I don’t know these people and they are not the point. Among the reforms I have learned about in the private Facebook group for original parents, adoptees and adoptive parents that I belong to, and one of their missions, is to support expectant mothers. One of the reforms they advocate, and I agree with, is for the prospective adoptive parents NOT to be present in the delivery room during birth nor for the first few days after the birth. The goal is for the new mother to bond with her baby and perhaps change her mind about giving the baby up for adoption.
The problem is the coercive effect of the adoptive parents’ presence on the new mother. So it is today that I read the story of a hopeful adoptive mother and the problems that have occurred at the last minute in the new mother’s intention to give her baby up. This is a teenage unwed mother who at the tender age of 15 had previously expressed a desire to go back to her pre-pregnancy life and be educated to become a nurse. She also was not living with her parents, had been raped (perhaps by a family member) and did not believe her own mother was capable of helping her parent.
Flash forward to her difficult 3-day delivery and she informs the hopeful adoptive mother that she does NOT want her there because her mom (who opposes the adoption completely) is trying to help her through it and the new mother doesn’t want drama. She gave birth and due to the C-section, she is in the hospital for longer than expected.
Well, she begins to breastfeed the baby while in hospital and of course, breastfeeding does encourage the bonding of mother and child. The result is that three days before the surrender papers are to be signed, the new mother has decided to parent. The struggles of any new mother are temporary, placement is permanent, which is the message this Facebook group attempts to convey.
The result is a very mad hopeful adoptive mother who is blaming everyone from the social worker to the hospital to hormones and drugs and the immature age of the new mother and to the new grandmother as well for losing the “perfect baby-these don’t come by often” which echoes in my own mind like the words the Tennessee Children’s Home used to describe my mom to her adoptive parents.
Missing Mom 