' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: August 2015

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Adoption in America is everywhere

O'Hare in Chicago
How truly adoption has permeated society since I became involved--in 1966 when I relinquished my daughter--came home to me during my trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit my granddaughter, known to readers as Britt. Getting there involved going from New York City through Chicago, a five-hour plus wait for an evening plane to Marquette, which is situated on Lake Superior.

I sat next to an elderly gentleman--older than me!--and as we got to talking I asked him why he was going to Marquette. I had simply said I was going to meet my granddaughter. Well, he said, I've got a story to tell, I'm adopted.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Adoption may cost us our grandchildren

Jane
I am at a small resort near Bend, Oregon with my husband Jay and my youngest grandchild, ten year old Katie. I've known Katie all her life; she's the daughter of one of my raised daughters. Never any question but that she would be in my life.

Not so with the four children of my daughter, Rebecca, lost to adoption. Their mother had another mother who they knew as Grandma. I was fortunate that Rebecca introduced me to her children when we first reunited. I didn't claim the title Grandma lest I be accused of usurping a position I was not entitled to; I signed birthday cards "Jane." I cringed when strangers, seeing us together, referred to the children as my grandchildren, fearful the children would be upset. Still I developed relationships that continue.

Lorraine too has a relationship with the daughter of her lost daughter. She is off this week visiting her granddaughter in Michigan. Other natural mother aren't so lucky.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Contacting one's child after the photos stop

Lorraine 
Dear First Mother Forum:
My son turned 20 this year and I would love to send him a note, letting him know that I have never forgotten him. His birth father and I each wrote him a letter before he was born explaining why he was given up for adoption.

Assuming his adoptive parents gave them to him, he has some pictures of me when I was pregnant with him, and of his birth father, as well as pictures of me with him and his adoptive family when I gave him to them. They sent pictures over the years when I requested them, but it has been a little over 10 years since I last requested/sent anything. 

Not because I don't care but because life moves on and you have to move with it. I really

Friday, August 14, 2015

Dusky weaves the personal with the political

Janet Mason Ellerby
Lorraine's new memoir brings together her story as well as the larger tale of adoption in the 20th mid-century and the imperative for change. This is the message of  Janet Ellerby's engaging review of Lorraine's new memoir,
Hole In My Heart, published this week in the CUB Communicator.--jane

“Until I had answers, I would be stuck in a mire of remorse and recrimination...I could not move forward into my next act, until I found her.” Thus writes Lorraine Dusky in her compelling new memoir, Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoptionShe continues: “For mothers like me, adoption has no closure as long as we do not know what happened to our children.”

At the heart of Dusky’s memoir lie the emotional and psychological wounds natural mothers must endure after capitulating to adoption, whether open or closed. But closed adoption, Dusky argues convincingly, is especially egregious. It is not only exploitive and cruel but ultimately legally and morally wrong.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Telling your child he was conceived by rape

Lorraine
So what if your child was conceived by rape?

Or some other really not pleasant circumstance? If you don't exactly know who the father is?

Adoptees may be reluctant to bring up the question of conception because it is so personal, and too much information is not what they are looking for. But they are going to want to know the how. If you the natural mother was in a relationship--as both Jane and I were--more specifics are unnecessary. People in a relationship are known to consummate their love. They have sex.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Telling your child about her/his conception

Jane
Mothers often feel it necessary to explain the circumstances of pregnancy to the child lost to adoption. In our attempts to cast ourselves in a positive light (or absolve ourselves: it was not my fault!), we  may unwittingly send a negative message to our child. Not only were they to too unimportant to keep but they owe their beginnings to coercion, carelessness, or ignorance. They were a big mistake from day one!

We're about our defensive unplanned pregnancy. We know the questions presented from outsiders when we tell them about our child asked or not. "How could you let yourself get pregnant?" "Why did not you use birth control?" Why did not you have an abortion. "Or less kindly," How could you have been so dumb? " Conservative Christian listeners may send the implicit message" How could you do that knowing it was a sin? "