' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Adoptive parents say the darnedest things. To us.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Adoptive parents say the darnedest things. To us.

How I feel today
People say the darnedest things, right?

Is it okay to be cranky about adopters who know you relinquished a child but can't seem to help themselves from saying mildly aggressive things, such as, "They (her adoptive parents) are not her adoptive parents, "they are her parents." Period.

Really? If they are not her adoptive parents, but just her parents, how come they had to "adopt" my daughter? I stand there with a mildly stunned look on my face, and think, Geeze, you sure are sensitive about being "adoptive parents," but you know, you really don't look Chinese...and your daughter does.

Feeling very irritated today about the adoptive-parent saints who say (and have said to me) the nastiest things:

From a non-parent but godparent to an adoptee [see above] and a friend to Gladney adoptive parents: "What part of your pie-chart was not selfish when you looked for your daughter?"

Not much to say about that one. But no wonder some first parents/birth parents are afraid to search for their sons and daughters.

"We took our [adopted] daughter to .... Guatemala, China, wherever, and she wasn't the least interested in the culture...." while shooting a meaningful look at me and so glad to have told me that....because you know, we NATURAL MOTHERS are just chopped liver and have no right to have feelings. Because you are trying to tell me that the relationship I had with my [adopted out] daughter, was the exception, not the rule....Implied: Our daughter would never be interested in her birth mother because we saw to that, we are such good [adoptive] parents. She never talks about being adopted....

"Excuse me, Lorraine's daughter is her BIRTH daughter." Said to a friend of mine shortly after my daughter died and said friend was talking about the funeral with my husband. I was not present. Whenever I see this woman who made the above statement, I want to ask her about her ADOPTED DAUGHTER....

"My cousin has an adopted child and he is totally not interested in...he fits right in and has never expressed any interest in finding his BIRTH parents." Bully for him. He must not be very bright because curiosity is normally seen as a sign of intelligence is what I would like to say but have never had the courage to say it to someone's face. Only in the area of adoption is curiosity seen as pathology. And you know that he feels like a part of your family that has a storied history in Revolutionary times because he's told you so? Because he has shared his deepest feelings about being adopted with you?

From an adoptive grandmother: "I don't like what you write on the blog." Cool. Don't read it.

Upon an adoptive grandfather (of a child from Siberia) learning that my daughter to whom I gave birth lived here with me and my husband several summers (and some winters) and even had a job here in my town: "You are our greatest nightmare." 

The hostess of the dinner party walked in at that moment with the dessert. That may be my favorite comment of all because that statement really indicates the power of blood and the deep understanding that adopters have of its pull.

"You are nothing but a reproductive agent." Stunned I was but it did happen. This person is friends with the above "nightmare" speaker. Kinda lets me know what they say about birth mothers when birth mothers are not within earshot.

From an adoptive mother: "Don't say, 'gave up your daughter,' it sounds like you were drowning." You know what, I was. And you know what else, I did "give up." I did not see any other solution. Make an "adoption plan?" Does a drowning man "make a plan" to swim to the life preserver, or does he just do the only thing he can to save his life? Up to that moment, I had considered her a friend, quite sensitive to all the issues. I looked at her and said: You know, I did give up. That's how Jane came to be adopted." That was the last time this woman and I had lunch.

Then, reaching back in time to 1979, "Why did you write that book?"  Meaning: why couldn't you just shut up and stay in the corner and let adoptions be adoptions...without all this commotion?

Oh, I just wrote it to screw you personally over, I'd like to say.  

"What gave you the right?" Sometimes said in bold-faced anger and indignation.

Uh, well, actually, I got the right the minute I felt I had no choice but to sign the surrender paper and let someone else raise her--actually that gave me the right, you insensitive jerk.

How about the rest of you? Had any good lines or questions thrown at you? You DON'T have to be an "out" birth mother to enjoy the slings and arrows of clods, and we hope you will all--secret first mother or out--add your own ah-hah! moments in the comments.--lorraine
 Here is that book that caused all that trouble. Looks pretty innocent, doesn't it?

Sometimes it is really wonderful and energizing to be around someone you don't have to explain anything to. They just get it.  I've just had such a day. All you folks going to Chicago to take part in the parade and lobby state legislators--good luck and good fellowship. I'm with you in spirit. 


  1. Dear Lorraine,
    I love it when I see you have written another posting to your blog. This one is one of my favorites because we have heard this classless, crassful comments from strangers and sometimes from people that you thought loved you. Then you find out their empathy and sympathy is not extended to you but given to your found child's adoptive parents. I will always remember a story Carole Anderson told me. Her family and her brother's family would share a vacation spot together. One year he invited another family to join them. He warned Carole off that the children in this family were adopted and asked that she not bring up her adoption work & issues. She told him, it would be nice if instead of talking to her to shush her, he might have spoken to the other family to let them know that adoption is very painful to his sister and he would appreciate them not mentioning that their children were adopted and not to say anything that might upset her.
    Gee, I miss that woman! Hugs, Joy

  2. Joy--thanks for that comment from Carole--yes, we need to speak up too. You taught me to say: Why are you saying that to me>>>>?

    Knock them over in Chicago-=-

  3. "You are nothing more than a brood sow." Said the prospective adoptive mother to me in an online coupon chat forum when I suggested she might want to stop calling her potential child's mother a "BM."

    "You've already done it before, it would be so easy to do it again. He'll never even remember you, anyway." Said my ex-husband when he was trying to convince me to voluntarily relinquish my parental rights to our then 8-month old son.

    "It isn't as if you are her mother or anything...well, I guess you are but you really aren't, if you know what I mean." Said a woman at church about my relinquished daughter.

    Oh God! That is so terrible!!!! I could never give away one of my children like that. I would die first!!!! Gasped a different woman at church when I foolishly disclosed to her my first-mother status.

    But you seem so normal! You have to be making this up - I simply CANNOT believe you are one of those kinds of girls. Said a college "friend."

    And the ever popular, God wanted her to be in another family. You were just the vehicle to get her where she was supposed to be. You just need to pray more to accept God's will. Only then you will stop stewing in all this adoption garbage. Said a friend I am no longer friends with.

    There are more, many more, but I am too tired tonight to write them all out.

  4. My daughter GAVE UP her daughter to her uncle, her dad's brother, and his wife. While expressing her pain and grief over losing her daughter to her grandfather, her dad and uncles's father, her grandfather told her to "put on her big girl panties and get over it"! Ther have been other hurtful things said, but this was the worst for her.

  5. Oh, Mrs. Feverfew, since I am not a church-going person, I am spared the slings and arrows of the self-righteous hypocrites. I am sure that religions that er, encourage adoption as do the Mormons are ripe repositories of the most amazing and hurtful commentary this side of heaven.

    Put on your "big girl panties?" Both first mothers and adoptees are not supposed to express their sorrow and sadness over the wonderful institution that takes a baby from one mother and sends her to another, as part of "God's plan." Boy, He doesn't plan very well.

  6. They hate us cause their jealous of our blood link to our children that they don't have and never will. We are a threat to those of them who are insecure.

    Wouldn't it be nice to reply by saying: "I am so sorry that your infertility is still such a a raw issue for you." Or, "Have you considered counseling to help you get over your fear that blood is thicker than water?"

    I have personally been far more hurt by things just like this said to me by own flesh and blood and some who claimed to be my friends - than any up-tight, insecure adoptive parent. Although I have also felt the pain of being told by my daughter adopter that her suicide was my fault, and then told by her a-brother to take down her facebook memorial page and threatened tat he would "report" it to facebook.

    The edict to not things personally can really challenging!

    My top favorite all time insult is: "Any dog can give birth!" To which i say: Yeah, but YOU can't and it really bugs the living daylights outa ya', doesn't it!?

  7. My all time favorite is one that I know has not just been said to me but to other natural moms. Said by the adoptive mom who is guilty of coercion and is extremely pissed that you have somehow entered "her child's" life.

    "What type of mother are you- you gave your child away!"

    My second favorite is "You have no rights, you signed the papers and I am her mother now".


  8. Let's try this from an adoptee's perspective.

    - From Ad. mom: "No matter what (if you ever find your bio Mother), I will ALWAYS be your mother! (Said in yelling non-supportive fashion...I can treat you as crappy as I want and you're stuck with it. Because I forked over a few grand for you dammit!)

    From birth Mom after "reunion": -That sucks to hear that your family is like that. I trusted the agency to give you a good home. (But don't come around here and don't call me, I'll call you...I got a good thing going here and you'd just f*** it all up.)

    - "You look just like your brother and sister (adopted "sister" and natural "brother")....I always hated hearing that one growing up. No matter that I looked nothing like them, but hey you try to comb over hair that's trying to curl and put us in the same outfits and smile large so your big lips don't show as much...and magic is made.

    - (Upon meeting deceased birth dad's well-off [I'm not] sister's family): Why did you contact them right away? (After all I DID search for your dad after you expressly told me not to) They probably wonder what you want from them (money).

    - (Right before the "reunion" ended): What do you want from me?! You just showed up in my life to cause me pain! (My response): Don't think you're doing me some big favor by being in my life again!

    - ...cont...You should thank your (adoptive) mom for everything she's done for you! I can't take this anymore...I need at least 6 weeks away from all this! Have a happy Thanksgiving. (2 years have now passed) (My response after she hung up on me): I can't believe you screwed me again you *****! *punched wall*

    - (Ad. mom after I told her bio Mom had rejected me): Well, you're probably better off now. And you HAVE been pushing people away. (My response): Don't start in with your s*** or I'll push you out of my life quicker than I've pushed bio Mom out.

    - And later on in reponse to another argument with ad. mom: No matter how many times my real Mother rejects me, don't you EVER in your wildest dreams, think that you'll EVER be MY MOM!

    - Response on facebook from every person I could find that is in relation to my birth Mom (to them being told that I exist): "crickets chirping"

    - Woman telling me "Oh, I'm adopted too." (My response): I'm sorry to hear that.

    - Joe

  9. Geez! Who are these complete morons?!?!?! Ack!

  10. I have got a good one. My daughter's adoptive father once said that I had enough daughters and I could not have his. Um excuse me? Did I say to you well after years of infertility and adopting my daughter you managed to have your own child so can I have mine back? I am pretty sure I did something you could not. I made your wife a "mother" and I made you a "father." I took you from a married couple to a family. All things you could not do for yourself. And guess what, you cannot replace one child with another. Yes I went on to have 2 more daughters after her, but duh they were not replacements you dullard. What the hell is wrong with your brain? Oh and guess what, she IS MY daughter. Nothing you do or say will ever change the fact that I concieved and I gave birth to her.

  11. Satan, or so they call meAugust 4, 2012 at 10:55 AM

    How about these doozies:

    "I strongly believe that god allowed the conception of this baby for _______ and I, or some other infertile couple." -What I allowed to adopt my child. Shows how brainwashed even I was at that time.

    "I don't think they understand, we have been waiting a LONG time." -My child's adopter, in response to me asking her about a previous "failed placement."

    "Your lucky he even allows you into his life at all". Said by co-worker and "friend" after I found my child and began being treated as an unwelcome intruder by he and his "family" not long after.

    "You have had such a wonderful life with so man opportunities." -My child's girlfriend, in an effort to denigrate me while uplifting his adopters; after ill communication between my son and myself.

    "but...they were good to him." -My stepmother, in response to me telling her how abhorrently his adopters treated me, you know, by shutting me out of his life when they PROMISED me they would not and their treatment of me after I found him.

    "God puts us where we are supposed to be." -My son, whom "god" apparently wanted to be with people who lied to and deceived me to obtain him. That "god"; so fair and just, isn't he? Hardly...

    "I didn't ask for it, but I do think I was chosen. This life chose me and I have accepted that" -My son

  12. After I found my daughter her adoptive father said "she has enough daughters, she can't have mine." When she told me this, I reactive angrily. I told her I was the one that made him a father, his wife could not. I was the one that made her a mother. He could not. I made them a family. They could not. The daughters I raised do not replace the one I lost and like it or not, she is my daughter.

  13. lol, I knew I would love this post the second I saw the title...

    Seconding M's comments and adding to that:

    "Your rape was a blessing as it enabled another family to have a baby" - Church person

    "It was God's will that you got pregnant and then gave your baby up" - Another sick church lady

    "Everything happens for a reason - even if it isn't one you can see or accept" - Family member

    "You are not her mother, you are just her incubator" - Church lady who was friends with adopters and someone in the hospital (could have been one of the doctors)

    "Really, you are just a surrogate. You are not her mother. Try to see yourself as a surrogate and you will find it easier to give up the baby when its born" - The church lady who set up the meeting between my daughter's adopters and me

    "She was always intended for X. You were just a vessel God used" - send in an anonymous email

    "Oh if you keep her now, she will grow up to hate you for not giving her a chance!" - Adoptee in my church who hounded me to sign mere hours after the birth and gave me a letter from her adoptress to tell me how much my child was a blessing meant for another family!

    "True love means you will sign those papers" - Again, church lady that set up meeting and the adoptee (they took turns - esp in the hospital - and they were friends with my daughter's adopters)

    "She was never your daughter, she was always mine" - My daughter's adoptress

    Plus many more over the years :) All it does is solidify the fact adoption is sick. Because there is no need for people to be so hateful, nasty, cruel and venomous if it was about love. But it isn't and all these things that those promoting it spew forth, prove the fact it is a selfish and adult centric institution.

  14. Whoa! You ladies involved in a church make me really really glad I used a secular agency! God was not part of the equation. thank god...or goddess.

  15. I've had a few tacky things said to me, a cousin years ago who said my husband was a great guy for marrying me "anyhow" when he knew I gave up a kid, and the old "I could never do that," but for the most part people, including adoptive parents in recent years, have been kind, supportive, and polite. I guess I have been lucky.

    I really can't blame adoptive parents years ago who thought it threatening that I had found a very young child, since they did not know me, and that could be a scary situation for them. Empathy is just as much needed from our side as from theirs.

    As far as other people saying that they or their child do not want to search, I do not take that as anything to do with me or my son. Nobody has told me I should not have searched. In fact, my son was not interested in searching, at least not when I showed up years too soon.I do not find those who do not wish to search less intelligent or sensitive than those who do. Just a different point of view worthy of respect.

    It is a very different thing to tell someone else what they should or should not do, and talking about your own family and their choices. As to non-searching adoptees, that is their choice and it does not hurt me or have anything to do with me.

  16. My daughter's amom told me and my whole family that God definitely had a hand in this adoption. Her reasoning? Well, NINE MONTHS TO THE DAY that they were approved to adopt, they started praying to St. Theresa (idk why...maybe another Catholic might know?) asking her to bless them with a daughter. BAM!! My daughter was basically conceived on or around that day...undoubtedly by Divine intervention! lol (Oh, and they used "Therese" as daughter's middle name!) Add to that it was repeatedly thrown in my face that SHE (amom) was the REAL mom, and that was repeated to my daughter whenever the opportunity presented itself. But you know what? Despite being brain-washed by her afamily and troubles in my relationship with her (daughter), she still referred to me as her Mom too. There were way more underhanded insults through the years by amom, but I've tried to block them as much as possible. Sigh...

  17. Here you go Amy, St. Therese of Liseux, the Little Flower:

    It was my confirmation name (which I never use, what was I thinking)? I think that I picked it because I had a pretty picture of her the nuns gave me in nursery school. Nothing here to say that St. Therese was in charge of illegitimate conceptions and the manufacture of adoptees, but you never know!:-)

    That is some story the adoptive mother told you. Since poor Therese was already a nun at 15 and died a virgin at 24 of TB and her one true love was J. C. I really doubt she went around making sure you got pregnant. I really can't stand those "adoption is God's will" ideas.

  18. ["Your rape was a blessing as it enabled another family to have a baby" - Church person]

    Forget adoption aspect. My god, the feminists would have a field day about the rape suggestion.

  19. After my surrendered daughter Rebecca found me, her adoptive mother was upset that we continued to have a relationship.

    As the A-mother learned more about me from Rebecca, the A-mother became convinced I was up to no good. She asked Rebecca repeatedly "what's Jane's agenda?" and suggested that most likely my motive in continuing the relationship was to convert Rebecca to feminism, something Rebecca's Mormon A-mother abhorred.

    It apparently never occurred to the A-mother that love might be a motivating factor.

  20. My adult child's adoptive mother told me that it was more by luck than judgement that she too hadn't ended up as a "girl who went away", which I thought was kind of cute.

    I have had a couple of bracing FTF arguments with adoptive mothers about open records, but even though they didn't agree with my POV and it clearly upset them, at least they didn't insult me. Sanctimonious bigots who insult first mothers are beneath contempt.

  21. Lorraine,
    I'm so sorry for the awful things that have been said to you. As an adoptee (40 years old) I've had plenty of ignorant, awful things said to me -- about me and my [natural/real] Mom. Even from my adopters, sometimes... mostly a-mom (the one seemingly most threatened by my "other" parents).

    Here're a couple of my 'faves' (as in, the ones that stuck in my brain):
    "You shouldn't talk to your mother that way. Without her you wouldn't be here. Show some respect." ~video store employee commenting on an argument (I was a teenager and wanted to rent more videos than a-mom would agree to... typical teenage stuff.) My response: "Actually, I would. She has nothing to do with my being here."
    I was not trying to 'hurt' a-mom per se but I hate it when people butt in with their $.02, uninvited.

    "Do you think she would have had an abortion if she could?"
    ~Another kid at school. I was 8 and he was older. I didn't know what "abortion" was. In hindsight, I'm amused by my adopters' discomfort explaining it to me. I was confused by the comment but I could feel that he was trying to insult me.

    "You should be on your knees in gratitude every day for the wonderful home and family you were lucky enough to get."
    ~Person at church
    Ugh! I wanted to ask (but didn't) should I be on my knees in gratitude to "god" or "them" <--adopters. Either way, ICK! BLECH! Yikes!

    Take care,

  22. Thank you Maryanne! I don't know why they prayed to that particular Saint, but apparently it had some kind of meaning since they chose "Therese" as my daughter's middle name. Her first name is a derivative of her amom's name. The agency said to use family names for an adopted child as a means of "claiming" them. **choke choke vomit**

  23. I'm saying this as someone outside the adoption circle.
    And I don't care what anyone thinks. These kind of remarks,
    that adoptive parents make are creepy! The only
    question I have, is if they had not been infertile,
    would they be making these kind of comments?

    I have been studying some psychology. And I do
    believe that their infertility, has been causing them
    to have some sort of mental illness. They believe
    that the world owes them a child, will believe
    that some strangers child is theirs whom they
    have no biological connection to.

    I held my nieces and nephews when they were babies
    and not once did I ever, get the urge to claim them
    as my own. Anybody who does, is in badly need of
    mental help. I would also start recommending psychiatrist,
    keep a close eye on these people.
    Because they also
    seem to be those type of people you here in stories,
    about couples who kidnap pregnant women, take her baby
    and murder her. That's who they remind me of.

    And no, I don't think that all adoptive parents
    are like that. But I see way to many are.

    I am so sorry they said that to you about rape.
    Let's just say they better be grateful I wasn't
    there, cause I would have really chewed them out!

  24. This afternoon I was thinking more about praying for a child, and how that began nine months to the day they were approved to adopt. Let's analyze how that could work: people pray to virginal St. Teresa for a baby; she looks around and says, hey, I'll make a girl "sin" (and a mortal sin at that!) and she'll get pregnant and she'll have to give the baby to those nice Catholics praying to me. Sounds like a plan...hmmm, what unwilling young woman should I urge to have sex tonight? Oh, there she is....

  25. Sorry to be obscure. FTF (or F2F) is an internet acronym usually understood as "in person", or "face to face".

  26. I got this comment from my sister after calling her to express how upset I was after being uninvited to my daughter-in-law's baby shower because a-mom threw a fit and refused to come if I was there; "after all that woman has done for you,Elizabeth, I think you should leave her alone. Poor woman!"

  27. Moonstar,

    My ad. mom says to this day that she doesn't consider me adopted. She is 62 now and if there's a show on tv anyway related to giving birth, she watches it. I never saw her watch Mtv before 16 and Pregnant came on. Obsessive much? As far as psychiatry, I would love for an analysis to be made of the whole adopted family I was forced to join. Now that would be good tv.

    - Joe

  28. Mei Ling - yes, I can imagine.

    Moonstar, thank you. The worse thing was, at the time, I believed them. I thought God was punishing me and that was why I had been raped. Of course I know this is preposterous and I was raped because a person chose to ignore me when I was actively telling him no. Sadly I have had worse. A little while back there was a blog post or comment from an adopter who said God basically enabled her to adopt by causing the mother to die. I swear I have never heard such horrible sentiments in my life. Who rejoices in a mother's death so they can have her baby? I wish these comments were only a handful but they seem to be the majority - empathy is not something that appears to exist in adoption.

    To all the other mothers and adoptees, I am so very sorry you have been abused by the words of others. Its wrong.

  29. Ha ha Lorraine! I broke it down like you did as well. St. Theresa, "Ok, let me find a 15 and 16 year old to deliver this child, who will look JUST LIKE THEM (meaning bdad and I) who need to have their world rocked and live in pain and heartbreak for the rest of their lives so that J and CA can have the daughter they've always wanted." Sounds logical to me! NOT. Do they (aparents) not understand how selfish that sounds?! Or how "entitled"? I will never understand that way of thinking...never.

    And Elizabeth, I think when people who are supposed to love us and support US show loyalty towards the aparents, particularly ones who have caused us pain, it's like a double edged knife in the heart. Look at what the amom has done for you, huh? Ridiculous!

  30. I've had some very abusive comments from other birth mothers and adoptees too. I've also eperienced kindness and empathy (as well as ignorance and cruelty) from adoptive parents.

    Not sure if it's productive to focus on the negative.

  31. Amy wrote:"Add to that it was repeatedly thrown in my face that SHE (amom) was the REAL mom, and that was repeated to my daughter whenever the opportunity presented itself."

    IMHO, this does not bode well for a good long-term relationship for your daughter with her adoptive mother. If the a-mother does not let her daughter express her feelings about being adopted and who she does and does not consider famiy then she (the a-mother) is most likely very controlling in other aspects of her daughter's life, too.

    Jane wrote:"It apparently never occurred to the A-mother that love might be a motivating factor."

    And the fact that Rebecca actually IS your daughter, too.

  32. Amom told me many times, "Don't forget, she GAVE you away. I didn't do anything wrong. If I hadn't gotten you you just would have gone to the next person on the list." And the classic, "You don't have another mother, I AM YOU ONLY MOTHER". Oh boy. I knew she was lying, but I was too powerless to object.

  33. K: Sometimes it really helps to air the things that people have said that make us feel bad and find that we are not alone in getting this kind of abuse from the world. Would you have suggested to African-Americans that they should not "focus" on the abuse and just shut up and hold it in because some white people had been kind to them? Without the bad stuff aired, and the abusers called to task, nothing will change, just as nothing changed until the blacks stood up for their rights and said, enough is enough. What you have been doing is WRONG AND WE ARE HERE FOR CHANGE.

    Natural/birth/first mothers have been silenced way too long. I hope that this post will give first mothers (even myself) more courage to say something back when someone says something offensive to us. Our day has come. It is time to be silent no more.

  34. And thanks to all the adoptees weighing in here too, If course I was aware when I wrote the post that adoptees hear horrendous things (she could have aborted you, consider yourself lucky, your parents are GREAT, why are you causing such a fuss about that woman?) but I really had to get my irritation with a neighbor off my chest.

    The religious comments from the good Christians are beyond belief and Myst, I wish you weren't on the other side of the world so I could give you a big hug.

  35. "You ruined my life" - my daughter....

    "You were NEVER her mother. If you contact MY daughter again I will kill you and your family" - my daughters adoptress

    "I wish you were dead, then I wouldn't have to look at you" - my daughter

    "You made a choice. You should have lived on the streets" - my brother

    "No adoptee is hurt by adoption" - woman in the airport defending her friends adoption of no less than 7 Chinese children - all girls.

    It is a never ending hate fest.

  36. Thank god I don't believe in religion.

  37. Another example of how we're not listened to: When daughter turned 18 and graduated from high school, I had enough of holding my feelings in for all those years. (Amom said she thought we ought to go public with how positive our adoption story had been...Oprah maybe?...uh, no way!) I had pretended for all that time that all WAS ok, and I was coping just fine! (had to hide or they might have decided I was too unstable to see or speak to bdaughter) So, along with the help of my psychologist, I wrote aparents a 4 page typed letter letting them know how hard and heart-breaking it had been for me and my family all those years. I told her why I held it in, and exactly what losing my daughter had done to our lives (bfather and our other kids included). I even paused several times to express my gratitude for allowing us to know/have a relationship with our daughter through the years. It was very much from MY perspective. My therapist and I made sure that it was in no way attacking of the aparents or their position (again sparing THEIR feelings)...it was seriously ALL ABOUT ME (for once!) Amother never even acknowledged getting it, until I asked about it weeks later. She said she didn't want to respond because SHE was hurt, felt I had lied all those years, and didn't want to make her response "all about her." HUH?? I poured my heart and soul into that letter, FINALLY releasing the pent up hurt and pain collected through the years, and I get NOTHING. Well, that basically ruined my relationship with amom. Even though we discussed her receiving it and her feelings about it, we never discussed it's contents, nor was an apology offered for my pain, or the letter being ignored, nothing. STILL no acknowledgement! I'm no longer looking for it. I never should have expected it. I know my place and it's been reinforced by amom's lack of response to that letter...I mean NOTHING...my feelings mean NOTHING. I don't count. Okay, got it, thanks again :( (this still hurts 8 years later)

  38. Despicable comments made by ignorant people.

    I can't understand it but being in the losing part of adoption where moms and adoptees lose a real live person I can't understand the hatred.

    Adoption is inhumane and cruel to far to many

  39. I have had all the typical ignorant statements thrown my way. A nurse came into my hospital room, asked me what was wrong (I was bonding with my baby), took him from me abruptly and told me it was time for him to go back to the nursery. As she wheeled him out of my room, she told me that, "you will be back here again in no time." I was 17. I did not see my son again for two decades, and I never conceived another child. Sorry to disappoint you and the adoption machine, dear nurse.

    My son's adoptive mother confided in me that she had a conversatino with the adoption agent about my future children. Amom was disappointed to find out that the agent did not believe I would relinquish again. Amom wanted siblings for my child (raised by her, of course).

    I have begun to believe that adoption causes mental illnesses, not only to mothers and adoptees, but also to adoptive parents. The heartlessness, self-entitlement and lack of empathy that they often exhibit is out of sync with the wonderful loving person that they believe themselves to be. I often think, as I read adoptive parent forums and blogs that these people would fit right in to Nazi Germany. I'm sure many of those "good citizens" saw nothing wrong with what they were doing either, throwing the less fortunate under the bus and profiting off of their losses.

    If you want my opinion of you to drop like a stone, tell me that you are an adoptive parent that participated in infant adoption. It is the rare aparent that is able to regain my respect.

    On the religious front, whatever happened to "thou shall not covet"? or "thou shall not steal"? I guess only certain Commandments need to be followed by prospective adoptive parents.


    Prejudice, pure and simple. Yet the same mothers are so upset when others learn that they surrendered a child and that person's opinion "drops like a stone" because of that one aspect of their lives.

    Is collecting and brooding over perceived insults really helping anybody?

  41. Anonymous, probably adoptive parent, see my answer above.

    Yes, it helps to know that we are not alone and maybe...if you have ever made a thoughtless comment that hurt somebody, you will remember this blog and hold your tongue.

    ALSO: This is Firstmotherforum.com

  42. Per Mirah's "any dog can give birth" that she's heard people say, I just thought of a GREAT comeback when you know it's an infertile person saying it. "Well, I guess you must have been spayed then." Woof!

  43. Mei Ling: I would hope it doesn't take being a feminist to be outraged about rape. I don't even bother yelling about it anymore or I'd never shut up. It happens too often and is excused off too frequently.

    Bothers me a lot to hear a woman in particular (though it's not great to hear a guy do this either) speaking of "the feminists" in third person as if they are an entirely separate entity. You vote, don't you? Thank a feminist.

    More generally: As to the notion that adopters or first mothers saying something hurtful is anything like an adopter or an adoption apologist saying it, yeah, good luck convincing me of that. I have been treated hatefully by first mothers and adoptees too. I don't see it as the same thing. Speaking from a place of hurt is VERY different than speaking from a place of threatened privilege. They are not even in the same solar system. Sorry.

    We NEED to "dwell on the negative." God knows nobody else is, or else we would not have this to complain about anymore. Which would just about make my whole life, actually.

    You don't cure someone's case of bubonic plague by saying, "Well, at least you have pretty eyes!" You dwell on the fact that person's got plague and you GIVE THEM SOME FREAKING ANTIBIOTICS.

    Why is this so difficult to grasp?

  44. "perceived" insults? Anon?

    Surely you jest.

    How about these possible "perceived" insults that we might perceive of saying to people who adopt:

    Anybody ever ask you how much you paid for your son/daughter?

    Couldn't get pregnant? It must be God's plan.

    Has your son ever wanted to look for his real mother?

    How does it feel to be raising someone else's child? Do you wonder who her real mother is?

    My god, he looks just like you and he's not even related....

    How do you think African-Americans ever got it together to stop the institutionalized prejudice?

    They got mad.

  45. anonymous adoptor or adoptress:

    infertility is an earned disease, in most cases. unless a woman has poly cystic ovaries, she has most probably become infertile via PID, with an infectious agent of either gonorrhea or chlamydia.

    or she may have endo. fortunately, endo can be suppressed long enough for the woman to have children.

    one of my dearest friends developed endo in her teens. by her late twenties, she was so full of adhesions and implants that she had to have emergency surgery. her colon became completely obstructed from implants on the outside of her bowel that would cycle with her periods. she suffered for months and months until someone finally diagnosed her... ME.

    she and i were nurses at the same institution. i saw her going through this, month after month. all her tests were coming back clean, yet month after month, she would wind up hospitalized overnight, dehydrated and on ivs, with symptoms of a bowel obstruction. i reasoned it out, and told our chief of staff my suspicions. she was hospitalized at our institution in one of our icus at the time.

    she went to surgery a little more than an hour after i spoke with him.

    it was so bad that after surgery, she had to have a colostomy bag for a while.

    and here is my point:
    even she went on to have two beautiful children.
    endometriosis is not what it used to be, even ten years ago. great strides have been made in controlling the disease, and in preserving fertility.

    on the other hand, pelvic inflammatory disease is not as forgiving. every year in the united states, there 750,000 new cases of PID due to gonorrhea or chlamydia. of these, 10 - 15 % will become infertile.
    so, every year, there are between 75,00- 100,000 new cases of infertility due to sexually transmitted disease, in the united states.

    know this. i have an opinion, as a nurse. when i hear that a woman has adopted, as a nurse, my personal thought is that she either has pco or has had pid. if she doesn't have the characteristic morphotype associated with pco, i think it's pid. i think that her tubes and her womb are scarred closed from infection. and, i think that she earned her disease. these are my personal thoughts: my opinion.

    btw, the more you sleep around, the greater your chances of developing pid. so, i further think she probably was promiscuous and practiced unsafe sex, or was in a rotten relationship with someone who did. going off that, i would question the quality of her marriage...if it's stable, and healthy.

    so, when all you adoptors start projecting your personal ugliness and dirtiness all over women who ARE fertile, i think that chances are good that you earned your infertility, and/or are in an unstable marriage where there is cheating and recklessness going on.

    and when i see you projecting your guilt onto a women with less personal power than you, who is at a bad place in her life, i think your mental hygiene may need some work, as well. when you equate a mother to a BM, and imply that she is a filthy animal, i think the problem actually is that you are unable unable to deal with your own history and your own filthy thoughts. that is my opinion.

    i would also point out that this woman who you consider to be you personal baby factory only has less personal power than you AT THE MOMENT. in most cases, it doesn't stay that way.

    and you fear that as well.

    so, in the final analysis, i conclude that:


    i am attaching the center for disease control's PID fact sheet for everyone's perusal.


  46. Right after my surrendered daughter Rebecca and I reunited, I was talking to an older friend whose son and his wife had adopted a baby two years earlier. When I told her about Rebecca contacting me, she said "Oh, what a horrible girl. How could she do that to you!"

  47. How's this one?

    The second time I saw my son after we met again was at a gig he played. A friend of amom's (one of many there) said to amom after having obviously snubbing me and refusing to shake my offered hand after we were introduced, "You have got to CUT THE UMBILICAL CORD and let him [my son] . . . blah, blah, blah . . . " At least the other friends and family only stared at me and acted afraid to catch what I had.


  48. Here are a few comments I’ve had to endure as an adoptee found by my siblings in 1974 when I was 18. My adoptive parents never wanted me to know that I had full blood siblings and a father living just 6 miles away. I was raised an only child.

    In 1982, this was said to me as I was going into the funeral parlor to say prayers just before my adoptive father’s funeral. I was 24 and my adoptive cousin was 25; we grew up together: “Me and your other cousins decided that we don’t want you here. You OPENLY declare that you have two fathers, so that means you don’t love this father anymore.”

    From 20 years of anonymous hate mail sent to me from the same person, with no return address, writing on little slips of paper inside a white envelope: “I know why your father gave you away – because you are a rotten person.” AND ” You don’t deserve to live because of what you’ve done” AND “Your father didn’t want you” AND “Look what you are doing to your mother?” AND “Your father got rid of you because he didn’t love you.” … The writer was finally identified when, a few years after I moved in with my adoptive mother with my children in 1993 when I was seeking a divorce. The writer sent a card to my adoptive mother. I recognized the handwriting, saw that it was one of my adoptive uncles, and took over 30 anonymous letters to the police. He was arrested in 1996. We went to court. I could have sent him to jail but his lawyer begged me to have mercy on a 75 year old man. Reluctantly, I did not send him to jail. I was granted an Order of Protection for either 6 months or a year. When it was lifted, Uncle John came over to the house, made pug noises at me, and did the same thing to me at the funeral of his sister.

    When I was on the radio with adoptee and author Katrina Maxtone-Graham who wrote “An Adopted Woman” (1983) and we were speaking on adoptees’ rights to their true birth certificates and their rights to search for and reunite with their natural parents, an irate adoptee called in and said, “You people make me sick! Any dog can give birth! My REAL parents are the ones who raised me! How dare you insult my parents by doing what you’re doing!” That adoptee was drinking the cool-aid.

    I could go on to list more, but I need a break. These memories are making me sick. All this hate directed toward me and all I did was answer a phone call when my sister called me to reunite our family separated for 18 years when I was given up for adoption after our mother died.

    Good Catholics, all of them.

  49. These are just heart-breaking comments, Nancie and legitimate bastard, and everyone who has posted here.

    I do know that my daughter told me that when she started visiting me during her high school years, several of her acquaintances at school said things like, You're going to visit that woman? I wouldn't have anything to do with her." But then, they weren't adopted.

    And her adoptive mother, after telling acquaintances at work--she was a nurse--that I was coming to their home for the weekend, they expressed incredulity. But then, they didn't have a daughter with epilepsy who was adopted and who desperately needed a shot of self-confidence. Despite our differences as the years passed, she treated me a million times better than what I am reading here.

    What is coming out here is amazing. Despite the urging of St. Catharine's K that we not mention these things.

  50. Kidnap, blaming women for pid and calling them promiscuous is like telling first moms they deserved giving up their children.


  51. Lorraine, back with more disturbing comments.

    One year after being found by siblings I never knew, at age 19, I began writing Letters to the Editor of our local newspaper. When home on a break from college, I brought 3 Letters to the Editor that I wrote in the small city in which I attended college. So, by age 19, I had written 4 small pieces about adoptees’ right to know. My parents and I went to visit my (adoptive) mother’s sister, my aunt. She had read the local newspaper article, and I showed her the other three. After she read them, she said, “I think your mother would rather you write about something else.”

    Around this same time, I visited a social worker who had knowledge of my year-old reunion. Keep in mind this was 1975. When I showed her my writings, she said, “I think your words are rather caustic”.

    Little did she know that I would continue to write Letters to the Editor, and paid articles, and be the subject of written interviews, and be on the radio and TV, and speak at the Lincoln Memorial, and present at adoption conferences, right up to the present day.

    Why are adoptees’ voices seen by others as being “caustic”?

    No, I am not grateful for being adopted. Yet, that is what everyone says. I visited an old neighbor in a nursing home a few years ago. She said, “But your parents took you in? You mean to say that you aren’t grateful they did so? But they gave you a good home!”

    My answer, “I don’t think being raised an only child for 18 years, then learning that the parents I loved and trusted, were liars. They deliberately kept my siblings from me. And, I already had a home and a family. I didn't need a new one.”

    Then the old lady said, “But they couldn’t tell you! How were they supposed to tell you when your adoption was secret? They did this for your own good”.

    I said it’s child abuse.

    Then, there are strangers who make terrible comments about “So you’ve had a reunion with your biological mother! How nice! But you know, she doesn’t deserve your attention, she gave you up, and your adoptive parents did so much for you…”

    This was said AFTER I had just said that I had a reunion with my siblings and my father. So I had to explain that, no, my mother was not “an unwed mother”, she was married for 10 years and had four other older children, gave birth to me, and died three months later.
    “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that! But why would you want to have anything to do with your father? He gave you away! A man like that --- how could you want him in your life?”

    What did my natural father and siblings think of my writings?

    “Stop living in the past! It’s over and done with so you don’t need to be concentrating on adoption so much. Do something else. Adoption is your thing, it’s not ours.”

  52. And then there were the boyfriends.

    When I was 21 in 1977, my boyfriend introduced me to his parents. When I shook his father’s hand, he said, “So, Joe tells me you are adopted. I can tell you right now that you are not fit to marry my son. You come from bad blood. We don’t want any of that in our family. After all, you’ll turn out to be just like your mother! Birds of a feather flock together.”

    Really now? I had been dating his son for two years in college. We were talking about getting married. If I was going to turn out to be something he didn’t want his son to marry, then what did he think of his son?

    Again, not only was the stigma of illegitimacy there, the message that was heard was “you’re adopted” and then the assumption was that I was illegitimate. The truth of my conception and birth and reunion did not matter. What mattered was the assumption that I was tainted and inferior to someone who was born to married parents. People kept missing the part in my story in which I said my parents were married and was born legitimately.

    And that makes me feel as though I am offending my adoptee comrades when I point this out. I also feel I am insulting my friends who are mothers (and fathers) who lost their children to adoption.

    Another boyfriend, now this was in 2006, he was 59 and I was 48, upon learning that I was adopted, he said, “No one has two sets of parents! That’s ridiculous! And you say your father gave you away? No real man would do such a thing!”

    A few weeks later, he said, “What’s a 14 year old doing, getting herself pregnant!”

    A few weeks after that, he said, “What do you mean you are against sperm donation? I know two couples who used donor sperm to have their kids. The REAL parents are the ones who raise the kid!”

    This is what he said to me when he broke up with me: “Why can’t you be a scientist? You write about families. I write about science. How many adoptees are there anyway? 2% of the population? That’s not enough to worry about! I don’t understand your life and I never will!”

    Shall I tell you that this man was lead engineer of a team of 16 who designed engines for rockets that keep satellites in orbit? Oh, the Mars project that’s landing today, you guessed it, he was in on the rocket engine designs as the project began ten years ago. So, even a man with a PhD in physics cannot understand adoption.

  53. These are a few of the comments said to me over the past decades from social workers and my observations:

    * “You’re going to an adoption conference? Adoption records are sealed! You can’t have them!” 1980

    - A scolding from a staff social worker in a group home. The adoption conference was for my understanding of myself, not for work. However, I had been working as a youth aide and had recently gained the trust of a 16-year-old boy. He robbed a woman after he found out the father who raised him was not his father named on his birth certificate. Social Work focuses on the criminal act itself and behavior modification. The underlying problem—deception by parents—is not addressed, nor is it being corrected.

    * “Infertility clinics destroy all records on sperm donors within five years.” 1985

    - Statement made by a social worker employed at an infertility clinic in Buffalo. She said that destroying records protects the sperm donor and recipient parents. The needs of the donor-conceived are ignored. Not only are they cut off from any normal relationships with their father and his relatives, but donor-conceived people are intentionally denied knowledge of medical family history.

    * “You suffer from genealogical bewilderment. This is just a human-interest story.” 1990

    - Said to me by a long-time friend after he read the short-story autobiography I wrote. This friend happened to be the Dean of Social Work of a predominant university. The article he dismissed was published six months later in a British Social Work Journal and one year after that in a Dutch anthology of adoption articles. Even a Dean can parrot back textbook terminology without having true awareness of the complex problems created by adoption.

    * “After you get your birthmother to talk with you, never, ever, ever talk about the father! Talk about the pool, the house in the suburbs, the education you can provide, but never talk about your baby’s father!” 1993

    - What a private adoption attorney said at her workshop, “Advertising to Adopt.” She now works at an open-adoption agency with social workers who don’t bat an eyelash when they sell the idea of adoption to vulnerable pregnant girls and women by talking them into giving their babies over to un-enforceable, non-binding, open-adoptions with sealed and falsified birth records. To clinch the deal—to get the baby—the women in authority (social workers and this attorney) must appear to be trustworthy. They must be persuasive. A pregnant woman is not the pre-adoptive parents’ birthmother, nor is she pregnant with the pre-adoptive parents’ baby. She is pregnant with her own baby. A pregnant woman does not become a birthmother until her baby is given up for adoption.

  54. legitimatebastardAugust 6, 2012 at 1:00 AM

    * Observation on Social Work Textbooks, 1995-1999:

    There was not one single paragraph on adoptees, or parents who lose their children to adoption, in any social work textbook used for the Bachelor program that I completed. Several pages were devoted to infertility clinics and adoption agencies for services provided to infertile people and adopting parents. The effects of poverty, mental health issues, cultural differences, interpersonal relationships, how to be a front line social worker or a program developer were main topics of study.

    - What was overlooked was the point that poverty, lack of choices, and lack of support leads parents to either choosing relinquishment on their own because this is what they have heard in society, or they were coerced into relinquishing their children to adoption. (Coercion of poverty-stricken and frightened pregnant women to give up their babies still goes on today). Coursework stressed the ‘needs’ of pre-adoptive parents, the ‘needs’ of the infertile, and the ‘needs’ of non-infertile people who want a child without the hassle of including the other genetic parent in the life of the child. The needs of the donor-conceived, traditional adoptees, and natural parents have been conveniently overlooked by the helping professions of Social Work, Psychiatry, and Psychology. There is also the unspoken problem created by the infertility industry that encourages payment for gametes—selling gametes is tantamount to selling children. Giving away gametes without thinking of the consequences for the offspring created is tantamount to child abandonment.

    More comments in social work school:

    * “You want to deprive me of my self-determination. If I want an anonymous sperm donor so that I can have a baby, that’s my choice!” 1997

    - What a social work student said to me in class when I pointed out the rights of the donor-conceived to self-determination are violated by anonymous gamete donation.

    * “The children were removed due to abuse and their parents’ rights will be terminated. The children will be freed for adoption, the sooner, the better.” 1997

    - Freeing children fills quotas for adoption agencies without acknowledging the detrimental effects of separation trauma on parents and their children.

    * “This is a very thoughtful and sophisticated paper. It is well researched and well written. You have a great deal of knowledge about this. Your paper was interesting and thought provoking and opens up new awareness for social work intervention.” 1997

    - Professor’s notes on my paper, The Individual’s Right to Procreate vs. The Unexplored Long-Term Consequences of Reproductive Technologies. Interventive Methods I, 1997

    Though the professor’s comments were encouraging, I’m afraid not much has changed.

  55. Reading my hospital records 20+ years after the birth of my child and seeing that the nurse wrote down, "patient returned from the nursery window weeping, but did not verbalize." I went looking for my baby and no one - not even the "helping sort" ie nurses - would ask if I needed help???? Floors me. (1980-something).

    My son's adoptive mother to me, "I could never tell him that you loved him." And in the next breath, "We could have found you any time, it would have been easy." (Why tell me this?)

    My son's adoptive mother to me, "I still think it was better that he was raised with us, rather than you." Wow, she and I had met for a whole 2-3 hours and she'd already judged my entire life to be beneath what my son deserved. (Why tell me this?)

    Plenty more, but I will say this, I don't intend to meet "that woman" EVER again. Adoption instills the very worst in people, and I for one, will do everything I can to ban its existence.

    To the anon who wrote, "Brooding over insults?" Signed, Damn straight.

  56. Can't have the truth coming out now can we? Its hilarious! When adopters 'dwell' on the negatives (like the whinging about how much it costs to buy another woman's baby, whinging about the first family, whinging about the child being this, that or the other) and lash out at the other parties, they get empathy and understanding but when mothers and adoptees bring to light the realities of adoption, we get told to get back in our boxes and shut up.

    "Perceived" insults... hmmm, I wonder if the anon was raped, fell pregnant and was told to see my rape as a blessing from God how she would "perceive" that. But, oh of course, being raped would be my fault somehow for being a woman...

    I am so tired of people telling us to keep quiet, to not "dwell" (there is a difference to brooding about something and never doing anything about to talking about it, bringing light to the truth and being active about that) on what was done to us. I think we should just yell even louder.

  57. "A birth mother cares nothing for her baby, that's why the baby was given up." (Person at work talking in general about adoption.)

    Hmm, what happened to the loving choice of adoption?

    "Catelynn and Tyler seem obsessed with their baby." (Same person at work discussing Teen Mom).

    I'm of the opinion that it is normal to be obsessed with one's own baby.

    "It's ok that your baby was adopted, you could have done something horrible instead." (From a friend who just learned of my reunion).

    Not sure what the "horrible" was in reference to - abortion, leaving the baby in a dumpster/nunnery/forest?

    "Do you like him?" (Asked by same friend after returning from my first in person meeting).

    Can't say I've ever thought to ask someone if they like their kids.

    "Open adoption is just a scheme for the birth mother to get off the hook and have fun playing favorite aunt while the adoptive parents do all the work." (Frequent comment on articles about open adoption).

    I think most mothers would prefer to be doing the work of child rearing if their situation was better.

    "Everything happens for a reason." (General consensus of pretty much everyone on the planet).

    Which leads me to believe that it is completely wrong.

  58. sorry, kat. PID can be prevented. and it can be treated. just because someone made a trainwreck out of her life with poor choices does not mean that she has a right to expect someone else to come along and clean up her mess by giving her their child.

    and, yes, promiscuity does increase your chances of contracting disease. read the fact sheet. here, i'll read it to you:


    would you like a little more?


    does that sound like a stable, happily married couple to you? you know, the two parent, better home?

    quite honestly, i think that people who want to adopt should be able to pass way more than a home study. i think they need to have a complete physical exam to make sure they are physically able to parent. more importantly that that, i think they should have a psychological examinations to make sure they aren't likely to abuse, neglect, beat, or kill the babies that are entrusted to them.

    when i read reports from adopted persons who speak candidly about their upbringings, i wonder how it is that we have not made demands like this before now.

  59. Oh, my personal favorite:

    "Do you know who the father is?" (Asked by a slightly inebriated friend of my son).

    Yes, I do know who the father is since I am not in the habit of banging every man and his brother.

  60. "I do know that my daughter told me that when she started visiting me during her high school years, several of her acquaintances at school said things like, You're going to visit that woman? I wouldn't have anything to do with her. But then they weren't adopted."

    It's amazing what some people will say. Not just adoptive parents. Even some biological mothers say the darnedest things to, or about, their daughters.

    Some gems from mine: "I don't understand why (husband's name) wants to marry a slut like you", and many years later "I don't understand why (same husband) stays with a slut like you", "This will destroy your father's reputation", "You're hopeless. You'll never make anything of yourself". This one was said to me when I was going through a period of unemployment, "What a pity you haven't done anything with your life. If you had my qualifications you could find a job anywhere in the world".
    Here's an odd one, "I never thought of you as a girl". When I asked her what she thought of me as, she said she didn't know, but definitely not a girl. She also told two friends of mine that I would never leave the family home or marry. Lots more where that came from, but I don't want to bore.

    I have also been told by a woman who had no adoption related stuff in her family, that I should have run away, as her 18 year old daughter did in the mid seventies, the differences being (I discovered because I made sure to ask) that,
    1) her daughter wasn't pregnant,
    2) her daughter left a note saying that she was leaving with friends for a city where she already had contacts and an apartment where she could stay,
    3) her daughter had money and finally, her daughter phoned home when she arrived to let them know where she was and that she was safe.
    4) She also returned to home six months later because she'd decided to go to college.
    So she never "ran away" at all, just left without telling them beforehand she was going.
    Sometimes people make the lamest comparisons, or think they understand when they clearly don't.

  61. "everything happens for a reason"

    "it's god's will"

    the recent shootings in tucson, chardon, aurora and oak creek happened for reasons, too.

    problem is, dismissing those real reasons as beyond our control - the nra lobby, mental illness, drug usage, hate groups, stochastic terrorism - won't make those massacres right. it certainly won't make them stop.

    it is supremely unreasonable to expect that people should just passively sit back on their haunches and wait to be the next victims of a terminally toxic mix of circumstances.

    this is the same message as it's always been. sit down, shut up, take your medicine, stop whining, know your place, you can't fight city hall, the beatings will continue until morale improves, etc.

  62. Yes, kidnap STDs and PID *can* be treated and/or prevented, just like pregnancies can be prevented... but that still doesn't mean unwanted pregnancies don't happen.

  63. rather than hide behind the anon label, why don't you give us a handle? chicken? bwackbwackbwackie!

    the comparison between pointing out that women are responsible for their own infertility in a lot of cases, and that women are responsible for surrendering their children for adoption, is invalid.

    BLAT! you flunk that question. that is like comparing apples to space shuttles. they are not the same thing at all. disease and pregnancy are biological processes, adoption and space shutttles are both the result of non-biological, technical processes.

    a valid comparison would be to point out that certain women are responsible for choosing behaviour that leads to pid and infertility, and certain other women are responsible for chooing behaviour that leads to pregnancy and birth. both are biological conditions that can be prevented and treated. THAT is a sound comparison.

    and, if you have read this thread with any attention whatsoever...whatsoever!... you will see that certain women are blamed constantly and viciously for their pregnancies.

    SO, it's completely fair to point out that certain other women are responsible for their own infertility.

    the difference is, while pregnant women are blamed in terms you'd hear in a bar, or a gutter, or prison, i am using statistics compiled and published by the united states government to make my point.

    perhaps want me to stoop to your level and start hurling invective? roll around in the mud and wrestle with the likes of you? is that what you are asking?

    i gave that up years ago.

  64. Just a little balance on all the glee about infertility and STDs
    (haha, adoptive moms are sluts too!): daughter of a friend caught an STD from her first high school boyfriend, is now going through infertility issues and in vitro (her egg, husband's sperm) which has not succeeded and she has been through emotional and physical hell. She was not a "slut" any more than most of us who gave up a child. I have not heard that they are considering adoption.

    Young women have always been sexual, sometimes with various difficult consequences. Neither the infertile nor those who got pregnant and surrendered should be to be disparaged as sluts who don't deserve children because of their sexual activity when they were young.

  65. Wow, kidnap, I forgot to sign - Kat. Forgive me! I'm the same person that responded to you earlier. I'm an adoptee in reunion with my dad.

    What I'm trying to convey to you is that (I feel) your blaming women for infertility is similar to how women were blamed for getting pregnant back in the BSE.

    I do read this blog often and I do know that women were/are blamed. And I think its horrible and wrong. And I think what you are doing in blaming and passing judgement on women for their infertility is horrible and wrong!!!

    And, btw, lets take a look at who's more likely to get PID. *Young* women... women who may not be aware of the problems STDs may have on them long term.

    STATISTICS from the CDC:



  66. I'm really sorry for the abusive comments that some natural mothers and adoptees have gotten from some APs. I'm an AP and I would be very happy if my son could find his first/natural mom, if he wants to. I won't search for him now since he's only 8 years old, but if he wanted to search in the future, I would certainly give him any help I could. How could I hate his natural mother? Our/her son is smart, handsome, friendly, and just an amzaing kid to be around. Of course many of those traits are from his first/natural parents. I just hope that if A. wants to find his natural mom, that she won't reject him. When I hear about some natural moms rejecting the children they gave up for adoption, I just dread that A. could be hurt that way too.

  67. kat, i am stating the facts. the facts.

    blaming women for getting pregnant back in the first wave, and blaming women for infertility via pid, is an apples to apples comparison.

    if infertile adoptors are grown up enough girls to characterize mothers in the crude language of a roughneck in an oil field, call them dogs, brood sows, BMs, and birthsluts, and what ever else filth their minds can produce, then they are big enough girls to look at a few government statistics.

    and yes, younger women do then to get pid more easily because of the imaturity of their vaginal walls, and their cervix of their cervix.

    younger women also tend to get pregnant more easily because they have more viable eggs than an older woman.

    your point?

    should i reiterate mine?

    if adoptors are going to label women with barnyard terms and blame them for their conditions, well...turn around is fair play. fair is fair. level playing field, and all that.

    as i pointed out in an earlier post, while they speak of us in terms that would make a drunken sailor on leave in singapore blush, we speak of them in clinical terms. so, it still isn't a level playing field. if i wanted to play on a really level playing field, a really level one, i would post things like this:

    "if a women fucked like a filthy pig and became an infected whore in her drunken youth, got her tubes permanently stuck shut with pus, shit, and blood, and now can't get pregnant...she only has herself to blame."

    that would be fair. that would be the equivalent of what has been said to and about us.

    are people here posting such crude remarks about adoptors? no, they are not.

    yes, women were blamed for getting pregnant during the first wave. women were blamed during the second wave. and women are still being blamed today. that song and dance hasn't changed. it will never change. it's part of the narrative structure the industry uses. it works because misogyny has been around since mankind started herding sheep and growing their own food. that is a fact.

    it's not going to stop anytime soon. what i am suggesting to everyone here, is that they fight fire with fire. nicely. use the stats, but ask some substantive questions. that is the theme of lorraine's original post, after all.

    now, you think it's horrible to label and emotionally abuse women, and so do i.

    can you imagine how we feel? most of us have been spoken to this way for decades.

    don't you think it's pretty admirable that we have the grace to joke about it?

  68. Anonymous @ 8/5/12 @ 3:18 PM quoted me and said...

    Anonymous then responded and said …

    Sure Anon, I don’t care for or respect anyone who participate in a multi-billion dollar for profit industry specifically for the purpose of separating a child from its mother so they can “build their family” and be a parent. I also don’t care for or respect adoption agencies and adoption attorneys either. My “prejudice” is based on knowledge of what you are willing to overlook in order to satisfy your selfishness.
    Would you have complained if I had expressed the prejudice that the rest of society blindly parrots, that you are a “saint”? That is a positive prejudice built on ignorance, but I don’t hear adopters complaining about that.

  69. I have never understood this insistence that a person can only have one set of parents. As if having more than one mom or dad will cause the world to implode? Case in point:

    Person: "What do you mean you have two moms or two dads?"

    Me: "I was raised by my aunt and uncle from the age of 3 and I call them mom and dad too!"

    Then the conversation goes one of two ways...

    Person: "But which ones raised/gave birth to you? THOSE people are your REAL parents!"

    In my dealings with my stepdaughter, I have people tell me all the time that they can't wait for her to come home from foster care and that I will be such a great mother to her. Yet the way they say it excludes anyone else from being her mother at the same time. As much damage that kiddo's natural mother has done to all of us, I would never want to erase her from kiddo's existence. It's not my place and whatever contact she wants with her natural mother and foster mother will be totally up to her.

  70. kidnap,

    Yes, I see your point about leveling the playing field. And yes, I do admire your ability to find humor in things. I think I was taking you too seriously.

    I am the mother of two children, and as I said before, I am an adoptee. I cannot even imagine the pain of losing a child to adoption. I know my own f/b father had no say in giving me up and did not want to give me up.

    I guess Anon August 6, 2012 3:07 PM captured what I was trying to say better:


  71. yes, kat.

    and when they stop, i will too.

    they have been saying these things for decades. they are not going to stop saying them. those slurs are their honest thoughts about women who give children up. underneath the smiley smiles, this is what is.

    every woman who is thinking about adoption needs to understand that not only are they potentially opening themselves up to a lifetime of pain, they are also inviting a lifetime of personal slurs.

    this is important.

  72. Anonymous Adoptive Mother: Often the trail goes cold with time in adoption. If you are willing to share knowledge of his birth with your son--must be a closed adoption?--then search now rather than later. Give your son the information sooner rather than later. Whether you contact the woman is a personal decision, but because I believe everyone has a right to know who and where he came from--I wouldn't wait until your son is 18 or 25. The information of birth is something that both parties should have--the only reason your son does not know who his mother is has to do with his mental capacity at birth. But it is his undeniable right to have that information, and to know who his mother is. I know I am suggesting a bold choice, but this is likely to have the most positive psychological effect in the long run. Good luck!

    Incidentally, your comment about not knowing who the mother is substantiates my point in the current blog, When adoptive parents meet the birth mother, that spouted the lie that most domestic adoptions are open. Ha!

  73. Hi Lorraine,
    I'm the anonymous Amom who mentioned searching. I've been on the fence about this because I know families with children adopted from China generally search while the children are young since there are NO records kept about the first parents and they usually need to hire a private detective before the trail goes cold. But I've also heard from many adoptees (both domestic and international) who are pretty adamant that the decision to search should be theirs alone because it's not the aparent's family, it's the adoptee's family. If any adoptees reading this comment would like to give their opinions, I would be really grateful.

  74. Anon AP: (Please make that your moniker, or something else. Just select "name" when you post a comment and insert your "name.")

    If you adopted in the last eight years in a closed adoption, which you did, you have an obligation to correct that error--and that's what it is, an error--that for your son in as far as you are able. If you had the opportunity to adopt a blind boy or one who had sight, and you could choose whether that boy would be blind or not, which would you choose? Which would you feel obligated to choose, without question?

    By entering into a closed adoption in this day and age, you already made a choice for your son that stripped him of his original identity, and left him--missing that identity--without all the tools to be a psychologically fit individual without any missing pieces.

    Your son is eight; he is not an adult. If you can find his mother now, you can keep the information for him and let him know it is available; it should be his choice whether to use it. I know of several cases where the adoptive parents did the search for the birth mother and it turned out well for the individual.

    NO ONE SHOULD BE ADOPTING TODAY IN A CLOSED ADOPTION. FOR THE SAKE OF THE ADOPTEE ALONE, CLOSED ADOPTIONS SHOULD BE OUTLAWED. The information of birth is shared knowledge between two parties, and should never be abrogated.

  75. Had my daughter's substitute parents made an effort to find me (it was not that difficult), I would have felt like they cared about the connection between me and my daughter.

  76. Anon AP here: It is difficult to find the natural mom because the agency won't give out any identifying information until the adoptee is no longer a minor. The agency will also not initiate contact with the mother if she was single at the time of the adoption because in their society (Korea), single motherhood is considered a huge disgrace. At this point, I think I'll just keep sending mail to A.'s file at the agency and hope that his natural mother wants to find him. Korean natural mothers usually want closed adoptions and keep their relinquished children a secret from their families and future husband and any additional children they may have.

  77. Anon wrote:"Korean natural mothers usually want closed adoptions and keep their relinquished children a secret from their families and future husband and any additional children they may have."

    Sounds like Korean women are experiencing their own BSE right now. Just wait until the shit hits the fan in 20 or 30 years from now when many of these women come forward saying they never wanted to give their children up in the first place. Only they are going to find that their children are half way around the world and speak a different language. What a f$@king nightmare.

  78. Anon AP again (and then I'm just going to shut up): ironically, many Korean natural mothers don't want their children adopted in Korea because of the huge stigma adoptees in Korea face. Of course, the real solution to Korea's "single mother problem" is for the government to enact and enforce anti-discrimination laws, child support laws, and to give single moms financial aid to help them raise their own children. (Korean ADOPTIVE parents receive a much larger monthly stipend than single moms because they are considered to be doing something noble by "raising somebody else's children). Domestic adoptions in Korea seem to have peaked in 2008 and have been falling since. The Korean government wants to end international adoption to "save face," NOT because it cares about the children. And really, unless Korean citizens favor better support for single mothers who want to raise their children, it doesn't seem like much will change very soon. The only way that I have found to help at all is to support a relatively new organization that gives expectant and new moms a place to stay, job training, classes in taking care of babies, etc. It is not in any way affiliated with an adoption agency and really encourages women to keep their babies. Unfortunately, the need for such help exceeds the capacity of this organization to supply it.

  79. Thanks, Anon AP, for commenting here and your thoughts. The situation in Korea regarding single mothers is like the 50s and 60s and early 70s in the good old USA.

    And for any who might be interested, what is the name or link of the Korean org. to help single mothers?


  80. Lorraine, one organization that helps Korean single mothers is KUMSN, founded by American adoptive parent, Dr. Richard Boas.

    I am surprised you need to ask.

  81. Betty:

    Can't know everything and keep writing on several fronts. Thanks.

  82. The new, more recently formed organization is the Korean Unwed Mothers Families’ Association, explained on this Korean-American adoptee's blog here:

  83. I highly doubt that Korean women want to give their babies up any more than American women wanted to in the 50s, 60s and 70s. But everyone thought they did. Oh yes, they were making such a free choice. Millions of women really wanted to be locked away in maternity homes and relinquish their children never to be heard from again. Right!

    Maybe we could extend some international goodwill by bringing light to the devastation that was caused by the American BSE. When Korean women gain their voice and get out from under patriarchy (which I'm assuming is the reason for their BSE) they are going to be mighty angry at this legalized kidnapping they are currently experiencing. And all countries need to stop punishing children who are born out of wedlock by denything them the right to know and to be raised by their REAL families.

    The whole premise that if a child is born out of wedlock, s/he should be given to strangers is a crock of shit. Although I guess saying "it's the culture, women WANT to give their children to complete strangers in closed adoptions, there's nothing we can do about it" certainly behooves prospective adoptive parents.

  84. Robin, You mention the anger that will parallel the anger here regarding the social pressures to give up our babies; it's anger yes, but it is so tinged with sorrow and shame that deflects the power to push back. That dynamic is why we don't have more birth mothers at the barricades fighting to open those records--not only for adoptees but for themselves, to find out what happened to their children. Taken to its end result, that shame, sorrow and illogial promise of anonymity is why so many women from that era are even unwilling to meet their lost children. Thus the cycle of sadness that we have today.

  85. Thank you, Lorraine, for that further understanding. What you wrote makes perfect sense. Adoption...the gift that keeps on damaging.

  86. I am new to this blog. I am a mother and a first mother. I hate the term birth mother but my sons adopted parents always refer to me as his birthmom. I gave my son up for adoption when i was 18. It was a closed adoption but I did spend time with the people who adopted my son. I looked for my son and found him when he was 20. I contacted him. We connected (of course we did - because we always were). We bonded immediately. He has called me mom from day 1. We are going strong for 2 years now and only recently have I started having some real issues with some of the things that the "adopted" mom has said. Just recently they went on vacation and my son had admitted himself into a rehab so he wasnt able to go. I went to visit him and his adopted mother texted me asking how he was doing. I wrote back and let her know that he was doing great. She responded by telling me she was struggling as she was on the plane. Looking at his empty seat. Then proceeded to tell me that she was tired of the losses. (as this has happened before where he didnt or wasnt able to attend a family vacation due to an on-going addiction) Anyway, when she stated that she was tired of the losses - it just hit me...stabbed me...infuriated me. I have never been so angry at a statement before. I could NOT believe it. Im so glad it was a text because there is no way I would have been able to contain myself had we been speaking. I didnt answer her for quite some time. i couldnt. i wanted to say soooo many things - but first and foremost i wanted to scream YOU??? are tired of the losses?!?!?!?!?!? YOU??? are struggling because you have an empty seat on your family vacation?????? YOU????? YOU - have no idea what its like to look at an empty seat and feel LOSSSSS!!!!!! All i can say is it is a very very good thing that we were soo far away from each other and I had a good week or so to get a grip on my fury!!! I know that she didnt intentionally say it to upset me - she feels comfortable with me and was only sharing her feelings -- but i took major offense to this statement.

  87. It really amazes me at all the hate on these posts.
    I am an adoptive mother by accident. My childrens
    Bio mother begged me to take him after the state
    Removed him from her. He was the fourth of her
    Kids to be removed by the state. I feel i am his real
    Mother. I am the one to do the day to day stuff and
    I would give my life for this child. He is my world. When
    We first got him we thought it was temporary but slowly
    Started realizing that she wasnt going to get him back after
    Pretty much doing nothing on her case plan. I am not
    The least bit jealous nor do i feel inferior to her. I am saddend that she wasnt responsible enough to get her shit together. In no way has she ever mothered him. Getting pregnant and giving birth doesnt make you a mom. Biology is the least of what makes you a mother. But i will say this, i have the deepest respect for a woman who realizes she cannot provide what is best for the child at that time. My sons bio mother really did give me the greatest gift of my life and i love her for that. I do not agree with her self centered behavior when she could have gotten him back but i do know when ahe signed the surrender papers for him i cried. But not for me. I cant imagine what she was going through and i know she loves him and in my opinion, at that very moment, she proved it. I do not believe in ever speaking ill of his bm and i dont let anyone else do it either. We are all faced with hard choices in life and we do what we think is best. She hates me now and tells people i stole her child but im pretty sure its just her regret talking. So all you bm please be sensitive to the other side. I am the mother he knows i kiss his boo boos and i love him too. I have every right to say im his real mother because im really doing the mothering.

  88. Adoptive Mom of 2:

    Perhpas you would understnad our position on adoption better if you read our page: What We Think About Adoption.

    Many mothers of origin live lives of deep pain that they never get over, and when you make a statement like this, it does seem as if you have no empathy for mothers in a different position than the from whom you acquired at least one of your children:
    Biology is the least of what makes you a mother.

    Many of the women here gave up their children under extreme duress. We do understand the difference between our motherhood and yours; you ask for understanding, but your statement certainly waffles on yours of our side of the equation. But understand this, we, the writers of this blog, do not hate adoptive mothers.

    and now, COMMENTS CLOSED.

  89. I am definately not refering to the writers of this blog but to some of the posters. I do not really empathize with my sons mother because she did have a choice but i do with the mothers who had to give their children up due to unfortunate circumstances. I cant imagine what they must feel. But some of these bm's just seem hateful. I feel a though my sons mother and i did each other a favor. How can one harbor so much hate towards someone who stepped up to do something they couldnt do? They should be appreciative. I know not all circumtances are the same but we should unite as mothers, birth and adoptive, to do what is in the childs best interest. And i didnt mean that bm's are not mothers by that commnt i just mean that adoptive mothers are just as much the mother of the child and some are truely not fit to be parents. Anyone can get pregnant. That does not make them a fit parent

  90. I did say COMMENTS CLOSED, BUT I assumed Adoptive Mother of 2 wanted to be posted?

    Thanks for clarifying. Please understand, even the mothers who are the most angry understand that the Mom who does the work is indeed a mother; it is just that many of our readers have had such terrible experiences with relinquishing, or the adoptive parents who promised open adoption and then closed it, or have read the awful things said about first mothers on adoptive mother blogs, or there has been a much hoped for reunion but they were rejected (there is a lot of lingering pain (some would say, PTSD) to go around in adoption to both natural biological mothers and adoptees) and FMF is a safe place for them to Vent, as I say in our tag line. And this post was about the terrible things have have been said to mothers who relinquished their children, starting with what was said to me by a "friend." Who is still a friend.

    See you around campus....

    Again, let's shut down this discussion here. This blog as you know is from August. We hope you will peek in now and then and see what's under discussion currently.

  91. Adoptivemomof2, I was not given a choice nor were most of us. that word is thrown around a lot, but we did not chose adoption. It was made for us by our parents, society, etc. Who is to say we could not parent our children? I actually was forced by my mother to place my SECOND born for adoption. Which means I was parenting a child and parented her and her subsequent siblings successfully to adulthood, which many women who have been forced to relinquish a child have also done. More emphasis needs to be on supporting pregnant mothers in crisis instead of the cruel act of separating mother and child. I don't believe adoption should be outlawed. I do believe it should be rare. Pregnant mothers in crisis need to be asked "what do you need to parent your child?" To say we should be appreciative is insane and so insulting. I should appreciate the person who raised my daughter. No thank you. They made out like bandits. My daughter and I were the ones to suffer the lifelong trauma caused by our separation. Just because you adopted children does not make you a fit parent either.

  92. Okay, I give up. if you folks want to chat here, I'll keep posting.

  93. The reason birthmothers are angry (I don't consider them hateful) is that like Lynda Musselman, many mothers were lied to, coerced, or manipulated into giving up their children. This occurs because there is a great demand for infants. So, yes, those who are willing to pay big bucks for infants are in large part responsible for mothers losing their children just as those who buy ivory are responsible for the slaughter of elephants.

    The US has an obscenely high infant adoption rate because so much money can be made arranging adoptions. In countries like Australia where adoptions are handled by the government, there are virtually no infant adoptions.

    While you are helping out a mother who could not raise her child, many adoptive parents are raising children who would flourish in their own homes.

  94. This, Adoptive Momof2 ws left as a whole different post today but I thought I would post it here so that you can see what Jane and I are talking about first hand:

    Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "After adoption first/birth mothers are supposed to...":

    I'm glad to have come across this post. I have never been able to talk about my experience losing my child to adoption, and it's taken its toll. It's only been 11 years, and sometimes I feel so detached and numb to it that I don't even know how long it's been. I am often very angry and sad over it, and do not share my experience with others. When I have shared, I get such a range of responses - I've been told that what I did was "brave" and I brush this off, because it doesn't feel brave. I've also been told that what I did was selfish. I hate all the responses I receive. It doesn't matter what others think because I still carry so much shame with this memory. I would never wish this experience on anyone - I hate when people tell women to just give up a baby. It's traumatic and heartbreaking and the pain remains long long after. I am pretty sure every decision I've made since then is to distance myself from feeling that kind of pain ever again.

  95. Lorraine, i cant say that i understand what this person is going through but i do empathize with her. Lynda, im not saying that everyone who gives their child up is an unfit parent. What i meant by not able to parent is that there are several circumstances that make someone the person who isnt parenting. I didnt pay any money for my children and i didnt do a private adoption. She had three years to get her son back and decided to sign her rights away on her own. I have also taken in a teenager so i wasnt on the hunt for an infant. Im sorry you were forced into giving up your child but maybe your anger should not be placed on the adoptive parents but more on the one forcing you to give the child away. In my experience working with dfcs for the last several years is that too many of these mothers are all too anxious to give their child up and get on with their life. Not saying that everyone or even most feel this way. I agree,adoption should be rare but in our society today people just dont put that much into parenting. And you are right. Adopting a child does not make me a fit parent. The parenting classes, home visits, background checks, having a stranger look into every detail of my life, going through my drawers, cabinets and closets, certifications and too many other preprations to name before the child could even come to my home... That is what makes me a fit parent. Not to mention the experience of actually raising the child. Being pregnant does not make someone an all knowing parent. I was watched under a microscope before i could become a parent. If people had tongo through that before they could get pregnant there would be alot less adoptions because there would be alot less pregnancies. Both sides are self righteous because we believe in what we are doing but i do believe a child should know where they come from. If they dont have roots they can never have wings.

  96. Adoptivemomof2 I am not angry at my daughter's substitute parents. I was angry when he said that I could not have "his daughter" because I had 3 of my own. I did rant to my daughter about that saying I thought I deserved a little more respect since it was me that made him a father and me who made his wife a mother and me who made them a family and despite what he thinks she is MY DAUGHTER and there is nothing he can do to change that.

    I did not have home visits, parenting classes, etc. I do have children who are successful in their lives, who are married, one is a parent and went to college, one who is a microbiology major working toward a masters. Being under a microscope does not make you a fit parent. Sometimes you can do your best as a parent and children still make bad choices. Some of who they turn out to be is in their DNA. You will see.

  97. First off, I want to say that it was nice to be able to have a good chuckle in regards to some of the earlier posts, none of the horrid insults directed at first moms are in anyway funny, but the collective ludicrousity was overwhelming and it was nice to be able to laugh for a change despite the sad reason we are all gathered here.

    So here are some good ones coming from my daughter's aparents:

    -YOU are NOT her mother, JANE is! (My daughter was only a couple weeks old at this point, still very much felt I was her mother, after all I had just carried her for nine mos. and had only just given birth, my breasts where still leaking for god sakes!)

    -If it weren't for us, you would be a single mother on welfare, what about this is so difficult for you?

    -You did not give us this baby,GOD did! (I am later told by my daughter that the afather who made this statement is an ATHEIST!! LOL, but he is a lawyer after all..

    -We will MAKE her understand! (When I asked how my daughter might feel later on about them closing the "open" adoption) I wonder how that is working out for them..?

    -Your son is NOT her brother, our (adopted)son is! (My son and daughter have the same mother and father, I should know, I birthed both of them, I'm pretty sure that would make them siblings, would it not!?!)

    -50% of all open adoptions close. (Another justification from lawyer adad)

    -please don't bring your camera to visits, we want her to have pictures of HER family, not two families, Thank you.-amom

    -I state "she's so beautiful!" amom's response: she has baby acne.

    These are just a few, my daughter is now 15, and the BS just keeps coming..there has been countless other comments from other "well meaning" people who know nothing..."I'm sure she's better off", "But they must be good people" "You need to move on" and other such bull that I am sure all of you have had to endure. She's MY CHILD, and they used "open" adoption to steal her from me! How the fuck am I supposed to move on? Would someone say that to anyone else who had a child stolen from them? Ah, but I digress, I'm just a throw away baby maker, what do I know?

    Oh and I'm using my real name.

    1. Oh, Tera, many moons later--thanks and thanks for using your real name.
      Me too!

  98. Also, this is supposed to be a safe place for first mom's to express their feelings, thoughts and opinions. It is not a place where we should have to fend off further shit hurled at us from adoptive parents and the like. Not a first mom? Lacking in empathy and understanding? GTFO, and post on your own sites. Thank you.

  99. Thanks Tera,

    We couldn't have said it better.

    I hope when your daughter turns 18, she figures out what jerks her adopters are and comes home to you and her father.

  100. Chiming in here as an adoptee who has a wonderful relationship with her adoptive mother...

    Adoptivemomof2: You need to wake up. WAKE UP!! I absolutely love and respect my adoptive mother, but I would be gutted if she spoke of my first mother the way you are speaking of first mothers. Why? My first mother makes up HALF of who I am. She gave me life. She carried me for 9 months and half of my DNA comes from her. Never, under any circumstances, should an adoptive mother speak down to or less of a first mother. EVER. You are hurting your child when you do.

    The thing is, my adoptive mother would never speak of my first mother the way you are speaking of first mothers. I am in reunion with my first mother, and my adoptive mother has the highest regard for the woman who gave me life. Those two are close friends and talk on the phone even now that I'm 30 and out of the house.

    In further defense of first mothers, all of those "adoption qualifications" you listed don't make you a "fit parent". People can pass all of the legal red tape and not be a fit parent. Parenting is more than passing tests. I know that because I am a parent now. Parenting requires knowing your child and raising him or her to the best of your abilities. No home visit can truly gauge your ability to do that. Part of knowing your adopted child requires you to acknowledge that your child is biologically different than you... and biologically related to the woman who gave him life. More importantly...

    Knock it off with the gratitude talk. All of this, "first mothers should be appreciative," is sickening. It's the same kind of BS adoptees are fed by society saying we should be grateful and never have a desire to know our genetic heritage. Thankfully, my adoptive parents are wiser and recognize the importance of my biological families (yes, plural, I'm in reunion with my first father's family, too).

    You're not a saint. If you were, you wouldn't be rubbing your holier-than-thou status in everyone's face. Reading the way you speak of first mothers set my blood boiling. I would defy you to speak of my first mother that way to me or to my adoptive mother. My usually kind and gracious adoptive mother would probably give you a sound lecture before words ever left my mouth.

    1. Michele: thanks for adding your comment. I was on Facebook today on a site supposedly about "Infertility and Adoption." Well, they sure did not want to hear any negativity. Some of them "hate" firstmotherforum. Way too negative. About adoption. In one post when I was feeling my oats--maybe it's even this one--I came out and said we were real mothers. Ye gods, blasphemy.
      Both mothers--biological and adoptive--are real. Just in different ways. But I am a mother too. Period.



