It's a world wide revolution, folks

Lorraine 

Once Brexit won in Great Britain, I began to be worried. I began being very afraid that the protectionist, anti-immigration, dissatisfaction with the old would sweep our country too. I kept up a brave heart, but even as I ordered my Hillary t-shirt and Hillary buttons and stickers, I always was fearful that Hillary would not win, no matter what the polls said. There were those who were not willing to tell pollsters how they were leaning because he was embarrassing them with his misogynist, racist, and xernophobic comments--but they were going to vote for him nonetheless. And if Hillary did win--since taking the House was a mathematical impossibility, given gerrymandering--she would only face years of GOP investigation about stuff that she would eventually be cleared of. The government would be in stasis, and nothing would get done during her presidency.

Why voting for Hillary today is so emotional

Lorraine voting this morning for
HILLARY

First Mother Forum could not have taken a stand in this election, but we both strongly believe in women's rights, and a woman's right to chose, and we haven't been nonpartisan up to now. So there's no point pretending we are not rooting for Hillary to win tonight. That's me on the left at my polling place this morning, taken by my Hillary-supporting husband, Tony. Jane voted early in Oregon a week ago.

I wore white in remembrance of the suffragettes who wore white as they campaigned for the right of women to vote in the early 20th century. They were arrested and jailed, tube fed when they went on a hunger strike, spit at and lost jobs in their journey to the vote. We finally won the vote in August 18, 1920 when the youngest member of the Tennessee legislature, Harry Burn, 22, who had made his intention to vote Nay, changed his mind and voted Aye. This made Tennessee the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, thus meeting the constitutional requirement of having three-quarters (of 48 states) pass the amendment.

Adoption Not Abortion: First mothers who never have another child

Lorraine

Someone--an adoptee--recently posted on Facebook about how she did not want to see any posts about abortion right now, which may have been triggered by our earlier posts about the presidential election this Tuesday, and our keen backing of Hillary, who supports choice for women. That includes the right to have a legal abortion.

Abortion can be difficult for adoptees to ponder because that ultimately leads to an awareness that they could have been aborted. I had to explain to my daughter how my trying to have an abortion--when it was illegal--was unrelated to any maternal feelings and the deep, consuming connection to her once she was born, and the soul-shattering sadness of losing her to the adoption that was inevitable. I changed--everything changed--beginning in the months just before birth, and then, her birth. Perhaps the worst day of

Impressions of the 2016 ASAC Conference: Good Job!

Lorraine at 2016 conference of Alliance for the Study
of Adoption and Culture in Minneapolis
Thanks to Penny Needham for photo

That adoption is not a universal good and that it is fraught for the adopted individual--and natural mothers go into a certain kind of hell--was for me the overall takeaway at the sixth biennial conference of the Alliance for Adoption and Culture (ASAC) last week in Minneapolis.

At a panel on Adoption and Social Engineering--it could have said Adoption as Social Engineering--Kori Graves of the State University of New York at Albany--spoke of how black families were carelessly, but systematically, denied the pathway to adopt black children in the past, and the movement to have white families adopt transracially began. That adoption might be better regulated with an eye to reducing the actual number of adoptions came out at another session. Overall it was refreshing to walk away knowing the conference did not present adoption as this warm and fuzzy concept that was a wonderful answer to parents who could not have "their own" children, or who adopted because "there are so many babies that need to be adopted."

Catelynn and Tyler's "semi-open" adoption closed!

When teens Catelynn and Tyler placed their newborn daughter Carly for adoption with Brandon and Teresa Davis on MTV's 16 and Pregnant in 2009, it was all that adoption was supposed to be and more. Catelynn and Tyler made the "loving" decision to give their baby a better life. Brandon and Teresa were the dream parents--attractive, professionals who wanted for nothing except a baby they could call their own. The facade began to crack early as Catelynn and Tyler continued to grieve from their loss of their daughter, and their relationship with Brandon and Teresa began to deteriorate. Last year Brandon and Teresa threatened to cut off contact because Tyler posted pictures of Carly on the internet contrary to their instructions.

Not ignoring you, I'm just overwhelmed right now!

East Hampton Main Beach yesterday morning. 

Yo!  I'm in a time-crunch right now and have had to be occupied with projects other than First Mother Forum. My husband and I had a busy time last week getting ready for a 35th wedding anniversary luncheon

Coming out as a mother who relinquished a child in the Sixties

In hiding.

Lorraine 

That's the how most of us lived when we got pregnant. In shame, hiding our pregnancies, lying to neighbors and even people we called friends. For us, it was the worst of times.

So many of us with adult children searching and/or reuniting for their natural parents today cannot understand what it was like in the decades when they were born. The shame might have been lessening after the Seventies, but it didn't happen all at once, and it was different in different places, with different religions and in individual families. No matter what, we hid our burgeoning bellies; some of us were sent away to god-awful homes for "unwed mothers" or to live relatives in a distant town. Some of us

Hillary wrong on adoption, but Trump/Pence ticket threatens women's rights

                            --Courtesy of Lisa Roberts

Adoption came up last night in the second debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as she spoke of her 30 years in public life. After noting that eight million kids every year have health insurance because of her work to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, she said:  "Hundreds of thousands of kids now have a chance to be adopted because I worked to change our adoption and foster care system."

Ouch, we collectively sighed. The law that she helped push through Congress in 1997, the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), was passed to address what child welfare experts claimed were the failings of an approach that kept families together. The claims were that children were kept in, or returned to, precarious family situations where the children were in actual danger of being injured or killed. The new law urged a get-tough approach to parents. 

The overall effect was to sometimes take children from mothers and families when unnecessary, and make it impossible for

'Pro-Life' equals 'pro-adoption' in Pence's punishing choice

Lorraine 

"I think if you are pro-life you should be pro-adoption," was one of the nuggets Mike Pence said during last night's debate. He went on: 

"The state of Indiana has also made sure that we expand health-care counseling for women, non-abortion alternatives. I'm very pleased that in Indiana that we are well on our way to becoming the most pro-adoption state in America." 

Therefore his answer to women who get pregnant when they can't find a way to keep their babies is just put the child up for adoption. Not one mention of giving those women the kind of aid that would allow keeping their babies as the humane alternative to abortion. No, instead, it's always: adoption.

Bill's affairs don't make Hillary less a feminist

Lorraine

Bill Clinton was a philander. Old news. Now the news is that his wife Hillary is anti-feminist because she a) did stand by her man and b) wasn't nice to the women Bill was fooling around with. Because Hillary wasn't nice to them during the election campaigns and his presidency, Trump's surrogates are trying to shame her into not being a feminist.

Please. Don't insult my intelligence. Trump spokesman Rudy Giuliani and others of the Trump campaign who are trying to make an issue of Hillary's behavior toward other woman who slept with her husband may speak to the audience who already hate Hillary, but the argument is falling flat.

Not being nice to the woman who is sleeping with your husband--no matter how it was initiated--is what we humans do. We protect our own interests, our own marriages, our men from rivals. Instinctively, we pounce to trash the

'X' instead of a name on a birth certificate is just plain wrong

Lorraine and Jane at Rockefeller Center, 1982

A few days ago I read a story about Missouri adoptees born before 1941 being able to actually get their birth certificates, and dammit by the time I got to the end I was just furious that states are so slow to realize what sealed records have done to people!  Yes, they go about their lives and grow up, go the school, have jobs, get married, have children and all the rest, but in most states they still are unable to have that piece of paper that might unlock--most likely would unlock--the key to their identities: original birth certificates with the names of the parents.

ACLU: Right on Kaepernick, wrong on adoptee and first mother rights

Lorraine

"We support Colin Kaepernick and every other American who has defended an unpopular opinion." So tweets ACLU National. (And we do too, see our current sidebar.)

The ACLU National support 49ers quarterback Kaepernick's kneel-down during the singing of the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality, but they also support injustice against adoptees. They say they do this for those birth/first mothers who wish to remain secret from their children. Baloney. If that is their argument for being such a stand-up partner to adoptee injustice, they are ignoring what they actually support.

DNA reveals a mother who rejected contact. Maybe.

Lorraine

Dear Lorraine:

"Through DNA I have a close 2nd cousin match and with help from a search angel, I found my first mother. I have a younger brother from her. My problem is she said no contact when the Children's Home Society in Florida found her back in 2007. At that point I learned that she had not disclosed my existence to her family, but now with the DNA tests results and my tree on ancestry I won't be a secret any more for long.

"Trying to figure out what to do next--should I try to contact her again through a direct letter to her, with a few pictures? We look a lot a like.

The Light Between Oceans: Bloated melodrama defies your sympathy

The book, the movie poster

As soon as I learned that The Light Between Oceans was about the tug-of-war over a child between a mother and one who pretends to be the real mother (as was evident in the pre-release TV commercials) I knew I would see it. I took plenty of tissues; I wanted to go alone.

Since I found the story of The Place Beyond the Pines, one of the director Derek Cianfrance's earlier films, devastating and compelling from the first frame, I expected the same. After that story of a child the father did not know his short-term girlfriend had, and its the tragic end, I was an emotional mess. I know too many stories about guys who don't know they left behind a child.

So I was set up to like this movie.  I excepted my own personal waterworks.

Yet I didn't even need the tissues. The story is way too preposterous, the filming veers to high melodrama, the moral question at the heart of the story

Catelynn and Tyler face the hard realities of adoption--again

Birth mother Catelynn Lowell Baltierra

An anguished Catelynn Lowell Baltierra listens while her husband Tyler denounces Brandon and Teresa Davis, the adoptive parents of their first daughter, Carly.  Seven years ago, as teen parents, their surrender of their daughter was featured on MTV's reality soap opera 16 and Pregnant. MTV has followed Catelynn and three other teen moms who kept their babies, Amber, Staci, and Farrah, as they moved from adolescence into adulthood in a show now called "Teen Mom OG" (original girls).

On the latest episode, Teresa tells Catelynn in a telephone call that she does not want their

Adoption never strays far from my life

Kate and Geoff leaving the ceremony 

You just never know what's going to happen when you are as public as I am about my daughter lost to adoption and my passion for changing adoption, and Facebook.

Case A) A lawyer in my village of Sag Harbor of friendly but usually only a passing acquaintance told me one day that years ago he handled an adoption and he has kept all the papers with the names intact IN CASE someone (as in the mother or the grown-up child) returns asking for information.

He will give it to whomever arrives, no questions asked (as long as no one is an axe-murderer).  He understands that it is absurd that mother and child are not allowed to know one another under current laws. I have no more

'Our Little Sister' a tender study of family and kinship

Sisters greeting an unknown sibling who shares one parent is the subject of Our Little Sister, a Japanese film now in art theaters. Adoption is not part of this story, yet the issues were close enough to the bone I was glad to be sitting in the dark, alone, with no one near me. They would have wondered how this deeply charming and quietly moving film would have elicited deep feelings in me. Some people might simply get misty eyed as the film ends, but I slipped my sunglasses on as I left to hide the outright tears.

Let's get on with the story: Three sisters, now grown and working, were left by their father 15 years earlier when he had an affair that produced a daughter, Suzu, now an adolescent. Suzu was living with the father, and a new wife in a distant village when he died. The three sisters travel by train to funeral, and Suzu, the little sister, meets them at the station, walks them to their hotel, and quietly says goodbye.

Genetic mother denied visitation with son conceived in vitro

Jordan Schnitzer, father of the year. NOT. 

Jordan Schnitzer wanted a son without the bother of a mother. After two attempts using "donated" eggs, Schnitzer, 65, the divorced father of two teenage daughters turned to his 37-year-old girlfriend Cory Sause. She happened to have some eggs frozen just in case... and she agreed to share them with Schnitzer. After a surrogate became pregnant from Schnitzer's/Sause's embryo/DNA, their relationship soured.

Their son was born in December and they are now embroiled in litigation on whether egg mother Sause can have visitation with her biological son. Schnitzer's position is absolute: He is the sole and exclusive parent. His name alone is on the birth certificate. Biology be damned.

Simone Biles' commotion over her (adoptive) parents

Simone at work

Simone Biles, one of the stars of the Olympics, is at the source of a huge kerfuffle regarding what adoptive parents deem as acceptable language when it comes to them. Al Trautwig, a NBC commentator, referred to her briefly by saying she was raised by her grandfather and his wife and she calls them mom and dad. He also said that she was adopted by them. He also tweeted: “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Well, you'd think that he had thrown out a bomb. It was bold, I'll admit and I wonder what prompted him to go that far--that is, CAP the NOT. Maybe he was being nudged to diminish or hide her back story, and he said, Wait a minute, that's not the true story. Maybe he is the biological father of a child who was adopted. Maybe he wanted to raise his own child and was denied that. Or maybe, he had already been criticized for acknowledging that she was adopted by her grandfather and step-grandmother and he was irritated by the sensitive souls who had taken offense and were already complaining about hearing the truth, a prospect that I as a journalist find plausible. Who knows?

DMC: Room for two mothers in his life

Jane, DMC, and Jeanette Roberts at AAC 3-8-07

I met the rapper, Darryl McDaniels ( DMC)  in 2007 when I attended the annual conference of the American Adoption Congress in Boston with my good friend and fellow first mother Jeanette Roberts. In truth I had never heard of DMC and knew nothing about rap music. I learned he was a late discovery adoptee and an advocate for opening records.

I bought his just published book Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: A Memoir because I wanted to learn more about his adoption experience and as way of thanking him for standing up for adoption reform and taking the time to pose with me and Jeanette in a picture. I'm glad I did.

When death reveals a secret child

Full moon.

Thursday and Friday I helped clean out the home of a neighbor and friend who died in December.

With the emptying of the house, my husband and I are also losing a family that became a stand-in for my own distant family, and for Tony's too. And the neighbor--the grande dame of her family--was my friend, but a friend who I discovered shortly before she died, was a mother like me. A mother who gave up a child.

I've written about Yvonne several times before, for we had legendary arguments about whether someone who is relinquished and adopted should find their biological family. We wrote

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.