' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A First Mother from the 80s Asks: Does the punishment ever end?

SEE FOLLOW UP FROM ANONYMOUS WHOSE STORY IS TOLD HERE IN THE COMMENTS.

We get a lot of comments at FirstMotherForum for old posts, and we do post them. But one came in the other day to a blog from last May, Why didn't we resist the social pressures? and it is worth posting  here for everyone to read. Fellow blogger First Mom Jane and I relinquished our children in the Sixties, and we sometimes hear that Oh, well, it's different now, birth mothers today make "adoption plans," and we know from reading some blogs that some rattle on about how they made the "right" and "loving" decision.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Action is the sincerest form of thanks

Jane

It’s hard to be thankful when you read the nonsense coming out of celebrity-land.

“If my [twin] sons want to know about their egg donor when they are older, I will be able to show them photos. But she asked that they not have contact,” singer Ricky Martin told People.

Ricky, you burro, don’t you know that you’re consigning your boys to searching faces in shopping malls wondering if that Nordstrom shopper or that woman sipping lattes at Starbucks is their mother.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Protections for Birth Mothers need real mettle, not weak reforms

Lorraine
So, after dissecting The Adoption Option from the Center for American Progress, let us look at their proposed reforms: 
 
Jane
Legal counsel. Expectant mothers should have independent legal counsel. We agree. We were stunned, though, to read that legal services are necessary because “the daunting complexity of the adoption system and confusion about the process surely pose a deterrent to some women.” 

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Thank you, Betty Jean Lifton!

Betty Jean Lifton
Like other members of the adoption community, I was saddened to learn that Betty Jean Lifton passed away November 19. I never met her although I heard her speak at American Adoption Congress conferences. She did, however, have a profound affect on my life.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Liberal Think-Tank Urges Removing Barriers to The Adoption Option...we disagree

Jane
So, asks The Adoption Option, what can be done to ensure “that adoption remains an ethical and effective option for women facing an unintended pregnancy”? We shall now discuss the recommendations of recent report from the Center for American Progress. (This is Part 3 of four about the Adoption Option. We are apparently obsessed with it because we find so much of it noxious and injurious to the health of a woman faced with an untimely (i.e., a personal disaster) pregnancy.

lorraine
In cool think-tank language, the report suggests that there be more studies to find out why women are so much more likely to choose parenting or abortion instead [of adoption]:  "If there are women who choose to place an infant for adoption but do not due to real or perceived barriers, then their decisions merit exploration.” We’ll answer for free: Humans are mammals, and mammals are hard-wired to nurture their young. If you don’t believe us, watch your dog or cat when

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Should the Goverment Encourage Women to Choose: The Adoption Option, Part Two

Jane
"Birth mothers who participated in more recent open adoptions... found that approximately two-thirds reported a feeling of peace about their decision and were very certain they would make the same decision again." This data, reported in The Adoption Option, a report from the Center for American Progress, is from a 1997 study in Marriage and Family Review, and we do not know more about the first mothers who participated in the survey, or the number of them, or how soon after relinquishment did they participate, and if the study was under the auspices of an adoption agency, where the outcome would be influenced by the survey taker.*
Lorraine

We suspect many of those "at peace" were like Catelynn, a young first mother featured in People, struggling not to cry as she insisted she and Tyler, the baby’s father, did the right thing. When last heard from, the Catelynn and Tyler were planning their nuptials and were hoping that their daughter, now being raised by a North Carolina couple, could be their flower girl.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Encouraging the 'Adoption Option' as public policy

Lorraine
Is enticing more American women to reject raising their own child in favor of “the adoption option” for their newborns a worthy goal? A liberal think tank in Washington DC thinks so.Yes, Dear Reader, it is true:
 
Jane
The Center for American Progress recently released a report ingloriously called The Adoption Option, and in doing so has added its glowing support to the crusade to promote adoption under the guise of protecting"reproductive choice." Now how many mothers who are unable to raise their child are not given the "reproductive choice" of relinquishing their child? How many women say, Oh, if only I had the "choice" of adoption--if only surrendering my child so that it could be raised by two other better-off people than me and have all those advantages, was more available, I would surely choose it?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Why Become an Adoption Reform Rabble-Rouser

Lorraine
"What Does Adoption Mean to You?

As many of you know by now, November is National Adoption month.  This month provides us all with the opportunity to educate, publicize and celebrate adoption.  I wanted to find out from the most important people in the adoption conversation – the parents, what adoption means to them.  So I posed that question to multiple adoptive parents I know,  “What does adoption mean to you?”   This is what I learned...."--National Adoption Center

Now before you go crazy, understand, Dear Reader, that we are coming late to the party

Sunday, November 7, 2010

When an 'Open' Adoption Closes: Help from an adoptive mother

Lorraine
What would you say to adoptive parents if you were asking them to live up to their open adoption agreement? How would you phrase the words? Most parents who do not live up to open-adoption are probably not going to listen to any entreaty from YOU--the scary birth mother of their child--but what if they received a letter from another adoptive parent, one involved in an open adoption. Dear Reader, such people do exist. I have even heard from adoptive parents who wish the first mother of their child would stay involved, but they have not. However that is not the norm.

The following letter was written by an adoptive mother from the state that knows about CLOSED adoptions, Texas.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Australia Apologies for Adoption Policy, sort of


Jane
Amazing but true, the Western Australia Parliament apologized to mothers who lost children to adoption last week:

“(1) That with regard to past adoption practices, it is now recognised that from the 1940s to the 1980s the legal, health, and welfare system then operating in Western Australia, in many instances, did not strike the correct balance between the goal of minimising the emotional and mental impact of the adoption process on unmarried mothers, with the goal of achieving what was considered at the time to be in the best interests of the child; (emphasis added)”