' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: January 2011

Sunday, January 30, 2011

First Mother Forum in USA Today and The Adoption Option Revisted

See LORRAINE'S VIEWPOINTS today : I share Oprah's mom's shame and pain AT USA Today. Please leave comments there; our side needs affirmation, not only from adoptees and first mothers but adoptive parents who understand the rights of the adopted to know the truth of their origins. SOME HAVE REPORTED A PROBLEM COMMENTING AT USA TODAY SITE; I'VE ASKED FOR HELP AND WILL TRY TO HAVE PROBLEM FIXED. (2:52 p.m.)

Lorraine
While we have written about The Adoption Option before, we are sending this rebuttal to it to John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and later this will be posted as as  permanent page at First Mother Forum.

By Lorraine Dusky and Jane Edwards

Making adoption more attractive to women with unplanned pregnancies is a “worthwhile goal,” according to the liberal think tank, The Center for American Progress. A recent publication, The Adoption Option: Adoption Won’t Reduce Abortion but It Will Expand Women’s Choices (October, 2010), argues for 

Friday, January 28, 2011

What kind of woman keeps one child, gives away another?

Someone  (Anonymous) left a somewhat nasty comment on an earlier post about Vernita Lee, Oprah's mother, asking "what kind of woman keeps one child, gives away another?" Well, I'll tell you, a desperate woman. A woman who feels she has no choice. A woman boxed in the corner. A woman who is at her wit's end about how she is going to manage another baby.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Guatemalan mother seeking return of son gets her day in court

Encarnacion Bail Romero says she did not give permission for her son to be adopted.
Encarnacion Bail Romero
In a case which the Missouri Supreme Court described as “a travesty in its egregious procedural errors, its long duration, and its impact on Mother, Adoptive Parents, and, most importantly, Child,” Encarnacion Bail Romero will have the opportunity to regain custody of her four- year-old son. In the mean time the boy, referred to in court documents

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Oprah's mother didn't die when her secret daughter was revealed

Lorraine
I am not the only one who found Oprah's mother's interview and reaction to her newly found daughter, Patricia, a tad...er, difficult to watch? Turn around and hug your daughter! my mind was screaming at the TV yesterday. Apologize for not responding to your daughter's plea for confirmation and contact. At the same time, Oprah's distance and undercurrent of irritation towards her mother, Vernita Lee, was barely concealed.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Oprah reveals she has half-sister; her mother was afraid to admit the secret

So Oprah has a sister! Given up for adoption! Reunited today on her talk show! From the Los Angeles Times: 

Sunday, January 23, 2011

After adoption first/birth mothers are supposed to suck it up

Lorraine
While we been picking over the differences between being kidnapped (and raised by genetic strangers) and being adopted (and raised by genetic strangers) as concerning the Nejdra Nance/Carlina White abduction, and how the public reacts to the mother--the first/birth mother, that is--there is another parallel to be learned from another story in the news: how people react to the families of mass murderers, such as the Unabomber and Jared Laughner. And how they react to women who surrendered their babies.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Kidnapped Daughter reunites with her family

Lorraine
How much alike are our children, who were adopted, when we first/birth mothers find them? Does this sound like a familiar story? From today's New York Post:
"They can't stop touching one another, they can't stop looking at one another -- their faces mirrors of each other's past and future.
"Cuddled on a couch in a Midtown hotel suite last night, Joy White and long-lost daughter Carlina began to bridge 23 years that were stolen from them, each telling The Post in exclusive interviews that now, at last, "I feel complete."

Monday, January 17, 2011

Mother and Child is a film not be be missed, though critics overlooked

Lorraine
The last batch of comments on the previous blog (Practice Babies: Unnatural Mothering) rapidly degenerated into snarky lobs across the net--are we no better than the discourse between the opposite political factions in this country? Apparently not. I admit a bias: I side with the folks who say: you can have your "expert" opinion, you might be better read (of those self-same experts) but those authorities do not know how I feel. They do not speak for me. And this is how I feel.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Practice Babies: Unnatural Mothering

Jane

Reaction to recent news reports about Practice Babies is much like the response to Ann Fessler’s account in The Girls Who Went Away of young pregnant women sent to hide out in maternity homes or with distant relatives, delivering their babies in secret, and surrendering them for adoption.

Do Origins Matter?

Lorraine
Judy Clarke, the court-appointed lawyer for Jared Loughner, the deranged 22-year-old charged in the Tucson shootings, is said to be likely investigate his life--"going back several generations to learn as much as possible about his origins"--as she prepares his defense. Of course most people will just read that and move on, but as I read it this morning in The New York Times my mind--the mind of a first mother, a birth mother--leaped to the awareness that this would almost certainly not be possible if Loughner were adopted.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Fight over adoptee rights in NJ continues--time to make your voice heard

Lorraine
Here we go again in New Jersey: After more than three decades, as a less-than-perfect adoptee rights bill (A1046) is making its way to possible passage in New Jersey, a pretty terrible bill (A3672) is being touted as an alternative. Alternative, hell--it is far from that. It is a stinkin' measure that would keep adopted individuals from obtaining rights equal to the rest of us non-adopted folks by giving, once again, the few birth/first mothers in the closet (and first fathers) the right to smash their childrens' right to self-knowledge.

Forever. Forever. For all time. From their descendants.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Inflammatory rhetoric leads to national tragedy

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2011 file photo, House Speaker John Boehner reenacts the swearing in of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., on Capitol Hill in Washington. Authorities say that Giffords was shot in the head on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 while meeting with constituents in her district in the area around Tucson. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)"Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." That was a tagline used by Jesse Kelly, who ran against Giffords, and as one might expect was endorsed by Sarah Palin, about whom I am going to say little because her own words condemn her.

Friday, January 7, 2011

The imaginary conflict between the rights of parents and children

Jane
Benjamin Mills has joined the sorry list of fathers seeking to prevent the adoption of their children. His now two year old daughter, Vanessa Doss, was born in Ohio. Her mother, Andrea Conley, consented to her adoption, stating untruthfully that Vanessa’s father was unknown. Vanessa was adopted by 45 year-old Stacey Doss, a single woman in California.

Mills sued for custody in Ohio and contested the adoption in California. A California court ruled that the Ohio courts had jurisdiction and ordered the child returned to Ohio. 

Monday, January 3, 2011

Was I Destined to be a birth/first mother?

Lorraine
"Meet the Twiblings--How four women and one man conspired to make two babies" read the headline in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Two adorable babies, bright blue eyes, and a  long essay on how to solve upper-middle class infertility: purchase eggs from an adorable young woman, rent two wombs from really nice ladies, mix eggs with husband's sperm. All right, I'm being sarcastic.


Sunday, January 2, 2011

Homes for foster children: Find the real family first

Lorraine
Sometimes I do feel like we are making headway in the public's understanding of why adoption records should NOT be sealed. On NPR over the long weekend (while making cheesecake for a New Year's Eve party), I heard a discussion of DNA Sequencing & Personal Genomics and its implications for determining what strains of disease we might unknowingly carry in our genes, and whether we want to know about them years before they express themselves. The first caller was from someone who asked about the implications of sealed records for adoptees and their future health and treatment options.