Advertising for a baby and other gripes

Lorraine

It's hot outside. Really hot. I'm watching the conventions and the convention analysis, but still adoption goes on. Still we get comments here and messages on Facebook asking us to advertise a couple who are hoping to adopt your lovely baby.

The other day, I was asked, along with 24 others, in a message on Facebook, if I would please post their story because they were going to be "featured" soon by their adoption agency. So thus their "featured" post (which agency was not included) would be repeated on 25 other Facebook pages (assuming we all were invested in spreading their ad for a baby) and thus hopefully reach some woman/teen in dire straits who cannot figure out how to keep her baby.

Adoption and Lying: Adopted Syndrome or not?

Lorraine

Due to the stories of reunion troubles that emerged from the last blog, I am reposting one that I wrote in 2010.--lorraine

Over the weekend I met up with an old friend, a therapist who facilitates groups of parents of troubled children, and while some of them are children of divorce, she added that a fair number of them are adoptive parents. A friend of ours sent their teenage son for a year to a school for problem kids, and the son reported that many, if not most of the kids there were adopted, or children of divorce. I won't go into the children of divorce issue here, but the statistics of trouble are there, among the adopted:

"The number of Adoptees in the adolescent and young-adult clinics and residential treatment centers is strikingly high. Doctors from the Yale Psychiatric Institute and other

What do mothers owe their children lost to adoption?

Lorraine

Not every mother, we know, welcomes her lost son or daughter back with warmth and motherly feelings. Not every family does either. Jealousies erupt, feelings are hurt, adoptees are rejected. Some of the problems stem directly from the secrecy many mothers assumed, and did not tell their spouses or other children. Not every adoptee who comes back is a stable person. Some are angry. Studies and statistics show adoptees show up in greater numbers than the norm in numbers among addicts, criminals, and other troubled populations. Adoptees are more likely to attempt suicide or have suicidal thoughts.*

We know this from the research, the people who write here, and other social media. We hear from mothers who feel used and mistreated by their reunited children, now adults. We hear from adoptees who have been rejected for no good reason other than they were given up for adoption and the original mothers and families cannot accommodate their children's return.

A rationale for adoptee access to original birth certificates

From the Albany Times-Union

As we celebrate Hawaii's ground-breaking law, we must remember that many states (13 at this point) have passed laws that give some--but not all--adopted people access to their original birth records. These laws are wrong every which way. There should be no restrictions to anyone's access to their birth records or any source that would give individuals the names of their natural biological parents. However, when there is no possibility of complete access--due to a legislator's intransigence on the noxious issue of birth mother vetoes--we have not opposed such legislation. We did, however, oppose the truly awful bill in New York state recently. But just as the military went from President Bill Clinton's tepid "Don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays to full acceptance, so will we move to full access for all adoptees to their original birth certificates without exceptions, or those damn birth mother/first mother vetoes.

Hawaii OPENS adoption records!

"Allows adopted individuals who have attained eighteen years of age, adoptive parents, and natural parents unfettered access to the adopted individual's sealed adoption records."

This is the legislative summary of HB 2082 passed by the Hawaii legislature and signed into law by Governor David Ige on June 23, 2016, effective immediately.  No ifs, ands or buts.  All parties affected by an adoption can access the court records just for the asking. They don't have to have a good reason--or any reason at all.

Do you have children? That invisible barrier that separates first mothers

Lorraine

Do you bring up your story--that is, when asked by near strangers, Do you have children?--or not? For those of us who never had other children  (approximately a third of all mothers who relinquished children for adoption), the question is a perennial that never goes away.

Case in point: Last night we met the couple who own the house behind us. Our properties are divided by a hedge. They've owned the house for several years but largely rent it out, and use it only sporadically. They rented it last winter, will be there through the end of June, but good friends of ours will be occupying it for July and August. That's life when you live an a resort area.

"Thank you for not aborting me"

Lorraine

"Thank you for not aborting me" are words that apparently are greeting some first mothers when they reunite with their children. How to react, what to say?  We are delving into the philosophical here because the remark at bottom is: thank you for giving me life.

The bald statement of fact--with a thank you!--does cut to the core of one's existence, but in the immediacy of the moment, the statement surely puts a reuniting first mother off guard. I'm afraid I would be temporarily stunned and not say anything, but feel more overwrought (and possibly waiting for attack) than I would otherwise.

Don't thank me for giving up my child

Lorraine

When anyone thanks me for being "brave" and "courageous" for doing "the right thing" for my daughter by giving her up for adoption, I know we still have a lot of work to do. I want to scream back at them: I wasn't brave or courageous, I was lying in the muck and mud of despair and saw no other way. It was the worst thing I ever did in my life, the worst thing I will ever do.

What is leading to this rant today? A posting on Facebook.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I am a liberal, a progressive, a Democrat. I posted this on Facebook the other day:

"As someone who fought my own battles because I was a woman, because I didn't go to the right school, because I have been put down for being one of "those women" who gave up a child, I relate to Hillary,

What's the best way to contact your natural/birth/biological* mother?

Jane and Lorraine, 1982

How should a middle-aged individual contact his/her natural mother?  The natural mother is in her seventies and lives in a distant state. She is married, presumably not to the adoptee's father, because the marriage took place many years after the birth. To write or to phone?

That's the question that a caller posed to me a few days ago. He had recently found his birth mother's information, and was wrestling with how best to reach out to her. Letter or phone?

My initial impulse, I said, is to make the call. Because it will be harder to turn you down, I was thinking, even as I hated to think that. Even if she has not been hoping and waiting for her long-lost child to contact her, actually hearing from you on the phone might make her lose any hesitation. If she has doubts and fears, if she has not told those closest to her today, a live person--one's own child--on the phone may dissuade her from... hesitating. From turning away. From rejecting her child.

What adoption records belong to whom?

Jane

Adoption records are spread all over adoptionland--at the offices of adoption facilitators, adoption agencies, attorneys, hospitals, state departments of children's services. And that's just domestic adoptions.

Some adoptees contend that, as the epicenter of all this paper and electronic bits, they are entitled to access all of these records. We at FMF disagree. Many of these documents contain details about the private lives of the natural parents and the adoptive parents. Some of it is likely to be subjective interpretations of the social workers who took the information from a distraught woman.

But it is not just the name and last known address of the adoptee--it is the personal data of another person, or persons--and thus should not be shared

Finding first mothers in Ethiopia

Andrea in Ethiopia with Mahalet and extended family 

Adoptive mother Andrea Kelley attended the Saving Our Sisters summit meeting in Kansas City two weeks ago, and she impressed me with not only her empathy for our situation, but also what she is doing to help her own adopted children and that of others. Not only did she find one of her children's mothers, she started an organization to help others. In her own words, here is her story: 

The Adoption Option: Not a good choice

By Lorraine Dusky and Jane Edwards

Lorraine Dusky

Making adoption more attractive to women with unplanned pregnancies is a “worthwhile goal,” according to the liberal think tank, The Center for American Progress. A 2010 publication, The Adoption Option: Adoption Won’t Reduce Abortion but It Will Expand Women’s Choices argues for government support for “ensuring that adoption remains an ethical and effective option” while recognizing that increasing voluntary infant adoptions (approximately 14,000 a year), would not impact the number of abortions annually (1.2 million).

Saving Our Sisters: Keeping your baby better than being 'nice'

Tears, sisterhood and stories are the order of the day when natural mothers and adoptees get together as we did last weekend at the Saving Our Sisters summit in Kansas City. Saving our Sisters is devoted to helping women keep their babies and avoid losing them to adoption.

Honoring all Mothers' Rights this Mother's Day

Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt

Mothers who lost their children to adoption deserve the right to see government documents which help them find their child. This concept--that government should be a facilitator rather than an impediment to mothers and children reuniting--is radical to some but grounded on human nature. Mothers and their children are connected before birth, and will continue to be connected throughout their lives, whether they ever meet again or not.

In my state, Oregon, mothers who gave up their children to adoption (rather than have their rights terminated) have the right to ask a judge for copies of documents in their child's adoption legal file once their child turns 18. These documents contain the names of the adoptive parents and the adoptive name of the child.

It's here again: Mother's Day Blues

Yes, I got this one. Not my favorite. 

The world's worst "holiday" is just days away--Mother's Day. For many mothers who lost their children to adoption, it is a day of miserable reminders of the children we do not have, and we approach it with all the joy of someone on her way to her own execution.

 And it can't be ignored. Ads are everywhere--in the newspaper, on television, in magazines, on the internet, on Facebook. Send flowers! Buy a bracelet! Perfume! A day at the spa! Even Women for Women, a charity I support, is sending me emails urging me to give a woman in some far-away country a sewing machine or money to start a garden and give my mother a card saying it was done in her name. Personally I find that kind of "gift," unless requested by the recipient, specious and not a gift at all. But back to our dilemma:

Will a card come in the mail? Will my daughter call? Just as adoptees wonder if their first mother thinks about them on

How to find your New York City original NAME

Press Conference at NYC Hall with David Weprin, 2013

For years, a data base that led to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of adoptees born in the five boroughs of New York City access their original birth record if they had a copy of their amended one has been removed from the Main Branch Public Library, under a 2008 change in the New York City Health Code. We believe this is a bogus application of the regulation to defeat the increasing numbers of adoptees who are going around the law to locate their original families.

But take heart, adoptees born in New York--this does not have to defeat us!  The data base is not only on line, but it is also available for a

Adoptees closer to OBC access in MA and HI--Write right now!

Lorraine 

Good news to report on two clean bills restoring the right of adopted individuals to their original birth certificates (OBC), and thus the right to know and claim their original identities, ancestors and true histories. 

In Massachusetts, a clean bill (no veto, no inane restrictive amendments) passed out of the legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health the other day. Now it goes to the full Senate and House for a vote (2 different bills, same result), at a date yet to be designated before the end of the session, July 31st. This legislation will close the gap that exists between the OBC haves--adoptees born before July 17, 1974 (when access closed) and after January 1, 2008--and the have-nots--those born between July 17, 1974 and 2008. Thus this new bill would cover those adoptees between ages 42 and 8, those caught in the squeeze when the legislature partially opened their records. Sounds good to us!

God's Plan leads to Planning to Adopt

Lorraine

"When we were still dating, a common bond that drew us together was the fact that Rachel and I both wanted to adopt. While we were fertile, we were both deeply convicted that one of the ways to be pro-life is to involve ourselves in adoption."

So goes a story the other day in The Washington Post about a couple who gave birth to a set of triplets from adopted embryos. What made the story stand out is that the couple are white missionaries and the triplets are African American. Aaron and Rachel Halbert already had adopted an African-American boy and a biracial girl in Mississippi, and wanted to add to their family. They did it this newfangled way "with the deeply held conviction that if the Lord wanted us to have a fully Caucasian child my wife would conceive naturally."

Social Media and Adoption

Lorraine 

The tools of social media such as Facebook have made searching and reunion a whole different arena to play out in. People can connect, read each other's pages and learn about their lives without connecting, or reunite blissfully and then let go, or be let go...it's all a new world.

A few weeks ago I read a piece about "Facebook's Emotional Tech Support Team" in The New York Times. Buried in the piece was the story of an adoptee who had connected with her first mother, and her family, but then when she had a falling out with her mother, the whole family unfriended her, and she felt totally locked out.

To First Mothers: Legislators need to hear from you!

Lorraine and daughter Jane, 1982*

First mothers are needed to convince legislators that they were NOT promised confidentiality when we relinquished our children, nor do we need or want it now!

A few states--Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, to be exact--have bills in the pipeline to unseal original birth certificates (OBCs), but the legislators parry and worry and delay the bills because usually a few insist that mothers must have a "right" to lifelong anonymity! By in large, legislators do not need convincing anymore that there is a crying need to give the adopted their original birth certificates, but their Yes! vote appears to hinge on their feeling about the supposed right to anonymity of birth mothers. Yes, that is what we are called by legislators. Birth mothers. 

Legislators need to hear from us FIRST mothers because they will hear from adoption-agency owners and workers; judges, religious officials who supposedly have the support of God behind their opposition, adoption attorneys, even the state's

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.

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.
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*Letters Lead to an Alternative Universe Daughter