Shout Out To Fathers

It’s Father’s Day and so I should acknowledge that other gender in humanity and what they give to kids when they want to be a father. All too often, fatherhood comes upon a male of our species unplanned and unasked for. That can have a tragic outcome for the child who’s mother is also unprepared to parent. Many times these children end up adopted with all the complications and trauma that entails. Sometimes, the mother tries but the children end up in foster care – either adopted eventually or again out of the system.

In my own case, the three children I have birthed were all planned. I am grateful for that. Both fathers have been good fathers to their children. My own dad, gone now for almost a decade, did the “right thing” by my teenage mom and me when she turned up pregnant, still in high school, and after he had only started at a university. He gave up his own dreams of higher education to go to work in a refinery – often very long, double shift hours – to support his family which eventually included 2 younger sisters for me as well.

My own daughter ended up being raised by her dad and step-mother when I proved unable to financially provide for the two of us as a single mom. Though that left me feeling like a failure as a mom, when I remarried later in life, my husband surprised me by telling me after a couple of Margaritas that he had been thinking he wanted to be a dad after all (he had been grateful I had already done that and that there was no pressure on him). He has been an awesome, dedicated father willing to drop whatever else he was doing if called up by his sons. I was healed of some of my earlier motherhood issues by discovering I could actually be a decent mom.

Many times, in my all things adoption related group, men have stepped up and actually fought the legal system to regain a child that was given up for adoption by their single mom. I have a huge admiration for such men and they do an awesome job of parenting. Happy Father’s Day to all men who have found themselves, one way or other, parenting a child – especially those who had to do so without the mom’s involvement, for whatever reason. You are true heroes !!

Abandoned Babies

Will there be more with Roe v Wade being overturned ?

A story making national news recently is about a baby found, wrapped in a towel in a stroller outside of an apartment complex, by a Coeur d’Alene Idaho resident when they left for work around 6 am.

A woman, identified as an adoptee named Webster, in this youtube news story, is quoted saying “We are living in a time where people feel like they are alone and they don’t have a support system or a net under them.”

If you are considering abandoning your baby, you likely are experiencing many different thoughts and emotions as well as being faced with one of the toughest decisions of your life. You might have one or more of these factors occurring in your life –

Have a history of substance use and are afraid to share that information
Not have proper documentation to live in the United States and fear being deported
Be living with a mental illness or facing postpartum depression
Be afraid of the baby’s father or worried about what your loved ones might say

If you are desperate for help, you may see no other option but to abandon your baby. Perhaps, you even wonder what happens to abandoned babies after they’re found?

There are really only three ways a woman can abandon her baby:

A prospective birth mother can work with an adoption agency to make an adoption plan for her baby. This is one legal way a woman can release her baby from her responsibility to care for it.
With Safe Haven laws, women have the option to safely, legally, and anonymously leave their baby, unharmed, at a safe haven location — like a hospital, fire station, or a church.
Even so, some women, feeling completely overwhelmed and unaware of the first two options, will take drastic measures, such as the case with this abandoned baby, leaving them in an unsafe condition.

The way a baby is surrendered will affect what happens to the infant afterwards. Babies who are abandoned in an unsafe location often have tragic outcomes because help comes too late. Babies that are found safely, after they’ve been abandoned or surrendered to a safe haven location, become a ward of the state.

Safe Haven babies are typically checked out by a doctor and, if necessary, given medical care. Afterward, the state’s social services department is contacted. Once that happens, the baby will be placed into foster care and become a ward of the state. In some situations, a private adoption agency might be contacted.

When a woman does not contact an adoption agency for assistance or use the Safe Haven law locations, if she can be located and identified, criminal charges will be filed against her. That is why the police in Coeur d’Alene Idaho are actively seeking information about who the woman may have been.

A Lifetime Of Regret

Adoption narratives rarely focus on the original mother from whom the child was taken. I do believe both of my grandmothers experienced regret over giving up their babies.

I believe the one to suffer the most was my maternal grandmother. She was honestly victimized by a lot of different factors, the Great Depression, a charity fatigue caused by the response in Memphis to a SuperFlood that sent thousands of refugees, many from Arkansas, into the city as well as a husband with conflicted loyalties (to the children of his deceased wife and to a mother who he was always the favored son of) who was WPA and fighting that same flood and not responding to her dire calls for help.

In my mom’s adoption file it is clear how hard she fought, though she lost, to keep my mom. She suffered a secondary infertility which is not uncommon among women who give up a child to adoption. Her childish nickname for Elizabeth – Lizzie – was on my mom’s birth certificate and though for much of her life, she would sign her name Elizabeth and nieces and nephews called her Aunt Lou – on her gravestone is the exact same name that she gave birth under. I think it not a coincidence. Just as my mom yearned to know her original mother, I believe her mother never gave up hope that my mom would find her again.

It was left to me to find her grave near the small town area that my grandmother grew up within. So sad and tragic.

My dad’s mom also lost him though it seems to have been less damaging in some ways than the exploited pain of my maternal grandmother. It is believed that she did sorrow for her firstborn son but she went on to have 3 other children. It does not appear she was as devastated though certainly carrying regrets, I think especially so, as she raised other children and probably believed it should have been possible to raise my dad.

There is a shift in adoption thinking that it really isn’t a beneficial choice. A variety of reforms attempt to make the situation better. Family preservation is probably the best – where caring individuals seek to support and encourage an intact family.