She last saw her son a few weeks ago at his flag-football game. He looked happy and healthy, loved and secure, which is all she ever wanted.


"I don't worry," Kate Livingston says. "He is thriving."

Proof of the boy's well-being, especially on the four or five days each year when she gets to visit, provides comfort and even joy. But it settles nothing.

For Livingston and many other birth parents, surrendering a child to an adoptive family is just the beginning. Next comes a lifelong journey burdened by silence.

"There's a growing focus on adoption - through the media, the Internet and other types of discussion, and that's great," said Betsie Norris of Adoption Network Cleveland, an education and advocacy group in northeastern Ohio. "But birth parents are the least represented in all of this. They're often invisible and, therefore, not even regarded."

Norris, a 50-year-old adoptee who found her birth parents more than 20 years ago, started one of the state's few independent support and discussion groups for birth parents. Members meet and speak freely.

Livingston is working to start a similar group in central Ohio and plans to host the first gathering this month.

"Kate's aiming at a huge need in the community," Norris said. "Birth parents feel so stifled. It's not unusual for them to come to a meeting and burst into tears just saying their name."

For the first year after her son was born in 2001, Livingston managed.

She went back to Smith College, a prestigious women's school in Northampton, Mass., far from her East Side neighborhood. Hard work, good grades and scholarships had opened doors, and Livingston intended to make the most of the opportunity.

"Then it all just hit me," said the 29-year-old, who was 19 when she became pregnant. "I fell into the world's deepest depression. I flunked out of school. I couldn't get out of bed.

"The next four years were hell."

Livingston was plagued with questions. Why had she felt so sure that she couldn't be a parent? Was she selfish, generous, right or horribly wrong?

"I started reading and writing, just reflecting on the experience," she said. "Even before I knew what it meant to love somebody with that depth, I'd lost him."

Three other relatives in her family had relinquished babies for adoption years earlier, she learned, but "there still wasn't really a permission to talk about these things. It was swept under a rug."

Livingston poured herself into an academic and cultural examination of adoption. She now is a doctoral student in women's studies at Ohio State University and feels a responsibility to help others.

Eileen McQuade, 62, said birth parents shouldn't have to struggle alone. She did for much of her life, staying "deep in the closet" until other birth mothers in a support group in Florida, where she lives, helped her cope with a decision made 44 years ago.

"There's so much grief," McQuade said. "If you don't share it, it just stays there like an ice cube in your chest."

She now is active with the American Adoption Congress, an organization that promotes reform and openness in adoptions.

"We believe that adoption isn't a one-time transaction, so we shouldn't be shutting doors forever," said McQuade, whose daughter contacted her 14 years ago. "This is about life. And life changes."

Livingston and her son's father, David Brock of Danville, Ky., are part of an open adoption. Such agreements, although not legally binding in Ohio, generally mean that the birth and adoptive parents know one another and desire some type of ongoing contact or information exchange.

The trend toward open adoptions, along with the staggering growth of Internet-assisted searches and reunions, make post-adoption resources for birth parents even more important, advocates say.

Brock said he often feels as if he has a secret identity.

"There aren't a lot of outlets to discuss it," he said. "After it's over, you're supposed to bury the experience."

Livingston and Brock - a journalist - are no longer a couple, but they remain close and visit their 9-year-old together.

Whether the boy is better off being raised by someone else "is not some empirical thing" that can be proved, Livingston said.

Instead, adoption creates shifting feelings that can weigh on birth parents forever.

Livingston hopes that sharing the experience with others who understand will lighten the load.

A new discussion and support group for birth parents of any age will meet from 2 to 4 p.m. Nov. 21 at the Bexley Public Library, 2411 E. Main St. For more information, contact Kate Livingston at ohiobirthparents@gmail.com.