THE ADOPTEE RIGHTS COALITION

Letter Writing Campaign Starts Now!!

If you don't already know, The Adoptee Rights Coalition supports legislation that will give all adopted adults unconditional restored access to their own birth certificates.

 Please visit their latest blog post to find a link to your legislator and a sample letter if you need help composing one.  The post has a lot of other interesting info regarding equal rights for everyone to receive their original birth certificates.

If you have followed my blog, you know that I was NEVER promised anonymity, nor did I ever want it!  Quite the opposite in my case ~ I was told that if I ever searched for my son I would be breaking the law, no matter how old he was.  Another mother who gave up a child from the very same adoption agency just 3 weeks before me was told that her daughter would receive all the info necessary to find her when she turned 18.  Both cases were blatant lies. 

Mothers of adoption loss are not the reason the birth certificates are sealed!

I am going to go write my letters now ~ will you?

 Click here to get started!

Susie

 

Adoption - An Unregulated, Multi-Billion Dollar Industry

Adoption in the United States is a Big Business.  It is for the most part an unregulated, multi-billion dollar a year industry.

The adoption industry relies on the vulnerability of women facing an unplanned pregnancy, a crisis moment in their lives.  Poor, young and/or unmarried women are especially vulnerable to the high-pressured tactics of the adoption industry.  Without resources or support, they believe that their sacrifice will be worth it if their child can benefit from being raised by a "more worthy" family.  These mothers, desperate to give their child a "better" life, are never told of the life-long effects on herself, the infant given up, or the children they are currently or may raise in the future.  These mothers are not told that adoption does not guarantee a better life, it just guarantees a different life.

The adoption industry has spent millions of dollars researching how to use the vulnerability of these mothers to their favor in order to meet the high demand they have for newborn infants.  These newborn infants bring prospective adoptors willing to pay large amounts in order to become parents.  The adoption industry also spends large amounts of money on promoting adoption as a "loving choice", as well as an alternative to abortion.  This image of adoption is necessary in order to keep the supply and demand high enough to keep the industry wealthy.  The adoption industry exploits the mothers as well as the prospective adoptive parents who believe that adoption is only good, is only in the best interest of the children. 

The adoption industry is also a big player in limiting adult adoptees access to their birth records and original birth certificates.  The big business interests of adoption has laid the blame for sealing the information on the mothers, stating that they were promised privacy and anonymity.  In actuality, most mothers are never told that they will remain anonymous; they do not expect nor do they want to remain a secret from their children.  The reality of the industries desire to keep records sealed has more to do with promoting the secrecy, limiting their liability and preserving their profits.

The adoption industry is not alone in their quest to continue bringing in billions of dollars a year to their bank accounts.  The adoption industry employs full-time lobbyists in Washington, D.C. in order to promote adoption and encourage the relinquishment of infants.  The National Council for Adoption is a private lobbying group whose members include twenty-eight adoption agencies and represents 3.5 percent of U.S. adoption agencies. The N.C.F.A. and three adoption agencies received $8.6 million from the federal treasury in October 2001 to promote adoption to pregnant women at health centers and clinics.

Many state laws encourage the adoption market by valuing the desires of the industry and prospective adoptive parents over the rights of the vulnerable expectant mother.  In some states mothers are allowed to sign relinquishment papers BEFORE the infant is even born, others allow signatures immediately after birth ~ even while the mother is still suffering from the labor and delivery of her baby.  A few states do require 24-48 hours after birth before a mother can sign relinquishment papers.  States also have varied revocation periods.  Some states are irrevocable immediatly after signing, others allow a mother to revoke their consent anywhere between 24 hours to 20 days after signing.  Jane Edwards has a great post that sums up the different state adoption consent laws.  If you have time to read them, there are many great comments on her post.

Sadly, the differences in the states adoption consent laws leads to more corruption.  There are adoption agencies that bring mothers to states with less revocation time, to states that make it almost impossible for a father to stop the adoption of his own child.  There have been attempts to make adoption federally regulated, but the argument against it has been that adoption is a state law issue.  The American Adoption Congress has a great article "Why The Federal Government Must Regulate Adoption".

Are you doubtful that adoption agencies truly have an income exceeding one billion dollars a year?  But what about the "non-profit" adoption agencies?  In order to be a "non-profit", adoption agencies pay exorbitant salaries to their top executives.  Take a look at this report showing some of the top executive compensations at adoption agencies.  Granted, these amounts are from 2007 and 2008, the latest figures I could find.  I am going to guess that the salaries in the following years were as high if not higher than these years.

In researching this subject, I found much more information than could possibly be used in one blog post.  Here are some links to some more great articles I found:

Amanda recently wrote a great post about the money behind adoption "Dollars and $ense of Family Building: An Adult Adoptees Response".  There are some great comments on this post that are worth reading also.

Infant Adoption is Big Business in America is an article I just found as I was finishing this post.  If I hadn't already written this, I would have simply posted this article ~ it is excellent and far more thorough than what I have written here.  It is worth the time it takes to read, I am adding it to my "Learn" page.

Who Cares If People Are Exploited By Adoption?

The Baby Business explores how large sums of money have led to corruption in many countries from which Americans adopt.

The Stork Market

When Children Become Commodities

I received a comment on old post the other day.  It has me thinking about open adoption, as well as adoption in general. 

Open adoption is "sold" as better for those adopted as well as the natural families.  But.  Is it?? 

It would have been so wonderful to have been able to know that Christopher was alive and well, healthy and happy.  I used to fantasize often that I had been able to find his parents and write letters back and forth with them.  I often wished that I could have seen him throughout the years ~ been a bug on the wall to see what he looked like, to hear him laugh and talk.  However, for myself, I really don't think I could have participated in a fully open adoption.  I wanted to be a mom to my son.  Since that wasn't possible, I had to completely shut myself off from my motherhood to survive life without him.  If I had been told that I could not choose adoption without it being fully open, I would have chosen to raise my son.  There is no way I could have been a part of his life yet not fully be his mother.  A fully open adoption would have been like rubbing salt in an open wound.  I can't imagine how much worse my anger at my parents would have been ~ to see the son whose life I was missing out on because I refused to raise him in that house.  To have it in my face what my life could have been like (as a mother) if I had received one ounce of love or support (emotional, not financial) from my family.  Of course, I will never know what the reality of open adoption would have been ~ maybe it would have been better...   Who knows...

I can't speak for the adoptee side of open adoption.  Chris' comments make me think about the reality of open adoption on the child growing up.  Just as with everything in life, people react differently in similar situations.  While I know there are some children thriving in their open adoption situations, there are also other children suffering, as in the case that sparked my post "First Family and Forever Family".  There are probably just as many possible downfalls to open adoption as there are benefits for those adopted.  There are just so many variances in experiences, so many differences in the natural and adoptive families, so many things that can change the effects of one open adoption to another.   Open adoption is only as good as the natural and adoptive families work together to make it.  And yet, (this post) shows that even with great relationships between the families the reality can be painful for the child. 

I don't think the question of open adoption being better or worse for the child growing up will ever really be answered.  The problem isn't about which is better.  I think the question needs to be "Is adoption truly necessary in this case?"  Before it even gets to the point that a decision for open or closed adoption is necessary, every effort should be made to first help keep the original family intact.  If a child is being born into a loving family safe from abuse or neglect, they don't need another family ~ they already have one.  Adoption should not be looked at as an answer to temporary problems.  Adoption should not be sold as "a loving choice" to mothers who love their child deeply and would give their right arm to raise her child, but is made to feel "less than" because of age, money, marital status, etc.  "First Family and Forever Family" is a great example of adoption being a permanent solution to a temporary problem. 

I'm not the only one blogging about open adoption today.  For an adoptee's view on open adoption, go visit Amanda.  

***************

 
I had a moment of panic when I first saw the comment from Chris.  I still worry that my son may find this blog one day and think that I have this horribly depressing life because he was born.  That is far from the reality of my life.  I do not write here because my life is all "woe is me, I gave my son up for adoption".  I write here now mostly to advocate for family preservation.  In advocating for family preservation, I am not saying that I would deny my son one moment of the life he has lived.  I am so very lucky that he has had a great life with a wonderful and loving family.   I probably laugh much more in the course of one day than I am saddened by adoption loss in an entire month.  The only place I "talk" about the effects of adoption in my life is here on this blog, and in the blogging/adoption forums.  So of course if you only know me by this blog, you would think that adoption loss is my life.  It is not.  Despite having adoption in it, I have a wonderful life ~ with more blessings than I can count.   

I never dreamed that anyone would want to read my rambling thoughts, my "therapy" of getting all of this out of my head.  The therapy part of writing about adoption in my life was the main reason for starting this blog, but I also want this blog to be a place where an expectant mother considering adoption can find information regarding the truth of adoption loss and family preservation so she can make a fully informed decision for or against adoption.  

Susie

 

I Hate This!

I have had a question for Christopher and a debate with myself running through my brain for weeks now.  I need to get it out of my head so that I don't send it to him in an email.  This sucks.  I hate feeling needy, being uncertain.  I don't write these questions to get answers from anyone, I just need to get the words and worries in writing so they are no longer inside of me, driving me crazy.  Yeah, right.  *laughing*  Like that will make a difference.

Do we need to talk?

Ughhhh... can you sound anymore pathetic?!?  Way to lay on the guilt trip there mom.

But I just need to know if everything is ok.  It's been so long since I have heard from him...

He's busy.  He has a job that requires travel.  He has two little ones, a wife, a home, lots of responsibilities. 

But I've never gone this long without hearing from him.

Did I sense a tinge of awkwardness at his last visit?  He was very short and quiet when I called him on Easter Sunday.  Didn't answer my phone call on his birthday...

Quit imagining things that aren't there.  You've done this before and the worry was for nothing.

Does he have anyone to talk to about all of this?  Do I offer him some blogs, the adoptee forum as places to seek support online? 

What if you are putting thoughts and issues into his head that aren't there? 

If I don't email him tonight, how much longer do I wait?  

For as long as it takes. 

When Will May 8th Be Over??

I have been trying to talk myself out of the funk I have been in since Christopher's birthday.  Which landed on Mother's Day.  Ughhh... I'm whining and I hate that.

I've been trying to stop obsessing thinking about Christopher and his silence.  I've been failing.  Miserably.  Not that I need any reminders, but this morning the first song I heard as I woke up was "Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick.  The last verse always makes me think of this blog, it is the reason I started writing.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

Tonight Suz had another great post.  She put much of what I feel regarding Christopher's birthday into writing:

"It is a strange feeling, this straddling two worlds.  In World One I am a mother that is recognized and in World Two I am not.  I exist in both worlds and yet I feel incomplete in each one simultaneously.

...I reflected on that today as I thought about mothers like me often have the reverse problem, or perhaps the same problem, only slightly in reverse.  We are also wiped away, disappeared at the time of separation. We go on, in many cases, as we once were. We suppress the memory of our child and we go along with the great charade of society and pretend we are not a mother.  Then one day, upon reunion, whether it be our doing or forced upon us, some person tells us that person that we denied DOES exist and damn, they want to know that person....

...Other mothers like me, we embrace that existence, but really, we don’t know how to live that life, particularly when so many continue to deny it.  It is the stuff psychological disorders are made of. Multiple personalities. Dissociation.

Sure, my mother and my sister and my friends acknowledged me today, but did my daughter? No. Do her parents? No. Does society? No. So where do I go?

 
I guess I'm hoping that by getting  all of this out here, I can get rid of this nagging desire to write to Christopher.  To say more than I should.  Another catch-22 ~ so much I wish he could know, that I pray that he never finds out. 

I have avoided writing too much here on my blog because I'm still scared that Christopher may find it somehow.  I don't want him to know how much I hurt.  I don't want to scare him away.  It's not his fault, I don't want him taking my pain onto himself.  All of this pain and loss from one bad decision made when I was barely 15 years old.  Seems like an awful high price to pay...

Why can't society see the deep scars left by adoption?


Susie
P.S.

I think that his job has him only an hour away again this week.  So close...  So far away... 


It is the stuff psychological disorders are made of.