The Fear Never Goes Away

Not the source of today’s story.

(Not my own story either) I just really need to put this weight down somewhere where those who read it will understand. I also hope expectant moms who are considering relinquishing their child might see this and consider yet another way their choice can impact their child.

I was adopted as an infant. My mother willingly and intentionally relinquished me. My adoptive family was overall loving and kind. I am (finally) in reunion with my first family. I have never had Div of Children’s and Family Services involved in my personal life, though I’ve witnessed it firsthand with friends. I say all of this to show that there is no “logical” reason for how I feel, and that it is directly related to adoption trauma —

I am always, every single day, on edge and terrified of anything that could separate my son from me. My son is safe and healthy and loved, I am in my mid 30s and safe and secure, and yet… there is always the fear of having him taken from me and given to someone else nagging in the back of my brain. All day every day. I carried that fear through my pregnancy, and now still carry it at almost 18 months postpartum. The idea of him being taken from me makes me feel panic and sick inside. It’s its own kind of terror.

This is adoption trauma, 35+ years down the road. Even in a “happy” adoption story.

Blogger’s note – I was always worried that some do-gooder would misinterpret my family dynamics and my children would be taken away. It is not an unreasonable fear these days. Fortunately, my sons are now old enough that it is no longer a fear. Anyone who has witnessed the system in action has reason to be afraid. Even those of us without such a history worry about it. Adoptees carry such fears because they were separated from their birth family (regardless of the circumstances) and that is totally understandable.

Beware Of Offers Like This

It doesn’t only happen in adoptionland. We’ve had offers to “go around” the middle man regarding hunting leases and real estate. Those in the middle have the ability to protect BOTH sides in a variety of transactions. One of my sisters did her adoption through an attorney. The other one through a Catholic charity. Both of my parents adoptions had “middles” too – Tennessee Children’s Home and The Salvation Army.

Something like this was sent to an expectant mother who had already said she wants to parent her baby – “We are looking to do a private adoption. You do not have to go through an adoption agency. We can give you $3,000 and that is the same amount of money you would get through any agency.”

Offering to pay an expectant mother for her baby is actually a form of human trafficking.

Bias Towards Adoptive Parents

Image from “Nature vs Nurture“

Some adoptees will tell you it is people pleasing. My adoptee mom was very good at that. Anyway, on see this, I went looking and found these –

From LINK>Science Direct – Related to nonbiologically related siblings reared together – 5 basic dimensions of personality. [1] Extraversion, [2] Neuroticism, [3] Agreeableness, [4] Conscientiousness and [5] Openness. Adoption studies have consistently found little or no personality similarity among adoptive relatives, confirming that growing up in the same home has little impact on personality similarity.

And this from a LINK>Psychology Quizlet – There appears to be little parental influence on adopted children’s personalities. Adopted children’s personalities are not similar to those of the parents who adopt and raise them. The correlations of personality traits between identical twins are higher than the correlations for fraternal twins.

Always double and triple check Google results !!

Cofertility

Just learned about this company today – the latest in the fertility industry/adoption industrial complex predicated on the “right to parenthood”. With some young women delaying motherhood these days, only to discover later on in life they can no longer conceive, I can understand the allure of participating in this venture. Beyond that, I really can’t encourage anyone to do this but clearly it is something that some couples are turning to in order to further their efforts to conceive.

The company notes – Whether you want to freeze your eggs for free when donating half to another family or you’re looking to build your family through egg donation, we’ve got you.

There are concerns in the donor conceived community regarding the right to fully informed consent. It was noted that there are also attempts to game-ify adoption by companies that are using swiping apps designed similarly to Tinder to match expectant mothers with hopeful adopters.

At the company’s website, they have a link called LINK>”Our Stance“. It notes that they stand for reproductive choice. And egg freezing is just that — a choice that a woman makes over her own body and future. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) states that egg freezing “promotes social justice by reducing the obstacles women currently face because their reproductive window is smaller than men’s.” We couldn’t agree more, and we’re proud to do our part to lessen constraints placed on women by offering more accessible egg freezing options. That said, we acknowledge that egg freezing and egg donation are not without their critiques. The processes come with big questions, and we want to be transparent about where we stand.

I agree with Cofertility that there is a dearth of fertility education. Many women do not realize how early in their life, their ability to conceive will become “old age” in that regard. I know that was honestly the situation with my husband and I. We did the whole ovulation prediction and timed sex thing, only to discover that my own eggs where almost all gone and the ones that remained unlikely to develop into a viable pregnancy. It is still the wild west out there – when it comes to couples who are experiencing infertility finding some way to build their family. Polarized politics are not helping the situation. Sellers and buyers need to be as fully informed as possible.

Making Restitution

From the blog yesterday asking adoptive parents how they were complicit in a toxic industry, came some ideas from an adoptee on how adoptive parents might make restitution to adoptees –

– Go to adoption informed counseling.

– Grieve your own infertility losses.

– Fully recognize that pretending the adoptee’s are your children is sick. You’re raising them and it is a PRIVILEGE to do so.

– Facilitate ANY and all (safe) birthfamily relationships. If visits need to be supervised, then fully commit to that and the supervisor isn’t you, unless the child requests that. (I only used that caveat because someone always asks, “But what if it’s not saaaafe?” Safe does not equate with personal comfort.)

– Do whatever you can to obtain the adoptee’s original birth certificate.

– Embrace and celebrate the adoptee’s race/culture/heritage. Just because you may be or may appear to be the same race doesn’t mean you have the same culture.

– Refer to the adoptee’s birthparents as parents. Recognize that while you may deeply love them and are raising them, they come from another family first.

– Continue to offer therapy for the adoptee and make certain to offer racially and culturally sensitive adoption trauma informed sources.

– Have books written by adoptees in your personal library and in your home for the children.

– Create and be a safe place for the adoptees.

– Check your hurt feelings at the door and always follow the adoptees lead.

– Do they want to talk? Your job is to listen. LISTEN.

– Do they want to be quiet? Your job is to also be quiet.

– ALWAYS follow the adoptee’s lead and trust their intuition.

– Listen to adult adoptees FIRST.

– Advocate for adoptees and first families.

– In your home.

– In your place of worship (if applicable) and remind people that their “answered prayer” came at the greatest cost a woman could pay (the loss of her child).

– Amongst adopter friends and family.

– FINANCIALLY. Give to Go Fund Me’s for women who want to parent their babies.

AND EMPHASIZING THIS AGAIN – LISTEN TO ADULT ADOPTEE VOICES.

Is Your Behavior Unethical

Questions to consider, if you want to take responsibility for unintended but unethical behavior –

Did you use an adoption agency that has consistently unethical practices?

Did you pay tens of thousands of dollars?

Did you participate in pre-birth matching?

Were you in the delivery room/at hospital?

Did you seek out states without a revocation period?

Did you troll Facebook groups looking for expectant mothers?

Did you send your profile to Obstetrician offices and leave “business cards” on college campuses?

Did you aggressively advertise on social media and Craigslist?

Did you fight the parents, if they tried to revoke?

For foster to adopt parents:

Did you support reunification?

Did you sabotage reunification?

Do you realize you chose to also participate in a corrupt system?

Terminology Issues

Read today that at least one state is reconsidering how to refer to participants in the foster care system. One idea under consideration was to change “foster parent” to “resource parent/carer”.

Overall, the consensus was to no longer use “parent”, “mother” or “father” in foster care situations. This story by one adoptee was illustrative – I spent just two nights in foster care. I was very small but I remember the social worker calling the woman my foster mother. It just added to the terror of the situation. She was not and would never be my mother, or even act in a motherly role. For me, she was an emergency caretaker. A resource person/carer seems appropriate to me. Even foster caregiver is better.

A former foster caregiver notes – It’s none of my business, to decide whether their mom is “better” or “safe”. I’m taking care of the kid, until they go back to family. I don’t really consider that being a “parent”.

One woman, formerly in foster care as a youth, notes – This feels ick to me. It’s dehumanizing and impersonal. I’m really getting tired of people inventing more and more terms that claim to be inclusive and/or whatever and just end up being dehumanizing. What the hell is a resource giver? It doesn’t sound like a person and sure as hell doesn’t sound remotely healthy. We are people, all of us. We all need to be treated as human beings. And using dehumanizing terms is not only not ok but is abusive. ALL abuse starts with this type of language. Not ok. She was asked – “how you feel about temporary guardian?” but has not answered.

Another adoptee wrote – I think the best term would be something without the word parent altogether. I’m not sure what would be wrong with referring to someone as a carer or a resource person. Adding parent, mom and/or dad seems to feed the many hungry adoptive parents in the idea that it is somehow their child. Someone posted about seeing someone talking about the loss of their baby but then, realized they didn’t lose their baby, they lost a foster child who was reunified with family as it should be. I don’t feel like anyone needs more reasons to see themselves as a parent, when they’re not, nor do I think this view should be taken as a slam against anyone. It’s factual, they are a carer, they are a resource person, they are NOT the child’s parent.

One offered this age appropriate explanation from lived experience – When the girls came to live with me, we tried really hard to find age appropriate ways to explain what was going on when they asked questions; cognitively they were at pre-k level but were in grade school; they were familiar with having guest teachers, while their teachers were out sick – so we explained that like when teachers are sick and they get a guest teacher, their teacher always comes back. We were guest parents until mommy and daddy are better and safe to go back home to. That like parents, we will take care of them and do everything parents are supposed to do with them, until mommy and daddy are able to do those things again, but that it wasn’t permanent and that we weren’t their actual parents now. That made sense to them and made it easier for them to understand what our role was in their lives.

Another who spent time in foster care writes – The foster carers (FCs), not my parents then but the people I lived with and who were responsible for my day-to-day “care”, were my legal guardians. I called them by their given names & called my mother Mommy.

Another foster caregiver writes – I always liked the differentiation of being a “community resource” foster home vs kinship foster. It highlights the perspective that I was meant to be a (temporary) resource for the community, which obviously includes my foster children’s parents! Foster carer or foster caregiver makes sense to me as a gender neutral, nonparental title for this role.

Neuro Emotional Technique

I bring this up because so many adoptees and first moms (women who surrendered a child for adoption) suffer from the effects of those traumas and there could easily (often are) other aspects that disturb peace of mind and heart.

Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) is a research backed treatment to help release and overcome past traumas and unresolved stressful events. Clearing stress and trauma blockages allow you to make decisions without attachment to previous negative emotional experiences and to rebuild positive response patterns in your life.

From literature through the National Institutes of Health – Library of Medicine on a LINK>randomized controlled trial of the Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) for childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has increased over the years, especially for developmental and behavioral disorders, such as ADHD. 60–65% of parents with children with ADHD have used CAM. Medical evidence supports a multidisciplinary approach (i.e. pharmacological and psychosocial) for the best clinical outcomes. The Neuro Emotional Technique (NET), a branch of Chiropractic, was designed to address the biopsychosocial aspects of acute and chronic conditions including non-musculoskeletal conditions. Anecdotally, it has been suggested that ADHD may be managed effectively by NET.

Evidence suggests that 10–30% of children with ADHD who have been prescribed stimulant medications, do not show clinically significant outcomes, and others experience side-effects and need to discontinue their medications. The most common side effects of stimulant medications are appetite suppression, weight loss, sleep disturbances, irritability, stomach aches, headaches, rashes, and occasionally the development or aggravation of tics. For these children, additional strategies need to be implemented in order to achieve a successful outcome.

There are no known side effects and there have not been any reports of adverse reactions to the NET protocol. Most practitioners are in the chiropractic field.

ALABAMA

Distressed Alabama Flag on Black – Photograph by Jon Neidert

You no doubt have heard the news about Alabama’s decision that is closing down IVF clinics in that state. Other deeply conservative states seeking to turn these United States into a theocracy are certain to try similar efforts. I don’t want to live in a theocracy.

I also know a bit about IVF. I have 2 sons that were donor conceived (they have identical genetics – same egg donor and same father but separate cycles). We never did have a lot of embryos. We tried with the leftovers from the first cycle but that effort failed. We donated the leftovers from the second cycle. Those seemed to succeed but a few weeks into her pregnancy, her effort failed. We never had to deal with issues related to the Alabama cases. Still but for IVF and Assisted Reproduction Technology, we would not have our precious sons.

From Dave Barnhart, a traditional Christian pastor –

“The Unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

The Answer

Legal guardianship is the answer. Adoption erases one’s entire identity — changes their birth certificate, their name, their culture, severs their ability to find/know their family as well as family medical history.

Legal guardianship provides a path where the child is in a safe environment while also retaining their autonomy over their identity. It isn’t necessary to steal someone’s identity in order to provide a home for them.

Let’s talk responsibility. Ignorance is not an excuse. So you’re an adoptive parent and you conveniently didn’t realize the adoption industry is corrupt and the trauma associated with it until your family was “complete.” You are still responsible for it. So you’re a natural mom who was coerced. While that is horrible, you are still responsible for signing on the dotted line.

What does this say though about kids who aren’t wanted by family? Shouldn’t someone take them in and give them in a chance? What about someone who didn’t want their kids?

Why not choose guardianship?

Adoptees are the only ones in the adoption triad who had no right at all to consent. Even in the case of a truly forced termination of parental rights, most of these parents had some responsibility for the reasons why their rights were terminated. When we make natural mother’s the victims, we once again erase adopted people. It’s not healthy for adopted people. when their natural mothers make themselves the victim.