Seeking A Different Outcome

A woman lost her firstborn child to Child Protective Services when she was 17, after having been abandoned by her abusive father. Part of the reason for losing the child then was poverty – no crib or medical insurance. She also had untreated mental issues. She has been in therapy since she was 18 and her therapist will support her now – 6 years later. She is now 3 1/2 months pregnant with her second child and understandably afraid of losing this child as well or that they’ll bring up her mental health issues from the past. This child’s father is not the same one as her first child’s father and is supportive of her. She gets SSI income and her boyfriend is a line cook. Because they are on a tight budget, she is buying what she can in preparation for her baby, as she can. How can she avoid a repeat experience ?

A response came from a woman who works in primary care settings. She has seen cases where if the parent previously lost a child to the Div of Health Services, that parent comes under heightened scrutiny. Suggestions – If you are going a regular OB clinic or community clinic, show up for every single prenatal appointment, stay on top of scheduling. Make them aware of the regularity/consistency of your therapy appointments. I personally would not meet with or trust their social or behavioral health person – keep them at arm’s length until you get a good read as to whether they seem genuinely interested in helping with you. It seems you have good support already, so don’t even go there. If you feel you have to appease them and must meet with one, just be prepared to say all the areas you have covered already. Don’t express vulnerability or what you don’t have. Better to go through trusted community organizations if you need physical items, housing resources, etc. Expect to have to do a Urine Analysis at some point. Avoid using any substances including marijuana that might get you flagged.

I am a big fan of midwives and so I liked this suggestion – seek out a birth center or better yet a home birth midwife. You can meet them for a consultation (no pressure to pick that one). Wait until you find one you think you could have a trusting relationship with. They won’t have access to all your medical records. They are more focused on supporting you as an individual. The less contact with nosy/intervention happy medical people, the better in your case. If you end up needing to birth in a hospital, a good midwife ought to be a good advocate for you in that setting, even though it is also a high risk setting for Div of Health Services involvement/hospital staff scrutiny.

If she is in a conventional medical care setting, the woman suggests be one step ahead with all the baby item planning. Having the car seat well in advance, like by 30 weeks, and schedule a car seat installation safety check (you can find them by searching “car seat safety clinic” they are often done at fire departments). If she signs up for WIC (which pays for formula), she needs to be aware that they are another scrutinizing entity that could represent a threat.

The biggest poverty factor to control for is housing stability. If you rent, is your lease month to month or year long? Being on good terms with your landlord can smooth inspections. Best have a Plan B. Make certain savings could cover a move, if needed. Or have a support network, one that would allow you stay with a stable family that is considered “safe”.

Additional suggestions from another with behavioral health work within a primary healthcare setting – No one can report a thing until the child is born. Be careful about what releases you sign. No one can talk to anyone about you without your release – unless it becomes a mandated report. If you sign releases, you are at risk. Therefore, any releases need to be very specific. Don’t sign blanket things like “service coordination.” Instead say what services you want coordinated.

This woman disagreed with some of the previous advice – I don’t agree with universally declining behavioral health services, because those services can be helpful for connecting with community based programs for things like car seats, help with food insecurity, clothing, etc. If your ongoing therapist is well connected, and knows what programs are available within your community, they may be able to serve in that role. In that case, it is appropriate to explain that you are in regular behavioral health care already.

There will likely be complete screenings as a routine part of your care to look at maternal stress/perinatal mental health concerns. They may also be helpful in holding the balance of psychotropic medication/medication choices, while you are pregnant, if that is part of your typical mental health treatment plan. You can consider signing a very specific and narrow release with your therapist, but generally, I would limit it only to things like medication, pregnancy health, dates of service. I would not allow your therapist to release your progress notes, progress summaries, treatment plans unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

It’s OK to Ask for Help

It may be rough going but it is OK to ask for help. Today’s story –

When I was first pregnant, I was terrified and reached out to an adoption agency! I just turned 20 weeks (today) and have mostly changed my mind but still unsure.

Today, the adoption coordinator has been harassing me! It’s been a few weeks since I have decided to reach out but I haven’t felt the need, have been busy working (I work 3 jobs to save up for birth, etc) and also need space! I also HAVEN’T signed anything. Today, she sent me a text, had the prospective Mom send me a text, called and sent an email. I’m feeling a little trapped at the moment, already feel guilty.

I have most things ironed out, other than my living situation and expectations and arrangements with the dad (we’re not together and he was emotionally abusive when together) which also weighs on why I don’t have a solid decision yet.

Some encouragement from someone who has been there and made it work –

I was homeless and moved 4 times while pregnant and 3 times since having my son – I was a waitress during Covid (he was born in 2021) and my hours were very low/tips were bad. We had a 1 room basement bachelor apartment. I didn’t have a car until I was over 20 weeks along.

We managed to make it. He is 2 now and thriving with me. I do think that a lot of people, had they known the extent of my situation, would’ve absolutely pressured me to put him up for adoption or called Child Protective Services on us. But I was determined to be his mom.

A lot of my success was due to the kindness of other people – who passed down hand me downs, baby clothing, furniture, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and accept free stuff.

March Makes Me Think Of My Dad

My Dad

With the arrival of March, came thoughts about my father. He was an adoptee, as was my mother. Like my mom, he never knew anything about his familial origins. When he died, he had a half-sister living only 90 miles away who could have told him so much about his birth mother. Sadly, he never wanted to know and counseled my mom not to go searching that it might be like opening a can of worms – fisherman that he was all of his life.

My dad was sociable and outgoing which had me reflecting on my dad’s own father – Rasmus Martin Hansen, who was born in Denmark and immigrated to the US in the 1920s. He was a married man having an affair at the time my dad’s mother conceived him. It does not appear that he ever knew he had a son and my dad was the only child he ever fathered (as far as is known LOL). What I know of him is that he was also outgoing and sociable. He was the dock master at a yacht club in San Diego until his untimely death from a heart attack while driving home. He had many celebrity friends who even came for his funeral.

So, my dad comes by his fisherman genes honestly by way of this other fisherman who was his father. My dad is also a Pisces (as was his father) and was born just a few steps away from the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. He just was as he was conceived and born to be. He passed away February 3 2016. I do miss him dearly.

While he could be a lot of fun as a father – gave me a dirt bike to ride when I was still a school girls and took us for rides in his dune buggy in the desert sandhills of El Paso Texas where we grew up – he could also be infuriating and at times when I was growing up, truly terrifying (while never laying a hand on us). Even so, though I did get angry at him and would give him a piece of my mind quite honestly on many occasions, it never diminished a deep love I had for him. After all, when my unwed teenage mother turned up pregnant with me – he did not abandon us.

His birthday is so close to St Patrick’s Day that I have never forgotten it and so he was given the middle name of Patrick when he was adopted (his birth name was Arthur Martin Hempstead – the first a family name, the middle his dad’s name and the surname, his unmarried mother’s surname). Interestingly, I have learned that my Grandfather Rasmus’ birthday is very close (March 10th) to my dad’s and so, I think of both of them with the arrival of March.

I Love Reunion Stories

From the LINK>BBC – Adoption: Son finally meets birth mum after 58 years.

Timothy Welch was only six weeks old when he was separated from his birth mother, June Mary Phelps, who was 18 at the time. He describes his adoptive parents reasons – “They couldn’t have their own children so they started the adoption process and when they were 36 they adopted me.” Timothy described his life with his adoptive parents as “really happy”, and never considered trying to find his birth mother until his adoptive parents died: Bill in 2018 and Eunicé in 2020.

As an adoptive child you always think about researching your birth family. A lot of it goes back to identity as a person over the years. He admits, “I wondered who I was, certain personality traits that were different from my adoptive family.”

Yately Haven in Hampshire was a mother and baby home run by the Baptist Church. It is where Timothy was born. The Haven was open from 1945 until 1970. Almost 1,800 babies were born there. Timothy was able to get a copy of his original birth certificate. It contained his birth mother’s full name, date and place of birth. A search angel was able to use voter registration rolls and with that information, Timothy was able to find his mother’s current husband, Michael Mortimer. Timothy gave Mr Mortimer his email, which he passed on to Timothy’s brothers and they arranged a day to meet up in London. Timothy says of his brothers, “They are both wonderful men – kind, thoughtful and reflective. I feel very fortunate to have met them at this stage of our lives and am going to enjoy getting to know them and their respective families very much.”

He says of then meeting his birth mother – “It was emotional but at the same time it felt natural. We spoke about a variety of things but the part I enjoyed the most was just looking at her and taking in the person that she is.” He was also able to learn about his birth father – Hedayat Mamagan Zardy, an Iranian Muslim. The couple had a fleeting romance and loved dancing in Oxford.

Some adoptees, like my dad, are afraid to know where they came from. My mom yearned to. Reading stories like this make me wonder how they would have felt, if they had the option to experience a reunion. Since they have both passed away, I can only choose to believe that reunion took place in heaven.

A Never Baby Person Parented

Kelsey Graham with baby daughter

I’m a family preservation, never adopt out if one can help it, person and so I really liked this story in the LINK>Huffington Post – “What It’s Like To Be The ‘Young Mom’.”

Kelsey admits – “I was never a baby person. Growing up, when family members would have kids, I stood back, adoring the baby from afar, but passing on chances to hold it. I never babysat beyond watching my younger brother. And while it’s true what they say — when it’s your child, it’s different — it was still overwhelming being responsible for another life when I was just starting to lay the foundation for my own.”

She was in her sophomore year of college when she got pregnant and was 20 when she had her baby. I can relate. I was 19 when I had my daughter. My pregnancy was deliberate as I was married and all of our “married” friends also had young children and so, I didn’t see any reason to wait. Really, I was still a child when my daughter was young. My marriage didn’t last and unlike the author of this story, I didn’t go on to college until much later when I picked up a few hours but never graduated.

Happily, for Kelsey – she is still with her then boyfriend and now father of her daughter. With a strong support system from her family, her boyfriend, and his family, she was able to finish her degree. At 27, she was fortunate enough to return to school to earn her master’s degree. During that time, she worked in the Graduate School Office as an assistant with other students ranging in age from 20-year-olds who had just graduated with their bachelor’s to others in their 30s. She says, “It was nice to be around people closer to my age and, even more, to be back in the school setting I loved and where I felt like I belonged.”

Often feeling like she didn’t fit in, which she describes in quite a bit of detail in her op-ed, she realized that women are judged for whatever choices they make, especially if they deviate from the very narrow idea of what’s “normal.” I also understand this from my own personal experiences but thankfully, I do have friends who seem to understand my unconventional life experiences are what make me – “me”.

I do know that I have always been living my life as best I could. I know my experiences matter just as much as those who have trod more conventional paths. I am glad for my Facebook friends today. I realize these woman include all the women who have also taken the path less traveled. It’s comforting. The author notes – “Being a young mom is what brought her to me, and I’ll always feel lucky for that.” Yes, I can say the same about my own daughter – despite the bumps on our own journey together, when I could not financially support the two of us and didn’t have the kind of family support the author had on her own journey, I was no longer married to my daughter’s father and he didn’t believe in paying child support nor did I want to fight him for it.

Kelsey is a Copywriter and Freelance Writer. You can find her at LinkedIn here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamkelsey/.

South Korean Adoptions

There are a lot of Korean adoptees in the United States. Today’s blog is courtesy of a story in The Guardian about the LINK>Truth Commission investigating foreign adoptions. Some adoptees sent to Europe and the US say they were wrongly removed from their families as the government in Seoul actively promoted adoption. These adoptees suspect their origins were falsified or obscured during a child export frenzy in the mid-to late 20th century.

The adopted South Koreans are believed to be the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees. In the past six decades about 200,000 South Koreans – mostly girls – were adopted overseas. Most were placed with white parents in the US and Europe during the 1970s and 80s.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has decided to investigate 34 adoptees who were sent to Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the US from the 1960s to the early 1990s. The adoptees say they were wrongfully removed from their families through falsified documents and corrupt practices. The adoptions to be investigated are among the 51 adoptees who first submitted their applications to the commission in August through the Danish Korean Rights Group led by adoptee attorney Peter Møller. There are now more than 300 applications filed.

The applications cite a broad range of grievances that allege carelessness and a lack of due diligence in the removal of scores of children from their families amid loose government monitoring. During much of the period in question, the country was ruled by a succession of military leaders who saw adoptions as a way to deepen ties with the democratic west, while reducing the number of mouths to feed and removing the socially undesirable including children of unwed mothers and orphans.

Most of the South Korean adoptees sent abroad were registered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets, a designation that made the adoption process quicker and easier. But many of the so-called orphans had relatives who could be easily identified and found. Some of the adoptees say they discovered that the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel, which often made it impossible to trace their roots. The adoptees call for the commission to broadly investigate agencies for records falsification and manipulation and for allegedly proceeding with adoptions without the proper consent of birth parents. They want the commission to establish whether the government was responsible for the corrupt practices and whether adoptions were fueled by increasingly larger payments and donations from adoptive parents, which apparently motivated agencies to create their own supply.

Simply Thankful

So often in this space I am focused on all of the things that are not quite right in adoptionland or within the foster care system. I do care about how adoptees feel about their state of being which began involuntarily and those complex feelings extend to donor conceived persons, especially those who may not have known about their origins until much later in life. I believe we can ALL do better and many who are similarly educated by the realities of life are now speaking out – to help the rest of us understand that the truth is complex and diverse but usually not the fairy tale narratives that adoption agencies prefer for everyone to believe.

My education about all of these related aspects has been brief and intense since my adoptee parents (yes both of them were) died in late 2015 and early 2016 (just 4 mos apart after over 50 years of marriage) and I made my own roots discovery journey. I am certainly grateful for what I learned that made me feel finally “whole” and for the genetically related family I am now acquainted with. They are all precious to me and totally human with flaws and positive attributes like we all are – myself included. And I still have a love in my heart for my adoptive grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins because they were the family I knew and grew up with. They are who I often celebrated Thanksgiving with throughout my childhood and early adulthood.

The thing I am honestly most thankful for is that I was NOT given up for adoption. It is my own personal “miracle” because adoption was so common in my family as to feel natural to us (though I now understand that it never was “natural”). My mom was a high school junior, unwed. My dad had just started at the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces. Yet, I was preserved in the family in which I was conceived. This may explain one of the reasons that family preservation is so important to me personally. I had a good enough childhood. Sometimes we were a bit financially challenged. Sometimes my dad’s anger was a bit too short fused. My mom was unhappy enough at one time to contemplate suicide. My youngest sister ended up homeless. My other sister lost her first born to his paternal grandparents in a court of law and my own daughter ended up being raised by my ex-husband and his second wife. Even so, I am thankful for every CRAZY experience of my own life because it has made my understandings of human nature so much deeper and more reality based.

May you too be counting your own blessings this day.

It’s Never Too Late

Just a happy reunion story to give all of those adoptees and their first mothers hope by way of LINK> The Guardian – A new start after 60: I became a mother at 62. I am only going to share some highlights. The full story is at the link.

It sort of reminded me of how I connected with my nephew – a surprise email sent to our business account, that my husband forwarded to me. After Martha retired, a former colleague forwarded an email to her saying, “This seems kind of important,” adding a smiley face. I am a “sign” kind of person and so I really liked reading this part – she looked out of the window, “and there was this amazing double rainbow in the east. I thought: that’s a sign. I wrote a short note: ‘Hello, oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you since you were teeny tiny.’” At 62, Einerson had “become a mother”.

It was 1977 and in her first year at the University of Dallas. Yet by the time she knew she was pregnant, her relationship with Tallert’s birth father was ending. So, with her family’s support, she decided to give her child up for adoption. Later, as a professor of communication studies, who specialized in interpersonal communication and personal relationships, she often shared the story of her pregnancy. When she did the question was Don’t you want to find him ? And she would say: “You know, I don’t.” She goes on to elaborate that “My mother always told me: ‘You were his mother for nine months …’ but when you make a big decision, affirm it and reaffirm it as often as you need. And I did. It worked.”

She goes on to admit that every few years, she would wonder if her son was OK and if he was still alive. Even though she would tell people she wasn’t looking for him, she did register with adoption agencies, so he could track her down. Yet, she felt she had made a commitment to give him to another family. My adoptee dad was kind of like that too. He believed once you were adopted that adoptive family was your ONLY family. He never expressed to me any desire to find out anything about his adoption. Sadly, his half-sister was living only 90 miles away from him when he died and could have told him so much about his original mother.

Like many mothers who surrender their first born (my original maternal grandmother was one of those), she had no more children; though she and her husband have “a fantastic relationship … We were unable to have children of our own so we both dove into our careers.”

Happily, like many adoptees who achieve a reunion with their original mother, they quickly clicked with one another and discovered they naturally had behaviors in common (that is the genetic nature part of any human being’s personality). Sort of like how my grown daughter has called me by my first name since she was a toddler (though also “mom”), Tallert calls her Martha. “But once in a while, in a close moment, he’ll call me Mom,” she says. “And it still feels as good as it did the first time.” I too feel good when one of my children calls me “mom” or when one of my grandchildren calls me “grandma.” I guess it’s natural.

No Win Situation

An unwed mother is pregnant with her 2nd child, due in early February, and the dad has no plans to be involved. She has a 5-year-old that she had the same heartfelt struggle with making this decision. She has spent almost every day of his life, wondering if he would’ve been better off if she’d just put him up for adoption. That is what she wanted to before his dad stepped in and said he wanted to keep him. She has limited to no support from her family and friends.

Where she is now . . . “The only consensus I managed to come to is that I’d be traumatizing my baby if I put it for adoption, but if I don’t have support, I’m going to ruin the baby anyway. So many of those adoptees have such a jaded, negative view of their birth families for putting them up for adoption, but they also resent their adoptive families for ‘stealing’ them, so I’m right back to square one of no matter what I choose, I’m evil and ruining my baby’s life.”

From an adoptee – I’m an adoptee of a closed adoption. A DNA test for Ancestry revealed my birth parents. If I were you, I wouldn’t adopt and as an adoptee, I regret being adopted. I don’t necessarily think my birth parents ruined my life by not keeping me because I don’t know what my life would have been with them. Having another baby won’t ruin your life. It won’t ruin your son’s. You can get your mental health back either way, because either way it’s going to take work and probably therapy. I just wouldn’t make the decision out of fear that you’re not capable because I think that’s when we get into decisions we regret.

So often, when unwed expectant mothers come into my all things adoption group seeking insight, it is almost universal that they don’t feel capable of parenting. It is most likely true in all of these cases that those who do decide to parent still have a difficult and challenging situation to navigate. With some mothers, the group goes the extra mile to supply things the mother will need once she has her baby, if she decides to parent. These women often come back when the baby is older saying how grateful they are to have been encouraged to keep their babies.

This group also sometimes helps a parent who has become embroiled in a custody situation where adoptive or foster parents want to keep the baby they managed to get. The legal process is daunting, fraught with challenges and no certainty of being won. Better to at least give parenting a try. Worst case, there is always the option to surrender to adoption . . .

My favorite saying in life is from the Lemony Snicket movie – A Series of Unfortunate Events. I can’t find what I remember anywhere but it comes down to no matter how dark or bad things look, there is always a way out of that situation. It has often inspired me to hold the line until I see the way has proven to be so . . .

Baudelaire Kids from Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Fathers’ Rights Movement

Approximately 46 years ago, my daughter ended up in the non-legally mandated custody of her father. When we divorced, I explained it to my 3 yr old daughter – you still have a mother who loves you and a father who loves you, we just aren’t going to be all living together again. As a bit of a feminist, I truly believed BOTH parents are important and I still believe that. As a mom, with what I have learned about in utero bonding, I do lean towards mothers in the early years more than it did then. I never intended for my ex-husband to raise our daughter. I didn’t leave her with him when I went in search of a method to make enough money to support the two of us. I left her with her paternal grandmother who had cared for her from 3 months of age while I went to work. But that is how she ended up being raised by her father and a step mother. Was it perfect ? No but I didn’t have a better option to offer her at that time either.

I recently donated to a legal fund through my all things adoption group for a birth father seeking custody of his soon to be born (may have already been born) child. His mother is assisting him. The birth mother has decided unilaterally to adopt out her baby to a wealthy couple and has cut off communication with the father. I just feel that a birth father with his mother’s support (much like my own daughter had) is better off there than with strangers who want to adopt her.

I had never heard of the Fathers’ Rights Movement before today. I know with my two sons how critical their father is in their lives as a genetic mirror for them. I am glad to be their mother and I know my nurturing of them matters. I am glad to have discovered, after feeling like a failure with my own daughter, that I am capable of being a “good enough” mother.

There has to be a good middle ground that supports the rights of BOTH parents. That is my view. My dad’s father likely never knew about his son. They would have been great fishing buddies. I don’t know what his reaction may have been had my paternal grandmother told him she was pregnant. He was married and as the self-reliant woman she was, she simply handled the situation.

So, I am simply sharing my new found knowledge of this organization for anyone who might need their support. The Fathers’ Rights Movement.