple, who longs desperately to be parents, is prepared and eager to give your baby everything you can not and more than you can imagine. Maybe even a pool and a pony.

When you hold your little one and you're unsure of this plan you made, they will be there to "help." They'll remind you of how little you have to offer this baby. There are even narcotics and antidepressants that will make your "choice" easier.

When the ink is dry on your surrender documents, at some point a few short days or weeks afterward, you'll be expected to "get on with your life," your episiotomy still sore and your breasts still dripping milk.

And maybe you will.

Or maybe the grief and loss will haunt you for decades.

Maybe your baby will have a beautiful life of everything that you were promised. His own room, private schools, a functional healthy family, vacations.

Maybe you will be a loved, cherished part of your child's extended family. I've known first-hand of those situations, and I hope that's what happens for you.

Or maybe life will happen to adoptive parents, the way it happens to everyone else. Job loss. Illness. Divorce.

It may be impossible to predict how you might feel if you were dropped like yesterday's garbage by these people who courted you so well, who were your friend when you were hurting and confused.

It may be impossible to predict how you might feel once you get on your feet and you do ok in life and you discover that your child's family struggles with chronic joblessness, abuse, substance abuse or divorce. I am not picking on adoptive families in particular, crap happens to both biological and adoptive families.

Crap is an equal opportunity happenstance.

You've heard here about how deeply you may miss your baby and how your baby will miss you. There is no substitute for *you* in your child's life. I don't know a lot, but I do know that.

I would hate to see you trade what you need most for what you want now.

Right now, my wish for you is peace. That deep, abiding peace that you will get through this temporary situation and you and your little bit will be ok."

End

LINKS

Real Side

http://www.exiledmothers.com/open_adoption/shasmith95.html

http://www.originscanada.org/adoption-trauma-2/trauma_to_surrendering_mothers/adoption-trauma-the-damage-to-relinquishing-mothers/

http://m.pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/09/04/peds.2012-3251.abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11483840/

http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/the-non-profit-adoption-agency-myth/

http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/secondary-infertility-among-birthmothers/

https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_download.php?id=695212947260377&eid=AStwsbU99ggVyHiAe8wBuX3ZLUvKT781obfHFu3mmiuKBscEeBqSz_35B2WVYGnYPik&ext=1419967248&hash=ASsvl6IvgZrVQVQO

OPEN ADOPTION CONTRACTS IN EACH STATE:

Open adoption contracts in each state :

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/cooperative.pdf

Alabama - NOT legally enforceable

Alaska - Upon showing a "good cause" a relinquishing mother can bring a case to court for a hearing on enforcing an open adoption contract

Arizona - NOT legally enforceable.

Arkansas - NOT legally enforceable.

California - Legally enforceable

Colorado - NOT legally enforceable

Connecticut - ONLY legally enforceable IF the adoptive couple consents to the granting in court. They could SAY they want an open adoption and change their mind before court and after the "birthmother" signs Termination of parental rights.

Delaware - NOT legally enforceable

Florida - NOT legally enforceable

Georgia - NOT legally enforceable

Hawaii - NOT legally enforceable

Idaho - NOT legally enforceable

Illinois - NOT legally enforceable

Indiana - Legally enforceable ONLY AFTER the child is at the age of 2.

Iowa - NOT legally enforceable

Kansas - NOT legally enforceable

Kentucky - NOT legally enforceable

Louisiana - Legally enforceable

Maine - NOT legally enforceable

Maryland - Legally enforceable

Massachusetts - Legally enforceable

Michigan - NOT legally enforceable

Minnesota - Legally enforceable with written court order

Mississippi - NOT legally enforceable

Missouri - NOT legally enforceable

Montana - NOT legally enforceable

Nebraska - 2 year renewable Legally enforceable contract

Nevada - Legally enforceable

New Hampshire - NOT legally enforceable

New Jersey - NOT legally enforceable

New Mexico - Legally enforeable

New York - Legally enforceable with written court order

North Carolina - NOT legally enforceable

North Dakota - NOT legally enforceable

Ohio - NOT legally enforceable

Oklahoma - ONLY if the child being adopted has previously RESIDED with the "birth family" legally open adoption contracts are an option with a written court order. Infant adoption - NOT legally enforceable

Oregon - Legally enforceable

Pennsylvania - Legally enforceable with a written court order before or on the date of the adoption decree

Rhode Island - Legally enforceable

South Carolina - NOT legally enforceable

South Dakota - NOT legally enforceable

Tennessee - NOT legally enforceable Texas - NOT legally enforceable

Utah - NOT legally enforceable

Vermont - NOT legally enforceable

Virginia - Legally enforceable if filed for before or during the adoption decree

Washington - Legally enforceable only with a written court order

West Virginia - Court MAY hear a petition to enforce an open adoption agreement

Wisconsin - Step parent and relative adoptions Legally enforceable only if the petitioner has maintained a relationship with the child for at least 2 years. Infant adoption - NOT legally enforceable.

Wyoming - NOT legally enforceable

American Samoa - NOT legally enforceable

District of Columbia - Legally enforceable

Guam - NOT legally enforceable

Northern Mariana Islands - NOT legally enforceable

Puerto Rico - NOT legally enforceable

Virgin Islands - NOT legally enforceable

New Beginnings of a Girl just trying to make it in the world.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Small update.

Adoption information