-
Dear Birthmother, is adoption worth the grief?
- Mar 5, 2009 at 2:54 PM
- By
- Comments (10) Total Views (405) Everyone can see this journal post.
An insiders look into a birthmothers mind. A bit lengthy, but worth it.
Dear Birthmother - Is Adoption Worth the Grief? by Laurie Frisch
Adoption has life-long consequences and is especially inhumane when a mother wants and loves her child. Rather than pressure her to get her child, people should just help her out.
Marion, IA (PRWEB) September 27, 2004 -- In some countries there are abortion cemeteries where a person can go to grieve the loss of their unborn child. It is readily accepted that a woman who has such a loss may need to mourn.
But when a child that is already born is lost to adoption her mother may be expected to go on with her life as if nothing happened. She may have been pressured until she gave up hope, she may have been tricked into surrendering her parental rights, or her young “adoptable” child may have been taken by social services using a vague accusation such as “threat of harm”. Regardless, people will tell her that her child is probably fine - the strangers that took her know how to change a diaper. Besides, they deserved a child and she is just a “birth thing” anyway.
No matter how grief-stricken she is, she may be told she must hide it so as not to overshadow the adopter’s joy. A mother may go for years or even decades trying to shut it out of her mind. Some commit suicide. Meanwhile, once in possession of her child, many adopters may have no consideration for her feelings or else they may tell people they pray for her or speak of her to her child occasionally and that should be enough.
Yet, every morning she may wake up and in her mind do everything she imagines she would be doing with her baby. She bathes him, changes his diaper, nurses him, talks with him and laughs with him. She introduces him proudly to everyone. When he gets older it becomes harder to imagine what he might be like. Does he like boating or swimming? Is he energetic or more relaxed? Does he try radical new looks and dye his hair different colors? Is he happy? Is he even alive? If she gets to visit him occasionally she may know some of these things, but she will still miss all the little things that mothers and their children usually share. If she never sees him, everything builds up. Every moment they could have spent together over the years is gone never to return.
She may work hard trying to focus on her own development so as not to miss out on life completely. The pain of the loss of her own son or daughter worse than she ever could have imagined, she may turn to drinking or drugs to try to shut it out of her mind. She may have nightmares in which there are hands reaching up though the mattress toward her belly as if to take her child. She may find it hard to trust or get close to those around her.
Then one day she can stand it no more. It may be years or even decades later and the loss has accumulated over time. Suddenly it’s like a dam has broken and there is a massive outpouring of anguish and pain. Still, how can even a friend understand when she’s crying again the next day and the next? People suggest counseling, but all of the counselors tell her she should have no problem. Her child is probably fine, so she should just not worry about it. Even if he has problems, he’s not her child. Anyway, it’s been years. No one else has a problem with adoption. The insensitivity of each response stabs her to the bone. It is documented in many places that mothers may be very badly affected by the loss of a son or daughter to adoption. All she asked for was a little help.
Oddly, the pro-life community backs off just when a mother might expect support. “You gave life” they say, “but that is not your child.” Adoption is in God’s plan they claim. “We are all adopted children of God.” But did God adopt us away from our mother and then expect her to forget about it?
Tragically, some mothers find that their child is not at all better off adopted. Separated from their mothers and family, many adoptees including those adopted at birth and even those with some contact with their natural family have been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder and drugged. Other adoptees later tell their mother straight out she would have been the perfect mother for them.
Adoption is inhumane, especially when a mother has not been proven to be unfit and wants her child. Although mothers are often made to feel they are all alone, few mothers are completely friendless and with absolutely no support. The very people counseling her could acknowledge her as the mother of her child and help her keep her child. Nurses, doctors and others could disclose the known effects of separation on a mother and her child. Church people could have a fund-raiser, donate a few of their baby items or take her around to garage sales just for fun. They might suggest shared housing for single mothers so they can help each other or advise mothers on the availability of government programs to help them get on their feet. They could lobby for adequate government programs for natural families, including a training program similar to the government-funded Infant Adoption Awareness Training but with the focus of educating everyone in the community about the most loving option - keeping family together.
Mothers do not deserve this cruel life sentence for giving birth. Unless parents are proven to be unfit rather than being just frightened or poor, adoption is not worth the grief.
Tags: adoption, birthmother, birth mother, adopting, domestic infant, infant adoption, grief
Comments:
Worth the grief? Only if it is necessary for the sake of the child.....which it often is not. Thanks for posting this.....good for people to read.
i was already crying, but then i read this. .. . ..after having an amazing open adoption my two and a half year old sons adoptive parents have decided to stop having contact with me. .. . ..Like its their right to choose!?!?!?!?!?! I'm in a horrible emotional state right now
I'm an adoptee. I would thank my birthmother, but she's even more messed up than I could ever dream of being and she never wanted me anyway, which is cool.
I think that this article is a bit misleading. Are their women out there that don't want to give up their children but feel pressured to do so? Sure, and I'm sorry that that is the case.
But there are many women out there that have the choice and I would hate to think that this article may sway them the other way.
Adoption, like anything else, should be a personal choice. Adoption, for most of the children, is a great way to go. I couldn't have ended up with a better family. In fact, they adopted twice.
I would hate to think that there is a pregnant girl out there that was considering adoption as an option and then read this article and decided to get an abortion instead. Or decided to keep the baby and then had to struggle horribly because of this article.
I'm sorry for those birthmothers that the adoption process didn't go as planned or that the adoptive parents were heartless and cruesl and decided to stop having any contact. That is wrong and I feel horrible for those birth mothers.
But, IMO, adoption is a lot better than some of the other options out there.
adoption helps two people the baby that didn't chose to be conceived and a family that will love and care for it and at 18 the child can seek out the real mom so the mom can know she did good I have cousins that are adopted and we love them slot thank you to that BIRTHMOM I have my cousins we love them alot
Thanks for posting this. This is why my husband and I want to adopt an older child if we ever do. Newborn adoption is a dupe to prey on women who are emotionally fragile. Most if not all are convinced by "well meaning" adoption agents that they will not be able to provide for their child and that if they do keep their child they are being selfish and ruining the childs life.
Right now I'm going through mixed emotions over a family members adoption. My oldest half brothers son (complicated, I know, half bro is 40 years older than me) and his wife are in their 30's. He's the network administrator for a school district, she's a social worker. They started the adoption process in August, and just adopted a little boy straight out of the delivery room, having all the paper work in place before he was born. On one side, I'm happy that they finally have the family they have always wanted. On the other side, I can't help but wonder about his birth mother. What little I was told was that she was young and alone, and felt adoption was the best option. But was it really? Is she at home crying right now for her baby, whom perhaps well meaning people convinced her was better off without her? Is she wondering how he is doing, who he looks like, weather or not he's happy, does he miss her? How unhappy she must be, and having to wrap it up in a cloak of self sacrifice for her child, knowing somewhere out there people are celebrating what for her must be the worst pain of her life. In the state they are in, she has 60 days to file for a halt to the adoption.
Many countries are outlawing anyone profiting financially from an adoption. They are working in two important areas, preventing unwanted conceptions supporting mothers. Maybe we should work on that instead of placing the desires of infertile couples so high on our priority list that we have organizations out there more interested in their welfare than the birth mothers or the child.
This article has so much wrong information I don't know where to begin. I have been through two adoptions and can tell you firsthand that birthmoms are not forced or tricked into adoption. That would be illegal. Case workers do extensive counseling with birthmoms during and after the adoption. The whole adoption process is very extensive and complex to prevent bad things from happening. The author also doesn't know the facts about the causes of Reacitve Attachment Disorder. Adoption is never an easy decision, but it's a decision a woman can live with and feel peace about. Other decisions such as abortion cause much more pain and suffering. Adoption is a showing of ultimate love because a woman is unselfishly giving her child life.
chooselifemom - I'm wondering, with your experience as an amom, how you are so sure that this article about what a bmom might experience is full of wrong information? I understand, as an amom why you feel adoption is such a great thing. Most amom's share this feeling and the opinion "adoption is a showing of ultimate love because a woman is unselfishly giving her child life." And I can understand why you feel that way as your experience has been great through adoption.
But, I can assure you, there are many bmoms who agree with most, if not all, of what this article says. For us, adoption is loss, as it is for our children since the first act of adoption is the separation and loss for mother and child. And yes, there are bmoms who are, and were, forced or tricked, manipulated or pushed, toward adoption. And it should be illegal, but because so many in society see adoption in the same light you do, these acts go on without consequences. The counseling an expectant mom receives is from those who benefit by her choosing adoption as they are employed by the agencies, attornies, etc who profit and write paychecks with the money they earn through adoptions - not through counseling or helping expectant moms, but through helping p-aparents find babies. Biased counseling can NEVER be considered good counseling.
This article is encouraging more support and help for pregnant women so mother and child can stay together. I, truthfully, don't see where anyone can argue with that. Keeping a baby with his or her mother should be the first choice, adoption should be the very last since adoption is about finding homes for children who have no family, not about separating a mother from her child when she wants to parent but feels she can't because of a lack of financial or emotional support and instead using those reasons to provide a baby for a couple who desperately wants one.
Want to leave a comment and join the discussion?
Click here to register for CafeMom
Already a member? Click here to log in
Around CafeMom
Check out some of the most popular topics today in Answers:
- What kind of bf mom are you?
- how long to cook a pre stuffed butterball turkey thats 10.48lbs?
- I woke up with a completely flat stomach except a little buldge at the bottom. IM assuming this means my baby has dropped. So How long can a baby...
- What kind of tea do you like ? Black, Green, White, Oolong or Rooibos?
- Would you make him stick with his decision?
I know I already commented on Facebook, but just wanted to send another *HUG* and vote it popular!