' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: March 2014

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Adoption and who's my daddy are themes as ancient as Oepidus


Banks 595.jpg
Stephen Tompkinson as DCI Banks
So turn on the TV and watch prime time and you're going to run straight into adoption or paternity mixups: Nashville; Modern Family; The Blacklist; Crises; Revenge. And even the British crime drama I tuned into last night--DCI Banks. That seemed like a safe enough show, right? There will be a murder in the first few moments; it will be solved an hour and a half later, right? Probably won't be confronted with adoption, right? No triggers, right?

Ha!

Friday, March 28, 2014

Adoption court documents contain the raw realities of adoption

Sarah Morris
"I can't find a way to adequately describe the feelings elicited by seeing the documentation of the transaction that sent me into adoption. I keep coming back to trauma, anger, shock, horror, sorrow, and loathing for all those in power who were involved," began Oregonian Sarah Morris as she wrote about the 53-year old documents that transferred her legally from her first mother to her adoptive parents. This January, Oregon became the first state to allow adult adoptees to see their court file, other than the home study.  Sarah has reunited with her first mother and members of her father's family. 

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

NCFA no longer opposes unsealing adoptee birth records--Yea!!

Reunited without birth certificate, Jane (l) and Lorraine
All birth certificates will be unsealed one day, William (Bill) Pierce, who founded the National Council for Adoption, once told our reform firebrand, Florence Fisher, founder of ALMA. When NCFA (pronounced Nik-FA) was opposing us regarding unsealing birth records at very opportunity, Pierce privately said this to Florence, who then told me, close to three decades ago.

Yet as the years rolled by NCFA continued to oppose us. When Florence and I testified in Washington DC in the late 70s for unsealing birth certificates at a Senate hearing in Washington, DC, NCFA handlers literally held up a weeping natural mother who was testifying for keeping records sealed. Forever.

She spoke before I did. By the time I was called to testify I was livid. I started out by saying said something to the effect of her anonymity disqualified her from being taken seriously--as it would on any other issue--but I might have well been

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Good news: Intercountry adoption down again

Jane
This just in from the Associated Press:  "The number of foreign children adopted by U.S. parents plunged to the lowest level since 1992...Figures released Friday by the U. S. State Department for 2013 fiscal year showed 7,094 adoptions from abroad, down from 8,668 in 2012 and down about 69 percent from the high of 22,884 in 2004. The number has dropped every year since then."

What's the cause of this decline? AP lists several: Russia has stopped foreign adoptions. Ethiopian authorities have been trying to place more abandoned children with relatives or foster families. Other reasons come to mind: More South Korean women are keeping their babies, thanks to the efforts of Korean-born adoptee Jane Jeong Trenka and her supporters who have lobbied the

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Saying goodbye to adoptee L'Wren Scott

L'Wren Scott in a signature look
Updated at 9:10 p.m. 3/20/14

When fashion designer L'Wren Scott committed suicide Monday, the fashion and celebrity worlds mourned; when we read that she was adopted, the adoption community perks up its ears: another one lost to suicide. 

L'Wren was adopted by Mormon parents in Utah, along with a brother and a sister. An intrepid reader found an old story that included an interview with her adoptive mother who states that she and her husband, who met and married while teenagers, turned to adoption after years of trying to have children. L'Wren's mother says that the children they adopted were all from the Salt Lake City area, and adds this crucial piece of information: "At one point Luann [L'Wren's name after adoption] said she wanted to contact her biological parents, but nothing came of it." This story is ten years old and none of the new stories mention this.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Day I Was Born: The Story Denied to Many Adoptees

Jane
"Tell me about the day my mom was born," my eight-year-old granddaughter Katie requested as I drove her from school to swim team practice Monday. Her request surprised me; I expected she would want to listen to Radio Classics as usual. I obliged. "Your mother was born in the middle of the night in the middle of the winter," I began. When I finished she asked about the day she was born, a story she had heard often: how I had come to the hospital with her two year old brother Chris; how her mom told him the baby was no longer in her stomach and how her father lifted Chris up and showed him the baby, all snuggled in pink in her crib.

When my three raised daughters were little, they too loved the story that began "on the day you were born."  Every time I told them the story, a wave of sadness crept over me because I did not tell, could not tell, my first

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Relinquish adoption protections--give the adopted their original records and identity!

Today when Unsealed Imitative is in New York's state capital lobbying for our bills to unseal the original birth records of adoptees, Lorraine has an Oped in the Albany Times-Union. Please leave a comment and let everyone know more than a few voices want those records open. (Note: It appears nearly impossible to leave a comment, many have tried, none have succeeded.)

When I drove into Albany pulling a U-Haul with most of my worldly possessions, I was 23, and I was already on the run from my past. I'd had a child in Rochester and given her up for adoption. Now I was desperate to keep that part of my life secret when I began my new job at the late Knickerbocker News. When the doctor giving me a physical for the company insurance asked if I'd ever been pregnant, I lied and said no. Shame surrounded me like an aura. The year was 1966. In the two years I worked at The Knick, I only revealed my secret to one friend — and then with a racing heart.
Reporter with a secret--and blown kneecap
Read the rest at 
Relinquish adoption protections

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Keeping secrets in adoption can make you ill

Lorraine
Reasons enough for the sealed birth certificates of adoptees everywhere to be released comes from this month's issue of The Atlantic:
"Research shows an association between keeping an emotionally charged secret and ailments ranging from the common cold to chronic diseases."
Reading this reminded me of when I held in the secret of my life: my daughter whom I relinquished. I lied to a doctor once who asked if I'd ever been pregnant, feeling like a criminal as I did so--but he was the doctor giving a physical which would qualify me for the company medical policy. If I told the truth, would I be fired from a job I so desperately needed and wanted? It was my first job after having to quit my last before I "showed."

Monday, March 10, 2014

After 6 years, a hollow victory in Utah adoption fight

Lorraine
 Six years. That's how long Robert Manzanares has been fighting for custody of his daughter--a fight that began before she was born. A few days ago, a court decided that he, the father, would have joint custody of his daughter, Kaia, but the adoptive parents will have primary custody and the girl will continue to live with them. The length of time involved in getting to this decision is why Manzanares will not be able to raise his own daughter. How did we get here? Six years? 

This legal battle began in 2008, shortly after the girl was conceived and the girl's mother and Manzanares broke up. Aware that the mother did not want to raise the child, he took all the right steps, filing for his parental rights to be recognized...in Colorado where he and the mother had been living. He made it clear that he did not want his daughter given up for adoption. But the woman fled to Utah before the girl was born. She had Mormon relatives in that state who wanted to adopt the child. And in Utah, that is pretty much all you need: Mormons who want to adopt.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Even in 'modern families' the need to know biological heritage

Jane
Opponents of gay marriage often raise the specter of gays raising children they adopt or create through "modern fertility techniques" claiming that gays raising children would lead to the breakdown of the family, which would lead to the disintegration of civilization. Well, of course gays have been raising children long before recorded history. Those Greeks doing it in bath houses were often married with children. And gays like my late sister Helen married members of the opposite sex, had children, divorced, and taken up with a same-sex partner.

 Since the 1970's gays have adopted children both from foster care and as newborn infants. They have also created children through sperm and egg donations, IVF and surrogacy. With courts striking down gay marriage bans, it's likely that more gays will marry and acquire children. The critical question

Monday, March 3, 2014

Do you have to fuck to win an Oscar?

The big winners at last night's Oscars all have something going for them that my favorite, Philomena, didn't. Stories that touch the nation's conscience encased in lots of fucking, vulgarity, and violence. Twelve Years A Slave pricks the nation's lingering guilt over slavery and by extension, the unequal treatment black Americans still endure. The Dallas Buyers' Club pulls at our hearts over the way we mistreated and misunderstood AIDS victims and implicitly still mistreat and misunderstand gays and transsexuals today. Cate Blanchett was a natural to win, what with themes of Wall Street corruption (we're still feeling the effects more than five years after the meltdown) and a confused, sexy woman, always a popular Hollywood staple.