Adoptees (could be) banned from NC bathrooms

A new North Carolina law prohibits local governments from enacting civil rights laws for gays and transexuals. It also requires that in schools and government buildings, people must use the bathroom that corresponds with their "biological sex" defined as the one "stated on a person's birth certificate." Presumably, North Carolina has hired scores of police to check birth certificates as people enter bathrooms.

Here's the rub for adoptees. Their birth certificates may be stamped "amended" which will indicate that something has changed from the original birth certificate and for all the cops know, that something might be their gender.

The Man Trump and the right to control my body!

Lorraine 

Criminalize the women who have illegal abortions? Lock up and and put them in iron maidens? is that what the man who keeps protesting that he loves women, treats them better than any other candidate, yadda yadda yadda is planning to do?

The Trump has pulled back from that comment--now he just wants to punish the doctors who preform "illegal" abortions, not the women, but does The Man know that abortions are LEGAL in this country the last time I looked?

This post comes on the heels of Jane's excellent rant against MEN WHO MAKE LAWS TO PROTECT WOMEN (read that below, if you haven't already) and now we have a candidate that shows all signs of possible being one of the two people running for the presidency of the United States making idiotic sounds like that.

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.

Psychological triggers after stuff happens

Lorraine

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was a movie I wanted to see the moment I heard about it--a woman covering the war in Afghanistan was a movie made for me. I love journalism, I have loved the whole business of it since I figured out what my father was doing every day when he read three newspapers, and set about immersing myself in its craft at age 14, when I had my first byline in my hometown's weekly newspaper.

I came of age in the generation where covering a war was a near impossible assignment for a woman to get, unless she could get there on her own dime and send dispatches back. My own dime was pretty slim, and so that was out of the question. But take an assignment to cover a war, if I'd been able to? I would be home packing to go before my boss heard my YES.

Adoptee denied medical history

Jane

The Iowa Supreme Court found it more important to protect the anonymity of natural/birth parents than to "save an adoptee's life or prevent irreparable physical or mental harm" to her.

While some states are moving to give adoptees their original birth certificates, adoptees elsewhere turn to the courts for relief, but many are denied. We hear the same old prejudiced arguments against giving them the piece of paper that, in some cases, might indeed save their lives. With the name of the natural mother revealed on their original birth certificate, many will be able to reach them or their families and learn their medical histories, crucial information in today's world.

Should I tell my sister she's adopted?

Lorraine

Hell,  yes!

"Should I tell my sister she's adopted?" was the headline of The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday. Yikes, I thought this kind of lying by omission was long over, to judge from all we hear about open adoption and such. But apparently not. Not at all.

The man consulting the ethical experts writes:

"My parents never told her that she was adopted, and they asked me not to say anything. They planned on telling her when she was old enough to understand, but they kept putting it off. They know that I believe they have done her a serious disservice."

Adopted teens murdered by step-father

Jane

Some years after I gave up my daughter Rebecca, a close friend, unmarried, confided she was pregnant and was considering adoption for her child. "At least I know he will be well taken care of," she said. By then I had represented adoptees accused of crimes in juvenile court and I knew that adoption did not always deliver the ideal life. I shot back "You won't even know if he gets enough for dinner. The only way to be sure he's well-taken care of is to raise him yourself." My friend kept her son and he is the joy of her life.

Of course there are extraordinary circumstances which make raising your own child impossible but if it's possible, my advice still holds: raise your child yourself. Adoption is a lottery, as John Sales portrayed in his excellent 2003 film, Casa de los Babys.

Tory and Quinn Carlson and their sister lost that lottery. The boys, 18 and 16 respectively, were shot dead in a chicken coop, along with their mother, Lana, and a neighbor who happened to be there, by their step-father, David Wayne Campbell. They had been adopted from Russia by Lana and her first husband who

Adoptees' rights must be considered first

Lorraine

From The New York Times, Op-Ed Page, March 1, 1975:

Yearning

Who am I? Who are my real parents? Whom do I look like? Most of us the the answers for granted. But a 40-year-old accountant recently was forced to go to court in an attempt to learn such basic information about herself.

Ann Scharp, the accountant, is one of approximately five million adopted people in this country. In virtually every state, including New York adopted persons of any age are denied the right to know who their natural parents are because the laws seal the original birth records.

Indiana passes compromise OBC bill; MO in the wings

A Simple Piece of ORIGINAL Paper denied the adopted

Try as we might, clean bills with first birth parent vetoes are what states are taking up as a compromise between allowing adopted individuals the right to their own birth certificates and "protecting" (that damn word!) the privacy of birth parents from the dark ages of closed adoptions. That would include Jane and me. 

Indiana yesterday passed such a bill that now only awaits Gov. Mike Pence's signature, which is a expected, as he worked with Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records, according to Pam Kroskie, president. "Today marks a tremendous victory for hundreds of thousands of people adopted in Indiana," she said, "...regardless of the year they were born. The bill covers people who were adopted from 1941 through 1993, the group that was left out of previous legislation and had no access to their original records. 

Justice Scalia: He upheld the rights of natural parents

Veronica Brown at her father's home, 2013

While the country is reeling politically from the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, I am reminded that in 2013 he upheld the right of natural parents to raise their own children in a much contested case, Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl. 

The majority decision took the child, Veronica, from the home of her father, Dusten Brown, and returned her to adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who initially had custody of the girl after a sketchy adoption arranged by the girl's natural mother, Christina Maldonado.  

Veronica was nearly four at the time she was returned to the Capobiancos, and had been living with Brown and his new wife for 18 months, and from all evidence, was thriving. The Capobianco's had the girl for the first two years of her life, but the South Carolina Supreme Court, relying on the Indian Child Welfare Law of 1978, and the dubious way the adoption process had been carried out--designed to trick the father out of his parental rights--reversed the process

How binding are open-adoption contracts?

Jane

Open adoption is the adoption industry's answer to all the woes that beset adoptees and natural mothers by their forced separation. The more we know, however, the less we like about it. Let us be clear: Open adoption agreements (continuing contact agreements in legal parlance) aren't enforceable. They do not lessen the angst of loss suffered by mothers and children, and they may even make it more intense.

FMF has just learned of a new pitfall. Mom has an agreement with her child's adoptive parents allowing her periodic visits, ("designated parenting time" in social work speak). The adoptive parents decide they don't want the kid and plan to pass him on to another adoptive family. Does the mom still get to see her kid?

When you give up a child--Jane's story

Jane

When I was in the hospital after my daughter Rebecca's birth, I began crying inconsolably. I told a nurse/aide, whoever she was, I was afraid that the people who adopted my daughter wouldn't understand her soul. The nurse/aide shook her head puzzled; it made no sense to her, or frankly, to me either. But the thought did not leave me for some time.

Yet unlike other natural mothers, I never considered therapy. Losing my daughter was something I had to get over by gritting my teeth and trying to forget. A few days after my daughter was born in San Francisco in 1966, my social worker suggested that I find a job. Through a temporary agency I got a job within a month at Blue Cross to assist in Medicaid fraud investigations. I tallied procedures as a nurse read them off from bills doctors had submitted.

When you give up a child...

Lorraine

What was life after relinquish a child to adoption? What did we natural birth mothers do in those early years? How did we cope?

One day at a time. I had come to the realization in the hospital that I could either be a crazy woman weeping on the floor forever, or I would have to stand up and move forward in my life. It actually felt like a viable choice.

I was alone, in a city (Rochester, N.Y.), far from family (in the Detroit suburbs), and my only support was the (married) father who had been paying my rent and all other expenses for the past four months. I needed a job, and quickly. Going back to The Democrat & Chronicle, where I had been working as a feature writer and reporter, was out of the question; I turned to a temp agency--and was promptly offered a job there as a proof reader.

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,

Adoptive mother shoots down open-records bill

Lorraine

Oops--for all reading now I mistakenly thought this just happened--but it happened last May!  I was in a rush to post because when I saw it come up yesterday, I was outraged. Sorry for the confusion, but my feelings about sealed OBCs are one and the same. --ld

An adoptive mother--Texas State Sen. Donna Campbell--single handedly shot down a bill that would have given anyone adopted in that state the right to their original birth certificates, allowing for the potential to find their natural/birth/biological/first parents, and to learn of any heritable health risks. Sen. Campbell, the adoptive parent in question, pulled the bill back in May, the day it was to be voted on, without explanation.

Hours before the end of the session, the bill's author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, rallied 13 of its co-sponsors, and made a quiet plea to the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, to put the bill back on the calendar before the deadline at midnight, but to no avail.

How do natural mothers end up?

Lorraine

Relinquishing my daughter changed me and not simply because through that act I came to a cause that shaped my life; but the giving up of her made me feel apart from the great forward rush that is a normal life. No one wants to end up like me. No one wants to grow up to be a woman who gives up a baby. No one would wish that for her daughter. Tell someone this fact about yourself and no matter what they reveal, you feel their shudder. You are stabbing at the status quo, disturbing the peace.

The celebratory way adoption is portrayed today—on television, in the movies, in magazines, by the growing list of celebrities who adopt—largely ignores that behind every happy adoption is another mother missing her child, and another family mourning the missing

The enduring pain of adoption loss

Jane

"Does the pain ever end?" asked a newly reunited natural mother.

"It's always there somewhere," I answered, "but it moves into the background as your relationship evolves."

I thought of this as I was having lunch with Anne, a natural mother friend, the other day. I had known Anne since the early 70's through Oregon politics and the feminist movement. It was only after my reunion 18 years ago that I learned we had something else in common.
Both of us had given up a daughter in San Francisco in the 60's. We went on to marry and have three more daughters. We celebrated our 47th wedding anniversaries in December.

What is an 'open' adoption?

First weekend with my daughter, at her home

The other day one of my friends commented that a mutual acquaintance had an "open" adoption, which was news to me. I'd heard the son in question talk knowingly about genetic testing, 23 + Me, etc., and I had assumed that he had undertaken DNA testing--or was considering it--to locate biological relatives. Then my friend added that our mutual acquaintance, the adoptive mother, knew the name of the young man's biological mother. Thus, an "open" adoption.

"She told him [her son] that if he wanted the name, she would give it to him."  I flashed on the remembrance of hearing that she knew the natural/birth mother was from the area where we all lived that I 'd heard a few years earlier, and was anxious that the boy's original mother would want her child back. Worried is the word I remembered. I had not assumed that she knew the woman's name. That had not come up.

So she knew her name all along? And the son knows all about DNA testing, as if he has no other route to his biological family?

'Preferred' adoption language is bunk

Lorraine

I remember the exact moment someone I was friendly with corrected my language. She was an adoptive mother who knew my daughter Jane, and she was someone who early on found her daughter's natural mother at the daughter's request--the girl was 12 at the time--when the adoption had been closed. We'd met professionally and had become friends.We'd often had lunch, either alone or with our husbands.

Nothing in the way either of us spoke about adoption had ever been a sticking point. One afternoon I casually said something about "giving up" my daughter. For the first time ever, my friend decided to "correct" my language. Giving up sounds like you are drowning or something, she said. You made an adoption plan, she said. I

Summing up 2015 in adoption

I see blue skies somewhere...

I could write: look how far we've come for adoptee rights. Or: look how far we yet have to go. Both would be accurate. This year we've seen progress in continuing to bring our cause to more people's attention. Nearly two decades after Oregon became one of the first states to unseal adoptees' original birth certificates, the state passed legislation allowing birth parents to request adoption court records--a first.

Colorado will allow adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates come January 1 (realistically, Monday the 4th), any previous disclosure vetoes notwithstanding--except for a very small loophole.

Whose name is on your 'birth' certificate?

Jane

When Lisa Phillips Stackman of Indianapolis gave birth to her daughter, Lola Jean, seven weeks ago, she expected that her spouse's name would appear on Lola's birth certificate. If Lisa's spouse had been Jack, instead of Jackie, it would have.

Under Indiana law, the husband of a woman giving birth is presumed to be the father and his name goes on the certificate--even if he's not the father. But because Lisa's spouse was a woman, Indiana officials have refused to put her name on the certificate. Lisa and Jackie are suing with six other same sex couples claiming their constitutional rights have been violated because Indiana officials refused to place both spouses names on the birth certificate.  Lisa and Jackie's case may be more compelling because Jackie is Lola's biological mother. She had embryos created with her eggs and frozen two years ago, before she met Lisa.

It's a blue blue Christmas for some

To judge from the phone calls and emails and Facebook messages I've been getting, this Christmas season is unusually grim for many of us--first mothers,adoptees, fellow travelers and here I am bragging about the wonderful time I had with my found daughter's daughter (otherwise known as granddaughter) at the previous post.

But I remember.

The tearful family dinners before I told my family I had a daughter and gave her up for adoption. The ones just as bad when I didn't know where she was. And then, after I found her, the year she wasn't talking to me.

Silver Linings come to this first mother

Dear Readers:

Lorraine

Ten days ago my husband Tony and I were in Marquette, Michigan for a granddaughter's graduation from Northern Michigan University. First, I'll get the bragging out of the way: Granddaughter Britt was magna cum laude, with an added plus: the Secondary Teacher Education Award. Her name will be on a permanent plaque at the school.

You can imagine the pride I felt. Well, it wasn't just pride, because there were moments during the graduation I couldn't help think back of...where I came from in this journey to get there. Losing her mother to adoption in 1966. YEARS of feeling devastated and desolate, wondering if I could ever climb out of this deep dark hole in my life, my heart, my soul. Giving up a child to adoption is something you never ever get over, not really, but there my husband and I were, in far northern Michigan, nearly as far North in the state as you can go, on the shores of Lake Superior, watching my daughter's tall, lovely blonde daughter graduate from college. And I've known her since the beginning.

Kohl's adoption-reunion video sparks debate. Of course.

At last a company has made a video clip that celebrates reunion--rather than relinquishment!  It's the first time I've seen a commercial company focus on reunion between mother and child rather than separation! So I'd like to salute Kohl's for doing so. This popped up today on Lavender Luz's open adoption blog and I had to share this immediately.



It has over 300,000 views at this point, so this is not exactly breaking news, but still--it's a feel good

A reluctant poster mother for adoption reform

When my surrendered daughter contacted me 18 years ago, appearing in the Oregonian, Oregon's largest newspaper, was the farthest thing from my mind. I had kept my secret from all but a few people for 31 years and the thought of sharing it made me a nervous wreck.

Sunday my story was included in an article by Amy Wang about Oregon's 2014 law allowing adoptees and natural parents to access their court adoption files. These files allow mothers to learn the adoptive name of their child and the names of the adoptive parents.

Genetic Sexual Attraction is a hot topic

Mother, wife and son/husband in Night Is A Room--photo does not convey the supposed age discrepancy; the acting does. 

Incest and adoption are themes that run deep and wide in drama, starting with Sophocles' Oedipus plays. And they are going strong on the New York stage.

Lorraine

Night Is A Room is about a birth mother/son reunion, orchestrated by the husband's wife for his 40th birthday. The review in the New York Times darkly hinted of a surprise plot twist sure to bring gasps at the end of the first act.

Okay, I thought: either a) son murders mother or b) son and mother have sex. Both seemed plausible; I had no inkling of the playwright Naomi Wallace's background. Did her first-hand knowledge of affairs adoption enter into this drama? Or was it just a topic she read about somewhere?

Review: The Wages of Adoption

I was thrilled to get this new review of Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption, last night when I was in Manhattan with another natural mother, Barbara Monckton Thavis (more about that in a later blog). It's from a total outsider to our world, I am pretty sure (don't know her and yes, the bio makes her female).

One note: The reviewer says I do not fully diminish the power of non-genetic bonds--never intended to!  The kind of mother/daughter relationship I have with my alternate-universe daughter* Jennifer taught me the power of bonding in a way I could not have imagined without her coming into my life, and I know other first/birth mothers feel this way, despite the loss we share for a child. Anyway, the review. In order not to steal their work, jump to the website of the East Hampton Star:

The Wages of Adoption
By Evan Harris

| December 3, 2015 - 1:32pm        

In 1979, Lorraine Dusky, a journalist, published “Birthmark,” a memoir about relinquishing a child — her daughter — to adoption. The book detailed Ms. Dusky’s sense of loss, gave voice to a perspective not yet widely heard, and established Ms. Dusky’s role as a writer of adoption literature and figure in the adoption reform movement.

Her current memoir, “Hole In My Heart,” recaps some of the material from the earlier volume and then takes up the story of her search for her daughter 15 years after the child’s birth. The book is an exploration of the complexities, pitfalls, revelations, and power of Ms. Dusky’s relationship with her daughter, Jane, through Jane’s suicide at age 42. In some ways, the two volumes together offer a cultural history of adoption in America...Read more: 

The Wages of Adoption

Available at some bookstores and through Amazon. Links above. Thank you.
__________________________

*Letters Lead to an Alternative Universe Daughter

Sheldon Silver: A blockage to unsealing OBCs in New York is convicted

Sheldon Silver convicted of corruption

One of the main blockages to freeing up sealed birth certificates in New York has been convicted of federal corruption charges. Sheldon Silver, who held a viselike grip on the New York Assembly, was found guilty this afternoon of seven counts of federal corruption charges, ending a trial "that was the capstone of the government's efforts to expose the seamy culture of influence-peddling in Albany," according to The New York Times.

Silver, 71, was elected to his seat in Albany from lower Manhattan nearly 40 years ago. While we had enough votes to get a clean bill (or so we thought) to unseal birth certificates

Daughter sues to undo her adoption

Melanie Gilmore and Zella Price

Melanie Diane Gilmore filed a petition in a St. Louis court seeing to undo her adoption and restore the parental rights of her natural mother, Zella Jackson Price. To FMF's knowledge, this is a first of a kind lawsuit. If successful, it would make legal history. It would put another nail in the still popular myth that a child can be seamlessly transferred from one set of parents to another.

Gilmore was born prematurely 50 years ago, on November 25, 1965 in St. Louis. The circumstances of her adoption are murky. Price says a nurse told her that her daughter had died but she was not allow to see her daughter's body nor given a death certificate. Gilmore began searching for her natural mother soon after her adoptive mother died when she was 20. She had her original birth certificate with her
mother's name but was told her mother had died. Gilmore's adult children began searching for Price when they were planning their mother's 50th birthday party. They found her

Be thankful for the people with you

Thanksgiving 2014 at Lorraine's house --Lorraine's brother Tom (next to her), wife Judy, and daughters Sasha (front left, and Adrienne, right of Lorraine)

This morning, the morning after turkey and all the rest, take a moment and be thankful for the people in your life--the ones who know you and cherish you for who you are and what you mean to them. For a time, at least, do not focus on who was missing at your family table, but the people in front of you.

If there are some far away, give them a call and say hello, thinking about you, if yesterday you were too busy.

Wall Street Journal decries loss of 'right' to be surrogate

Indian surrogates

The Wall Street Journal owned by billionaire media magnate Rupert Murdock rarely sheds tears for the poor and downtrodden.  It's come to bat, however, for Indian women threatened with losing income as surrogates if the India passes proposed legislation which criminalizes surrogacy for foreigners. A government-appointed body has already notified clinics they should stop offering such services to couples overseas. Since WSJ's readers are comprised largely of moneyed readers who are the ones to seek out surrogacy services, WSJ's crusading for wombs-for-hire is merely self-serving.

'Steve Jobs' the movie: Apple's visionary as bitter adoptee

Lorraine

"Steve Jobs" the movie is a surprising anti-adoption tract about a hugely successful marketing genius embittered about being "rejected not selected" as another character points out halfway through the two hours, one minute of the film. Throughout, the angry Apple guru struts and sputters and lashes out at everybody in his sight-line. It's a very long, tedious two hours, one minute.

This includes Chrisann Brennan, the mother of his child, whom Jobs deserted when she became pregnant--while they were living together. While we have statistics that show that adoptee women are seven times more likely to give up a child for adoption themselves than the rest of the

How relinquishing a child affected my friendships

Lorraine

Friendship has been on my mind lately as it relates to how my friends have changed because of being someone who relinquished a child for adoption during a far different era, found at fifteen in 1981, and wrote about the experience and talked about it in the media and to legislators, always hoping to effect a change. That records for all would be open. That there would be far fewer adoptions. That mothers--if they chose to give birth--would keep their children.

Along the way, some friends and men in my life understood why I was so committed, but others fell away. But it's not about the men in my life that's on my mind, it's the female friends. Now my connection to adoption has been pretty intense, I'll grant you that, so it goes without saying that friends had to understand me and accept that part of me if we were going to be close.

Should adoptees have rights of real identity?

Dusk                                                                                         photo by dusky

Should it be mandatory to give adult adoptees full access to their birth records if they want it?

It seems hard to believe but people--including the National Council for Adoption--are still debating this question, and not recognizing it as a clear violation the the rights of adopted individuals, citing as ever the confidentiality of the mother/
father/whomever. In the November issue of The Costco Connection--yes, that Costco, the discount chain--the question is being asked and anyone can vote on line. (Link below.)

How to arrange an ethical adoption

Dear First Mother Forum:

My spouse and I are moving forward with plans to adopt in the U.S. We are hoping for an infant adoption, using a non-profit agency with many years of experience. The agency only does open adoptions, which is what we want. The open adoption agreement would be legally enforceable, and we have no intention of betraying it in any event.

I am looking for resources/information that will help us ensure, to the fullest extent possible, that we (and our agency) are respecting the rights, concerns, perspectives, and needs of the birthparents and adopted children. And I want to make sure we solicit those resources not just from people who are cheerleaders for adoption, but also from people who are critics of the adoption system. That's why I'm writing you.

Also I noticed that you used the word "real" in the tagline for First Mother Forum.  Does that necessarily mean, in your view,

Selling underwear, promoting adoption

Does adoption sell underwear? I was just about to hit "Buy Now" on my Jockey bra order, when I saw the plea: "Give $1 today and bring comfort to adoptive families tomorrow" and a link to "Jockey Being Family." At the site I learned that "Jockey Being Family is our company's commitment to help strengthen adoptive families for successful futures."  Jockey has donated more than $3.5 million to adoption organizations.

Well I thought, maybe this is okay. Families that adopt hard to place children need all the help they can get. But then I saw this: Jockey offers best-in-class adoption benefits to employees. The adoption process can be costly and time-intensive. At Jockey, we're proud to provide an extensive adoption benefits package to our employees including a $10,000 stipend per child each year and resource and referral services."(Emphasis added.)

The Adoption Disadvantage?

Lorraine

I'm wading once again into the issues that being adopted raises and for the sake of peace in our bickering family, the divisive issue of primal wound shall be left out of the equation. 

Years ago I had a very public spat with Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor who never appears to know of an international adoption she doesn't applaud, over the research showing that adoptees have more psychological and behavioral problems in general than the non-adopted. We were both guests on the PBS NewsHour and she called all such research: "Garbage." Her exact word. 

Despite her haughty dismissal, such research continues to accumulate--and now a new study found that adopted children tend to have more behavioral and academic problems in kindergarten and first grade than children raised by their biological parents. According to a research brief from the Institute for Family Studies, "young adoptive children" [a phrase new to me] were more likely than biological ones to get angry easily and fight with other students." This is only one of the differences psychologist Nicholas Zill found when he examined a longitudinal study of 19,000 students conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics beginning in 1998.

Natural mothers live dual lives

Jane

My surrendered daughter wrote something to the effect that "maybe everything is about adoption for my birth mother." I bristled at the remark.

I have a large life outside of adoption--with my husband to whom I've been married for almost 47 years, the wonderful daughters I raised and the two incredible grandchildren the oldest brought forth. I have volunteered with a program to introduce school children to the courts and I currently serve on a committee at my condominium.  I play duplicate bridge once or twice a week. I read a lot, mostly non-fiction. I go to concerts, plays (spent Thursday afternoon watching a local production of "Our Town"), movies, festivals, political fund raisers, and fun things going on in Portland, Oregon where I live. I have traveled on six continents. Lorraine and the other natural mothers I know also have full lives outside of adoption.

Yet the truth is, all of us who lost a child to adoption also have a separate life inside adoption. For many of us it was for years a secret life, existing only in our memories and imagination. Eventually the secret became impatient to be free and we reunited with our lost child and introduced her to our families.

FMF BACK IN BUSINESS

There is a silver lining.....from Long Wharf in Sag Harbor the other evening. 

Thanks to Liz O'Keefe in Australia, I removed the nasty widget bit that was still causing trouble with the comments, and Voila!  Jane and I will be back soon. Thanks for your patience.
--lorraine

BLOG DOWN DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties--to say the least, which occurred when we installed Disqus and then tried to remove it. We are trying to fix the problem but we are technically challenged. If anyone with blogging proficiency can help, please email me at forumfirstmother@gmail.com. Thank you. 

'Primal Wound'--Why is the concept so upsetting to some?

Lorraine

Every expert who studies adoption acknowledges that children are best raised by their natural mothers, unless undue circumstances intervene. Being wrenched from the mother that nurtured you in the womb, whose smells and voice are familiar in an organic, original sense, and given off to new people--strangers--is a wrenching experience with a deep and lasting psychological impact.

Some call it a "primal wound," a phrase made popular by psychologist Nancy Verrier with the publication of her 1993 book The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child.

Epilepsy, Adoption, Pharmaceuticals: Suicide

Lorraine and daughter in 1982, happier times

National Suicide Prevention Week was earlier this month. Those who know my story know that my daughter committed suicide. This is one of the "Facts and Commentaries" from my recent book, Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption. My hope is that those suffering with any of the maladies listed here, or their friends and families, will see this as a cautionary message, and get help before it is too late. I tried, but could not save, my daughter.--lorraine

A few days after the first anniversary of my daughter’s suicide, in December of 2008, the Federal Drug Administration announced that it would require makers of epilepsy drugs to add a warning about the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors to the products' prescribing information or labeling. Behaviors, I assume, means suicide attempts, some of them successful. Depakote, the drug Jane took, is on the list. The FDA actions are based on the agency's review of 199 clinical trials of 11 epilepsy drugs—released only a month after her death—showing that patients taking those drugs had almost twice the risk of suicidal behavior or thoughts than those taking a placebo.

But what was not answered was this: had the epileptics taking the placebo had their lives upended by as many seizures, great and small, as my daughter had?

I mentally add in the cocktail of drugs—an anti-depressant and Depakote—that Jane was taking. What about that? And what about the adoption?

What babies learn before birth

Lorraine, Jane and "Britt" in the early 90s. We are all so happy.

What do babies learn from their mothers in utero? Apparently quite a bit. Scientists are finding that even the inflection of a baby's cry correlates to the sounds of their native tongue and that food preferences are instilled in the womb.

While the debate at an earlier blog post over whether giving up a child for adoption imparts an initial shock that psychologist and author Nancy Verrier has called a Primal Wound raged on, I heard the end of a TED talk on NPR. What I learned was that biologists continue to collect information proving how much a mother's diet, her voice, her speech, her mental health and general well-being influences the fetus, and thus--her baby!

Adoption is not all 'rosy' for O'Donnell

Rosie and Chelsea O'Donnell

The sad saga of Rosie O'Donnell and her adopted daughter Chelsea reminds us once again that adoption is not a bed of roses, not for the children, not for natural mothers, and not for the adoptive parents.

On  August 24, the day she turned 18, Chelsea's birth mother, Deanna Micoley picked up Chelsea up at Rosie's home in South Nyack, New York and took her to live with her in Wisconsin.

This came after Chelsea ran away--or was kicked out according to Chelsea--and was found living with a 25-year old man, Steven Sheerer, who had sent her a nude picture of himself.

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.

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.

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