When a 'mistake' became a child

The Bristol Palin story has opened up the debate about abortion because of course...some are thinking, Bristol could have had an abortion. And then there's the language that calls the baby a "mistake," and how that impacts adopted people.

It's a tricky labyrinth because for those of us who gave up children, the pregnancy--there's no way around it--was a "mistake." The pregnancy was a "problem." It was a life--our lives--that were being turned upside down by an unplanned, and yes, unwanted pregnancy. Those of you who have read Birthmark know that I tried to have an abortion. At the time, I was 22, not married to the father (who was married to someone else), living on my own just out of college, without resources, and yes, my pregnancy, was a "problem." It was 1966 when it seemed unthinkable to raise--even admit I was pregnant--on my own.

But once you don't have the abortion, once you go go through the months of having your body and mind turn to a child, your child, everything changes. The "problem" became "him." (I thought I was having a boy up until the moment she was born.) And no matter what I felt before, my feelings turned to love and an aching desire to keep my baby, even though that seemed impossible at the time. So what was once a mistake becomes a child, your child, who you love more than you ever thought possible.

My husband, who was his mother's second child, was born at a time when the family was in financial difficulty, and he once heard that he wasn't particularly wanted...when his mother got pregnant. But that didn't alter one whit the love he felt from his mother; in fact, he turned out to be closer to her than his older brother.

So adoptees, though the word "mistake" is hard to hear, know that it doesn't refer to you as the baby or the person you became. My mistake turned into my daughter Jane and though she had a difficult life, I was always glad to be a part of it when she let me. --lorraine

And here's a comment from Linda:

I keep reminding myself that no one pointed a gun to my head, no one forced to to choose adoption (though therapy decades later told me "of course being a student at a Catholic women's college influenced my decision." My parents would have supported an abortion, in fact, my father sent me money for that purpose and I banked it. A single pregnant woman will believe anything, and I believed the sperm donor.

I know a couple of women who have expressed regret over their choosing abortion, but most, as Lorraine has often told me, can live with their choice without much remorse. I always said if I had to do it again I would still choose adoption, but my position changed post-reunion. I don't know what I'd choose (to raise my child or abort) but I'm 99 percent certain I wouldn't choose adoption.

I was 19 and believed the social worker and the whole "my child will have a better life with a loving couple" myth--marriage wasn't even on my radar. I wanted a brilliant career with a home on both coasts. Sarah Kershaw's article in today's (Thursday 9/4) NY Times more eloquently expresses my sentiments I posted yesterday in response to your blog:

Sociologists say that what drives the failure of teenage marriages — and some also say the postwar young marriage boom may have contributed to the divorce explosion of the 1970s — is the complex condition of being an unformed adult.

“They may not know quite what they want in a lifetime partner,” Dr. Popenoe said. “They still often have years of education to complete, as well as getting settled in the work world, and those two things may change their outlook on life considerably.”

And from Jane:

Giving up a baby is totally different from an abortion or a miscarriage. It causes extreme depression and obsessive thinking, not just an occasional sigh. I thought reunion would resolve some of these feelings -- it has helped but there is still pain.

I cringe every time I see bumper stickers that say "adoption, not abortion."

Lorraine again: Yes, it is sad when people who want to have children can't have them, but that doesn't entitle them to somebody else's baby.

http://www.amazon.com/Birthmark-Lorraine-Dusky/

Bristol Palin will be more than a firstmother.

Sarah Palin. Bristol. Five months pregnant. It might be a personal tragedy in their family, but given the background, maybe not. It's not clear that Bristol is giving up college for baby and marriage to the hockey hunk Levi. She is following in her mother's footsteps, who was pregnant when she got married. In terms of marriage, that has worked out.

Linda, one of the other bloggers on Firstmother Forum, has been upset about this and the girl's life going forward, but perhaps I'm more jaded. I just see the pregnancy as the typical response to having abstinence-only sex education classes, which is what Ms. Palin advocates. And I would assume, she would work to further abstinence-only sex education should she end up as vice president. Here's a snippet of a column I wrote for a local newspaper a year ago:

Everyone can agree that abstinence will prevent pregnancies as well as sexually transmitted diseases. Abstinence-only programs have been promoted by every GOP Congress and president since Ronald Reagan, who instituted them in 1981. In 1996, a GOP Congress mandated that $50 million each year go to abstinence-only programs, with another $37.5 million coming from the states in matching grants.[Obviously they had no trouble getting this money in Alaska.] Since then the government has spent $1.5 billion on such abstinence-only sex education, despite plenty of evidence that they are simply bogus.

They don't work in the long run--heck, they don't even work in the short run. The studies are numerous, but a favorite of mine is one done jointly by Columbia and Yale universities. It found that while "virginity pledges" seem to encourages teenagers to delay sex the effect was short lived. Eighty-eight percent--call it an overwhelming majority--of those who signed such a pledge ended up having sex not only before they married, but--equally fascinating, before the study ended. Hmm...sounds like most of the virgins stuck to the pledge when it was convenient, but not once they found someone to love.

Two other bits of data from that study stand out: Those taking the pledge had the same rate of sexually transmitted disease as those who did not. (Zero gain.) And they were less likely to use a contraceptive when they put their booties under someone else's bed. (Negative loss.)

And if those same teenagers are having unprotected sex, they are more likely to have unintended pregnancies. [I'm going to assume Bristol's pregnancy is unintended.] Which brings us back to that nagging abortion rate that's been stuck in neutral under Bush's watch, this is, not going down as it had under Clinton. In short, abstinence-only programs lead to more unintended pregnancies. According to the Guttmacher Institute, half of the 6.4 million pregnancies in the U.S. each year are unintended. Half of them are carried to term.

In April of 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly released a long-awaited, Congressionally mandated evaluation of Title V-abstinence-only programs. The conclusion: "Youth in the program group were no more likely than the control-group youth to have abstained from sex, and among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age."

The good news was the the Democrats finally pulled the plug on such an inane and failed program. They planned to let a $50 million grant expire in June, 2000. Conservatives were outraged.

Along with their outrage, I would assume conservatives had more unplanned pregnancies in their teen population. I am a old-timer who went to Catholic schools and had sex at the time when guys who said that they didn't like using condoms got away with it. (Yes, my daughter's father did say that.) Today, more teens are having sex than they were in my day, but in a sane world they are given the education, and easy access to contraception, they need to have sex that is not only safe, but does not lead to an unplanned conception.

No matter how we feel about this family personally and politically, no matter how we feel about abortion, what I applaud and feel good about is that this child will not be given up for adoption. That would be the real tragedy. And we might not hear, as both the Bush presidents have been want to spout--"adoption not abortion."

Bristol's road will not be an easy one, but she will have her baby. And keep it.

--lorraine

PS: For those of you who listened to my lament about Yvonne, we spoke. She denies, denies that she could have ever called women who give up babies "reproductive agents." I believe she believes that she did not say that. She sat quietly and listened while I tried to educate her and open her mind somewhat. I may have succeeded. Or maybe not.

Yvonne is not/never was against adoptees searching, and thank god, her hairdresser (who eventually married the father) has had a successful reunion with the daughter the couple lost to adoption. Among the many things I said was that sometimes the adopted person is not able to do the search because the original birth certificate has been altered, or for other reasons. She was aware that in France the OBCs were never sealed. Can we be friends again? I hope so, in time. Right now I'm still internally reeling from her outburst.