Is it a 'Birth' Certificate or Certificate of Title?

Jane

Birth certificates have become legal instruments, reflecting ownership of children rather than parentage. In surrogacy-friendly California, birth certificates of children created in vitro with “donated” eggs and sperm, born to surrogates identify those who paid for the creation as the parents. In the Brave New World of “assisted reproduction” these children depend on the kindness of their legal parents and surrogacy clinic policies to learn whose DNA they carry.

My (relinquished) daughter talks about adoption

From left: Lorraine and Jane, 1988; same jeans, bought separately

Well before my relinquished daughter Jane died, I did have the opportunity to talk to her about adoption on tape. She knew I was writing a memoir to follow up Birthmark, and that I would include her story. I was visiting her and her daughter Kim in Wisconsin, where they were living with her adoptive parents.

Stumbling through the first mother/adoptee maze

I'm trying to be on vacation with my family who are visiting from Michigan, and so I'm posting as a fresh blog post a comment from an adoptee, Tamara, and my response. 

Lorraine

Lorraine,

Let me begin by saying I have the utmost respect for you, for your truth and your courage and your writing. I have gained unfathomable insights from your blog, and from your writings and insights. As an adoptee who found her mother too late (she had already passed) you and Jane and your contributors have helped me "know" my mother.

Birth Mother? First Mother? Both names are belittling

Lorraine

By Lorraine Dusky  (c) 2011

Shortly after my daughter, Jane—whom I had given up for adoption but had reunited with a quarter of a century earlier—died my husband and a friend of ours were talking about the circumstances of her death at a cocktail party I had chosen not to attend.

If you are an adoptive parent reading this blog, do I have your attention yet? I’ve used words that adoptive parents recoil from: gave up, daughter without modifiers,

The Trauma of being adopted

Lorraine

NOTE: Today's blog is about the impact of adoption on our children, the adult children we natural mothers surrendered for adoption. This is not to diminish the impact of surrender on first/birth mothers or excuse any behavior of this group; that is what First Mother Forum is primarily dedicated to. However, the discussion of last week about post-reunion relationships brought led us to today's subject: The Trauma of being adopted.

The [birth] mother and child reunion, Part 3

Lorraine & Jane, 1983

A comment came in yesterday from our blogger friend and adoptee Amanda* that needs to be widely read:

"One common thing among adoptees and other hurting people (no, not all adoptees are like this) is that they do not believe they make an impact on those around them. This is usually seen in trauma

When birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry, Part 2

Lorraine

Who suffers more, the adoptee or the birth mother? It's like answering the question, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? There is no answer, but one can reflect that first mothers had a time before they surrendered their children, while adoptees have no period of consciousness before they were given away and adopted. Be that as it may, we mothers in reunion have to deal

Why birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry

Lorraine

Someone asked recently if we could report on good reunions--without the hurt and anger and rage that so often breaks out here on First Mother Forum. Well, I wish I had better news to report, but the operating mode seems to be what was first mentioned in a comment at an earlier post: advance and retreat. Reunion is like a huge ocean wave that comes in and thrashes everyone about, and in the process, everyone's emotions are rubbed raw again, feelings are tender, real rage can emerge.

Family Reunions: Distorted by Adoption

Jane

Family reunions are a fine tradition but for me and other natural mothers, they can be a catalyst, bringing our buried grief to the surface, reminding us of the missing unnamed and unacknowledged family member. 

I'm leaving for Maui tomorrow to spend a week with my sisters and brother, nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and their spouses and significant others. We've been holding these reunions every three years since 1975.

After the Mother and Daughter Reunion....

Jane and Lorraine, 1983

Other than the disappointment over her natural father's refusal to meet her, you may be assuming that everything was hunky-dory when my daughter Jane* visited--as she did for weeks and then whole summers--and that we continued to bond without issues, that I was generally on Cloud Nine, and that she went back to her adoptive family and home in Wisconsin like a shiny penny, self-esteem restored, LD (learning disabled) classes—what’s that?

Wrong.

Does My Natural Mother Ever Think of Me?

Lorraine

It's the little everyday things in life that remind you of being a natural/birth/first mother. It's noticing how I always look at kids when they are with people I assume are their parents, and make a split-second decision: related by genes, or not? It's being alert to every mention of a celebrity adoption: Denise Richards, Charlie Sheen's ex adopting a newborn when she already has two girls (ages six and seven) with Charlie Sheen, (really?

Corruption in Foreign Adoptions: China, Again

Jane

Once again, corruption in baby snatching in China is in the news: Chinese police rescued 81 children from a major child trafficking ring operating throughout eastern China. The rescued children, mostly girls, were from ten days to four months old. Another raid earlier this month resulted in eight children being rescued. Unless the children were

Mothers of stolen babies demand more than an apology

More on the Catholic apology in Australia: women whose babies were taken and given to others want more than an apology, they want justice. But a few days later, Perth's Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey told a television interviewer in Australia on The Morning Show he knew of little evidence of such practices.

Catholic church apologizes for forced adoptions in Australia

Lorraine

Why was I adopted? That's the question Jane wrote so well about in her previous post,* and while neither she nor I were tied down during delivery, nor did we sign surrender papers immediately after when we were still under the influence of drugs, many mothers endured such a fate elsewhere in the world. Apparently this was common practice

Adoptees ask: "Why Was I Given Away?"

Jane

“Why Was I Given Away? What were the circumstances of my adoption?” are often the first questions adoptees newly in reunion ask. We find that people Google such a question frequently. Lurking beneath these questions is the fear that

Utah rules against natural father. Again. And again. Adoption is big business there.

Nothing to smile about today

Why do I hate Utah?  Let me count the ways:
 a) The Utah attitude towards single parents is "Grab and Go," as in, We'll grab the baby from any state and then make it nearly impossible for the natural parent--either one--to get the child back, even mere minutes after the papers are signed.

Catelynn & Tyler's open adoption will stay open; for other first mothers, not so much

 Lorraine

Breaking News: First Mother Carla Moquin lost her case to have the adoption of her daughter overturned because the adopters, Susan Englert and Demyn Platenberg, went back on their open adoption promises. Carla is planning to appeal to the California Supreme Court.  Now back to the regular programming:

Before we leave Catelynn and Tyler, America's most celebrated birth/first parents, it's obvious that their decision to relinquish their

(Pro) Adoption Special: Dr. Drew encourages teen moms to give up their babies

Jane

“Adoption is a loving and courageous decision.” Dr. Drew (whose real name is Drew Pinsky) parroted these words at least half a dozen times on the MTV (Pro) Adoption Special, an offshoot of MTV’s popular 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom which aired July 12. I think I first read these words in an Ann Landers column in the 1950s.

PS: To the Terri Vanech story

No, we did not find her mother yet.

I posted her guest post (see below, or Adoptee learns to live out loud by finding herself)  late last night but forgot to add how Terri and I became acquainted. After reading another story of hers about her growing need to find her biological parents, I wrote about her in Adopted People Are Not Allowed Ancestry Because It Might Upset Somebody.  She found the blog, contacted me, and thus began a friendship. She was born in 1966, the same year as my daughter, whom most of you know committed suicide. The fact that Terri was the same age as my daughter added a special poignancy to our friendship.

I put her in touch with a searcher friend, also Jennifer, who tried, but she could not find the "Jennifer" she was looking for. Later later, Terri wrote a piece for Newsday that I put up as a permanent page: Looking for my birth mother. 
--lorraine

Guest Post: Adoptee learns to live out loud by finding herself

Terri S. Vanech 

I'm up to my eyeballs in work and my right hand is still not cooperating. Seems I've had too many hours at the computer and that led to back and shoulder muscles collapsing under the strain and like the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, et cetera, that has led to a problem typing. So Jane is doing more posts and in the meantime, we have a guest blogger today.--lorraine 
 

By Terri S. Vanech
 

The dutifully recorded D'Nealian cursive words in the baptismal registry at Christ Church in Tarrytown, NY, are among the most beautiful things I've ever seen: No. 34: Jennifer Elaine Clark.