Doctor tricks natural mother

Lorraine 

Nearly three decades ago, an infertile couple who wanted to adopt wrote up a resume about themselves and sent it to several obstetricians through friends of friends. Though they were not from New York, they got a call from a doctor in Brooklyn. His patient was an 18-year-old about to go to college, and she and her boyfriend were planning to give up their baby.

The mother-to-be chose the couple--from their letter--but though they wanted to meet her, she did not. She did agree to let the prospective parents have a photograph of her. But the prospective adoptive father wanted to meet her.

An Un-Open Adoption: Adoptive Parents Lie and Break a Mother's Heart

I recently joined Facebook and there have connected with many new people involved in adoption issues. One of them is Vanessa from Texas, a birth mother who was promised an "open" adoption, but it was slammed shut when her son was six. While we bloggers three--Jane, Linda and Lorraine--gave our children up when open adoptions did not exist or were extremely rare, today they are the most common type of private adoption in the country. However, any woman considering entering into such an agreement should heed this tale of caution:

By Vanessa:

When I learned that I was pregnant at 19, the baby’s father and I had recently split up. I was alone, scared, unsure of what to do. By the time I was five months along, I was considering adoption, but I did know that I would not be able to simply give my child up and not know what had happened to him or how he was as time went by. If I were going to pursue this option, open adoption was the only route I was willing to consider. I contacted a local agency, met the director, and made this very clear. It was open adoption or nothing.

I moved into the maternity home provided by the Blessed Trinity Adoptions in Texas, which is no longer in business. While I was still unsure about giving my child up, the pressurized atmosphere of the maternity home convinced me that I would not be the better parent for my child because I was young, unmarried, and did not have a four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac. The social worker and the agency director strongly encouraged me to look thorough prospective parent profiles and select a couple whom I might discuss open adoption with. I found a couple who seemed to be what I was looking for: a stable, loving people—good Christians—who would be able to provide my child with everything that I could not (or so I thought).

Our first meetings went well. I voiced my reluctance about going through with the adoption—if they were unwilling to agree to regular correspondence and pictures of my child until age 18. At that point, of course, he would be old enough to make his own decisions. The agency did require that the couple agree to a single visitation when my child was one, and held out the promise that there might be more. Yet I was still apprehensive. My hesitation must have been obvious, and so, during our last meeting—shortly before I gave birth to my son—both the man and the woman looked me straight in the eye and promised that they would honor our spoken agreement for an open adoption. I believe they would have said anything to get my child.

I had the agreed-upon one-hour visitation when he was a year old, but that was it. I was never offered any other visitations or meetings with them, or, more importantly, my son. For six years I received the promised pictures and correspondence, and while they were always bittersweet at least I had some connection with my son.

Everything ended when he was seven. The adoptive parents moved and left no forwarding contact information. The correspondence and pictures no longer came. I had no way to reach them. I was devastated. A lawyer I contacted after a few years told me that because I did not have a signed legal agreement specifying certain conditions, there was nothing that I could do. However, I am not sure what good a signed paper would have been anyway because in most states such arrangements are difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

The people who adopted my son—supposedly good Christians—were people I trusted, yet they deceived me and destroyed my relationship with my son. To anyone who says that getting a child under these false pretences is not coercion, you are wrong. I would never have agreed to let my son be adopted if I knew the couple would not honor their promise. They dangled the carrot of “open adoption” before me, but it was a lie. Living with the knowledge that I entrusted them with my child has been a terrible cross to bear.

Twelve years went by without any word. But when he was 18, I found him and we recently met. After I told him that I always regretted giving him up he looked me right in the face and said that “God put him where he was supposed to be.” The very people who betrayed me have brainwashed him into believing that it was “God’s will” that he was adopted by them. I doubt they also told him that it was “God's will” that they lied to his mother and let her live in a state of despair and disillusionment all of these years.

The adoptive parents who do this are not "loving" parents or good Christians; they are heartless wretches. I would not wish this pain on my worst enemy. If there is anyone out there who is considering embarking on an “open adoption”, please reconsider. While I commend those adoptive parents who do honor their child’s mother and the agreements for openness, there are far too many who don’t. The psychological damage this causes is devastating. I am not the only person who has been tricked into agreeing to an “open adoption.” There are many other women like me.

The adoption industry is built upon the premise that infertile couples are more deserving of your child than a young, unmarried woman because they have more disposable income at the time your child is born. What older couple doesn’t have more money than most 19-year-olds? But that does that make them more entitled to someone else’s child. Adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Financial and life situations change. To anyone considering an open adoption, I say...find another way.

____________________

For other posts on "God's Will," see also: God's Will? I don't think so.

Birth Mothers Attacked as Usual...or, Maybe I Need New Friends

I seem to be attracting fireballs lately--mainly because a) I'm writing about my daughter and telling people, so that brings up the whole idea that I found her, not the other way around; and b) I live in a world where adoptions are plentiful--everybody knows at least three people who have adopted and so far, so good. The kids are generally doing fine and so...the elephant in the room is the specter of the birth mother coming back.

That would be me.

So after just having had that horrible eruption with my close friend and neighbor, Yvonne, I got gob-smacked the other night by childless successful corporate attorney, also a friend. Call him Aston. He is godfather to one Chinese adoptee, who lives down the street from us, she's now fifteen; friend to another women who also has a Chinese girl, now fourteen; and one of his very best friends has a white son...from Gladney in Texas, one of the agencies that supports the National Council for Adoption.

Anyway, those are only the adoptions we know about that Aston is close to. God knows what started it, but he went on a long nasty harangue about how any birth mother coming back is always interfering, always upsetting this nice family, and after the parents have "invested" so much, both financially and emotionally, this WOMAN HAS NO RIGHT TO DO THAT!!!!

After I tried to make a case for the agony of not knowing, and gave him a brief history of sealed adoptions (Kansas and Alaska didn't count because they weren't big enough states) he came up with this question: What part of the pie chart of a birth mother who searches can be ascribed to self-interest? ....

Tell me, how do you answer that?

My husband Tony was there throughout and took Aston on as much as I did because that question left me speechless. The "discussion" might have taken place in a courtroom. Aston didn't know (why would he?) there was any research about birth mothers. Or the great mystery in the life of an adoptee. I did have him leave with both a copy of The Adoption Triangle and the Donaldson adoptee report. He's never had kids, when he and he wife wanted to adopt, his mother talked them out of it.

Damn, I can't even write about this without crying. All I know is that birth others are really seen as the pariahs by the elite class of adopters who have never been in the position of being poor, or feeling they had no options. Yvonne is one, Aston is another. Aston's wife, who did want to adopt quite badly, it came out, mostly said nothing but she at least got it that birth mothers would feel ...what is the word? Aston and I ended up using agony to refer to the pain birth mothers feel.

Here is what I emailed him the next day:

What I never got around to saying during your prosecutorial attack--the pie chart question seemed only designed to make birth mothers look bad and in doing so denigrate me--was that adoptees often want to be found because it indicates that their mothers do think about them, want to know them, want to know what happened, that the baby wasn't just dropped off and the woman/teenager went on with her life as if the child was a mere temporary inconvenience.

I'm just one person but I have had stacks of letters over the years thanking me for what I do from adopted people; what they want is for their mothers to find them. Adoption is painful, and keeping everything locked up--no matter who does the searching--does not make it less so. Only in the minds of people who have never walked the walk. Since you have such strong opinions that I'm in the wrong in such a major way, I hope you will take the time to read some of the material, including the birth mother survey that is at the site I sent yesterday. (you don't need to read it all, you can find the relevant sections from the TOC.

Unless you walked in my shoes, I don't think you can understand the depth of feeling that goes toward one's one flesh and blood. As someone one said, we can be casual about our own parents, but our kids always have us by the balls.

lorraine

In a message dated 09/07/08 10:10:49 Eastern Daylight Time, nccar@mindspring.com writes:

Lorraine,

I have given the following young lady your email and asked her to contact you, as her adoption was handled in New York. Please if you can pass her along to anyone who might be of assistance to her. She contacted me through the Care2 network.

Hello Ms. Roberta,

Thank you for responding to my inquiry. The main dilemma that I have been encountering is that I was born in Miami FL, but taken away from my mothers arms (when she moved up to NYC I might have been 1 yrs old) and put into foster care in Bronx, NY and that eventually led into an adoption by a family that was not well receiving of me as the adoptee. I somehow remembered from the time I was 4 1/2 yrs old that the foster care agency was located on 349 East 149th Street; Bronx, NY 10451 because of the building structure and the CitiBank logo on there; however, nobody knew the name of the agency that was once in the basement area of CitiBank back in 1984-1990's. I was told by CitiBank reps that that organization left during the 90's. This is the only detail I could recall of that has made me continue asking people if there's a way to get the agency's name during 1984. I even wrote Governor Pataki to please help me in this search and he replied with several agency's names in the Bronx and they claimed that I don't exist on their system.

I greatly appreciate your interest to assist me in any way, I hope to receive guidance if that's possible so that my life mystery can come to an end. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Christina

Do you think this woman would feel that her birth mother was causing an unnecessary conflict in her life if she were to call upon her daughter?

One more thing, that I did not bring up that night: Aston's father was the guardian ad litem for the Schmidt/DeBoer child, Baby Anna/Jessica. Who argued in the Michigan court that the baby's best interests were with staying with the DeBoers....Who in my mind were nothing but baby snatchers as the real mother asked for the child back within the time limit but fought her for two years in the courts. Incidentally, the DeBoers later divorced.

Oh yeah, where did all this take place? At my dinner table, just the cozy four of us. I'd love to hear from other birth mothers about the reactions they get when it becomes clear they were the ones who did the searching.
--lorraine

In Adoptee's Search, Loss and Grief Collide

Double Header Day:

Folks, I've twice lost everything I have written and so I'm a little nuts...so as lightening strikes overhead I'm going to try one more time because it's important to get our voices heard when adoption reunion stories make news. Today's New York Times (8/11/08) has a story about an adoptee, Mark Cellura, who searched and found that his twin, seemingly an identical sibling, had died in 1987. Reporter Sarah Kershaw does a good job of highlighting the necessity of this man's search, and the long slog it is taking to change laws to give adoptees their birth rights. For us, the only really sorry note in the story is that Mark's mother has not responded to a letter from his intrepid searcher, Pam Slayton. (However, there is one adoptee mentioned in the story who has happily reunited, so all first mothers don't look like--jerks.

I know adopted people are afraid of rejection, but is it really any easier if it's done through a third party? Adopted people should make contact themselves, have the courage to make a phone call. Just by the mere fact of birth, they are entitled by the laws of nature one meeting, one day of answers, all truths revealed, nothing held back. This is the story of their lives. I know some of these women still say no, but I'll go out on a limb here and predict that the total reunion-rejection rate is probably lower than when the contact is made through a third person, via letter. The only exception I can feel good about is when a confidential searcher, as in some states, is also a birth mother, and is able to allay the fears of women deep in the closet.

See "In Adoptee's Search, Loss and Grief Collide" at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/nyregion/11twins.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

So, let's use today's Times story to storm our version of the Bastille: Write to the Times (Letters@nytimes.com) and email a copy of the letter to your legislators, all of them: Your state senator and assemblyman, as well as your congressman and senator in Washington. Unless you let them know what you want, they're not going to know. Urge them to get behind a clean bill--one that gives adoptees the rights that should be theirs as a matter of course. Read about the good New York bill at: http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/

You don't have to be brilliant, you just have to voice your opinion. The more letters the Times gets, the more ink we will get in the paper. You do have to remember to include your name, address, and phone number. Be brief, but be quick. Allow yourself to get angry! Me, I'm angry at all those women in the closet. I'd like to pull them out by the short hairs and give them 40 whacks. But how do we reach them? Aye, that is the question. How do we reach them, how do we change their minds and open their hearts? Through my high school grapevine, I know of one woman from Sacred Heart High School in Dearborn, Michigan who apparently is not curious, and never looked back. How do I reach her?

Dunno.

But remember, Well-behaved women seldom make history.

Baby Farming Hits a Bump in the Road

A messy story from India, where the baby-farm industry flourishes. In brief:

Japanese parents buy an ovum and rent the womb of a poor woman, but alas, the couple divorces before the birth. The natural mother, who provided egg and incubation for money, does not want the burden of raising the child, which is understandable, as we assume that she only took on this life-changing job because she is poor. Baby incubation is not a job middle-class or upper class women take on. Now the Japanese father is willing to take the child, but the Indian law says that only couples can adopt the baby...not a single parent, and there is some problem with the baby leaving India. So while this is sorted out, the baby languishes in a Jaipur hospital.
(read full story at: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080060225
(Once I figure out how to do a link, I will!)

While this sounds shocking, something similar happened here in the USA a few years back and the whole sorry story was in O magazine. In that case, the surrogate mother--whose eggs were fertilized with man's sperm--had twins and again, due to divorce, neither parent who ordered up the babies wanted them. When they were born, the divorced couple simply turned their back on the surrogate mother. Wouldn't pick up the kids, answer her phone calls, and had temporarily disppeared since they had moved. The surrogate mother, ahem, the real mother, was raising the twins while this was being sorted out. (I tried to find this story on the O website to no avail, it ran about five years ago. If anyone can find it, please do.)

What to do? We humans are so cavalier about baby-farming--it's all about "I want" and "I can pay" that we do not consider the eventual outcome and impact on the children being created. Their needs are seen as secondary, not that important. Love will solve everything, right? Wrong.

Who out there doesn't know, or know of, some woman who has had a baby with an anonymous sperm donor? When one showed up at the AAC conference in Atlanta a few years ago, with the cute baby following her around--she should have been shunned rather than been on the program, where she was largely unchallenged as she told her story.

If we cared enough about the future needs of these children, there would be no anonymous sperm donating--anywhere; if we cared enough, surrogate mothers could not be paid for their eggs, or their wombs available for filthy lucre; if we cared enough, frozen embryos would not be passed around like so many jelly beans; if we cared enough, poor nations would not be exporting babies as a commodity contributing to their GNP; if we cared enough, there would never be another closed adoption anywhere, and open-adoption contracts would have the force of law behind them; if we cared enough, all adopted people, and sperm-donor babies, would be able to access their birth records--with all names--tomorrow.

But we do not care enough. Because the tools to manipulate life are there, a generation of baby boomers and X-geners use them casually, indifferently, without any real thought to the eventual lives they are manipulating. Historically, humans have always foisted atrocities upon each other, but this is the first time it is being done in the name of "love."

As for the baby above, we can only hope that the real father gets to take his baby home to Japan.

Lorraine