In a group I am part of, a mother asked – Is there any birth parents in here that didn’t want to do adoption and was forced into the decision and in a way destroyed them and need some support ? I’m trying to find someone similar to my situation as there’s no support groups.
Some responses – The Dept of Human Services stole my kids when they were younger. Another woman notes – my grandson was stolen too.
One woman notes a handful of support groups that she is aware of on Facebook – “Birth Moms Support Group”, “Birth Moms Today”, “Find Birth Parents, Siblings, Adoptees and Family”, “Birth Mothers Support Group” and “Caring for Birthmothers Support Group”. To which the woman who first asked responds – I mean yes but not Child Protective Services (CPS) related or parents who had many years to raise said child. For me, it wasn’t a choice. I mean I’ve been looking but nothing seems to fit my actual situation. I haven’t found a single parent until I made this post.
One adoptee noted that the mother would be hard pressed to find sympathy there, especially from the adoptee members. There are other groups that might be more understanding.
Another suggested – “Birth Moms Broken” or “Birth Moms Forced Adoption”. When someone else suggested – Just type in ‘ birth parents support group’. Several options come up. Another woman shared – you have to be careful. I left one when I found out they have agency workers in there.
One suggested a group that I have a lot of appreciation for LINK>Saving Our Sisters. She also suggested Anti-CPS groups, saying that “there’s more than you may realize”. The woman who first asked rejects Anti-CPS groups because they are mostly about CPS cases. To which someone else responds – I don’t think you realize how much you are in the same boat with parents fighting with CPS. They are coerced into signing their rights away. Most of those cases are against low income parents who were not guilty of abuse and who don’t have the financial means to hire a good attorney. She then suggests – Another one that comes to mind is “Concerned United Birthparents”. My thought process has always been that if there were more unity, instead of focus on the differences, more could get changed.
Here’s one who had the experience – They made the decision for me. They separated us all. I had a high fever in November of 2015. The teacher got my daughter. Div of Children and Families some Academy School teachers wanted my children. I was labeled delusional due to my fever which was 103.3 to 104 degrees for 3 weeks. They had zero mercy.
The woman who first asked shares more – the foster parents had it out for me. They worked in the same office my case was out of and I was pushed into a corner, where I felt I had no choice. Everyone told me that if I didn’t, then it wouldn’t stop. That this was better.
Someone else shares – My girls got totally screwed being adopted. I thought I was doing the right thing but in the end, it was terrible for them…they got molested and the adopted mother covered it up. She had 14 kids that the state let her adopt. All of them. She made good money on that. To this day, she doesn’t take the younger kids to the doctor, feeds them crap food that’s not good for them . . . the list goes on and on. The things they did to my babies !
A couple of other support group suggestions – Adoption Knowledge Affiliates and National Association of Adoptees and Parents.
This image came from a site FOR adoptions – LINK>Absolute Love Adoptions. I would agree with the author, Kathryn Russell, that is often simply a failure of the expectations around any adoption. I arrived there simply looking through google for an image to illustrate today’s blog.
In my all things adoption group, this story was conveyed from a ‘failed adoption group’ (I suppose intended as a support for such circumstances). The one experiencing this writes – “I just experienced my second failed adoption a week and a half ago. After taking baby home from the hospital and having her for two weeks, her birth mom changed her mind. I’m so incredibly mad. Mad at the system that provides little to no protection for adoptive parents. I’m mad at the people around the birth mom who encouraged her to parent her baby. And I’m mad at her for choosing to be selfish and do what’s best for her and not what’s best for her child. This is all so raw for me. I’m mad and I’m bitter. And to be honest, after this second failed adoption, I will not try again. My heart cannot take it.”
The person who shared this noted – “This person managed to hit almost ALL the Narcissistic Savior hopeful adoptive parent (HAP) statements …. Showing how most HAP’S ‘Really Feel’… as they sweet talk expectant mom’s like they are going to be ‘one big family’…. vs the reality that many closing “open” adoptions before the adoptee reaches the age of 3….”
A heroine in the group, who is the paternal grandmother of a little girl, who is now reunited with her, after an illegal adoption attempt that took place without the father’s consent (who is understandably now a Fathers Rights Advocate) comments – “Good! Don’t try again. You being mad that she wanted to parent HER child! You calling HER selfish! You presuming you know what’s “best” for the child shows you know NOTHING and are completely unqualified to be a parent natural or otherwise… just don’t have a child AT ALL..” She adds – “I think the revocation period should be extended not shortened. And fathers need to be ON BOARD 100%, and the mothers should not be allowed to lie about fathers without consequences.”
In response to her, the original poster commented – another Poster on the failed adoption group thread complained about having to “give her baby back after 6 MONTHS”. Because the father changed HIS mind at the last minute (yet, the agency still placed baby with ‘HAP’s)….and the baby’s DAD had the nerve to “Give Her Baby” to his Sister to raise….once she went back with them. The very Nerve !
Note !! parenting Your Own Baby is Not being selfish ! And support should be available to those wishing to parent ! No one that posted seems to understand that the agencies are the ones ‘keeping their money’. Not the birth parents ! (remember the reimbursement for living expenses is a ‘gift’ with no strings) and is small change compared to the agency fees.
From a domestic infant adoptee who was taken during the LINK>Baby Scoop Era (which started after the end of World War II and ended somewhat around 1972) – “While I can understand her disappointment and grief in not getting what she was expecting, she definitely needs to do a lot of work on herself. She is definitely not anywhere ready to parent anyone. I see this kind of reaction far too often. People need to understand that babies are not property to be bought and sold. I see people commenting that parents should not be able to keep their babies, if they have indicated that they are interested in placing. I worry that adoption laws will be changed making it legal for irrevocable contracts to be made pre-birth.”
To which another adoptee replied – I so wish my teenage mom would have been allowed the opportunity to parent me, her mother wouldn’t “allow it.” In turn, I was a 30 week premie, given to an unstable couple (adoptive dad did sexual abuse – they divorced 2 years after I was born) and a “loving adoptive mother” who told me how much I cost them when I was only 3.5 years old.
A mother who lost her baby to adoption (she was also a baby scoop infant adoptee) notes – I tried to change my mind when he was born. I had both the agency director and the AM on the phone with me (this was 1990) telling me that I just couldn’t do that to them. I had happened to pick their file literally on the day they put it back in active rotation, after the previous “birthmom” changed her mind after birth. I was told I would be destroying them, if I kept my baby.
She follows up with this rest of the story – both my son’s dad and I have been diagnosed with PTSD because of it. It’s been years of healing. My son is married now, with a baby of his own (best grand baby in the world). They chose to put down roots half an hour from me. His adoptive parents moved him 8 hours away, when he was 9. I only got to see him once from ages 9-17. They still live there. Now, I am the one who gets to babysit and dog sit and see them whenever I want. His daughter is growing up with no distinction between who he was raised with or not. My other kids (I had 4 more, years after him) are just aunts and uncles and I’m just grandma. It feels like the universe is righting itself, and I am so, so grateful to him.
An adoptee noted – Interesting how all their coercion tactics revolved around their feelings but not the wellbeing of the child. Which is so grossly typical of HAPs.
Another adoptee said – There should be a MINIMUM of a one year period in which mothers (or fathers) can change their mind. If we did away with adoption completely and required cases in which adoption would normally take place – to be placed as a guardianship or joint custody – this would be a non-issue because the parents could always access visitation rights and an ability to get their child back, when they are ready. Protection should never be for adoptive parents. Ever.
Another added – for that year, financial support should be provided, affordable childcare should be a guarantee, and any other obstacles should be removed – so that parents can make the informed decision regarding whether or not relinquishment is truly the solution.
An adoptee fostered from birth and then into a forced adoption at the age of 10 says – if a carer/HAP ever did less than the agreed-to (contracted in an OPEN adoption), the first parents have the legal right to reunite with their child(ren) and rescind any previous relinquishment. I mean, if we are asking for “pie in the sky” protections, that one has gotta be in there. The amount of times that a previously open adoption slams closed is astounding and calls into question the adoptive parents ability to properly parent, in truth and with the child’s best interests at the forefront.
Response to a FORMER hopeful adoptive parent – You help families avoid being separated. It’s ok to admit we were FHAP. We did the research and learned and grew and changed our minds. We thought it was a good deed, now we know better. We were wrong.
She notes – I’m here exactly for the same reason as you. I don’t even have a husband lol and was nowhere near ready to adopt but thought about it as something maybe in the future, like in 10 years and thought it should be an older child too. I think it’s helpful for HAP to see how many FHAPs are in this space.
Another person says this – isn’t this a really heinous misuse of “failed adoption” ? I thought that failed adoption referred to an adoption that is disrupted/terminated by the adoptive parents, leaving the child without guardians/parents – as in, the adoption itself failed as an outcome. Calling it a “failed adoption” because a family was able to stay intact is just so backwards and wrong, it just didn’t happen because it was no longer necessary. Like having a surgery to save somebody’s leg and calling it a “failed amputation” ?
Another mom who lost her baby to adoption – I have often thought that if only I had had someone, one person, who would have encouraged me to parent my baby, I never would have given him up back in 1973. Months later, my then sis in law said to me, “you had a chance at motherhood which you were ready for and you turned it down”. This wasn’t said in a loving way, she was listing all the things I was doing wrong in my life, and that was one. But at the time, she never said anything about how I was really ready to be a mom.
Another one agreed – same – I wanted to parent so desperately but no one around me encouraged or supported that choice.
The original poster notes that the failed adoption group – is full of Unfulfilled Hap’s showing exactly how they ‘Really’ feel about Expectant Mom’s, Mom’s who change their minds. The Mom’s friends, Families and group such as this who step forward to assist Mom’s ( and Dad’s) to parent. She hit almost all the visceral reactions / opinions of Many HAP’S and AP’s…. who will act like an expectant mom’s BFF until the revoke period ends.. And they believe ‘laws need to be put in place’. To ‘protect HAP’S’ from loosing their money and getting their hearts broken. Keep in mind that many HAP’S have ‘Go Fund Me accounts etc….’ Something the expectant mom’s are not able to do. Also the number of these HAP’S complaining that their beautiful nursery and clothes are ‘going to waste’ and will need to be sold….. (How many expectant mom’s who parented had the HAP’S leave so much as a car seat or filled diaper bag?) How many expectant mom’s who decided to parent have had Child Protective Services called on them by HAP’S and the adoption agency? Sadly – Many ….
I read an interesting thread this morning that I thought reveals some really important perspectives and so, I share this.
Things I find odd: in the decades following discovery, none of my adoptive family asked about or acknowledged the existence of my half-siblings.
Nor did they either ask how I felt about being lied to for over thirty years; lies they participated in telling. I don’t say this to shame them. I am not even naming them here. As children, they were emotionally abused in that they were told to lie to a family member, every single day. They should not have been asked to do that. I don’t fault them for remaining silent prior to my accidental discovery of my adoption. What I find completely baffling is the continued silence.
What does that say about the nature of love, respect, compassion and connection that adoption supposedly creates? You may say; most adoptees know, so your experience is an anomaly. If so, there are thousands and thousands of anomalies running around these days. There are STILL adoptive parents posting on social media who say they haven’t told the adoptee, don’t know when or if they will. In transracial adoptions, adoptive parents can’t avoid the truth of adoption, but many make a practice of dodging questions, fabricating stories, joking about the adoptee’s pain. And I add, knowing a good number in the donor conception contingent of family creating, there were many who did not ever intend to tell their children. Of course, that was in the days before inexpensive DNA testing. Oops.
I guess odd is not a strong enough word. Cruel, maybe?
There were 4 children in my family; two of those were adopted. First a biological, genetic daughter, then the adoptee girl – me – and an adoptee boy, then a biological, genetic son. My adoptee brother died when I was 13. He was 12. The oldest daughter always knew. The youngest son learnt in high school. Yep; both of those were told to lie. Apparently it was important for them to tell other friends and acquaintances that I was not their “real” sister. I, however, was never told.
What a way to set family relationships up to fail. The refusal to engage with me now “post-discovery” reveals how deep that failure goes and it does increase the pain that I felt as an adoptee to an almost unendurable level.
In their defense, I don’t think they ever learned, nor knew how to learn, how to engage emotionally in a healthy way, not just with me but with others. Some of this was the result of being raised by adult children of alcoholics and a great deal of death and dysfunction occurred in the course of our upbringing. How much of that dysfunction can be attributed to being taught to lie ? It could not have helped the circumstances.
This brings on additional sharings of a similar nature.
Thanks to a friend recognizing my now ex husband was a functional alcoholic, I got into Al-Anon. I was also fortunate to find a couple adoptee support groups at that same time and found that there is a lot of overlap!! Dysfunction doesn’t discriminate. The ex was the son of a violent alcoholic. I dated men who had drug or alcohol issues. My adoptive parents were the youngest in their pre-Depression era families and we’re definitely not what we would refer to as “healthy” today. Add adoption to the mix…
My adoptive mom’s dad was a violent alcoholic. My adoptive dad’s dad was more of a gentle alcoholic, I think. They came out of hard times. Add the pressures of infertility during a time when women’s primary role was parenthood ? So much pain and suffering.
You are right about silence being cruel. Speaking as a first mom… losing my baby to adoption at 17 years old … I was told I would go on with my life, as if nothing had happened. My family never spoke to me about it. It’s traumatizing and cruel to pretend it never happened. I’m sorry that any of us are here having this discussion but we must talk about it, if we are to heal. I was in the adoptee fog for 43 years… & now 12+ years in reunion… I won’t be silenced any longer.
And by sharing such personal thoughts about personal situations, maybe some who encounter people living with such pain will be a little kinder. Until you walk a mile in my shoes . . . seems to fit. Always give the benefit of the doubt and consider the kindest possible explanation for whatever seems “off” is also good advice.
I learned about this movie from my all things adoption group and I wrote an initial blog on July 19th titled I Am Sam. I promised to come back with a review and last night I actually watched the movie on dvd from Netflix. Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning are both remarkable in their performances for this movie.
It is easy to understand the attraction of this movie to the all things adoption and foster care group because the core story is the lived experience of many members of that group. Not so much having a mentally challenged (ie as the movie says explicitly more than once – retarded) parent but as in the Division of Family and Child Welfare taking a child or children from the parents. In fact, when my sons were young, I did worry that our parenting might be adversely challenged by so do-gooder. Thankfully, my sons are now almost grown (one is already 20 and the other one is 17) and beyond such concerns in our own family. It is also true to the lived experience of so many that foster parents often do eventually want to adopt a child placed in their care. However, the movie is enlightened to the trends now occurring in adoptionland that family reunification and in the case of this movie, an eventual recognition on the part of the parent that he is lacking something (a mother – the child’s mother abandoned the child to the father shortly after birth) brings into the resolution a kind of co-parenting solution that is satisfying to watch (I don’t think that saying this is a spoiler for this movie as the ending leaves as many questions as it answers).
The movie was very progressive for its time in the portrayal of people with a variety of cognitive disabilities. In fact, I recognized that I do know one woman who has effectively lost her children due to just such a challenge. The take-away message for me was how incredibly hard it is parent a child regardless of the circumstances. This is clearly portrayed in the contrasting and yet similar parenting challenges of the main character and his lawyer. Every parent needs support of some kind at some time or other.
In an LA Times review, the writer shares this story – “I’m smart enough to know when I need help, I ask for it,” a 46-year-old mother with a learning disability told me recently. She receives support from a parents-with-special-needs program. If she needs help with parenting skills of any kind, a parent counselor is just a call away. If she feels frustrated, she attends the program’s parents support group.
Also from that LA Times review, In one critical scene of the movie, Sam is questioned by state agency officials about why he thinks he has the ability to be a father. He responds, “It’s about constancy and it’s about patience. And it’s about listening and it’s about pretending to listen when you can’t listen any more, and it’s about love.” In the case of parents with special needs, we must provide the kind of support services that will offer practical help and an ear to listen. Parents with special needs benefit from help with tutoring, after-school activities, transportation, budgeting money and, like every parent in the universe, a little baby-sitting now and then.
The movie helps everyone who watches it to understand “that persons with disabilities have needs and desires just like everyone else,” as the parent with a disability mentioned above explained. “They need to take care of someone and love someone else.”
Feelings of rejection may be one of the most common impacts for any person who was adopted. Today’s story breaks my heart . . .
It’s never going to stop. These feelings of rejection are going to be part of my life forever. I have worked so hard in therapy these past 5 years to learn all the coping skills and most of the time they have worked.
Today, not so much. I am sitting here with tears running down my face for the stupidest reasons. The irrational thoughts of rejection in my head triggered by conversations that anyone else would consider completely normal, logical and with no ill intent. I can type that, I can say it out loud, but my brain cannot stop these feelings of being rejected. It’s a freight train out of control.
This is the life adoption created for me and no amount of therapy or positive reunion or being the administer of a group that allows me to speak freely is going to change the fact that a simple statement telling me not to come to my adoptive brother’s on Christmas Eve in the middle of Covid but learning that all my nieces and nephews and my adoptive mother will be there, set’s off a chain reaction of feeling personal rejection.
We are in a pandemic, my adoptive mom goes there weekly anyway, my nieces and nephews are their children. It makes logical sense they would/could be there. Yet the second my adoptive mom told me she was going there and I told her we were not asked to come, I instantly had to put on my sunglasses and hide my eyes. Hide the tears that were forming quickly.
I desperately want to avoid being irrational, but the chain reaction starts. My husband’s phone dings and I wonder who is texting him. I have no reason to be concerned, yet I can’t help it in this moment. My adoptive mom mentions my out of state niece sent a big batch of cookies to my adoptive brother. I sit and wonder why him and not me.
Cookies…..text messages…..keeping distance during a pandemic…..anyone would consider all that innocuous. I should too. There are real issues going on in this world. There are people that don’t have family, there are people that are struggling. I try hard to get it in check, to move past it. Then I walk my adoptive mom to the door and she says “Don’t worry so much about things. You worry too much” and the tears start up again.
I’ve been told this all my life and I want to scream back at her and say do you think I WANT to be like this? To let these inconsequential things set me off at 55 years old, stupid shit that should be irrelevant? I don’t, because in this moment, my brain cannot make my mouth do that. The risk is too great. I just weakly smile and walk away.
They will never understand. Not my adoptive family, not my natural family. They will never understand that I CANNOT control this. Our brains are not wired like everyone else’s and this is the result. Me…..crying over a gathering during covid, cookies and text messages…..SIGH….tell me again how much adoption rocks. I could not hate myself more right now, for not being able to avoid this spiral over nonsense.
This is what it is like to relinquish a child and then one day find them again and realize you are coming full circle and putting your pieces back together to become whole again. One birth mother’s story for today.
Summer 2018:
While working with my husband (repo agent) doing research on debtors, I stumble across a Facebook profile pic that makes my heart stop. After years of searching with very limited info, I finally saw a picture of the man my son grew to become. (He happened to be FB friends with a debtor we were looking for). My own eyes were staring back at me.
I chew nervously for days on what to do. Do I reach out? What if he doesn’t want to meet me? My heart is racing almost non-stop, and I’m functioning barely in a constant state of fight or flight.
I bite the bullet and send a message. Crickets for a few days, and then a very guarded/nervous response. I back off because I can’t even imagine what he’s thinking/feeling. And then, I receive a friend request.
I can see his life in posts, pics, and a piece of who he is. It’s such a gift…one I had long ago conceded I’d never receive. We tread carefully back and forth on social media for some time. I immediately put myself into intensive therapy to deal with the unresolved trauma and PTSD issues I had ignored forever. I search for and join multiple groups both for support and adoptee perspective. I, for the first time in my life, focus on self-improvement instead of self-destruction.
February 2019:
We meet face to face for the first time in a neutral location. He hugs me, and I’m shaking externally from all the emotions I’m feeling. I’m trying to absorb everything because I’m so scared this is going to be it. I have gifts for him in the car (a hand written letter, framed pic of me holding him as a newborn, and a watch engraved with
Always loved… Never forgotten…
I wait until our lunch is over and ask if he’d be ok with a couple of gifts. He readily accepts them, and we part ways. I’m terrified that I’ve done too much, but only 30 mins later I receive a message thanking me for everything. He goes on to say that the picture and letter would have been more than enough, but absolutely loves the watch.
Today:
I honestly could write a book on our journey so far. There are so many things that have occurred that aren’t included in this small recap – but I’ll save that for another day.
This is what I want to share –
Less than 2 years after reuniting, he joined us on our annual family vacation. He left his car at my house and endured a 10 hour drive with myself, hubby, his half brother and our dog.
He loves hiking and the outdoors!!! I’ve spent many family vacations dragging my husband and other 2 kiddos hiking only to hear complaints. This year, I had an Ally!!! I listened for hours to my husband and him talk cars, my youngest son and him talk video games, and my daughter and him talk science and politics.
I don’t ever want to forget these moments.
My son asked me during our first meeting…”Does your husband know about me?”… My response was “Of course! I told him about you only 2 weeks after meeting him. I hoped I would find you one day, and I could only be with someone who could accept and support that.”
My husband has done more than just support me….he’s accepted my son, included him and embraced him. I’m still a broken woman, but my pieces are coming together. And my family is finally whole.
Missing Mom 