Shame

We feel shame when we violate the social norms we believe in. At such moments we feel humiliated, exposed and small and are unable to look another person straight in the eye. We want to sink into the ground and disappear. Shame makes us direct our focus inward and view our entire self in a negative light.

I came upon the powerful graphic above yesterday and felt there was more that I could personally say about it. On my Facebook profile page yesterday, I shared – I have owned up to this before. I had an abortion at the age of 23 or so – mid 1970s. I am glad it was safe and legal. I was not being reckless. I was driving an 18-wheeler with a partner. Our dispatcher didn’t get us home to where my pharmacy was in time and I ended up pregnant. Neither he nor his family were the kind of people I would be glad to have been tied to through a child today. At the time, I had breakthrough bleeding. My ex-SIL and ex-BIL had a child with serious birth defects. I just felt the pregnancy was not progressing normally. Also, to be honest – I didn’t want to commit my life to 7 more months of going it alone with no financial support. I’ve never regretted it but pro-Life propaganda has definitely haunted me. In writing this, I searched my memory for all of the reasons why I chose that course of action.

The mothers and women in my family, and to whom I am genetically related, chose other courses of action. Back in the 1930s, the mothers of both of my own parents, chose to carry their pregnancies, spent the first few precious months with their babies, and one way or another lost that first child to adoption. I wrote, and it was true, “I didn’t want to commit my life to 7 more months of going it alone with no financial support.” In some people’s minds I was simply being selfish and I will accept that judgment, though in truth I have no regrets about doing what I did and for the reasons I did it at the time.

Yet, I felt enough shame for having chosen a different path (both of my sisters carried unplanned pregnancies to term but also gave their babies up for adoption) that it was a long time before I admitted to anyone what I did earlier in life. It was my private decision which no one but the circumstances influenced. Maybe influenced in no small measure by the legality and safety of the choice at the time. Only as Roe v Wade has come under increasing opposition have I started sharing my own story of what it was like to have made that choice and my gratitude that I had it available to my own self when I felt I needed that.

The father of my own conception made it clear he would not stand by me if I chose otherwise but I don’t think that was my major motivation. In reflecting on my statement that I would have had to “go it alone” above, I also know my parents supported one of my sisters throughout the pregnancy and then, remarkable to me now that I know more about adoption in general, my own adoptee mom coerced my sister into giving up the baby she wanted to keep and then, encouraged a lie to me that the baby had died. Intuitively, I knew it had not and concocted fantastical stories about what had actually happened to the baby believing it had been stolen and taken into Mexico (my sister had delivered at a hospital in El Paso TX very near the national border). Because of this, my mom finally admitted her truth regarding the whole situation to me.

Many women bear a cross – maybe they suffer their whole lives knowing their child is out there somewhere out of their own reach. Many of these original mothers suffer a secondary infertility and never have another child. Many struggle as single mothers to keep and raise their child. Our society does nothing to help them. My sister actually sought financial support during her pregnancy but was denied it based upon our parents financial condition. It was not my parents seeking financial support but my sister and not in increase my parents financial condition either.

After I divorced the father of my first child, I had to go to work and that meant child care. When one “family style” child care that she loved at first became a tearful battle, I left work to check on her and discovered through the window of a half door, an older child bullying her and no adults in sight. I pulled her out that day. I often had to go to my mother to beg $20 to make it through to payday. She never denied me but financially it was always difficult. At the time I divorced her father, he told me he would never pay me one cent of child support because I would just party with the money. Such a horrible perception he had of my own integrity and ethics. I didn’t want to spend my life in court fighting him for it even though the judge insisted in awarding me $25/mo “in case” I changed my mind and wanted to seek an increase. I never did. Instead, I left my daughter with her paternal grandmother while I tried to build a financial nest egg for the two of us by seeing if I was capable of driving an 18 wheel truck cross-country.

I always intended to return for her and would have never given her to her father to raise but his mother did that. He remarried a woman with a child and then they had a child together. Unintended consequences of financial desperation. And now, in a sense my story has come full circle, my shame – not even listed above – is that I gave up raising my child for financial reasons. Back when she was in day care, I couldn’t hardly answer the pediatrician’s questions, because she was away from me all day. After her father and step-mother raised her, I struggled to find birthday cards for her that reflected the lack of a daily, physical relationship I had with her. There were no role models for an absentee mother back in the mid-1970s, even though the absentee father was a standard reality.

Shame. Oh yes, I am well acquainted with it. As my daughter knows, I have struggled to find peace with not having “stuck it out,” as my own mother said to me that she would have done, to do the right thing by my daughter. It is a work in process. Recently, I reflected on all the things I did right by her in the brief early years she was physically under my care. I told her, I realize that when I was mother to you, I was a good one. And the abortion ? I atoned for it, by giving up my own genetic connection to have two egg donor conceived sons (same donor both times), that my husband might be able to have the children he desired, even as we both realized I had gotten too old to conceive naturally. Even so, they are now almost 18 and 21 years old. They have proven to me that I can “mother” children 24/7 throughout their own childhoods. At least I have no shame in that. I even breastfed both until they were just over 1 year old. I also have the knowledge that I didn’t put adoption trauma onto the fetus I aborted early in that pregnancy.

Maternal Abandonment

I haven’t read the book, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, but now I want to. A movie based on the book is coming to theaters this summer. In looking into the book, I find that the mother abandoned her children. In 1952, six-year-old Catherine Danielle Clark (nicknamed “Kya”) watches her mother abandon her and her family. While Kya waits in vain for her mother’s return, she witnesses her older siblings, Missy, Murph, Mandy, and eventually Jodie, all leave as well, due to their father’s drinking and physical abuse.

The story follows two timelines that slowly intertwine. The first timeline describes the life and adventures of a young girl named Kya as she grows up isolated in the marsh of North Carolina from 1952 to 1969. The second timeline follows an investigation into the apparent murder of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity of Barkley Cove, a fictional coastal town of North Carolina. Stories of children raising themselves with wildlife for companions have always fascinated me.

This story touches a sensitive place in me. While it was never my intention to abandon my daughter, could it be perceived that way ? Could she have experienced my “disappearance” as abandonment ? She was only 3 years old at the time and the realities were not something I could easily explain to her. Her dad and I had divorced. He had informed me that he would never pay child support because I would just party with the money (as though child care and pediatrician bills and all the normal daily expenses didn’t add up, leaving nothing leftover to even think of doing something like that). Therefore, I didn’t ask the court for any child support during the divorce hearing (which my husband did not attend) but the judge awarded me $25 in case I wanted to come back and ask for more. I never did but I did look for “better” (ie male dominated) employment that would pay enough to support the two of us.

It was always my intention to come back for my daughter with a bit of money saved, earned from driving an 18-wheel truck with my romantic partner of that time. A financial foundation for our mutual support. I left her with my former mother-in-law, who eventually gave her back to her dad. He remarried a woman with a child and eventually they had a child together. Since I could not give her a stable family life as a single impoverished woman, I let it be. I stayed in contact with my daughter and had short visits with her during her summers out of school. Still, it has always troubled me . . .

I feel fortunate that she doesn’t hate me for it and that we do have a good relationship as mature women raising children (she gave me a grandson, then I had a son, then she gave me a granddaughter, and then I had another son). I’ll never fully get over my own shame at not having done “better” by her.

Both Genders Drive Adoption

For some time now, my husband has been making use of old photos to create slide shows as a screen saver. I enjoy looking at these . . . memories. One of my current favorites is of my husband lying on his chest looking at our oldest son as a 3 month old infant lying on the bed. They are both smiling at one another. Clearly, there is a real connection between them, an energy. And it is true, while my husband does honestly love both of his sons, he does a lot of work around our farm with the older boy. They seem to be in-sync so well. Of course, the older one, now 21 years old, is more mature but over the last several years, they have replaced roofs, planted trees and both worked for the 2020 Census and could share stories each night when they got home. Just as I saw with my in-laws respect for my husband’s opinions, there is a respect on my husband’s part for each of his sons’ perspectives. It is a beautiful thing to see. For my part, I am inspired by both of them and who and how they are developing into maturity.

Becoming a father came at the right time for my husband in his own maturity. When we first married (my second marriage), he was not interested in having children. He was glad I had been there and done that – so no pressure on him. And it is also true that because I gave birth to my daughter at the age of 19, I had already known motherhood. Indeed, she has made me a grandmother twice. She was there for me each time one of my parents died (only 4 months apart) and through the challenges of being the executor of their estate, including giving me the benefit of her expertise in real estate selling and negotiating the final contract with a buyer.

Even though my early motherhood was a good experience for me, I was totally blown away when after 10 years of marriage, my husband did a 180 on me and wanted to become a father. Unfortunately, it turned out that age had produced in me secondary infertility and we had to turn to assisted reproduction and an egg donor to have our sons. 20 years ago, no one saw inexpensive DNA testing and the matching sites 23 and Me as well as Ancestry becoming so popular in use. Fortunately, we have handled the situation of having two donor conceived sons as well as any ignorant parents could (both had the same genetic sources and so, are true genetic and biological siblings). By handling the situation, I mean we have always been honest about their conceptions with our sons. They really did need to become older to understand the details. Getting their DNA tested at 23 and Me (where their egg donor also had her DNA tested) gave us the opening to fully describe the details, which does not seem to have troubled them at all. Before we had theirs tested, I also gifted my husband with a kit from 23 and Me.

For me, having lost the privilege of actually raising my daughter when she was 3 years old due to my own poverty and her father’s unwillingness to pay child support (and even so, he ended up paying for her support by raising her himself) – these second chance opportunities to prove I could mother children throughout their growing up years has been a true blessing for me. Experiencing motherhood now has healed much – including a decision to have an abortion after my daughter’s birth and the subsequent discovery that I carried the hep C virus – thanks to pre-treatment testing related to my oldest son’s conception. (BTW, this week I will finally complete, after living with this virus for over 20 years, a very expensive treatment regime which required a grant for the co-pay as well as Medicare Part D because otherwise, I still could not have afforded to have that virus treated).

All this just to share that this morning, I was reading an accusation about infertile women driving adoptions. One woman noted this – “we seem to be letting the guys off scot-free. The dudes who want a Daddy’s Little Girl or to play football with their own Mini-Me. I am not saying that childless woman are not a huge factor in the adoption industry, but I am saying that we live in a patriarchy and men also have a macho thing going on from birth … carrying on the family name, the stereotypical being the breadwinner for their very own brood instead of watching other guys’ families from the sidelines as a failure. And sometimes it isn’t the woman’s inability but the guys’ faulty minnows and that is definitely a macho & emasculating situation that they can rectify by sheer force (IVF or adoption are ways no one else will really be the wiser if they keep these secrets). They can be saviors and still be Daddy Dearest at the same time win-win.”

I know that in the case of infertility, the “blame” is statistically equal – one-third of infertility cases are caused by male reproductive issues, one-third by female reproductive issues, and one-third by both male and female reproductive issues or by unknown factors according to the National Institutes of Health. Clearly in our case, because 50% of each of our son’s DNA clearly establishes that their father’s sperm did the deed, the problem was my age. We didn’t start our efforts until I was already 46 years old.

When Adoptions Fail

Joyce Maynard with the two Ethiopian daughters,
ages 6 and 11, she adopted in 2010.

Famous moms like Angelina Jolie, Madonna and Charlize Theron make adoption look easy. In as many as a quarter of adoptions of teens, and a significant number of younger child adoptions, the parents ultimately decide they don’t want to keep the child. But what happens, and who’s to blame, when an adoption doesn’t work?

Writer Joyce Maynard revealed on her blog that that she’d given up her two daughters, adopted from Ethiopia in 2010 at the ages of 6 and 11, because she was “not able to give them what they needed.”

Other cases have been more outrageous, like the Tennessee woman who put her 7-year-old adopted son on a plane bound for Russia in 2010 when things went south. Recently she was ordered by a judge to pay $150,000 in child support.

In the adoption world, failed adoptions are called “disruptions.” But while a disruption may seem stone-hearted from the outside, these final anguished acts are complex, soul-crushing for all concerned and perhaps more common than you’d think.

On her blog, Maynard wrote that giving up her two adoptive daughters was “the hardest thing I ever lived through” but goes on to say it was absolutely the right decision for her – and the children. Yes, she has been severely judged by some people. She says, however, that “I have also received well over a hundred letters of a very different sort from other adoptive parents – those who have disrupted and those who did not, but struggle greatly. The main thing those letters tell me is that many, many adoptive parents (and children) struggle in ways we seldom hear about.”

Statistics on disruption vary. A 2010 study of US adoptions found that between 6 percent and 11 percent of all adoptions are disrupted before they are finalized. For children older than 3, disruption rates range between 10 percent to 16 percent; for teens, it may be as high as 24 percent, or one in four adoptions. Adoptions can take anywhere from a few months to a couple of years to become final – and that window is when most disruptions occur, experts say. While some families do choose to end an adoption after that, those cases are rarer (ranging from 1 percent to 7 percent, according to the study).

Disruption rarely occurs with infants. It occurs more often (anywhere from 5% to 20%) with the older children. That is because the complexities of parenting a child who already has life experiences and certain behaviors is more complicated. When a child is rejected and traumatized early in their development, it changes the way they function and respond to people. Older children – especially ones who have been neglected, rejected and abused will often distance themselves from other people and develop a hard-shell.

According to the study, the older the child is at the time of adoption, the more likely the adoption will fail. Children with special needs also face greater risk of disruption, particularly those who demonstrate emotional difficulties and sexual acting out. Certain types of parents are more likely to end up giving up adopted children. These include younger adoptive parents, inexperienced parents, and parents who both work outside the home. Wealthier parents and more educated mothers are also more likely to disrupt an adoption. There is less tolerance, if someone’s more educated or they make more money,

What happens when a parent decides to give up an adopted child?

If a child has been adopted legally, then it’s like giving up a birth child. The parents who adopted the child have to find a home for the child or some other resources. That could be the adoption agency or the state (who would most likely put the child in foster care). If the parents decide to end the process before the child has been legally adopted, the child would then likely go into foster care. International adoptions follow the same rules, except the adoption agency usually notifies the country that the adoption has failed, however, returning the child to their country of origin is never an option.

If an adoption fails before the parents become the formal, legal parents of the child, the courts usually aren’t involved. If the adoption has been finalized, however, then the parents must go to court. A dissolution – sometimes referred to as an annulment – takes place after a child is formally adopted by a set of parents. The law treats these situations very seriously. States vary on their handling of these situations. Generally speaking, a parent will petition the court where they adopted the child asking to un-adopt them.

Disruption is never easy for the child. It takes an extreme toll and can cause lifelong issues of distrust, depression, anxiety, extreme control issues and very rigid behavior. They don’t trust anyone; they have very low self-esteem. They’ll push away teachers and friends and potential parents and if you put them in another placement and they have to reattach again and then if they lose that placement, with each disruption gets tougher and tougher.

If you are a hopeful adoptive parent – be careful what you wish for. Some adoptive parents believe are will be able to help a child and sometimes, to some adoptive parents, this means changing the child. They believe that if they just love the child enough . . . Truth is, it takes so much more than love. It may be harder to handle than you ever thought possible in your fantasy dreams.

Inspired and borrowed from Today’s – It Takes More Than Love.

The Damage Done By Addiction

It is a personal issue for me but people do sometimes recover. Just this morning I was reading an article by a woman who admitted the difficulty of recovering from the trauma of her past and four addictions. Today’s story –

I am a foster parent and have a one year old child in my home who I have had since she left the hospital. I have a good relationship with her parents, I think about as good as can be expected in this situation. We text frequently, exchange pictures, arrange visits outside of the court-mandated ones. They love her endlessly but are deep into struggles with addiction. Both have had a few stints where they go to treatment for a day or two (so, there does not appear to be a barrier with access to treatment) but do not stick with it. Addiction has been a long-time struggle for both parents.

Her case is very much still open and I am still trying to help them into treatment. But, it’s to the point where the department is asking about permanent placement options. The child has a relative (I think mom’s second cousin, not positive on the exact relationship) who lives about three hours away and is not in contact with the rest of the first family. Relative has said she would adopt if needed, but didn’t want to be the first choice. Parents were asked who they would want to adopt and they said me. I had not talked to them about this and didn’t know it was being asked, so I don’t think they felt pressured. If we get to that point, I would try to facilitate a relationship that’s beyond “open” – i.e., I would invite them to her activities and holidays and would support them seeing her with gas cards and paying for activities and the like. I know many open adoptions end up closed, but to the extent that you can believe an internet stranger, please try to believe that I would not do that.

She also has four half siblings and cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents (none placement options, unfortunately) in the area where I/her parents live. Under these circumstances, what’s the “best” placement option? (Understanding that the actual best option is with her parents). I’m a foster parent who yells at other foster parents about interfering with kin placements, but it seems like parents should get a say here. How does one weigh the benefits of living with a member of your first family vs living outside of your family but having the option to see them regularly? (I know guardianship would be preferable, but the department won’t do that – so, the options are adoption or not adoption for this case).

First of all, straight up, I would NOT want to go to a relative that didn’t want me.

One response seems realistic to me as well – I would adopt if left no other legal choice. If you do allow her parents to see her when they are able, then I think ultimately it’s what best for the girl, if her parents can’t find their way out of addiction and the state is pushing the issue. A similar response from an adoptee was – If I was the little one in question, and guardianship was not an option, I would want you to adopt me over the distant relative and keep me in contact with my close family. The deciding factor, for me, is that the distant cousin doesn’t want to be the first option, and that is bound to come across to the adoptee, especially if times get tough when they are older. It’s hard enough to know that your biological parents didn’t want to/couldn’t raise you, but when you start getting the same message from multiple sources, it can really compound the trauma.

Someone else writes – Considering the addiction issues, this child needs a home. If there was NO other option but you vs the cousin, I’d prefer you because you live near her family/parents. But, closing this child off from her family at anytime and getting all “she’s MINE” – no, nope, nada. Being a supportive and caring adoptive mom with the child’s mental and psychological health front and center – providing therapy as needed throughout this child life for issues that will pop up – remembering always that you are not this child’s mother….period. I can be on board for you to provide a stable home for this child.

Finally this from a voice of experience – I was adopted at the age of 9. Both of my parents are addicts. My adoptive parents said they would never keep me from my family. True to their word, they didn’t. When my mom was clean and I asked to go back and live with her, they let me. Even paid my mom child support that wasn’t mandated, just to help out. She relapsed and my adoptive dad actually gave me the choice to stay in foster care and finish high school or for him to come and pick me up, since legally he was my parent. I chose to stay in high school in order to stay near my siblings, instead of moving across the country. If you are really going to keep it open, with access to the child’s family, I would say you are the better option than a long distance blood relative who doesn’t speak to the family. I just hope that you always give her parents grace and don’t cut off communication when you are mad. Especially if the child wants to keep that communication open.

Single Moms and Parenting

One of the most important “missions” in my all things adoption group is to support and encourage single moms to attempt to parent their baby rather than reflexively giving the baby up of adoption. Fortunately, that is more acceptable during the last couple of decades for a woman to be a single mom, than it would have been earlier in our collective history.

Several questions were asked of those who had made the choice to keep and parent their baby –

What is/would be/would have been the deciding factor in choosing to parent your child?

Of course, finances are a huge issue. But is money enough?

Better enforcement of revocation periods?

More/better emotional support?

Believing you are worthy enough to deserve your child?

Safe and affordable housing?

Yes, all of this helps. But what is the single factor that would be enough to tip the scales one way or the other?

Some of the responses –

Family and friends helping and being involved and better mental health care.

As someone who parented: A job that paid $15/hr that was full time during daycare hours. Literally that was all I needed. The most basic thing we should be fighting for: the right to be fairly compensated for our work. For me it was a labor rights issue, 100%. Why are jobs like this so hard to come by? The flip side would be: affordable childcare that matched the hours of your job.

Another one shared this was an issue for her as well. My exact problem right now. I’m unemployed, single mom of 4 kids and while I qualify for daycare, I can’t find one near me that has space for all my kids and is open for reasonable hours. 90% of daycares I find close at 5:30pm. My experience is service industry and retail. These jobs usually have varying work schedules and very low pay.

Yet another issue – I am a single mom raising my 4 children. The 2 fathers claimed the kids on their taxes and collected all the stimulus money. It took me 2yrs to get my tax return back because I had to file a paper return.. And I don’t know if I will get any of the stimulus money. The child support orders are ridiculously low. $600 a month for all 4 kids, IF I even get the payments. It’s rough.

This one found it a struggle but felt lucky as well – I was extremely lucky that the owner of our daycare knew the father of my child because his mother worked there years ago, so she gave me the toddler rate instead of the infant rate. She knew he wasn’t contributing. I was also extremely lucky to have found a mobile home for under $1,000/mo because the landlord was just an all around good guy who didn’t want to take advantage of single people and seniors. My job was a $24,000/yr salary, which meant that my paychecks were static and not variable, which made it easier to budget. I didn’t have much left over at the end of the month, but I managed to save $25 a month until I felt certain we were not going to be homeless again. Literally the bare minimum, but I spent most of my working life living on or below that and I was amazed by how little it took to change everything. We did great on this. She added – I agree that daycare should be subsidized and paid for by the government the same way school is. It doesn’t make sense to have you starting out paying the equivalent of a college tuition just so you can work.

It’s the myth – that adoption means everyone’s happy and doing well.

One shared why she didn’t go through with adoption and credits our all things adoption group as well – When he was born and that was it for me. I wasn’t letting go. And I would do anything and I mean ANYTHING in the world to make it possible. So for me it was that. However. I had a daughter that was going through cancer treatment, I didn’t feel it was fair to her. Those feelings washed away when I had him, I knew in my heart she needed him too. I definitely needed the support of my family. At the hospital I cried all night, My sister woke up and asked me if I was okay and I said “I cant just give him away, I can’t let him go” she said “then don’t “. And called all my family and they made it possible to bring him home providing all of the necessities we needed. Had I felt I had this support before the hospital in keeping him, I would not considered adoption all the way up to giving birth to him at the hospital. Honestly I still would have kept him after his birth at the hospital. I was definitely in mama bear mode. He’s 3 now and I update about every year in this group. Had I not been here, who knows if I would have gotten talked into letting him go by the hopeful adoptive parents -or not. But she definitely tried. She went on to share that her daughter was completely surprised. She said “you finally got me my very OWN BABY?!” She thought he was for her lol I love seeing them together, they are so cute.

Another woman shared – Not feeling good enough and finances were the primary reasons I placed. Instead of receiving encouragement, my past traumas were used against me as evidence that I wasn’t “ready.” I was made to feel like if I parented I was doomed to ruin my child’s life. The single one thing that would have tipped the scales for me though would have been honest information about the trauma adoption causes adoptees. I was VERY concerned about my daughter’s emotional well being. I was promised that my daughter would be unaffected as long as she was placed by three months. I DIRECTLY asked about the emotional consequences of adoption on my daughter and I was told there are none. I was told adoptees have no more problems than anyone else and most are “grateful” to have been given a “better” life. I really wish that some one would have told me that all first time moms are scared. That it would be hard but it was doable. The one single sentence that could have convinced me to parent though is “Adoptees are 4x times likely to commit suicide than non-adoptees.” I had struggled a lot with suicide before than. If I knew that adoption would could cause my daughter to feel suicidal like I felt, there’s no way I would have placed. I could have never intentionally done that to my daughter.

The response to this by the woman who first asked the questions was this – I didn’t ask this question to feel validated, but your answer has made me feel so validated. Because adoptees are always told to shut up and be grateful, and to stop being bitter and angry. For the most part, I refuse to speak to prospective adopters because they’re so full of themselves that they insult and demean me in order to preserve their fantasies. And how can you know what to believe when the people in power tell convenient lies? They benefit from you believing the lies. You’ve made me grateful (genuinely, not being snarky) that this group has given me the chance to tell expecting moms that if I had had a choice, I would have grown up in poverty with my mom. I would have endured whatever deprivation necessary, just to have my mom. Everyone else acts like I’m living in some stupid fantasy world. Thank you for telling me that what I want and would have wanted has validity, and that it would have aligned with what you wanted.

And closing with this one – I never would have considered adoption if I’d had an adult that was willing to help and support me at the time. I got pregnant as a minor and the only people who reacted supportively were other minors, and I was already living on the street, so it didn’t seem like navigating being a parent would be possible for me. I stopped responding to the agency after my school’s social worker started helping me set up appointments and apply for assistance and I found someone with an empty spare bedroom. She helped transfer me to another school nearby that had a parenting program for teen mothers where I was able to catch up and graduate on time. All I really needed was one adult to vaguely care in my direction.

Who’s Surname ?

My dad was given his mother’s surname when he was born at an unwed mother’s home run by the Salvation Army in San Diego CA. His father was a married man. It does not appear he even ever knew he had a son. More’s the pity because I believe they would have been great fishing buddies. It was the mid-1930s and so, that is how it was done – if the father was not involved. This would have made it difficult for me to discover who his father was, if I had not found my cousin (we have the same grandmother). Clearly, my grandmother knew who my dad’s father was because of the middle name she gave him and a head shot photo of the man with his name written on the back. Thanks to that photo, I was able to confirm who my dad’s father was. And inexpensive DNA testing also helped !!

Today’s story is a bit different but along similar lines.

I’m an adoptee who is 6 months pregnant. Father and I are no longer in a relationship but on really good terms. I’ll never keep this baby from him. Here is my dilemma. I don’t want this baby to have his last name and he’s insistent on it. He can be listed on the birth certificate and have his paternal rights without having to have his last name. I’m adamant about this. I want her to have my last name as does my 6 year old (with a different father.) Am I wrong? I’m also considering my 6 year old and think it’s best she has the same last name as him.

A few more details – dad is insistent on it because he is much older, in his late 50’s. He has a married daughter who no longer has his last name. His son has 2 daughters and doesn’t plan on having more children. Mom doesn’t want to have a hyphenated last name because she feels it would cause too much aggravation for the child as she grows up.

One adoptee said – As someone whose parents never married, I’m glad I was given my mom’s last name. I gave my son my last name and his dad didn’t stay around. He wouldn’t have had anyone else in his life with that last name. IF I ever marry I won’t change my name because my son has it.

And of course, today the choice of one’s name is so fluid and open to personal interpretation. The social mores regarding names has changed so much and for the better I believe. Someone else notes that – In the United States, they put mom’s last name on the crib card that they have the baby in at the hospital. You fill out the birth certificate while at the hospital also. You don’t have to say anything out loud if you don’t want to. Just put what YOU decide and leave it at that.

Which reminds me – when I had my daughter (in those days one didn’t know the sex of their baby until it was born), the father and I had not agreed on a name. Later, he announced to me what he told the hospital staff her name was to be without ever consulting me. I hasten to add, I really love her name but the origin of it ?, let us just say I refused to tell her and told her, “ask your dad.”

Another person shares her experience of having her mother’s last name – The only time it was ever annoying was, as a kid, whenever a grown adult would ask me, still a child, why I didn’t have my Dad’s last name. Even then, the name didn’t bother me. People being both nosy and close-minded about it bothered me. And I find nowadays, most people either don’t care, or don’t see a reason to question why a child has whatever last name they have.

I really LOVE this response – The notion that children should be named after the men in the first place is based on the sexist notion that women and children are chattel. Think of all the things named after men in the world and then, tell me a single thing that deserves to be named after a woman more than a child. We’re independent women, and keeping the patriarchal name chain going isn’t necessary anymore.

And then there is this real life example – my daughter, age 13, has her biological dad’s last name…he only sees her a couple times a year, (his choice, he lives 5 min away). My husband of 11 years has raised her and been her “daddy” as long as she can remember…she hates that she has her biological dad’s last name! She is the only one in our home with that last name and she hates it. She has even said she wished, at the least, she had my family’s last name. She has no close people with the same last name. Also, the other thing she is dealing with right now in middle school…she has several older cousins with the same last name, including one girl that is only 1 year older…they both have red hair. So everyone is always assuming they are sisters…which wouldn’t be a big deal, except the other girl doesn’t even acknowledge her, she turns her nose up at her. So my daughter hates it when people assume they are sisters. It makes her uncomfortable. She has been asking for several years if she could change it to match the rest of us, I tell her that she can when she is older.

Someone else notes – You both have strong feelings on the matter, and reasonable points. Even if I think there’s some patriarchy mixed in his feelings. I’m saying, if possible, find a way to compromise or bend in another area so he feels heard and included.

And I smile when I see her next suggestion – Why doesn’t he take your name?

I found this to be the best argument – The baby should have the name of the person who will have more custody, because a lot of times I ran in to issues because my sons have their father’s last name and not mine. Many times I had to bring extra paperwork. So if you will be doing all the paper work ie – doctors, schooling, sports/arts/camp stuff – it should be yours.

Finally, it was also pointed out by someone who handled name changes as one of their tasks at a courthouse – the mother should give the baby her last name. The mass majority of minor child name changes she did over a four year period were because the child was given the father’s last name and then stopped being present in the child’s life, stopped paying child support, etc.

In order to do a name change on a minor (probably in most states), a signed and notarized consent is required from both parents. And if one of the parents is deceased, then signed and notarized consent was required from both of that person’s parents. If consent couldn’t be obtained, then proof of service had to be presented to the Court and then, the Court would have a deputy attempt to serve the parent with notice of a court hearing. Most of the time, the father would show up for the hearing or would send a letter denying consent to the name change. When that happened, the case would be dismissed. It is in you and your child’s best interests for the child to have your last name. If circumstances change between you and the father later on, it will be a lot easier to do a name change because it’s a guarantee all parties will be in favor of it.

Denial of Paternity

Today’s sticky situation . . .

We have four children, they are all siblings via mom. They are four of her six children.

Child 1&2 are adopted via foster care. Child 3 & 4 we have full custody/guardianship. Mom stated father for child 4 was transient. She didn’t want child with him or his family and wished for this child to be with siblings and have access to her (mom). Her fiancée has claimed this child and child has his last name. He is not the biological father, nor is he listed on the bc due to hospital staff interference. But mom calls him dad to the child.

We had a visit with mom & fiancée over the weekend. She disclosed that her and fiancée broke up recently and during this break she reached out to child 4’s dad and informed him of this child. He denied the child and said he is infertile and a baby is not possible.

We feel very perplexed – do we personally reach out to dad? We had decided before that this was mom’s call – her child, her choice. She values the sibling relationship a lot – and we do have contact with her oldest two children. And contact with the mom regularly. She had feared that if the dad knew, he would take the baby and never let the child see mom or the child’s siblings.

Now that dad has been informed, what is best for this child? Is it best for us to reach out to him? Is it best to leave it and allow the child to decide when she is older (and when is that age?) if she wants to pursue contact and a relationship? We never want to withhold a child from a parent or keep a parent from parenting. We also don’t want to go against mom’s wishes or break apart siblings.

Now some advice . . .

The suspected dad isn’t about to pop up and make trouble. Just leave it for now. Let mom manage this how she sees fit unless it becomes necessary to intervene. If he’s denying the child to her, and isn’t interested in the child, then it should be the mom that communicates the reality to the child in question. It isn’t your place to take matters into your own hands. You can let the mom know that he can reach out to you, if he desires to. Is this man afraid he will be saddled with child support ? That is often a big disincentive to involvement.

That said, any child deserves to know who their biological father is, especially if there aren’t any safety issues as to why they shouldn’t. Maybe after he has some time to cool off and calm down, he would be willing to do a paternity test. It is easy to understand that he is right to be angry and irritated. A child that is potentially of him was purposely kept from him. Ask mom for basic information, so you have it for the child.

Finally this, Are you willing to pay for a DNA test ? If so, I’d reach out and offer to pay for that, so he can have peace of mind (and your child can know). You can do cheek swabs by mail without meeting up. If you’re not willing/ able to pay, I would leave it alone for now but save any information you can acquire for your child as they grow up.

Limited Perspectives

I was thinking yesterday evening that the same mindset causes both adoptions and abortions. It is the limited perspective of the pregnant woman about what she believes she is capable of. In my adoption group there comes occasionally a pregnant woman who is trying to decide whether or not to surrender her baby to adoption. Not all adoptees say they are happy their mother didn’t abort them. It is a sad commentary on the experience of some adoptees and others feel they had a good enough life and accept that their mothers did the best they could in that moment for the higher good of all concerned.

So in the adoption group, when a pregnant mother shows up and hasn’t made a decision, the group always recommends several courses of action to her. The main one is – don’t decide right away. Don’t allow prospective adoptive parents to be at the hospital with you. Don’t sign the papers in advance. Spend some time with your infant. You can always make that choice – weeks, months later. Hopefully not years later when it may be even more traumatic. Give your infant some time with you. In these modern times, there are groups who will try to help you with the necessaries, at least in the short term.

I was reflecting recently on the fact that each of my parents were with their original mothers for about 6 to 8 months as infants. I take some comfort in knowing they had that forward development time not separated from the woman who gave birth to them. All a baby knows at birth is that mother who birthed them. I do know my dad’s mom breastfed him. I don’t know about my mom’s mom. Certainly once she was taken to Porter-Leath orphanage in Memphis, she would have been fed a bottle of formula (what was considered a formula at the time).

Most of the women who chose adoption or abortion do not believe they are capable of raising a child. Society’s willingness to financially help such women does not have a good track record. When I ran out of birth control while driving an 18-wheel truck cross county and quickly became pregnant, I knew that if I went through with that pregnancy, my partner was not going to be there for me. He said as much but he left my decisions up to me, if it can be called solely my decision under the circumstances. I already had struggled to raise my daughter following a divorce when I received no child support. Her father and a step-mother were raising her by this point. I chose an abortion. It was early in the pregnancy, the procedure was safe and legal and I’ve not regretted not being tied to that family by a child. I have struggled with the morality of it thanks to the vocal efforts of the Pro-Life contingent but it is a done deal.

As I have learned more about the subconscious trauma of babies being separated from their mothers for adoption, I am also glad I didn’t inflict that on my unrealized baby. I already had done enough damage to my daughter, though at the time I thought her circumstances were better than they were. Both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption. One always knew she was going to do that and went about it rather methodically. The other explored abortion but was too far along. She tried to get government assistance but was rejected because she was living with our parents and their financial resources were the grounds upon which she was denied (which I will always judge as very wrong of the system). Our mother, an adoptee herself, coerced my sister into choosing adoption. My parents were unwilling to take on the financial responsibility that potentially would have fallen upon them. We’ll never know what the alternatives would have yielded.

The point is that in my adoption group, time and again, I’ve seen a variety of outcomes. In some the young mother does wait and finds resources and decides without regret and great joy to try and parent her baby. Some make some other arrangements, either for temporary help or for an open adoption, that fail in some manner and it becomes a legal battle to get their child back or to know how the child is developing when as often happens, the adoptive parents renege on the open part.

It is said in a song – you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. And I think generally speaking whatever we get, actually is what we needed, because the reality is, that is what we got. Hasty decisions can lead to a lifetime of regrets. I’ve seen that too in women who relinquished their child. I’ve been told that was the case for both of my own original grandmothers. Both remarried. One went on to have other children.

Carmen Martinez Jover

Here my newfound values related to all things adoption and foster care bump up against my decidedly new age tendencies and personal experience. It’s always about the bunnies in my household. Though these bunnies have human hands. Oh my. That part is a travesty.

The adoption group I am a part of does not appreciate Carmen Martinez Jover because of her books on adoption. One adoptee writes – “My thoughts to you Carmen Martinez Jover: I did not chose this, I did not want this, I reject this, fuck adoption!” This is tough ground. I am not an adoptee but I know too much now to ever dismiss the feelings and trauma an adoptee experiences in being separated from the mother in whose womb they grew.

Her books seek to explain adoption to adopted children. She and I also share an interest in past lives. The manuscript I have in process is actually about reincarnation and being given a mission to deliver a message in a Syrian refugee camp.

As a matter of fact, her theory is that adoption occurs by the choice of the child’s soul. This is hard because we really can only theorize about consciousness before physical life. However, due to my own personal beliefs, I find it difficult to criticize her on that point. I see this belief structure as being about empowerment, not fault finding.

Here’s one quote –

“The soul is with its soul group, then goes and visits the Elders who give the soul advice on how to be happy when it’s born. The soul is then shown glimpse of possible lives and chooses the parents it wants. Understanding that it cannot be born in a conventional way and is born in another woman’s womb and with the help of adoption lives happily with its chosen parents.”

I do realize that such thinking is not for everyone. Jover has experienced infertility firsthand and is a fan of Dr Bruce Lipton, who I once met in person and also deeply appreciate.

What I do know about adoption has led me to feel that, of all the options for addressing infertility, egg donation is the kindest to the child. That is my lived experience thus far. My obstetrician suggested it to my husband and I when an attempt to jumpstart my very last egg failed.

I would not call it a fully informed decision based on what I know now. Both of my sons know as much as they are interested in as teenagers about their conception and we are fortunate because the egg donor for each of them was the same woman. There is some sadness in my youngest son that he doesn’t have any of my genes, though my emotions and the foods I ate throughout his pregnancy contributed to the body his soul inhabits. My sons would not be who they are otherwise. This is the bottom line truth.

There is some adjustment needed in my own feelings and emotions as we have all done 23 and Me. My grown daughter (who is biological to me and my first husband and thus carrying our genes) is also there at 23 and Me. I see her shown accurately as my daughter. That feels good. But I do not see my sons. The woman who donated her eggs also has a 23 and Me DNA result account and she is shown as their mother. Genetically, that is the truth that I can’t deny.

This is the world modern medical science has made possible. I loved my pregnancies with both sons. I loved breastfeeding them each for over a year. I love that I have been here for them from day one and will continue to be in their lives until I die (hopefully, before either of my boys). It means a lot to me to have mothered them because I have faulted myself for being a horrible mother. Due to poverty and my ex refusing to pay child support, my daughter ended up living with him. He remarried a woman with a daughter and together they had a daughter. This gave my daughter a family with two sisters, the same family structure I grew up within.

I paid a steep price for not raising her, I lost so much and know it, and I continue to pay a price for the choices I made as a young adult. Though I have a good relationship with my daughter now, her childhood wasn’t as good as I once believed but I didn’t know the truth then. Just like once upon a time I didn’t know anything about adoption. Just like I never saw inexpensive DNA tests changing everything for donor conceived children. I do still believe in eternal souls. I do believe there is much more to this thing called Life than any one person can know or understand. Only the “All That Is” intelligence can know that. Some people call that God. I am good with whatever anyone wants to call what I have discovered for myself somehow exists.