It Matters

An adoptee’s story – I recently met a biological 2nd cousin at a funeral of her brother, whom I had already known. We were both delighted to finally meet in person. She lives in NC and I live in NJ, so the opportunities for this are few. We loved meeting each other!

She told me her daughter’s adopting a baby and she’s so excited to finally become a grandmother. I replied, telling her I’m so happy for her, and also sad for the baby who is losing a mother. She said the mother is addicted to drugs and she’s hoping the mother “will just disappear”. She admitted (without my prompting) that she knows this is “kind of selfish”, but it’s still how she feels. I couldn’t believe she said the quiet part out loud! – to an adoptee in the family, who obviously was so happy to be able to know my biological family and was just meeting a number of them for the first time! She couldn’t make the mental connection between my need to know them and this baby’s need to know their own biological family.

Because I had only just met her, I kept silent, but thought to myself that I could send her the book “Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency” to help her understand the child’s need to know at least some people in their biological family. And then I could follow up with the suggestion that it might be safe and even advisable for the child to have supervised visits with the mother…Even if it seems unnecessary to the adoptive family.

She had concerns – Too forward? She won’t read it? She’ll be angry and won’t read it? She’ll be angry and reject me? If that’s a possibility, should I still do it? Why does all this have to be so complex?

From an adoptive parent – I think it really depends on the person. When I was a hopeful adoptive parent I would have surely read it. I read everything I could find online and off. Others who had walked the journey before me (because there weren’t adoptee or birth parent voices readily found online at that time) were my teachers. They opened my eyes to the ethical implications, the way separation at birth alone causes trauma and that it’s not reserved for a 15 year old who grew up in Russian orphanages. None of it was enough to stop my adoption plans but it did help me to go into it with eyes wide open. I didn’t adopt domestically though. But yes – send the book.

Another adoptive parent one agreed – it’ll depend on the person, I would’ve read it but probably would have been sort of guarded against it. The fact that she mentioned knowing it was kind of selfish makes me think she might be open to it… hopefully! I also specifically searched for adoptees specific to the international program I was looking into and they existed but were extremely minority voices. The messaging I was getting back then was how to adopt more ethically. Not the downfalls of adoption entirely. Shortly after there were good books written and more and more voices speaking out and more and more priority given to those voices. With social media, things changed quickly. So while there were resources before, there was infinitely more easily acceptable voices now. But really my point is just that you never know what will break through to a potential adopter and I think books are a great way to spread information and start that conversation.

Another one thought – I think she would definitely have something to gain from it but most people are not receptive to that, especially people from older generations, and i dont know if its something i would want to say outright if you want that relationship. Also it might be more helpful to have that conversation with the people actually adopting. I have relatives that feel that way and they can feel that way but we are still going to have contact with other family members anyway and it’s not up for discussion. Our contact with them is more limited. Since you’ve already lost this family one time, maybe build a relationship with them first and see if they seem receptive to talking about the hard parts of adoption. My second cousins were adopted out and we didn’t have any contact until one was an adult, still don’t have contact with the other. We have had some serious talks about adoption. Our parents generation in our family does not acknowledge their trauma and the challenges it caused in their life. I’ve seen my cousin basically written off for this and that’s the main reason i would approach it cautiously. It may be worth considering expressing it more about how you felt growing up and hoping they can make that connection. I feel statements tend to be something people are more receptive to.

An adoptee expresses her perspective – Unfortunately it isn’t possible for anyone to predict her reactions. However, I would consider it divine providence that you came into their lives right as a new adopted baby is. It can be an opportunity for them to have a deeper understanding of the baby’s needs. Say your peace, respectfully, and with a soft heart. Don’t make the truth harder to swallow that it has to be – if you want them to actually be receptive. It sounds like you do care about them – so just follow your instincts. If they react poorly, you’ll know that it wasn’t your doing but something broken in them.

Truth No Longer Matters ?

When there is no agreed criterion to distinguish science from pseudoscience or just plain ordinary BS, it is post-empirical science, where truth no longer matters and it IS potentially very dangerous.

Case in point – Diane Baird – who labeled her method for assessing families the “Kempe Protocol” after the renowned University of Colorado institute where she worked for decades. From a ProPublica expose – LINK>An Expert Admits Her Evaluations Are Unscientific.

From that story – Diane Baird had spent four decades evaluating the relationships of poor families with their children. But last May, in a downtown Denver conference room, with lawyers surrounding her and a court reporter transcribing, she was the one under the microscope. Baird is a social worker and professional expert witness. She has routinely advocated in juvenile court cases across Colorado that foster children be adopted by or remain in the custody of their foster parents rather than being reunified with their typically lower-income birth parents or other family members.

Was Baird’s method for evaluating these foster and birth families empirically tested? No, Baird answered: Her method is unpublished and unstandardized, and has remained “pretty much unchanged” since the 1980s. It doesn’t have those “standard validity and reliability things,” she admitted. “It’s not a scientific instrument.” Who hired and was paying her in the case that she was being deposed about? The foster parents, she answered. They wanted to adopt, she said, and had heard about her from other foster parents.

Had she considered or was she even aware of the cultural background of the birth family and child whom she was recommending permanently separating? (The case involved a baby girl of multiracial heritage.) Baird answered that babies have “never possessed” a cultural identity, and therefore are “not losing anything,” at their age, by being adopted. Although when such children grow up, she acknowledged, they might say to their now-adoptive parents, “Oh, I didn’t know we were related to the, you know, Pima tribe in northern California, or whatever the circumstances are.” (Actually, the Pima tribe is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area.)

A fundamental goal of foster care, under federal law, is for it to be temporary: to reunify children with their birth parents if it is safe to do so or, second best, to place them with other kin. Extensive social science research has found that kids who grow up with their own families experience less long-term separation trauma, fewer mental health and behavioral problems as adolescents and more of an ultimate sense of belonging to their culture of origin.

But a ProPublica investigation co-published with The New Yorker in October revealed that there is a growing national trend of foster parents undermining the foster system’s premise by “intervening” in family court cases as a way to adopt children. As intervenors, they can file motions and call witnesses to argue that they’ve become too attached to a child for the child to be reunited with their birth family, even if officials have identified a biological family member who is suitable for a safe placement.

A key element of the intervenor strategy, ProPublica found, is hiring an attachment expert like Baird to argue that rupturing the child’s current attachment with his or her foster parents could cause lifelong psychological damage — even though Baird admitted in her deposition that attachment is a nearly inevitable aspect of the foster care model. (Transitions of children back to their birth families are not just possible, they happen every day in the child welfare system.)

In the Huerfano County case, Baird filed a report saying that the baby girl’s life with her foster parents was “predictable, safe, and filled with love”; that removing her from them and placing her with her biological grandma — with whom the girl had been having regular, joyful visits — would “derail her healthy development and create lifelong risk”; and that her “healthy development and mental health will be best protected if her current caregiving environment does not change.”

Baird, in an interview with ProPublica, admitted that “I do sometimes use the same verbiage in one report as I did in others.” But, she added in an email, “My consistency is not a boiler-plate approach, but rather reflects developmental science which applies to all children.” She emphasized, “In all cases I advocate for what I am convinced is the child’s best interest.”

Baird also noted that in many cases she is hired by county officials, rather than directly by foster parents, although ProPublica’s interviews and review of records show that this typically happens when officials are in agreement with the foster parents that they should get continuing or permanent custody. Baird, despite not being a child psychologist, achieves credibility with these officials — and with judges — in part via the impressive label that she uses for her methodology: the Kempe Protocol.

Founded in the 1970s, the Kempe Center is best known for getting laws passed across the country requiring “mandated reporters” like teachers and police officers to call in any suspicion of child abuse or neglect to a state hotline — after which kids were to be removed from their families, into foster care, if there was evidence of maltreatment. “No organization,” said Marty Guggenheim, the founder of the nation’s indigent family defense movement, “played a more direct role in shaping the modern system of surveillance, over-reporting, and under-emphasizing of the harms associated with state intervention.”

In recent years, Kempe has taken a more critical look at its past, accepting some institutional responsibility for what it has called the “myth of benevolence”: the idea that certain kids should be redistributed from their families to (often better-off) foster and adoptive parents. The center recently released a statement saying that it had participated in ignoring poverty by placing sole responsibility for poor children’s health and well-being on their families’ alleged maltreatment of them. The statement acknowledged the center’s “complicity” in its “generation-spanning impacts.”

Some of Kempe’s staff have called Baird’s method a “bogus Kempe protocol” and “junk science” used “to rip apart families.” She is “leveraging the Kempe name to bolster her opinion.” Drawing from the foster parents’ version of events, Baird routinely reports to the county or testifies in court that visits with the birth family have been detrimental to the child, and, accordingly, she recommends that the foster parents keep the child indefinitely or permanently, on the basis of attachment theory. She has called just this amount of evaluation “the Kempe Protocol” in several cases we reviewed.

Sadly, there appears to be no clear recourse for all of the birth families who’ve lost their children in the past because of Baird’s work.

What Can Happen

Today’s story (and not mine, which is usually the case with the stories I share but which I ALWAYS feel have an important point to make). The woman is both an adoptee herself and a mother of loss (meaning no longer has physical custody of her children).

Basically, my rights were violated (I know, everyone who is a mother who lost custody of her child/children had that happen) and I didn’t even sign a Termination of Parental Rights (TPR). No, the State didn’t take my children; my sister was my guardian, co-guardian with my parents and SHE signed the TPR paperwork; I didn’t even see it – to allow my parents to adopt my children.

Both my children are under 18 years old, the oldest is only a few years away, but she’s “incapacitated” and wouldn’t be able to make the decision to come find me, which I’m not even sure they’re even being told that they were adopted. The youngest is under10 years old and was still a toddler when COVID happened (the Christmas before is when I spent longer than 5 minutes with her). I doubt she would remember me.

I’ve been told I could adopt them back but being an adopted child myself, I hesitate to do something traumatizing to my children like what happened to me. Being that my parents are the ones that raised my children and the only ones they know as “parents”, would it be selfish of me to move forward with this ?

I just hope one day that the right questions get asked and the youngest starts looking for me. Then I can address whether it’s best to keep my children with my parents. The adoption took place in late 2018, early 2019 (the time it probably took for finalization). I wasn’t ever told the exact date; but I know that a court hearing took place in 2018.

When a commenter said – “pretty sure that’s illegal!! And I’m pretty sure all parties have to be notified and served for a court date! Your children deserve to have their mother and I mean their real mother, not some wanna be, in their lives. Are these the people that adopted you ?” The woman clarifies – “I was there at all court dates, but my sister insisted on being my “voice” and of course, I didn’t want to be held in contempt – so I kept my mouth shut except to say to the judge, ‘this is what they want, I don’t really have a say.’ The sister that signed is my biological half sister (I didn’t know that she was only a half sister until adulthood). She was adopted at the same time I was. She worships the ground the adoptive parents walk on.”

The commenter makes a guess – “They threw you away the moment they had your precious babies in their clutches ! Was there ever an access order put in place when the adoption was finalized ?” She responds – “They ‘promised’ to keep me ‘in the loop’, but then COVID happened and they used that as an excuse to cut me out completely. They were technically still my guardians until June of 2022, but they never came to actually see me; it was all done over the phone.” The commenter answers – “I’d be finding a way to sue these people ! I know it’s probably not possible but what they’ve done to you is wrong !! And they need to be stopped from doing it again. The children will have trauma – no matter what – and quite frankly being with their mommy is what’s best for them !”

Another commenter asked an obvious question – “What was the reason for the guardianship, I am not judging.” The woman’s reply was – “I consented to a temporary guardianship when they sat at my kitchen table and I let them (adoptive mother and sister) take care of all the paperwork. When I got to the court hearing, suddenly it was a permanent guardianship and I had no idea how to object at the time. I was 23, in an abusive relationship, and pregnant (even though they’ll argue that the pregnancy should have no bearing on my consent). Some background – I graduated at 19 from high school, moved 3+ counties away for “independent living” care help when I was 20, moved to where I currently live when I was 21 for a job (which I’ve had going on 16 years), and basically got “ghosted” by them from then on, until suddenly they reappeared in November when I was 23, in order to petition for guardianship.”

Some advice about smoothing a transition came – “I would definitely accept the opportunity to get them back. You can do a transition to minimize damage and increase visits over time and perhaps some therapeutic visits or therapy for them with someone who would help them navigate the transition back to you as smoothly as possible.”

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Today’s story – The fact that my own family is willing to take me to court just so my child won’t be raised in a gay household feels triggering and judgmental to me.

There’s more – I went from being pregnant and planning to place for adoption, to revoking the agreement on the 29th day (my last day to change my mind), to seeing and connecting with my baby (she’s 3 months old), to now – re-doing the adoption agreement. Blogger’s note – So, such a conflicted mom with a very complicated situation !!

My family is threatening to file for custody to prevent me from placing baby girl for adoption and I keep trying to communicate how HARD it is to make the decision to place for adoption at all. Yet, it’s equally hard to raise a child when you don’t WANT to – [1] The lack of love and [2] The lack of connection and support is…serious. I would love to understand why my biological family members feels it’s soooo vital the child remains with their family.

I don’t want the usual fear-based thoughts such as “They’ll wonder why their parents gave them up“ or “They’ll resent their biological parents” or you as the biological mom may not have contact in the future. What I would like is suggestions that are soul/loving based reasons.

Blogger’s note – I clearly did not entirely understand the original comment – it seems the “gay” household is the hopeful adoptive parents and not the woman who gave birth. Someone responding noted that this person is asking for an answer as to why adoption to strangers would be a negative for their child and for help seeing past their trigger about the hopeful adoptive families’ orientation.

Another notes – It’s not about her “needs”, it’s about what is best for the child. That’s what you do when you have a baby, what’s best for the child. It may be best for her not to raise it, if she’s too selfish to put the child first but that doesn’t mean she should rob this child of a real family. She adds, Please learn about birth control, ABSTINENCE, and abortions. Stop birthing babies and letting them be sold because you don’t “feel like” being a parent.

Another said this – I see you have another child also. If you allow this younger child to be adopted by non-family, your first child will always wonder if she is next. She also seems to have a bond with her sister. Are you willing to break that bond – traumatizing both of them?

Some other responses –

One adoptee – don’t birth kids you don’t want. I for one would have rather been aborted than given up for adoption and I have seen many other adoptees agree with this statement. Then this, you have already set this child up for feelings of being unwanted by its creator, you. You kept a child you birthed already but want nothing to do with this one, who will grow up to be a fully functioning adult human, who will fully understand that you chose to keep one kid but not them. Are you 100% done with having kids? If not, think about how you would feel if the person who created you kept the kids they birthed before and after you; but not you. Please just put yourself in the shoes of your baby and try to empathize with the heartache you are creating for their entire life. I have absolutely no problems with queer couples adopting kids; but if there is ever a chance for family to adopt, even if it is a 3rd cousin you have never met, it is always better to have some kind of familial connection associated with adoption than no familial connection at all. Period.

Another woman said – The TRUTH is scary. You’re going to have to face the fear-based answers to your question, if you’re going to ask questions like this. Adoptees are 4x more likely to attempt suicide than our kept peers. And that’s statistical truth. I know, I was recently hospitalized for suicidal ideation. I’m an adoptee (and mother of loss via Child Protective Services). The truth IS scary. There’s no sugar coating it. Did you also know that adoption changes our DNA ? It’s called epigenetics and it makes us more prone to catastrophic illnesses like cancer or autoimmune disorders. Keeping your child within the family will go a distance to prevent many of these problems for that child. Giving that baby up to strangers is a selfish decision.

Why Does It Surprise You ?

From a Transracial Infant Adoptee – When you adopt, you are not disillusioned to the reality of privilege. In a lot of cases, you know the situation surrounding the reason adoption is being chosen, and the circumstances. So when your adult adoptees eventually come back and question everything, why does it surprise you ? Why is there such a need to gaslight them about the truth behind their origins ? Or determine the narrative for them ? You knew coming into all of this where they came from and you should have known the trauma you would be placing on them, if you participated. So why is it such a shock when they decide to see the child trafficking for what it is ? Or the fact that you gained from the tearing apart of a family ? As an adult adoptee, all of the above truly does baffle me. If anything, I would expect adoptive parents to be the most sympathetic, empathetic and empowering individuals that they could be. Rather than shocked, butt hurt & defensive about a situation they themselves created. Especially in regards to the child fully recognizing what the industry is and the trauma it intentionally inflicts.

One adoptee responded – I think they forget that we grow up ! Oh, and of course, they believe they are different.

The original poster wanted responses from adoptive parents and one answered – In all 3 of my cases, I knew the circumstances as they were told to me. 2 cases ended up being much worse and one was slightly different. My adult adoptees have not come back to question because they were told their story from birth, and retold as often as they wanted to hear it. As adults, the two older ones have been in contact with birth family. They were given all the truths I knew. Yes, we knew that raising adopted children would cause them different emotions, thought, feelings than raising biological children. Not one of my 3 have compared their adoption to child trafficking, so I have not had that shock to deal with. I have admitted since the first day I held my first child all that I have gained. The biological moms were not teenagers and were not without resources. All of the adoptive parents I personally know are sympathetic, empathetic and empowering individuals. I know that is not true in all cases. I’m so very sorry that so many adoptees have had such traumatic experiences. And I’m thankful that there are groups where adoptees can share what they experienced with others to lean on. There are times when adoption is the best solution for a child to have a stable home. If anyone comments, I will gladly respond.

Another adoptee suspects – Some adoptive parents are so blinded by their “need” for a child that they become deluded and believe that the adoptee is truly “as if born to” and should gratefully play along with their own delusion. They don’t want to discuss the adoptee’s start in life and family because it threatens their delusion.

And one who was in foster care from birth and then put into a forced adoption at age 10 during the LINK>Baby Scoop Era in a closed adoption writes – I also think that too many adoptive parents (and hopeful adoptive parents) really do not recognize the crucial part that they play in an adoption – the rewards are theirs – the power dynamics are theirs too (once the adoption is finalized and they get what they wanted, including name changes, erasure of first family and a new birth certificate that proclaims them as the owners). They keep telling themselves that they are doing it all in the ‘best interests of the child’ (or baby). But is it really ? Could they have imagined a different way to help ? To care for and love ? Could they have fought harder for Legal Guardianship instead ? Can they make the promise that they will do everything possible (and really mean that) ASAP to discover the child’s natural family, heritage, family medical information and to keep the child’s own culture and needs truly front and center as a focus, while that is child is being raised outside of their own genetic, biological family ? Unless an adoptive parent is willing to go all in and do that – they will be shocked when the youth (or adult adoptee) scorns or derides their actual intent notes that they are an integral part of the broken system that helps to keep it chugging along.

Is It An Amazing Act of Love ?

This is such a standard adoption narrative that there is even an adoption agency with the name A Act of Love Adoptions. It is used mostly to convince a woman to surrender her baby to adoption when it is born. That she would be selfish to keep her own baby.

So, a woman was trying to encourage people to put some thought into it, before choosing to adopt. She talked about the trauma – It’s important to remember that adoption causes a lot of trauma. Most of all to the baby who is taken away from its mother. The baby grows for nine months and knows their mother means safety, warmth and love. The baby will know it’s mother’s heartbeat and can recognize it from other heartbeats. When the baby is born, they look for all of that instinctively. When their mom is no longer there, the baby will be traumatized in a way that can never ever be repaired. She added – adoption should be avoided if possible but it’s not always possible to avoid.

Blogger’s note – that is also my perspective – being a realist and yet still wanting to see fewer adoptions whenever it is possible to avoid them.

The response to this woman was – There are so many situations where adoption is the kind and right thing to do. The reply was, Still is the fact is – trauma happens whenever any baby is separated from its mother. Undaunted, the hopeful adoptive parent says – adoption has worked out for so many parents and for so many kids. It is an amazing act of love.

Still, the woman continued to try and get through – But the trauma is still there. The trauma can’t be avoided and it has been scientifically studied. It is better that the world knows the truth about adoption. (Blogger’s note – that is the mission of writing a daily blog here.) All parties involved should be fully informed. Even if the adoption goes forward, the best interests of the adopted child must always guide whatever comes next in that child’s life. In fact, adoption informed therapy may be needed by the adoptee well into adult life.

And this person that wants to adopt is like so many – she is an adoptee, adopted at birth. She denies there was ever any trauma associated with that for her or her other 4 adoptive siblings. All 5 were adopted at birth. (Blogger’s note – I have been told repeatedly in recent months that I have more adoption in my family than anyone else they have ever encountered. And until I started waking up from that fog – I did think that adoption was the most normal thing in the world. I know differently now.)

We try our best to speak truth to the powerful pro-adoption narratives. It’s so frustrating to invest all that emotional labor, only to have one fogged adoptee swoop in and negate that effort. Those interested in adoption reform have a long effort to change hearts and minds and there is a whole industry promoting the adoption is beautiful narratives.

One adoptive mother asked her adoptee daughter about this – she said that although she was adopted at an older age and knows her biological mom and doesn’t have the same trauma from her adoption (compared to a baby separated at birth) there’s still trauma from the separation that exists no matter the reason for her separation. She said that there’s always trauma. By the way, this adoptee is only 13 but still knows this is the truth.

To which another adoptee notes – we know when we can safely express ourselves and not worry about someone silencing us, or getting angry because of our (perfectly reasonable) emotions. If someone believes in the rainbows & unicorn bliss version that adoption is always a gentle and loving way to develop their family, they will not be able to hear outside their “Lalalalala” song with hands on their ears. If they cannot see their own trauma reactions (as an adopted person) or the lifelong “I don’t know” that the adopted person experiences — even though that is the thing that overwhelms — still we cannot even express or know why — anyway, then they are not willing to really dig deep or look carefully.

How Do You Respond ?

One said – “It’s rough out there.” And shared a quote from Marian Keyes – who is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women’s literature – “I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, ‘I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever’.”

One adoptee wrote – My friends don’t post things like this. I don’t feel safe with people who promote adoption, so we aren’t friends.

One person noted the heart/word image above is “the Narcissistic view of adoption.”

Another person notes – I typically say something like: This is one viewpoint, which can look really beautiful, but we can’t forget how it looks for others on the opposite side of the adoption triad – which is loss, separation trauma, and a lifetime of questions and possible deep hurting. Then she says, it typically gets me blocked or unfriended, but I don’t care. I’m tired of the fairytale narrative.

Better Than Punishment

From an editorial by Dr Ruchi Fitzgerald in LINK>The Hill – It is unimaginable to think that seeking medical care could lead to losing custody of their children, yet this devastating predicament is all too real for pregnant women with addiction in the United States.

In our nation, the systems that aim to protect children from the negative effects of parental substance use often prioritize punitive approaches over proven public health strategies. Fear of being imprisoned, stigmatized, or having their children removed makes many pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) afraid to seek medical care, contributing to poor maternal health outcomes. Some state laws, including the law in Illinois where I practice medicine, even mandate that health care professionals report cases of detected controlled substances in a newborn infant as evidence of child neglect. While the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) has no such requirement, CAPTA’s overall approach has led to significant variation in how states, counties, and health care institutions implement its reporting requirements when substance use is involved during pregnancy.

Threatening child removal from a birthing parent with SUD without a risk assessment or evidence of danger to the child is not ultimately improving outcomes for children. Research has long shown that children affected by the trauma of family separation tend to experience worse long-term outcomes on a wide variety of indicators, including education, health, housing, employment, substance use, and involvement with the criminal legal system. With over 400,000 children in foster care across the US, the trauma of separation is widespread.

Forced separation also brings unimaginable pain to new families – triggering in some parents such despair that it deters them from seeking or continuing medical care, including treatment for their SUD. Study after study shows child removal is associated with parental overdose, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and return to substance use. Public health-oriented policies that can result in better outcomes for families are part of the solution.

As an addiction specialist physician, I am involved with the medical care of pregnant people with SUD, and I have seen counterproductive child welfare and criminal investigations launched after a newborn infant tests positive for a controlled substance. Too often, parents become hopeless about recovery once their children are gone.

Current policies and practices related to substance use during pregnancy also result in serious health inequities. Pregnant and parenting people of color are much more likely to be impacted by forced separation than their white counterparts. Black parents are more likely than white parents to be reported for substance use to the child protection system at their child’s delivery despite similar rates of drug use, while Black and Native American children are overrepresented in foster care relative to white children in the setting of parental substance use.

Meanwhile, health outcomes are unnecessarily worse for mothers of color. Since 80% of maternal deaths are due to overdose or suicide, we can save lives with policies and practices that encourage treatment, not punish pregnant women with SUD for seeking it. Policymakers need to remove controlled substance reporting requirements that overreach and contribute to the current punitive approach.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) encourages child protective services agencies not to use evidence of substance use, alone, to sanction parents—especially with child removal; supports eliminating in-utero substance exposure language in child abuse and neglect statutes, and supports policies that extend social services benefits and financial support to families in need.

The US Senate will contemplate reauthorizing and reforming CAPTA this year. Health care professionals who treat pregnant people with medications for addiction, like methadone or buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, do not need to involve child protective services for that reason.

Recovery is possible with the right medical care and support. A pregnant person with addiction seeking medical care deserves a chance to heal and recover with her children. If we want pregnant and parenting people with addiction to access the evidence-based treatment they need, our decision-makers must embrace public health over punitive policies.

Conflict of Interest ?

I got seriously triggered with my husband yesterday. I need to work through my thoughts and I’m sure this is going to prove a lengthy process of contemplation.

Some background –

Both of my parents were given up for adoption in the 1930s. Their circumstances were somewhat different and somewhat similar. My mom’s genetic biological parents were married but at 4 mos pregnant after 4 mos of marriage for reasons I’ll never really have reliable answers to (but a few theories given what I have learned), her husband left her. He didn’t divorce her for 3 years, so there is that as well. With no husband in sight, she was sent to Virginia from Memphis TN to give birth and I would assume expected to leave the baby there but she did not. Instead, after her return to Memphis with my infant mom in tow, she became a victim of Georgia Tann.

My dad’s mom was unwed. She had an affair with a much older married man. Then, she went to a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers to give birth. After about 2 or 3 months, she was released with my dad still in her custody. It appears my dad’s father never even knew he existed. When my grandmother found no support for her and the baby with her cousin, she returned to the Salvation Army seeking employment and was transferred with my dad still in tow to one of their homes in El Paso Texas.

My mom’s adoptive parents relocated to El Paso Texas and in high school, my adoptee mom met my adoptee dad. Probably during the summer after my dad’s graduation from high school before entering a university my parents had sex and my teenage mom discovered by Autumn that she was pregnant. My dad’s adoptive parents supported him marrying her and quitting his hopes of a university degree to go to work and support his new family. I’m pretty certain my mom’s adoptive parents, had they had a chance, would have sent her off to have and give me up. Thankfully that didn’t happen to me.

So the truth I cannot deny is that had my parents NOT been adopted and had they both not ended up in El Paso TX and attended the same high school where they met at a party through mutual friends, I would not exist at all. I owe my very existence in this life to ~gasp~ adoption. I think I once described this situation as imperfectly perfect.

Until about 5 years ago, when I was able to uncover the identities of all 4 of my original grandparents (something that both of my parents died still not knowing), I thought adoption was the most natural thing in the world and that my parents were orphans. I had no idea there were people I was actually genetically biologically related to living out lives as unaware of me as I was of them. I knew nothing about the mental and emotional impacts of the trauma of my parents being separated from their mothers may have caused. I’ve learned a LOT about that since then – as this blog very frequently shares. To be honest, I now would prefer to see vulnerable women supported, so that they could raise their own babies.

So what is my conflict of interest ? My husband’s desire that my writing add some revenue to our family. Of course, I would love for that to happen as well. I have developed a negative attitude toward Christian Evangelical saviorism as it applies to adoption. My husband wants me to make my next book oriented towards Evangelical Christians (I have just finish a revision of my parents’ adoption stories for the 3rd time and will go about trying to obtain a literary agent for that work).

What !?! I accused him of asking me to betray my values for monetary reasons. He spoke of “witnessing.” That stayed with me all afternoon. I reflected on the kind of people my adoptive grandparents were. 3 of the 4 were religious. My dad’s were fundamentalist in the extreme. When one church wasn’t as strictly interpreted per the bible as they wanted, they changed churches to a stricter one. My mom’s adoptive father has been described as morally ethical but not religious. I see that same characteristic in my husband. My mom’s mother however had a surprisingly enlightened spirituality – especially when I consider what I have heard of her own very bible religious mother (to the extent of neglecting home and family). This grandmother’s spirituality was not far different than my own (which was what surprised me when I discovered it). My husband has a negative perspective on religion in general and believes vulnerable people are exploited by it. So I could not believe that HE would suggest such a thing to me. He admits that he is a bit like Mr Krabs in the SpongeBob episodes – all about the money (only really he is incredibly down to Earth, he just worries about supporting this family as he ages).

Yet, aside from the last 5 years of having it banged into my consciousness through my favorite adoption triad group, where the voices of adult adoptees are given preference and describe all that is wrong with adoption and foster care in general, what is it that I actually know from my own experience ?

My parents each felt differently about their adoptions. My dad never spoke to me of his but cautioned my mom against her efforts at locating her birth mother – who had already died by the time she was actively seeking that. One of the last things she wrote to me before she died was an explanation regarding why she couldn’t complete a family tree at Ancestry.com – “it just wasn’t real, because I was adopted but I’m glad I was.” Though I cannot say that she truly was “glad.” She didn’t know any other life.

Both of my sisters gave up a child to adoption. I cannot honestly say that my niece or my nephew would have been better off being raised by my sisters. They are good solid people – both of them – now married in their own adulthoods.

So the question is – can I find a way to target a Christian Evangelical audience, who is going to adopt anyway – regardless of how much I might preach to them about all of the impacts of trauma in this child they desperately want for whatever reason (I do believe there is a bit of missionary purpose in those desires) – and gently prepare them for reality and hope this brings about better outcomes for the adoptee ? Honor fully my evolved values in the effort ?

Snowflake Babies

These IVF Embryos do look like Snowflakes

Seems there is always a trendy term or a label given to everything these days – GenZ – for example. Today I learned one I had not heard before but I have had personal experience with.

Embryo donation seems to be in vogue these days with couples experiencing infertility issues. In the religious community sphere embryo donation seems to have become yet another pro-Life issue. Elle Magazine published a feature, The Leftover Embryo Crisis, in 2017 that indicated there were an estimated 1 million frozen embryos in storage at that time.

Both of my sons were conceived via IVF. The youngest was born in 2004 and so, when 2005 rolled around, knowing we had no intention of attempting another pregnancy at my advanced age (and honestly there are very real risks in giving birth at age 50 that I am glad we didn’t understand at the time but I knew then about the potential risks and would not have done that to yet another child at that point – I will say we are all grateful that my youngest son is in our lives) we were faced with paying another year’s storage fee on the leftover frozen embryos.

A woman in my mom’s group told me about Miracles Waiting. We felt we needed to at least give these potential children an opportunity to be born. We just couldn’t simply destroy the embryos. The response to our listing was overwhelming. Quickly we were matched. The couple put us and our original egg donor through a LOT of hoops but eventually everything was agreed to, including the recipients agreeing to share in some of our original expenses directly connected to the creation of their embryos. There was also communication about their hoped for child eventually having a relationship with our two sons.

The woman did conceive and we were all very happy for her chance to experience pregnancy, give birth and maybe even breastfeeding her baby (which I did for over a year with both of our sons). It had been her lifelong dream to have those experiences. Sadly, it did not end well. She had transferred all 3 of our only leftover embryos and so, there was no second chance for her in that regard.

Almost 2 months after that attempt and a positive pregnancy test, her husband wrote us. “I just wanted to let you know that the baby did not survive. The ultrasound today showed only the gestation sack but no yoke sack, and they did not grow as much as the doctor wanted. In a nut shell, . . . We are very devastated as we now know that our chances for conceiving are past us.”

About 1 month later, the woman wrote us – “Thanks for your continued kind thoughts. The past weeks have been very difficult for me. The baby not surviving was my last chance to experience pregnancy. Sorry that I haven’t written sooner, I just haven’t been able to put any of my thoughts into words.”

“As a blessing from above we have been given the opportunity to foster parent, if only for a short time, a baby boy that was abandoned by his birthmom at birth. This 17 year old gave birth at home, put this sweet little boy into a plastic trash bag and threw him over a fence into a retention pond area. Within an hour people heard his cries and rescued him. Caring for another is a good way to stop thinking about your self.”

“I am so saddened. It still is hard for me to accept. I was going between denial and anger. Now, with feeding the baby every two hours round the clock, I don’t have time to think about it.”

I do believe they eventually adopted the baby. I also believe that God always answers our prayers. Maybe not the way we thought they would be answered. To my understanding, even a “No” is an answer. I do not regret donating the embryos. Of course, I am sad for this couple that it did not bring the results they hoped for.

Sharing this experience is not intended to support nor deny the option to donate one’s frozen embryos or acquire someone else’s. Compared to adopting a newborn infant, I do believe that a baby growing in the womb of the mother who will be raising the child pretty much eliminates 100% mother/child separation trauma. Some donor conceived persons do have issues with the way they were conceived and I am well aware of them. Though my husband and I did not see inexpensive DNA testing coming, it seems in our good hearts and ignorance, we have handled our own family’s situation almost perfectly. Someday, our sons may view their own conceptions differently than we do but, at almost 18 and 21, they seem to understand clearly and have no issues with it. They know – bottom line – they would not exist otherwise. They know they are loved and that they live in a “very close at heart and 24/7 everyday” life family. And I do think that as boys, their 50% genetic connection to their father matters as genetic mirrors for them. Some sadness in my youngest son that he doesn’t have any of my genes but our love for one another seems genuine.