2009 May » The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

You Can Dress It Up But It Is Still Sleazy

Adoption, in General, Agency Lies, Ethics in Adoption 9 Responses »

May 062009

It’s been awhile since I called out any particular agency on this blog; not since I was all but solicited when I was pregnant with my youngest son. I’ve been kind of out of the loop as to what is going on agency wise as I had been focusing, pretty much solely, on my own healing and the immediate needs of our family. As such, what I came across today likely wouldn’t have been as shocking to me two years ago when I was deep in the mire of dealing with atrocities like it on a daily basis. But with the time off, I all but lost my lunch as I stepped through the disgusting muck of unethical, disrespectful deceptive lies and lies of omission being fed by a new site.

I first happened upon AdoptionFirst on twitter. You know, since I all but live there anymore. Their last public tweet at the time advertised to potential adoptive parents that there were three babies available and to visit their blog. I figured it would be something like the icky child listing mentioned on other blogs a few months ago but I clicked anyway. It is similar and worse all in the same stroke of the keyboard. Instead of advertising the newborn babies, we’re advertising their “birth mothers” by things like weight, height, nationality, eye color and hair color. You know, in case we’re really trying to shoot for that blonde haired, blue eyed baby… which is what they flash past the eyes of everyone on their even ickier website.

I really shouldn’t have clicked onto their website. I had red flags going off in my own head. I knew better. But I did it anyway. I almost cried. It goes against everything I have hoped for, prayed for and fought for since joining the battle for adoption reform. It starts with this:

Get Red Carpet Treatment with Adoptions First

What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s this:

* Round trip airfare from anywhere in the US to Los Angeles, California
* Airport pickup and transfer to your NEW HOME
* Tour of Greater Los Angeles: Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Malibu Beaches
* Housing, Medical, Legal, Shopping and other expenses

And more! That’s all part of their “Birth Mother Package.” No, really, that’s what they call it. And so I shouldn’t have been surprised to see how they describe open adoption on their website.

It is your choice to decide how open of an adoption you are comfortable with. You can choose the family and may also request yearly pictures, and you may also ask us for guidance during the selection process.

While some mothers may choose this path, the point is that this “law center” is not actively telling expectant mothers considering placement that they have the right to request a fully open adoption with visits. Neither our agency. We didn’t know that open adoptions like ours (and Dawn’s) were allowed to exist. We were told letters and pictures. Only. And that’s a semi-open adoption at best. Neglecting to tell mothers their full realm of choices is lying to them by omission. How are these mothers supposed to make a fully informed decision if they don’t have all of the information? Furthermore, with no mention of the fact that open adoptions are not legally binding in all states on their website, I have no reason to believe that they’d be telling a mother that once they had her locked inside their doors.

It gets scarier, of course.

After you give birth, it is our responsibility to make sure that the adoption process is complete and the baby is successfully placed with the loving family of your choice.

Read that again. There’s no mention that the mother has every right in the world to take that child home with her. They simply say, in different words, “We’ll do everything in our power to make sure that the child you give birth to is successfully placed for adoption.” They might as well say, “So we get paid” at the end of the sentence. There’s no concern about the length of time that a mother has before she is even legally allowed to sign the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) or even a mention of how that time is a minimum amount and that she can take as long as she needs to make the decision she feels is best for both herself and her child. There’s no mention of anything regarding the time she has to revoke her decision. They’re fully focused on placing that child come hell or high water.

Sadly, they really push the “adoption is wonderful” card at the end.

In the end, you get to be able to go on with your life, on your terms, feeling at peace with the choices you made, playing a vital part in the miracle of adoption.

Because being a means to an end in the beautiful miracle of adoption will automatically erase any issues of grief and loss. You won’t miss your child if you have that knowledge, right? You won’t be upset if this agency stomped all over your rights. You won’t feel cheated or wronged when you find out that you have a right to your own legal representation. You won’t feel lied to when you find out that you could have had an adoption that involved visits. You won’t feel deceived when the adoptive family closes the adoption without warning or reason. You will just feel happy because you got to be involved!

I get so discouraged when I find agencies and sites like these. I keep thinking that we, as an adoption world, have made progress. Have we? Have we really taken any steps forward? I mean, logically, I know that we have. I know that there are agencies out there who are actively interested in ethical adoption. I know that there are families out there who are honestly seeking to do the right thing by their child, by themselves and by their child’s adoptive families. I know that there are adoptees out there that are gaining access to their birth certificates and helping others fight the same fight by bringing aboard birth parents and adoptive parents alike. I know that things are happening. I know that we’re making slow progress but progress all the same. But when a site like this shows up on my radar, I take it as a personal assault.

What can I be doing more of to make a bigger difference? What am I “not” doing that could make the difference if I was doing it? Who do I need to talk to? Where do I need to go? And when, oh when, will the changes really start to be evident across the board. When will the whole of society be able to look at a site like that and say, “What the heck?”

When will we see mothers being respected? When will we see adoptive families being counseled about how to handle the difficulties of open adoption without being told, “Well, just close it”? When will be able to see the children honored by honoring both sets of their parents, adoptive and birth, by making sure they are all treated with the most respect possible?

When will I get to stop writing these posts?

I Held it Together… Until Now

Motherhood 2 Responses »

May 052009

I had played it off like it doesn’t matter. I stated a disinterest. I talked about how I wasn’t participating and, darn it, it is just a stupid Hallmark holiday anyway. And then I read a poorly written poem and my walls came crashing down.

I still hate it. Mother’s Day, that is.

The day makes me so angry. It should be a day of celebrating but it never really will be. You see, since my three living children don’t share a birthday, I can grieve on the Munchkin’s birthday and not feel guilt. Well, that’s not 100% true because when I am in attendance at her parties, I feel guilt that I’m grieving because I should be rejoicing that I am one of the lucky, blessed few to get to be in the same room with my relinquished daughter as she grows a year older. But when I’m feeling that grief, I’m not short-changing my parented sons.

On Mother’s Day, when I’m left with grief for the daughter I placed for adoption or the daughter that we lost to miscarriage, I am short-changing the two boys that crawl all over me. The older one who puts on a super hero cape, firefighter boots and runs around the living room. The one who told me the other day that he does not, in fact, have a uterus in his belly. He just has food. The younger one who stands up and sits down and stands up and sits down on my lap and yells, “SIT!” over and over… which sounds funny as it is toddler speak and makes me giggle. The one who gives open mouth kisses any time he walks past me. The two boys who hug each other after they fight over a toy. The two boys who call each other friend. The two boys who smile at each other each morning like the sun sets on the other’s heads.

I should be rejoicing on Mother’s Day to be their everyday, awesome Mama.

But I do that every other day of the year. I love being their Mom and anyone who spends more than five minutes with me knows that fact. And that, in essence, is what I hate about Mother’s Day. The whole concept of only honoring mothers, in all of their many forms, one day per year. What about the other night when I stood by my youngest’s cribside and just rubbed his back as he was whimpering in his sleep due to teething pain? What about a few days ago when I held my oldest son in my arms and told him that it was okay to miss his daddy and yes, it was okay to cry? What about when I scattered roses on our local lake for the daughter I would never see, never hold, never hear? What about that first time I placed my oldest child into the arms of another mother… and what about every time I let her go again after a visit? And every single second in between?

I have been a mother since I saw the line on that pregnancy test in that badly tiled bathroom in 2003. I went into Mama Bear mode quite quickly and did everything in my power to protect that child. I was of failing health and I still made decisions with her best interest in mind, not even my own. And people want to tell me that doesn’t count? That was just a trial run? It was nothing?

In the end, I know that I am in charge of the definition of my own motherhood. And I am okay with that 364 days per year. Mother’s Day, however, trips me up. I can’t get around the fact that they don’t make a card for me and my strange motherhood. I can’t figure out how to celebrate and grieve and honor every part of my motherhood at the same time. I can’t figure out how to properly channel these emotions and put them to their best use. I can’t enjoy a day that refuses to acknowledge so many of my sisters… not just birth mothers but every single one of these mothers that is in a situation in which society doesn’t want to honor their mothering, their motherhood.

And so, the tears fall even though I swore that I would ignore the hoopla this year. I’ve been ignoring tweets on Mother’s Day. I’ve been ignoring gift guides. I’ve been ignoring it all. And it’s all smacked me in the face and reminded me that some people in this world view me as “less than” because I get pregnant easily and because I made choices along the way. And to that I say: my children, all of them, have something amazing in me. I may not be perfect. I may not have all the answers. But I have a heart so full of love and compassion. I have an amazing gift in my children and I’ll be damned if someone tells me that I’m not good enough simply because of x, y or z.

And maybe that’s the attitude I need to work on this year…