Birth Mothers June 28, 2008

For awhile now I have been reading this blog. I find it interesting. I don’t quite remember how I stumbled on to it. But I did, and I am glad I did. It has opened my eyes to a different persons journey, which I always love to follow. What people go through, and experience and how that shapes and molds them into who they are is fascinating to me. Call it nosy, but I love to know the real people inside of us (does that make sense?), not the happy face we put forward to people. This is what I love about this blog (I’ve also just today stumbled upon another blog of similar topic that I am loving reading, here). She doesn’t mince words, she tells exactly how she feels and see things. And she does it with grace and intelligence. I find that beautiful.

For those of you who know me, you are probably wondering why in the world I am reading blogs about adoption when I have never been adopted, nor given my children up for adoption, nor adopted any children (although we may someday). I don’t know. I stumbled upon the blogs and started reading…I was hooked.

The thing that saddens me is the harassment these women face because they are First Mothers/Birth Mothers. (For those of you who don’t know what that means…those are terms referring to women who made the very difficult decision to relinquish their child). I don’t understand why anyone would attack these women or try to belittle their feelings. We should be supporting and loving these women for they had to do the hardest thing any Mother could do.

And yes they are Mother’s. The moment those two pink lines showed up on the test…they became Mother’s. I know it happened to me and I can’t imagine they did not feel the same way. In fact, I didn’t even need a test to tell me what I already knew…life was growing in me! How exciting….but scary. I can only imagine that the fear I felt would be nothing compared to a woman who was faced with a surprise pregnancy (both of mine were planned). What a courageous woman to go through those nine long months of pregnancy, through the hard work of labor and birth and then give her baby to someone else. Maybe she gave her baby away because she was young and scared and had no support, maybe she was poor. Whatever the reason it had to be a strong one– giving up your child, your own flesh and blood, is not a decision that is made lightly. It is a decision filled with the deepest kind of love and protection. That’s what Mother’s do, they protect and love their children.

Many of the naysayers claim that the moment the Birth Mother gives up her child she is no longer a Mother and should not be allowed to have a relationship with that child. What a bunch of baloney. These women love their children, and they can never stop. They didn’t just throw them away like some old dishrag. They lovingly gave them, what they thought at the time, was the best they could. And isn’t that precisely what Mother’s do?

I don’t understand the animosity towards these women. They relinquished their children because they felt they had to (hmm…maybe we should fix that problem. Supporting Mother’s who are faced with surprise pregnancies, and giving them the tools to care for those children, rather than pressuring them into adoption. What a crazy idea!). A Mother never stops loving her child. I don’t understand why they should be faulted for wanting/longing for a relationship with their child, or told that because they relinquished their child that they shouldn’t love them anymore.

But what about the child? Won’t he/she be confused? I don’t think so. Children are smart, and they understand much more than we give them credit for. And don’t adopted children want to know their birth parents? We see T.V. shows about this all the time. A child finds out they were adopted and then they go looking for their birth parents. Don’t we hear this story all the time? Don’t we rejoice when they are reunited? What would it look like if that child always had a relationship with their birth parents?

I hope I am making sense. This topic brings up a lot of emotions in me. The most prominent being anger, which then in turn makes it hard for me to write coherently. Maybe it’s because I have a big heart, or maybe it’s because I just had another baby. But I will stand up for these women. As I stand looking down on my sleeping newborn I can’t imagine the heartbreak I would go through if I had given her away. I can’t imagine her not being in my life, or the pain I would go through if I was denied a relationship with her.

So, to you Munchkins Momma, and to you K’s Momma, I know you don’t know me, but I think you are the most brave women I “know”. Keep telling your story. I hope change will come soon. Thank you for your honesty and transparency. You can be sure that if we decide to adopt, the Birth Mother of our adopted child will be able to have a relationship with their child. I will fight for that.

And to all Birth Mother’s everywhere:

May you find healing. And I hope someday you may be able to come out of hiding and say “Yes, I am a Mother” without fear of being made to feel shame or rejection, but with courage that you will be embraced with loving support.