Spence-Chapin out of the infant adoption business

Is that Grandpa or Dad on the right?

One of the best known and biggest adoption agencies in New York City, Spence-Chapin, is stopping infant adoptions which it has been doing for over a century. This change, not yet reported on S-C's website, is explained in an August, 2013 letter to the "Spence-Chapin Community," which a reader shared with First Mother Forum. Maud Welles, the Board Chair and Emily Forhman, the Executive Director, explained that the declining number of infants and young children available for adoption due to the "reduced stigma of single parent households, increased access to birth control, family unification programs, in-country adoption programs, and difficult bureaucratic or political policies" necessitated this change.

Adoption Posters at Abortion Clinics...Why Not Truth-Counselors at Adoption Agencies? We volunteer.

I missed an article in the New York Times over the weekend--Campaigning for Common Ground in Abortion Debate--even though I knew something was in the works because the writer, Sue Dominus, contacted me beforehand asking me if I thought open adoptions were a more humane option that a closed adoption for a mother who surrenders her child. Yes, is the short answer; but...is the long answer, they are typically not enforceable contracts. Anyway, Dominus' piece was about putting "consider adoption" posters in abortion clinics: She writes:

"Imagine this: a woman enters her local Planned Parenthood office and notices, in the bathroom, a poster that says: “Questions about adoption? We can answer those, too.”

"Such posters, which should be up in the hallways of at least 15 abortion providers in New York within the month, are produced by the Adoption Access Network as part of a campaign to make adoption a subject that patients and social workers alike feel more comfortable broaching in abortion clinics. The thinking is that all the clinics’ clients, whether they seem uneasy about abortion or not, should have a clear understanding of how adoption works, rather than just be handed a list of references — a list that essentially says, adoption is fine, but it’s not our thing."

I was too late to respond at the Times site, as the comments are closed, but another columnist, Amie Newman, managing editor of Reality Check, also joined the chorus of people who think the posters are a good idea. Newman wrote at Reality Check and republished at The Huffington Post, Pro-Choice and Adoption: Outside the Culture Wars: 

"...there is nothing wrong with posters on adoption or educating providers more thoroughly about what open adoption looks like. But adoption is not a "distraction" from abortion and, given the option, most women we saw at the health center seeking to terminate their pregnancies did not change their minds, even after being provided with more information about adoption - even open adoption (laws about which vary from state-to-state and is far from cut-and-dried)."

My response (expanded somewhat here): 

The Lifelong Trauma of Surrendering a child

How about a poster in an adoption agency suggesting that there is a better option--abortion--than the lifelong grief of surrendering a child to genetic strangers? How about having an abortion/adoption counselor on staff to talk to young women about the fact that you do not surrender a child to be adopted and "get on with your life" as before? I volunteer.

It has been more than 40 years since I surrendered my daughter to be adopted by total strangers, and though I found her when she was fifteen and we had an open adoption after that, I never got over the deep loss and emotional trauma of giving her up. I never got back my old life I never got over the pain and sorrow that adoption means to two people: mother and child. Neither did she.

Were her adoptive parents bad people? No. Was she anything like them? No. Did a sense of abandonment infuse her life, despite everyone's best efforts? Yes. Did she feel second best after her parents had biological children? Yes. Was she wrong in thinking that? Not from what I observed. Whose swimming meets did they go to, whose diving events did they not have time for? You guess. Did she look like them? No. Did her other mother come to hate me as our relationship continued through the years? Yes.

Putting up "consider adoption" posters in abortion clinics is absurd. The woman or teenager is at the clinic seeking an abortion because she has already made that choice and to force her again to confront it is no better than the medical procedures that at least one state has forced on pregnant women choosing an abortion: that they have a sonogram. [At least Newman above found that talking about adoption to women set on abortions rarely, if ever, had an impact.]

After reading comments here and elsewhere it appears that those who think the adoption posters in abortion clinics are a great idea are anti-choice people, hoping for a last minute change of heart, or those eager to supply  the market maw of those who would adopt. After all, available white infants are in short supply.

They should spend some time reading about what life after surrender is like for first/birth  mothers, whether in open adoptions or closed. And the woman/teen who is considering adoption for their children her child should be counseled that this child is quite likely the only child she will ever have. A large percentage of women who surrender a child to adoption never have another. As fellow blogger Jane has just written: Should women considering adoption be warned about secondary infertility?

Maybe adoption agencies would consider putting up posters advertising that fact? Ya know, I kinda doubt they will, even the supposedly cool ones like Spence-Chapin. 

Damn, the Dominus piece made me mad because the attitude was that the posters are such a great idea--but no thought of equal time for our side of the story. I know Sue; she's from the demographic of women who are the adopting class today: middle class, reaching the end of their fertility years and having trouble reproducing, and able to afford agency fees...and so they want to adopt. Trouble is...too few available babies. Since I know so many of those thirty/fortysomething women who adopted, I'm sure she does too.--lorraine

Jane here. I’ll support Planned Parenthood clinics talking about adoption when I see adoption agencies talking about abortion and nurturing. In other words, NEVER!

If Corinna Lohser of the Spence-Chapin Adoption Agency and Cristina Page, founders of the Adoption Access Network, were serious about bringing “prochoice standards to the field of adoption” they would create an Abortion Access Network and train adoption agency staff to talk to their clients about abortion. After all, it's a lot easier to find an adoption agency that an abortion provider.

Lohser should take a look at Spence-Chapin’s website. The “Caring” in its tag line, “Adoption Service and Caring since 1908, is surely not code for abortion. Spence-Chapin is an adoption agency. Its website promotes adoption with happy birth mother stories and pictures of attractive couples waiting to adopt. The “choice” lingo is just another way to lure in pregnant women by recruiting Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers as runners.

It’s clear that while Page talks about options, the only one she really wants women to choose is adoption. Look at her language:

“Page also reminds us that applying pro-choice standards and a women's rights lens to the adoption experience means not just expanded rights and options for birth mothers but for those gay and lesbian parents desperate to adopt but often kept out of the pool by more religious-in-nature or conservative agencies. Developing a network of pro-choice adoption agencies changes family rights. Anecdotally, she tells me, pro-choice adoption agencies have an active pool of gay and lesbian parents wanting to adopt.”

Referring to pregnant women as “birth mothers” when they haven’t given birth let alone given up their child and referring to gay and lesbian couples as “parents” when they aren’t, shows Page’s mindset: With the right kind of sales job, pregnant women will “choose” adoption and meet the needs of Page’s real clients, gay and lesbian couples locked out of the Christian adoption market.

Significantly Page and Lohser say nothing about the other option, “nurturing.” The problem isn’t that abortion providers don’t talk about adoption. It’s that adoption agencies don’t talk about nurturing and don’t help women find resources so they can keep their baby.

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If you want to comment, click on: Pro-Choice and Adoption: Outside the Culture Wars
And have fun noting all the adoption ads at the bottom of the page. Cute. You can't win. They are why I can't take regular ads here, adoption agency stuff just pops up. Not cool.

h♥le, cont.: Testifying to unseal the birth records of an adoptee

Lorraine testifying a a public hearing on
unsealing records in New York City, 2014

An excerpt from Chapter 8 in hole in my heart. Previous sections can be found by scrolling down on the HOME page.

February, 1974

I’m in an airless, overheated courtroom in the Bronx, where I will soon testify—as a natural mother—that we do want to know our children. An accountant named Ann Scharp is trying to get the records that were sealed thirty-seven years earlier when she was adopted. Her identity is likely to be sealed in papers at Spence-Chapin Adoption Services. She’s there to show that she has “good cause” to get her adoption agency records. If any adoptee has taken the trouble to go to court to learn their identity, doesn’t that  prima facie demonstratethat she ought to be able to find out who she is? But never mind—we know that whether her “cause” will be deemed good enough depends solely on this one person, this man in a black robe sitting up high in the judge’s seat.

Making "empowered" Choices...Not

Thanks to Joyce Bahr from Unsealed Initiative for sending this:

SUPPORTING PREGNANT TEENS TO MAKE EMPOWERED CHOICES

A Free Half-Day Training for Professionals

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

This conference is an integral component of the Options Awareness Project in Nassau County and enjoys the support of the Nassau County Department of Health and the County Executive’s Common Sense for the Common Good Initiative.The Project is coordinated by Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption agency with a 100-year history in New York City and a significant presence in Nassau County. Spence- Chapin’s mission is to find adoptive homes for infants who need them, to promote understanding of adoption throughcounseling and public education, and to continuously strive to improve adoption practice.

Exactly what is an "empowered" choice for pregnant teens? Abortion? Keeping the baby? What do you think that the meaning of "empowered" would be at a conference sponsored by an adoption agency? Hmmm... I would guess that would be to make the "informed" choice to surrender your baby...not to keep it, because if you kept him/her, then how would the agency stay in business?

Yes, we would like to see the agency improve adoption practice by making it NON-EXISTENT EXCEPT IN THE MOST RARE CASES, where the parents abuse the children, where there is no possible other way, where there are no family members who can care for the children, and then we would like to see the adoption, with the force of law, be O-P-E-N.

If that is what Spence Chapin is promoting as "empowered" than I can support this conference...but somehow I don't think that is it. More likely it's a conference on how to make girls feel they are making the "right" decision by giving up their babies. Truly "empowered" would be counseling by first mothers who haven't gotten their lives back together the way the social workers said they would, so that those considering adoption could look at it from all perspectives; "empowered" would be enough aid from the government to be able to have good day care and food to take care of your baby and not give him or her up for adoption.

If Wall Street can go begging for aid from Congress, why not us? Oh, I see because we are not CEOs of financial corporations whose idea of hard times is to have to sell our art work worth millions, or unload that house in Hamptons in a down market.

Any readers who feel they made an "empowered" choice when they relinquished, please post a comment. Firstmother would be interested in hearing your thoughts. And first mother will not argue with you. Adoption, we know, adoption is always painful.

--lorraine (feeling feisty this morning)

Babies "confiscated" in China and sold as orphans to the western market

China, long a provider of babies for the burgeoning market in the U.S., has cracked under the pressure to keep up with the demand. Babies have been "confiscated" from poor families and sold as orphans for $3,000 apiece on the international market.

Though China maintains its one-child-only policy in an effort to halt population growth, rural families were allowed to have two, if the first child was a girl. But a third child? Then the poor farmers were required to pay a $3,000 fee, a charge completely out of reach for them. If you could not pay, you were forced to turn over the baby, which was then sold for $3,000, with the local orphanage and the corrupt local authorities splitting the fee.

Here's a snippet of the story you'll find here:

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China– An investigation by a Chinese newspaper found that about 80 baby girls in southern China’s Guizhou Province have been sold to childless families in the U.S. and Europe for $3,000 each. These baby girls were “confiscated” from families when the parents could not pay the $3,000 fine for violating China’s Family Planning Policy.

Chinese families in rural villages, unlike those living in urban areas, are allowed to have a second child to continue the family name and to help out with the farm if the first child is not a son. However, if the rural families have more than two children, they face a fine of $3,000, which is several times a farmer’s annual income. Accordingly, this is an unpopular policy among rural residents, and families in Guizhou Province who could not pay the fine had to hand over their babies to the local authorities.

Abandoned babies in China can be registered for adoption, but the investigation alleged that the local authorities confiscated the babies and then forged documents by labeling the babies as “orphans.” The adoption fee of $3,000 per baby was split between the local authorities and the orphanages. This type of foreign adoption program has been referred to as “Baby Economy,” and the local orphanages made huge profits.

This is not the first time child trafficking from China (or India)has been uncovered. We've previously written about the international trade in babies, all documented and published in magazines such as Foreign Policy and Mother Jones--from the poor nations of the world, such as Guatemala, Vietnam, India, Nepal, Russia, Kazhakstan and others. Because the baby economy is a cash cow for poor nations and demand is high, unscrupulous individuals will find a way to provide the goods--even when there are no babies available through honest means. Children are kidnapped, mothers are tricked into giving up their babies for what they think is a temporary time, papers are forged and children are stolen. Why? Because people are willing to not look deeply into where the children come from, or if they are indeed orphans.

What creates this market? People who believe that they are entitled to a child, simply because they can afford one, when nature does not provide. The comments of a prospective adoptive parent to the previous post (Banned by Adoptionvoices.com!) calling FirstMotherForum anti-adoption led me to give this answer to her and the others like her. We repeat, as we do so often here, that we understand that adoptions must happen in some circumstances. But today the demand for babies has irrevocably skewed the system towards adoption at any cost--to the mother, to the child.

While treatments such as DES years ago led to infertility among the children whose mothers took the hormone, a great deal of the pressure simply comes from a culture where it is seen as normal to wait to have children after thirty-five, after a woman's ability to conceive has dropped precipitously.

Sometimes adoptions are indeed necessary, but the demand for fresh, healthy infants today has led to the wholesale trafficking of children worldwide. If speaking out against that makes us anti-adoption, so be it. If speaking hard truths on sites promoting adoptions gets us banned, so be it. We are far too aware of the emotional fallout for both natural mothers and the children to support adoption as the common solution it is today for people wanting a child.

Yes, it is sad when one cannot have a child, but that does not entitle you to someone else's.

I write this today knowing that my voice is one of a few crying in the wilderness, that it will be heard by only a few, that it will offend some, and in the larger picture, our voices will be drowned out by the group-think of a generation. Sadly, the baby economy is completely integrated into society today, and I do not have the force of government behind me to change policy. And it will take a sea-change to alter attitudes.

But I will go on speaking and writing this until my last breath. --lorraine

PS: In an irony of magnitude, when I edited this post...up popped an ad for Spence-Chapin:

Adopt a Baby

Loving Families Needed. Domestic & Intl programs.

Spence-Chapin.org

Loving families needed? to fill the coffers of Spence-Chapin.

Loss and Connection at Spence-Chapin

Lorraine at Spence-Chapin with her lucky scarf

What amazed me so much the other night at my reading and discussion at Spence-Chapin in Manhattan was the great feeling of camaraderie that emanated, even though H♥le is far from a sweet, light-hearted book! We are talking adoption here, people! from the viewpoint of the first mother and trust me, they do not find much to cheer about.

About 15 people were there--mostly adoptees, a few natural birth biological mothers, one adoptive parent (Frank Ligtvoet, who writes about his very open adoptions) and two people from Spence, including Stella Gilgur-Cook, who set the program up. After my reading/talk, the floor was open to discussion. What surprised me was the adoptees speaking of how many years they had been out of touch with their adoptive parents, how distant they felt from their adoptive parents. I mean, we are talking years, and at least two people said it was unlikely they would ever ever be in touch with them again.

Our Christmas Gift: No rise in adoptions during lean times

Christmas came early this year in the form of news that even in these lean times there has been no rise in adoptions. More women are keeping their babies.

New York agency Spence-Chapin even thought about hiring a new person to handle the expected uptick that never happened, according to Sue Dominus writing (12/19/09) in The New York Times: "We're somewhat surprised," said Helen Lauffer, associate director at Spence-Chapin. "But the numbers haven't gone up." If anything, she adds, "even fewer women have sought the agency's services this year." The same dearth of available product was also true of an agency in Vermont.

To which we say HOORAY! Women are keeping their babies!

The social workers quoted outright say that they expected an increase in available product, i.e., babies, due to hard economic times since it is a major factor why pregnant women give up their babies for adoption. At first glance the column is a straight-out report of the situation at adoption agencies today. Speaking of the rationale of why mothers surrender their babies, Dawn Smith-Pliner of Friends in Adoption of Vermont, said:

"...if some of these pregnant women felt their lives could be improved upon by being able to get on their feet and do well by themselves, and have the baby they placed be proud of what they'd been able to accomplish, then it's a different decision. It's a difficult decision, but something about it might feel good. But if the achievable goal, a half-decent job, isn't an option to work toward, then I might as well keep the baby--that's tangible. You wake up every morning and there's that beautiful baby."

RIGHT! You don't have to wait until you might someday be reunited--with the vale of tears and conflicting emotions that unleashes--so that your child might be proud of you.

That train of thought supposes this kind of resolution to a person being given up for adoption: Look, says a birth/first mother to her reunited child, I became a cool TV weather woman/rocket scientist, college graduate and none of that would have been possible if I'd kept you! Aren't you proud of me? Aren't you glad I gave up up so I could have a career? Somehow this rankles the blood. We wondered if this convoluted reasoning is possibly what is being fed to women today as an encouragement to relinquish their babies and make them feel better about doing it: that someday their children might be "proud" of them. Which we at FirstMotherForum find completely specious and the most absurd bit of reasoning we have ever encountered.

Adoption today, even with a promise of open adoptions, offers no guarantees: no guarantees that the adoption will remain truly open (see our numerous previous posts on open adoption) or that there will ever be a reunion, since in only eight states can adoptees reasonably except to obtain their original birth certificates with their original identities therein recorded. As for the post reunion period, they are so often fraught with anger and bitterness--to think that they would be mitigated by pride of one's birth/first mother's career following relinquishment--we can only throw up our hands in amazement.

In truth, my daughter may have been proud of me in some sense--I did become the journalist I was on track for when I became pregnant with her, and it's unclear how I would have done that if I had kept her, but that sure did not stack up as equal to the why-didn't-you-keep-me? undercurrent that was always and forever the big rock-candy mountain of conflict between us.

To go back to the idea that women are keeping their babies because they can have this concrete and rewarding relationship with their own flesh and blood, Ah yes, we get that: There is a baby,  your baby, and not the lifetime vale of tears that trails women who give up their babies. Oh, yes, we first/birth mothers get up every morning, get dressed, put on makeup, have our lattes and go out to meet the world. We laugh, we cry, we make love again. We have jobs, husbands, sometimes other children...but we do not forget. We never forget. Some of us might hide in the closet, and those of us older might keep the baby we gave away as a terrible secret from children who come after, or even our husbands, but the baby that is gone remains in our hearts. You do not have a baby in your body for nine months, a baby who carries your DNA, and forget.

Several reasons are noted in the Times column for the decline in available babies: the greater acceptance of single motherhood (thank God); and a changing marketplace. More birth/first mothers may simply be connecting with adopting parents through the Internet, allowing them to pay more expenses in exchange for a baby than is possible through regular agency channels. That also leads to greater possibilities of fraud, as some cases have been reported, and of course, borders on baby selling. 

The piece conveys a tone of gee-this-is-too-bad-for-all-those-nice-couples-who-want-to-complete-their-families-with-someone-else's-baby, as Dominus quotes a plaintive prospective adoptive parent about how long they have been waiting:

"It's like the longest pregnancy ever" said Lynne Berman, a Friends client who lives in New Jersey and has been waiting for more than two years. "You set these ultimatums. You think, 'This will be the last Mother's Day, or the last thanksgiving.' But then another one rolls around."

From our perspective, it would have been refreshing to see that plaintive tone balanced with a quote from a young mother who kept her baby and is happy she did.

One last piece of deconstruction: one of the agencies, Friends in Adoption, located in Vermont, has a
client base of adoptive parents mostly in the New York area. That factoid means this: poor rural girls and women from an area of lower contraceptive use and curtailed abortion services add up to a good product-supply location to meet the high demands of the New York market.

We know that some, particularly prospective adoptive parents and adoptive parents who chance upon FirstMotherForum might be offended at our choice of words, that is, using "product" where "baby" would suffice. But we interchange these words precisely to make a point: that adoption is a business today just like any other, subject to the laws of supply and demand. The only difference is that the product being exchanged is a living person, not an inanimate object. We use these words to make people aware that adoption has gone from a service to take care of babies without other options to a business to supply people who want children. And in the process, a lot of "do-good" feeling gets intermixed so that people with the best of intentions end up only increasing the pressures on the world's poor to give up their babies. They do not consider that for every happy adopting parents, somewhere a poor mother grieves. They do not think of helping the woman keep her child by supporting both of them, they think of increasing their own joy by taking the child. But that ignores the fact that they are leaving behind a woman not only in the same dire poverty that led her to offer up her child or children, but now they are leaving behind a poor woman who daily grieves for those children.

Not long ago, we were in touch with a family who was considering from Ethiopia, but with a certain amount of persistence and good will, they were able to locate the mother or mothers in question. At this moment, we are not sure of the outcome, but hope to be able to fill you in at a future date. But on the international front, we can report that due to heightened attention to corruption in international adoptions, that number is also declining. Thus just in by David Crary of the AP:

The number of foreign children adopted by Americans plunged more than a quarter in the past year, reaching the lowest level since 1996 and leading adoption advocates to urge Congress to help reverse the trend.[Italics added] Figures for fiscal year 2009, released by the State Department on Thursday, showed 12,753 adoptions from abroad, down from 17,438 in 2008 — a dip of 27 percent and nearly 45 percent lower than the all-time peak of 22,884 in 2004.

Adoption advocates may be clamoring for "Congress to reverse the trend," but we are not. What is Congress supposed to do? Hold up aid to poorer countries in order to allow more babies to go through the adoption mills? Mills that have promoted, either knowingly or unknowingly, kidnapping and corruption in international adoption?

The world doesn't get it yet. But we will keep on writing about the abduction of children and corrupt practices that fuel international adoption until we take our last breath. In the meantime, we thank Ms. Dominus for brightening our day, just a few days from Christmas, one of the worst times of the year for many who have relinquished.
___________________
In the interest of full disclosure, we know and admire Ms. Dominus from our previous incarnation as a feminist/humor/advice columnist (with my husband) at Glamour where she helped edit our monthly offerings. We hope she takes our deconstruction of her column in good humor --lorraine

Is there a universal right to know one's heritage? Part 2

Lorraine

Whether or not there is a universal "need" to know one's specific origins, or an inborn natural curiosity that we all carry within our breast, has been the subject of an ongoing debate at the previous blog,* The universal need to know who you are. 

Little children--before they know they are not supposed to ask--all ask the question about the beginning of their lives. How did I get here? Where did I

President Obama's mother making an adoption plan? Unthinkable.

President Obama

Before President Barack Obama was born, his parents may have considered putting him up for adoption reports Sally Jacobs, author of The Other Barack, The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father. The senior Obama told immigration officials that he and his wife, Ann Dunham, would “’make arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away.'”

Is LDS Family Services getting out of the adoption business?

Lorraine

According to a source that seems to have the juice, LDS Family Services will be getting out of the adoption business ENTIRELY at the end of 2013. My source says that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints will no longer be doing adoptions, and they are letting go all of their adoption-related staff prior to Christmas. They also say they will continue to offer their "free lifelong counseling" to the women who have already lost a child to their system.

The source, who says that this was confirmed by a friend who is a social worker for LDS Family Services, says this had been rumored to be in the works for about two years. While there is likely to be no official reason given by the LDS church as to why it is getting out of the adoption business, "but within the rank and file workers, it is thought to be because of the pending lawsuits against LDSFS in relation to father's rights, as well as the "gay adoption issue."

96-year-old mother meets adopted daughter--after 82 years!

Lorraine at work

Reunion stories are becoming more and more common, the news media loves them, and each one should be celebrated because each is another nail in the coffin of sealed records as A Good Thing. Instead of that, sealed birth records represent social engineering run amuck.

We don't write about them often at FMF, but every now and then one tugs at one's heart strings more than usual, or has a message beyond simple reunion relief. That is the case today.

An 96-year-old mother was found and reunited with her daughter of 82! And in the Very Sealed Records State of New York.

Lena Pierce was only 14 when she had a child in 1933 in Utica. She cared for her baby, whom she named Eva May, for six months until the state of New York intervened,

What’s Wrong with Birthmother Events on Mother’s Day? Just about EVERYTHING

The famous holiday from hell as far as birth mothers are concerned is upon us: Mother’s Day. Reminders are as common as grass: on television and in the newspaper, on the computer. AOL has a click-on icon that takes you to a virtual catalogue of goodies to buy: eye shadow (I am not kidding) to leather briefcases and of course, the ubiquitous flowers.

For those of us who want a relationship with the children we lost to adoption, reminders of the flowers and cards we will not get on Sunday are fresh knives to the heart. Especially after I found my birth daughter, Jane, and she did not remember me in any way—no card, no phone call, drop dead, why don’t ya—it was a depressing day. Remember, over the years we had spent a great deal of time together; she had lived with us for months at a time. Yet Mother's Day would come and go without any acknowledgment. Did it feel like further punishment? You bet it did. The card I got from my stepson simply reminded me of a daughter who had decided to forget. I would counter my gloom by repeating yogic thoughts: Mother’s Day is only one day. Tomorrow is another day, a not Mother’s Day.

And: We make ourselves prisoners of our feelings, when they are neither good or bad, they just are.

I only succeeded up to a point. I was sure that Mother’s Day was being celebrated with bells and whistles and flowers and dinner with Jane’s adoptive mother back in Wisconsin. I never asked. I did not harbor any resentment over that, naturally, but could not Jane have at least sent a card or made a last-minute phone call? She had to be aware it was Mother's Day. Yet I kept my feelings to myself. I did not call her. I called my own mother instead; some years I brought my mother to New York from Michigan at that time and my husband and I were able to take her to a fancy lunch. Other years I sent flowers. Like many birth mothers, I did not have other children, and so had no one to distract me from Jane's ignoring me on this day.

Finally, after years—hell, decades—of being forgotten by my daughter on this day, I took a leap of courage and told Jane during one of our close periods that her ignoring Mother’s Day really hurt my feelings. That a mere phone call, or a card, some acknowledgment that I existed, that I was also her mother, would have turned the day completely around for this birth/first mother.

Jane’s life was not without travail, and she was on her own by this time. Now she remembered to call or send a card for Mother's Day as often as she forgot. But somehow the mere act of having told her how I felt made it easier on my mind when I did not hear from her. The cards I prize the most are the funny ones that obliquely refer to our fractured relationship. The best has a humorous photograph of a mother and daughter who look amazingly alike and which thanks me for “keeping her head on straight.” Once she was married, she always remembered, except for the year or two when she had decided I was not going to be in her life anymore. Yes, that continued to happen, right up until the end.

The one card about which I am not enthusiastic was the $3 pink Hallmark special: For My BirthMother it says on the outside. I wanted to ask, but did not, had she sent her other mother a card that said: For My Adoptive Mother? By the time she sent that, I'd known her for so many years and through so many trials and tribulations. Naturally I kept my little internal carping to myself and simply thanked her for remembering.

Not surprisingly, I am not a fan of any “birth mother celebrations,” even if they were the brainchild of first/birth mothers themselves, as apparently some of them are. The Saturday before Mother’s Day is designated as “Birthmother’s Day.” Special gatherings of first mothers are planned in several states, I read. To all this I say, gag me with a spoon. I can not think of anything more depressing that getting together with other first mothers on the day calibrated to remind us of possibly the worst day in our lives…unless we were going to the theater, a super lunch, a day at the spa, or just getting together because we are friends.

This is the first year in several that I did not get numerous reminders to attend a Spence-Chapin gala in Manhattan, which I looked upon as a mawkish reminder of all that had been lost. I know a hasty email I sent offended at least one of the birth mothers involved in the planning. But I can not see how such a “celebration” for women who have relinquished their children--sponsored by an adoption agency--is anything more than a pat on the head for good service done, as in: You gave us product for our business. Thank you. Hey, have lunch on us, light a candle together, we share your pain.

Maybe smarter heads at Spence Chapin decided this year that such a pity party was not a great idea. I would have liked it if it had turned into a raid upon their records! So while I know there are several events planned in several states for Birthmother’s Day, I will refrain from taking part. There are enough reminders everywhere that doing anything extra to mark the day becomes an exercise in self-flagellation.

Of course, now it is different for me. Both my mother and my daughter are deceased and I will spend the day ignoring Mother’s Day. If it’s nice I’ll work in the garden, I always find that restorative. Maybe we’ll take in a movie—as long as it’s mindlessly escapist. I will probably not go to brunch in a restaurant that day, as they are always jammed. Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine with lunch, wherever that is. Maybe I’ll stimulate the economy and buy something nice for myself .

And the day after Mother's Day will be Monday. Another day. I won't have to think about this for another year. --lorraine

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For another take on “Birth Mother” celebrations, see

http://www.exiledmothers.com/speaking_out/birthmothers_day1.html

And

http://adoption.about.com/od/celebrationinspiration/a/honormothers.htm?nl=1

Sealed adoptee birth record laws: Protecting patriarchy

"Laws written by men to protect women deserve scrutiny" argued the plaintiffs in a case before the U. S. Supreme Court, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, to over turn a Texas law that restricts women's access to abortion by targeting doctors and clinics that provide abortions. The law requires physicians who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic. A separate provision, which has not yet gone into effect, would mandate that abortion clinics must meet standards for "ambulatory surgical centers," which includes, for instance, having hallways wide enough to have two gurneys pass, a totally unnecessary demand and a costly renovation for most clinics.

'Re-Homing': Dumping unwanted adopted kids

Nicole Eason "Big Momma" 

Nicole Eason took six children from adoptive parents, anxious to rid themselves of the children they had "rescued." Eason, who calls herself "Big Momma," told adoptive parents she was "awesome with kids" and presented them with a letter of recommendation she claimed came from a social worker. In truth, she wrote it herself using a form she found on the Internet. Yet it was enough for desperate adoptive parents unable to cope with the children they adopted to give Eason custody of the children. Unknowingly, the parents placed the children in a house of horrors.

Argument to give up your baby is the same old one heard before

Sept.1, 2013 cover of New Republic

First Mother Forum is included as a place where you can "Meet the New Anti-Adoption Movement" in the current issue of The New Republic, to wit:

"Some women, like Corrigan D’Arcy, blog their stories. They run message boards with names like “First Mother Forum” and “Pound Pup Legacy,” full of tales of bitterly regretted adoptions. They hold retreats for birth mothers* and adoptees. They’ve formed several grassroots activist organizations, including Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform, Origins-USA, and Concerned United Birthparents. Some call themselves adoption reformers. Others prefer terms such as 'adoption truth advocate.' A few will come straight out and say they’re anti-adoption."

The piece, by Emily Matchar, is good and straight-forward reportage about the growing sense of dissolution about adoption in America, and makes reference to the Baby Scoop Era before Roe v. Wade, as well as the pressure that we, mothers of that time, were under to relinquish our children.

Grief and doubt after an international adoptee's death: Max Shatto in Texas

Max Shatto on the equipment that may have killed him.

Earlier his year the death of a Russian child who died only months after being adopted by Laura and Alan Shatto of Texas was news, as it appeared to be yet another death-by-American-adoption story. The biological mother of the boy was found in Russia and she was pleading for the return of the dead boy's brother, then two, also adopted by the same couple. Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Moscow is support of a ban on adoptions by Americans, a ban that took place shortly before Max died. It was unclear at the time whether the boy had been harmed by the couple or died of accidental causes, as he was found to have bruises and scratches on his body, a possible sign of abuse that the Shattos vehemently denied.

According to The New York Times today, a lengthy investigation by police, prosecutors and medical examiners have concluded that the boy, Max, who came to the Shattos with a known heart defect--died of an accidental injuries,

What's in a Name? A Great Deal to an Adoptee

Today is the day of the demonstration for Adoptee Rights in Louisville, KY where the annual summit meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures is being held. When last checked, adoptee activist Jeff Hancock, the organizer of this year's event, had 791 signatures (including moi) to be linked as symbolic of those who are there in spirit. This was a Facebook gathering, but only 791? Where is the angry mob, demanding their rights? The ones who want their original, unamended, non fake birth certificates? Until they come out of the woodwork, efforts to repeal the archaic and unjust legislation that stripped them of their birth right upon adoption--their one true identity--will be stymied.

In that vein, I came across this passage this morning from Robert J. Lifton, author, psychiatrist, thinker, and husband of Betty Jean Lifton:

 "The origin of the secrecy is the specter of illegitimacy in the background. Instead of confronting these issues openly, there is the pretense that they don't exist and the whole subject becomes pervaded with guilt in a way that harms that relationship between the adopted child and his or her psychological parents. Every adopted person I have spoken to has confirmed that process....

"A name is an enormously important element of identity over the generations and over the course of one's individual life. Moreover, by learning the name, by learning about the person--one's mother and father--he or she becomes an actual vibrant human being rather than fragmented bits of information. Such bits and pieces, ethnic or social characteristics, medial background, only become further stimulants to curiosity.

"From my own experience with adopted people from from the literature, it apparently seems as though every single aodpted person has some significant curiosity about this. Some are blocked from further effort by that layer of guilt; others make no effort. But the desire to find out is probably universal."--from Birthmark.

Yes, it's my memoir, published in 1979. I was leafing through it this morning and came across Lifton's testimony included in a chapter about a 1974 trial in which both he and I testified in the Bronx. It was my first public admission of being a woman who had relinquished a child to be adopted. I don't recall that the term "birth mother" was in use yet. I do remember being a somewhat terrified and nervous (I'm about to admit in public I gave away my child!!!), but determined. The judge was kind. I found my voice.

It was the case of Ann Smith versus Spence-Chapin Adoption Services; she wanted to look at her case file. The judge denied her claim, but noted that anyway, that the file it did not contain the names of her natural parents. Unless Ann Smith was dropped off without any identifying information, her original birth certificate would have given her what she sought. I'm thinking about all this because Jane has a good post in the works about what the original birth certificate signifies, and why it's been so hard to unlock them from the damn vaults where they are hidden away from the eyes of the people to whom they rightfully belong.--lorraine
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PS: If you are going to order any of the books advertised here, please order by linking through from the blog.

The Koran Gets It Right: Prohibits Closed Adoptions

Lorraine

 From the Associated Press:

"Helene Lauffer knew Muslim children - orphaned, displaced, neglected - needed homes in the United States. She knew American Muslim families wanted to take them in.  But Lauffer, associate executive director of Spence-Chapin, one of the oldest adoption agencies in the country, couldn't bring them together.

"The problem was a gap between Western and Islamic law. Traditional, closed adoption violates Islamic jurisprudence, which stresses the importance of lineage.

Get them while you can: Adoption files in Syracuse

Robert Lahm and the adoption files in his basement

Anyone who relinquished or was adopted from central New York in the last twenty years, needs to read this and grab this opportunity while you can: Your records! New Life adoption agency in Syracuse, New York shut down two years ago and the attorney who owned the building inadvertently inherited all the files from the wonderful people who ran the agency left behind. The files are in his basement and AVAILABLE to the people to whom they concern: THE ADOPTED.

Lifegivers: The Girls Who Came to Stay

In its Summer, 2009 newsletter, Open Adoption and Family Services, Inc., an adoption agency in Portland, Oregon reported on its “Lifegivers” retreats held in Eugene, Oregon and Seattle May 30th.

There were no retreats in my day, the not-always swinging Sixties. I left home in shame and returned pretending my pregnancy and surrender did not happen. I hid in a small room in a shabby hotel in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, a city where I knew no one. When I left San Francisco sans my heart two months after my first daughter Megan was born, I worked mightily to forget why I had been there.

Years later, I attended support groups led by birthmothers where we told of our sorrow and regret. A prime villain in our discussions was the adoption agency social worker.

It’s different today. We were The Girls Who Went Away; today there is a new breed of birthmothers, The Girls Who Came Back. They return each year to attend an adoption agency sponsored retreat led by a social worker (“counselor”), the purpose of which is to “nurture and honor birthmothers.” The mothers “talk about their adoption journey” and are counseled on “transitioning to the role of a birthmother and developing a healthy relationship with their child’s adoptive family.” The women “shared words of wisdom, empowered one another to be honest with their child's adoptive family, and encouraged one another to live life fully."

Participants had chair massages, painted pottery or made beaded bracelets, and ate pizza. They received gifts including cheeses, flowers, candy, soap products, and gift certificates donated by local businesses and adoptive parents. The Seattle women also had a visit from The Heartsparkle Players, a theatre troupe that practices Playback Theatre where members of the audience share their stories and the actors improvise a short piece reflecting the themes from their story.

In spite of the praise and the pizza, the tears flowed. “During these moments, the air filled with incredible empathy and compassion as they passed the tissue boxes from one side of the circle to the other.” The truth is that whether you’re a lifegiver, firstmother, birthmother, natural mother, real mother, or just a mother, adoption is always painful.

I wonder about the counselors who lead these events, seeing women who had recently given birth and placed their infant in the arms of a stranger join older mothers who return year after year. (“The most recent ‘placement’ had been two weeks prior to the retreat, and the longest was nearly 24 years ago.”) What do these counselors feel as they face women whom they caused to lose their child? Can these counselors reconcile their contention that these mothers whom they describe as “beautiful, insightful, and loving” are incapable of mothering their own child?

There is something twisted, even Machiavellian, about a group of birth/first mothers convinced that their value is in “developing a healthy relationship with their child’s adoptive family.” My cynical side thinks the agency has an ulterior motive in these retreats: keep the mothers happy so that they don't cause trouble for the adoptive parents, or bad-mouth the agency to other women considering adoption. The agency social workers who created these events might think they are “servicing” their clients, but it would be better for everyone if they turned their attention to diminishing their client base in the first place. When we post at FirstMotherForum, sometimes an ad pops from Spence-Chapin agency of New York like this:

Adopt a Baby

Loving Families Needed. Domestic & Intl programs

Knowing what we know about the dearth of adoptable healthy infants in this country, their “birthmother” events strike me as specious. As do the “lifegiver” retreats in Seattle and Eugene.