Breaking the Birthmother Rules

I wrote this in August of 2006. It was for some publication or contest that I don't ever even believe came with a rejection letter. I know it didn't get published, but I think it deserves some time in the light of day. Not much has changed in my views in the last years.

Dear Adoptive Parents;

I know you will think I am scary. I have gotten use to it. Most people are shocked when they see me. I am little, not a big threatening Amazon.

I know it is not how I say things, how I write, because I maintain a very careful structure in my use of language.

I think it is that mere ideal of who I am and who I represent that make people think I must be also a threat in body because I pose a threat to ideals, most specifically to adoption related ideals. I am an adoptive parents worse nightmare. I am a rule breaking, regretful, outspoken, demanding “birth” mother.

A Perfect Birthmother Gone Bad

I didn’t start out like this.
Once upon a time I was perfect. I was every adoption agencies and even the adoptive parents dream come true. I was a nice, but sufficiently screwed up; middle class but poor enough, intelligent but naive, white girl, pregnant with a Harvard schooled lawyer’s blued eyed son. Not only that, but I was very serious and took it to heart what a “good birth mother” was suppose to do. I knew the rules and what I didn’t know I was happy to learn and adhere to..

I wanted what was best for my child. I wanted to make the harder, more mature decision. I wanted to be sure and determined. I wanted to be strong and never waiver. I wanted their stories to be true….that this was the best idea, the win-win, and everything, including me, would be OK . So I became one of those sure, determined willing moms who “chooses” to place her child for adoption. I had all the right reasons and needed to prove myself as worthy. The act of getting pregnant under such circumstances as my life was so horrific of a failure of my being that I felt it very apropos that I must sacrifice my feelings in order to “solve the problem’ caused by my sins. I saw some act of dark glamour in losing my son. Redemption.

Adoption is Not about the Birthmother's Needs

It was all about my baby and his needs and was convinced that this adoption would solve all our woes. I was very concerned on how to make this as easy as possible on everyone else. After all, they were all going out of their way to be so nice to me. I wanted to do everything possible for these nice folks who were getting my baby as well as the nice folks at the agency who were setting it all up. That was the least I could do. I was just so happy that they liked me, accepted me, made me feel special. And I say this all completely sincerely. I honestly thought that placing my son for adoption bought me a chance to get into Heaven. When I felt sad for missing him, I would remind myself of that.

In return for my pathway to Heaven, I had a certain prescribed pathway to walk on Earth. Not knowing anything but what I was taught by made for TV movies and general media views regarding adoption and what a relinquishing mother was like, I quickly learned what was expected of me. I was taught to think first of my child, which is kind of built into being a mother in general, but exasperated for a relinquishing mother. The next ones to be concerned about on my list was my child’s adoptive parents. My focus on their happiness preceded my own. That all comes with the unselfish module of thought.

A funny thing happened on that pathway of life. I never took into consideration my later, post adoptive children and the normal feelings of a mother to want to give your child everything. Included in that everything was their still lost, oldest brother. The other funny thing is that the spell of selflessness wore off. I thought it was going to last for our lifetimes, then hoped I could make the 18 years until my son’s adulthood., but after 16 and a half years, I had reached the end of my rope. In those 16 plus, I had grown and changed from the scared teen who was desperate to make others happy and make up for her perceived sins and realized that it wasn’t only myself who had failed. I was failed by those who were to protect me, those who claimed to help me, both my family and the professionals whose advice I took to heart in that dark very vulnerable time in my life. While I never stopped thinking about other people’s needs, I began to give some weight to my own. I found I was just as worthy, just as important, and really didn’t need to have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to have good things happen to me. In fact, I was just as worthy pre pregnancy, I just didn’t know that then and it was not convenient for others to remind me of this fact.

Hindsight, Truth, Dark Novembers

The pathway to heaven shifted, and the adoption of my son, once deemed the best decision of my life, was beginning to take on the hue of an error that has continued to color my very existence. In learning about myself, I realized that I had been capable, the adoption unnecessary to save anyone. Not needed to save me from my sins, nor needed to save my son from my young, but loving mother self. Plus after over 15 years of dark Novembers, absent minded wonderings about his happiness, lost years and milestones, and endless tears, despite all the positive spins and fantasies of his perfect existence, it was clear that it wasn’t quite the “win” situation for me. It didn’t solve anything for me, but made me a member of a lifelong club of tears with no parole.

Getting in contact with other moms, I found that I was not the lone duck either and many of us, strong, intelligent, loving, and still hurting, all kind of felt that we had been sold down the river and been separated from our children based on the demand for our perfect kids and an industry that makes money from withholding the true facts. In fact, I was one of the lucky ones, treated decently and with some kindness. Yet, we couldn’t have made a true choice because there was a lack of informed consent about what we were submitting to. Our children were not saved from abuse, or a life of lingering in foster care, they would not have been subjected to subpar parenting, and stunted souls, they were simply given to others based on misinformation and a carefully constructed spin job.

Adoption is Not a Onetime Event for ANYONE

And so the real journey of my life began, to find out more about this way of life that I had chosen for me and all my children. Countless hours, years, in front of my laptop, reading, writing, researching, digging, talking to adoptees, other moms, befriending adoptive parents and I have concluded that the act of molding myself into the perfect relinquishing mother was a dupe to us all.

My perception of not being worthy or capable to parent my first born was wrong. The stories told to my child that I could not care for him was also incorrect. His parents believe that I had willingly entrusted my child to them and went on to live a fulfilling, joyful life was also a misnomer.

Would they have taken him if they knew that I just needed a bit of confidence, someone who believe me strong and good and worthy, and without that would face a lifetime of loss? Would they have felt as superior as parenting material if they had known that his father could also have supported private education and trips to Europe? Did they have any idea that this boy, that we now all love, could have been just as happy seeing his smile reflected back to him daily and his pirate obsession understood by a heritage shared of real bootleggers and smugglers? What if they had been told that they were not better, nor even necessary, just different? What if that small baby had been given the choice?

Giving that choice, effecting so many lives, to a fear based woman without making her think the whole thing through was an error in judgment made by many. Not providing me with real facts about what the possibilities were instead of just a box of adoption myths wrapped up in a pretty bow designed to make me feel good , was downright wrong. Denying his father the right to know of his only son’s existence because I was sacred was immoral and enabling me to have the means to do so was unethical. Decisions based on exploited lies and fear is not a good foundation for anyone’s lives, no matter what the good intentions.

And so I say that now, loud and clear. Everywhere and whenever I can, on the internet, on the radio, in real life to my family, my co-workers, strangers on the street, politicians. I am loud and not afraid of being judged anymore.

The Birthmother Rules We Are Taught: Broken

I also do not, any longer, play by the rules made by an industry that played me without my real best interests at heart or sometimes I even doubt the best interests of my child. I figured out that I do have rights as a mother and I do not have to be bound and gagged by legal parameters any longer. So when my son was not yet 17, I opened Pandora’s box and started searching. I found him on my own in three days , but went thought the sanctioned agency for confidential contact to keep everyone else feeling no threatened. Old rule abiding habits are hard to break. When his parents decided that that they would not tell him that I had even inquired about his whereabouts and was interested in any information, with no end of my exile in sight, no truth given to him about the contact, no requests to please hold off until such and such a date, I did what I do best and waited while I kept on digging.

So when the day came, and a random search hit pay dirt and I had the means to contact him directly, I was not only thinking about how this would be good for him, knowing now all I did about the needs of the adoptee to have contact with their roots; but I was thinking finally about what I wanted. Denied my heart almost 18 years earlier, I was not doing it again, the pain was just too much to continue to carry, and I hit send. I sent my son the first message from me in over 17 years. My mother’s instincts were right and he was happy to hear from me, he called me mom and we rejoiced.

His parents, not so happy. I broke the rules. Lots of other people don’t like what I did, hate that I dared, hate that I am proud of it, hate that we are both OK. I am sorry that they are threatened by my actions. I understand that threat, but I am not going to back down again. I demand to be on an equal plane now. I am human just like everyone else is. I am a good person, not because the placement of my son, but in spite of it.
I consider myself a mother to all four of my children. That one of them was relinquished for adoption at birth means nothing in my heart. I am still his mother. He also happens to have another mother. That’s the way things are. Two mothers. I will share the same title with her. That’s the nature of adoption. Enter in the adoption arena with any other idea about it and you will be sorely disappointed.

I am Not The ONLY Non Peaceful Birthmother

I am not alone with believing these things either. I know a lot of great adoptive parents who understand that the legal erasure of one person’s paternal rights has little or no effect on the beatings of their heart. They are not threatened by the bond between their children and the children’s families of origin. They do not expect the natural moms to crawl under a rock and stay there cowering, being thankful for giving away their claim to motherhood and accepting whatever scraps of information are thrown their way. They, too, see the need for change in the industry, that the standards and status quo to benefit all involved in adoption. They join me in a chorus for reform of current adoption practices.

I know I pose a threat to some people’s world. I see them when they come to my blog and are very angry. Sometimes it is the adoptive parents who need to believe that they are above reproach. Sometimes it is the adoptee who sees me as wrong for acting on my beliefs. My story can rock the foundations which many people’s live rest on. If I can be at this place then what is preventing the mother of your child from coming at your child, telling the world her side of the story or threatening your joy with her sorrow. The answer is, really, nothing.

Remember, I was the perfect relinquishing mom for all the right reasons. I choose this and now I say it is wrong.

Still a Perfectly Real Birthmother

Giving my child away to other people to raise is an unthinkable act. What is most scary for me is that I did it, willingly, and then was proud of it. I have learned to forgive my younger self for my confusion and fears. I accept that I cannot change what happened to me, but I maintain my anger and outrage at an institution that still profits from telling the same lies, withholding the same information and manipulating other women much like myself.

Don’t decide I am horrible because you fear me. I am really just like everyone else. I am a mother. I want what is best for my children. I am a person. I deserve some joy. I cry, I bleed, I ache, I live. Not an Amazon, not a saint, not a sinner, nor a whore. I could be the mother of your child. Her story might be like mine. Don't dismiss me . Don’t hate me. Don’t fear me.

Remember, a decision based on fear is a bad decisions to make.

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