' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: November 2014

Friday, November 28, 2014

Dad chooses parenthood over football scholarship

Mason Riddle with  Dad Sam and Mom Bri Krokum
It's a story we'll all heard--and some of us have lived through--high school athlete gets girl pregnant. The choice of abortion or adoption would be what many would make; to chose the other path--to be a father--would mean forgetting his dream of  a full college scholarship playing for a school in the top level of college ball, Division 1. Pro players usually come from Division I schools.

And so it was for Sam Riddle, the star quarterback of Century High's team in Portland, Oregon. In the middle of the 2012 football season, when Sam was a senior, he and his girl friend Bri Krokum learned she was pregnant. "'I almost passed out,' Sam told

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Thanksgiving: Finding something to be thankful for when we're feeling low

Lorraine,surrounded by brother, sister-in-law, nieces and husband, T'giving  2014
It's that time of the year again when all the family that we miss comes leaping out of the background to appear front and center in our hearts and minds. It can't be helped. While we are trying to focus on what we are truly thankful for, we find ourselves thinking about what and who is missing.

I'm no different. 

This year my brother and his wife are driving from Michigan for Thanksgiving. They are picking up my two nieces in Manhattan (one in art school there, the other just back from Thailand) and

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Vance Twins: Raising awareness about adoption realities

Lorraine
Speaking up and speaking out about a controversial issue is always scary the first time. Adoption as we know it today has become highly controversial, as adult adoptees and first mothers have opened up about the painful effects of adoption, whether they are the ones who lost a child to be adopted, or the child who grew up in a family not her original one. 

Yet at the same time, with more people--straight couples, gays couples, single people--desiring to adopt, a several billion dollar industry world wide has grown up to serve that market.Those who want to adopt do not want to hear that adoption is anything other than a win-win solution. They imagine there are babies everywhere that need to be adopted, and such a baby will be the fix for infertility; at the same time many churches, both conservative and liberal, are part of the pro-adoption movement to "rescue" children from poverty.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Adoptionland: Brutal essays by adult adoptees expose the truth of intercountry adoption

The Vance Twins--Jenette on left and Janine 
With news that Vietnam is once again going to allow their children to be adopted out of country, reading a collection of essays by people who were uprooted and transplanted into new cultures is ice water on all those squishy ideals of what intercountry (or international adoption) does. The writers whose essays come together in Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists portray the dislocation as wrenching and brutal, an experience that leaves a scar neither time nor distance can temper.

Though I am no fan of adoption in general I recognize that sometimes adoption is the best solution to a bad situation. But I have read enough about intercountry adoption to see it as

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Adoption in the news: Let the media know our side of the story

Jane
"'We strongly believe every child belongs to a family,'" Amy Gilson of Dallas, Oregon told the reporter for the Salem Statesman-Journal "Helping Hands", 11/8/14). Amy and her husband Tom are raising funds to adopt a seven-month-old boy from Ethiopia, inspired by the Biblical commandment "to look after widows and orphans in their distress." (James 1:27.) They have put up $27,000 towards the $35,000 they will need to bring little "Callen James" to their home. They have taken second jobs to raise money and are soliciting donations.

I fired off a letter to the S-J pointing out corruption was rampant in Ethiopian adoptions and the child may be a victim of kidnapping, not an orphan. (The complete letter is below). I pointed out that children adopted intercountry and transracially often have problems adjusting and

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Review: Reunion Worth the Wait

Minka, her daughter, and granddaughter
No matter why they lost their baby to adoption, an affair with a married man, teen lovers, a fling with a charming cad at a carnival in Ireland, mothers stories tell of the same inconsolable grief. And so it is with Minka Disbrow, a South Dakota farm girl, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, who was raped and became pregnant at age 16.

Minka's story as told by her granddaughter, Cathy LaGrow with Cinda Coloma in The Waiting, begins in 1928 when Minka joins her friends for a picnic and takes a walk around a nearby lake with a friend. Away from the other

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Dear FMF: Why did my (reunited) daughter's Facebook posting hurt so much?

Lorraine
Dear First Mother Forum:
I met my daughter a few years ago and we have had a couple of good meetings. She looks a LOT like my mother when she was younger, and reminds me a lot of my sister…same mannerisms, laugh, big personality, sense of humor, etc.  

But don’t talk about that stuff with her for she will not go there…it is probably the damnedest thing I have ever seen. She mentioned a couple of things to me…we have the same dark brown eyes, but the last time we were together, my husband mentioned the similarities between her and my sister, and my daughter absolutely clammed up.