[Birth Mother] First Mother Forum

Jane Should a man who has just discovered he has a child--DNA testing at work--reveal to his son, who he and his family have warmly wel...

Jane and Lorraine, 1982 New York's Gov. Cuomo announced yesterday that more than 3,600 people applied for their original birth c...

At my house  Ahhh, Christmas. Carols piped in at Starbucks. Christmas specials on television. Radio stations that play nothing but Chr...

My daughter (center) with her daughter, my mother and me. My family.  As on January 2020 individuals born and adopted in New York will...

Jacket photo on Birthmark, 1979 Last night I watched as rapper LL Cool J dealt with discovering that his mother was adopted, that the g...

Lorraine Sometimes things pop up in the media that indicate somethings in the air at the same time I've been ruminating abou...

Jane In a New York Times opinion piece, Hope Edelman's vivid  description of still grieving at the loss of her mother 38 years earl...

Lorraine "You have to think of your daughter as dead," a priest told a friend of mine whose daughter was adopted through a Ca...

Lorraine  DNA is changing how many families will be surprised by the appearance of a relative in the family tree who suddenly appears a...

Jane, Hiram, and friends I just spent a wonderful four days with my granddaughter Rachael, her husband Shane, and her three month old...

Lorraine  Does anybody who is adopted or who relinquished a child for adoption get a sinking feeling when they read a story about a wom...

Declaration of Independence This Fourth of July we will again celebrate liberty, one of the unalienable, natural rights with which we...

Too shy to push myself totally into the shot... Some people have said they can't adequately  reach the Albany Times-Union site wher...

Lorraine  UPDATED 11 P.M. JUNE 21, 2019 Adoptee right bill passed!!!!!!!! The vote in the Assembly was 140-6. (Final vote; 4 abstent...

Lorraine at 2018 Indiana conference with fellow New Yorker, Suzanne Bachner, playwright,The Good Adoptee  If surrogacy--renting a wo...

In Roseburg, Oregon, a small town 175 miles south of Portland, a woman I do not know will deliver a baby within the next 30 days and giv...

Press Conference on steps of NYC City Hall, with Sen. Velmanette Montgomery,  Assemblyperson David Weprin, and that's me with the bi...

Lorraine Here it comes again, Mother's Day, impossible to delete from the calendar or ignore totally because of the incessant ads t...

Daughter Jane and Mother Lorraine 1983 "My little girl said to me one day, 'I wonder what my mother was like,', she recal...

Lorraine Hoda Kotb of the Today show adopted again. I caught the end of the reveal on Today this morning, and all the women sitting ar...

Kelly Hansen It's always thrilling when someone not a first mother or an adoptee gets it. Kelly Hansen, a high-tech professional i...

Lorraine My letter to New York Senators on the Health Committee in the state legislature:   Dear Senator X:  A true identity should ...

Legislators Velmanette Montgomery and David Weprin, Lorraine Dusky at press conference on step of NYC City Hall  a few years ago. Th...

As predictable as Groundhog Day repeating itself is adoptive mothers who go ballistic when referred to as adoptive mothers. "I am the...

Lorraine A few days ago a friend emailed me about seeing the Judy Chicago Birth Project--a series of impressionist and graphic woven i...

Geneticist Robert Plomin says children take  after their biological parents, not adoptive.  Kids take after their first parents, no...

My holiday amaryllis taken with my Sony  Like everyone else I've been busy with holiday stuff--I'm a dinosaur in some respects...

Lorraine "You will have another child and put this one behind you." Around a third of all women who surrender a child will ...

Lorraine speaking up at a NY legislative hearing. Not heard enough yet in Albany!  Natural mothers and adopted people often say there ...

Lorraine The widow can open cry for a partner who is lost. The parent of a child who dies receives sympathy and understanding. A mo...