Adoption issues?

Question

Has anyone given a baby up for adoption? Under what circumstances? How do you feel now?

Answer 1

I was a single 18 year old high school graduate. I wasn't ready to be a single mother, since my boyfriend has another year of school left, then planned to join the Army.

How do I feel now?? He's 18 now. We gave him the choice as to whether or not he'd like to contact us. I've always been incredibly proud of him, and proud of myself for making the best choice of my life. He's an incredible young man, a man of God. Smart, talented, beautiful.

Answer 2

It was 1972 and at 17 I was pregnant, I gave my daughter up for adoption and I wish I had never done it. I made myself sick with grief, I married my daughters father in 1973 and we have a son. I was in denial for years, it was like it never happened, it became a big secret even to me. In 2001 I stated looking, it was just the right time. I found her. We have a friendship now but her kids don't call me grandma. She has always had feelings of abandonment, always wondered who she looked like. always was sad she didn't come out of Mommy's tummy. We have both been through counseling and it has helped. I wish I would have been counseled on how to keep my baby and not on how to give her up. I'm not anti adoption, I just think you should think long and hard about doing such a life altering thing. I was so sad for so long, i missed out on so much.

Answer 3

From http://originsusa.memberlodge.org/

MOTHERS’ VOICES: SURRENDER EXPERIENCES AND LONGTERM EFFECTS

Bernadette Wright, PhD., May 2007

In this survey of 214 women who lost their child to adoption, women were asked if they still believed they did the right thing by surrendering their children:

Of the women who surrendered in the 1950s-60s 13%

Of the women who surrendered in the 1970s 3%

Of the women who surrendered in the 1980 6%

Of the women who surrendered in the 1990s-200s 21%

That means that 87% of the women from the 50s-60s no longer believe that surrendering their child was the right thing to do; of the 1970s respondents 97% of women no longer believe that surrendering their child was the right thing to do, etc. You get the picture.

The higher % of women from the 1990s-2000s who still believe that surrendering their child to adoption was the best thing may be due to the fact that some “mothers in the study surrendered only a few years ago; for these mothers, losing their children will be too recent for them to know how this experience might affect their lives in the long-term.”

I also believe that open adoptions are coercive in that if a mother has some contact with her child she is not likely to say or do anything that would jeopardize that contact. Open adoptions may or may not be “better”; they are simply another form of social experiment in the world of adoption.

In my own experience, I knew that adoption was not right, but simply didn’t know my options and had little support. I was in denial for many years. I didn’t know that I had a right to know my child and so I clung to the idea that my decision was the best decision, when in fact it was no “decision” at all.

Only after meeting my son as an adult a little over a year ago did I even begin to let myself think that adoption was not the best option for us. It has been a very slow, overwhelmingly grief-filled process coming to terms with the fact that I lost my own child – my own flesh and blood - because I was young and naive. It has impacted my relationship with my entire extended family because I was so ashamed of losing my baby that I distanced myself from them. It has impacted my relationship with my mother, whom I now see was not there for me. Infant adoptions affect many, many people negatively. It is not simply the wonderful solution that so many people insist on making it.

A very dear adoptee friend of mine recently told me, “a young woman doesn’t know what it is like to care for and love a child, she doesn’t know how much she will love her own child.”  As any of us who have read anything about the mother/infant bond, we know that bonding begins in utero and continues well after birth. Mother/infant separation disrupts that bonding and causes life-long psychological harm to both individuals.

I surrendered in 1984 – it was and is the worst pain that I know and it is with me every single day.

Answer 4

I gave up my daughter when she was a newborn, in the summer of 2001. She is now six years old. It's a fully open adoption.

The circumstances are complicated, and there is truly no way I can accurately describe the story here. My story is written out here, if you truly want the details...

http://paragraphein.wordpress.com/my-sto...

...and there are links from my blog to many other birth mothers' blogs, where you can find more women's stories.

Suffice it to say here: at the time, I believed I was making the right "choice," though I felt under incredible pressure to give her up and always had a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that it wasn't as repercussion-free as the agency kept telling me it was.

I should have listened to that nagging feeling.

Three and a half years after relinquishing, I realized, after having my second daughter, that I WAS in fact a good mom and could have raised my first daughter. The realization sent me reeling. I spiraled into a severe depression and eventually attempted suicide, convinced (again, ironically) that my family would be better off without me.

Now, two and a half years since overdosing, with the help of some tremendous therapists, my family, my husband, my faith, and even my daughter's adoptive parents, I can say that I am happy and healthy and enjoying life again. But I still regret relinquishing my daughter. In therapy I learned that I developed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as a result of relinquishing, including so many classic symptoms of the disorder: anxiety, panic attacks, depression, obsessive thoughts, nightmares in which I relive the experience, dissociation (I blocked the signing of the relinquishment papers from my mind--can't remember doing it--an automatic defense mechanism), a feeling of emptiness, despair over the future. Most of those symtpoms are now in remission, and I'm able to enjoy my current life and both my daughters... but prior to getting help? The adoption-related PTSD very nearly, literally, killed me.

The loss of a child to adoption is serious. It is ongoing, it is not something that is easily gotten over, and it is far-reaching. It has affected my husband, my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my daughters.

The problem is, it's fairly common for people who undergo a one-time trauma like losing a child to automatically go into denial and to repress emotions for a long, long time. It's a part of PTSD. So it's hard to know whether moms who've recently relinquished truly are okay with their decisions, or whether they are in the denial stage of grieving or simply in the shock stage of PTSD. I am not saying this to discount anyone's experience, but simply to caution you that if you ARE a mom considering relinquishment... you need to talk to mothers five, ten, twenty, and even thirty years into the journey, to truly get a feel for what it's like to live with adoption loss. Again, I am not trying to discount other peoples' experiences, but I just know that for over three years, I WAS the poster-child for a "happy birthmother" and would tell everyone that I was content with my decision, peaceful, happy, and absolutely certain I'd made the right choice.

So... all of that to say... how do I feel now? I feel like there is a hole in my heart. I feel like a piece of me is missing. I miss my child every single day. I love her to bits and am so incredibly proud of her. I wish both my daughters had not lost their sibling relationship. I wish I hadn't put the strain of relinquishment on my marriage. I am happy to be out of the denial fog, even though it was difficult coming out. I am encouraged at the prospect of adoption reform. I am thrilled to have learned how to be happy and successful in life despite battling PTSD and severe loss. I have become a stronger person for my journey. But it still is not a journey I would wish on anyone. Not anyone.

Answer 5

What I have heard from natural mothers is that it gets harder with time, not easier, certainly my adoptee experience was like that, it wasn't really hard until I was about 13, and then the magnitude of what had happened  started to settle in my spirit.

I think it is very hard on natural moms who find that their adopted out child has struggled, I don't think most nmoms want this, and well as I mom I can't even imagine not knowing if my child needed me or not.

I think it is a difficult road to choose.

Answer 6

wow kudos!! to CONCERNED.  i have just read her lifestory & it was beautifully written. Sad story but u can definitely tell that it was a story written from her heart. God Bless you & Moonbeam.

Iam an aunt to an adopted nephew & niece. its an open adoption so that from the beginning, we never hide their real biological parents. They both have 2 moms & 2 dads plus lots of grannies, aunts & uncles. With this experience, iam not bothered whether to have or not to have my own bio child as i have seen my niece & nephew grew and there was no difference whether a bio or not. We treated them just like our very own.  Its really an option as i believe love is universal. It doesn’t have to be your own blood.

Answer 7

yes, and i am still happy about the decision that i made. the father and i were not ready to be parents and he would not sign over full custody to me, so instead of fighting over the child and using it as a pawn i gave it to a family that was unable to have children.

Answer 8

No I havent and I cannot imagine for even 1 second what that might feel like.  It is probably the most difficlt and brave decision any woman (and in some cases fathers) would have to make. We are in the process of looking to adopt and I hope that our future child will bring just an ounce of her strength with them into our lives!

Answer 9

I placed my son N. for adoption 6 years ago. It is a fully open adoption, so I get to see him and he knows I am his birth mother. The day I placed N. in his adoptive mother's arms my heart broke in a way I never thought it could. But, I went through an agency and was able to get counseling and the help I needed. Even so healing took years.

I got pregnant when I was 26. The father was not going to be around. He didn't want the responsibility. It was a hard decision. I didn't want to do it, but I knew I could not provide for him what I wanted him to have. At 8 months pregnant I made my decision. As much as it hurt I knew I had done the right thing. And he has GREAT parents!!!!!

It took a long time to heal. But no matter how much it hurt I have never regretted the choice I made. His mom called me the other day. At Sunday school N. had made a family tree. On it he put his mom and dad, a grandparent or two, and me as his birth mom.

Please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Answer 10

My husband and I just adopted a little baby girl almost 4 months ago now and have a very open adoption.  We have established a close relationship with the birth mother and have gotten to know her quite well since we found out in January that she had chosen us as the adoptive couple for her child.  

She is 18 and the birth father is 18 and the both just barely graduated from high school.  They both had a history of drug/alcohol use although they have both quit since she got pregnant.  At first, they planned to get married and do whatever it took to raise the baby, but the farther along she got in the pregnancy, the more that she realized that they couldn't come close to providing for the baby financially and she didn't want to have to spend the rest of her life on government welfare programs to barely be able to raise her child.  Also, the birth parents broke off their relationship and the birth mother really wanted her child to be placed in a family with a mother and a father who have a strong marriage who could provide for the child in every way. (financially, emotionally, etc.)  

Every young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and unsure of what to do has to make her own choice based on her situation and beliefs.  I hold the deepest respect for the birth mothers who are honest enough to admit that they are not ready to raise a child and put the child's needs first, who are strong, brave and selfless enough to give the child the kind of life it deserves to have.

Answer 11

I have two aunts that have adopted daughters.  They love them just like their biological children.  Both of my cousins have had great lives and have even found their biological families.  There have been no conflicts.  

One cousin was given up for adoption because the family had 4 other children and was experiencing severe financial stress.  The other cousin was taken away from an addicted and abusive mother.

It is a very hard and complicated decision.  Take you time making it and listen to your heart and do what is in the best interest of the child.  I know that my cousins had better lives than if they had stayed with their biological families.  You have to be at peace with that type of decision.

God Bless!

Answer 12

I am a birthmom of a two and a half month old little girl. I went through a Christian organization. I found a great couple who have a bio little girl who is 3. The birthfather and I have an open adoption. So we get emails, pictures and visits with our daughter. We are making scrapbooks of our life for her so she will know who we are and a little about our lives. She will know right away that she is adopted and that we both love her. I still have another year of high school and we don't make enough money to even think about raising a child. So we put her interests first and decided to place her up for adoption. She was born premature and had to spend 3 weeks in the hospital. The adoptive parents wanted me to go see her as much as I wanted. The birthfather and I have a great relationship with them and they are an awesome family. We had to make the hardest decision of our lives, but we wanted what was best for that precious little girl. It's been rough, but I know my little girl is safe and has an awesome family who can provide for her needs. It's been a blessing having the open adoption. So now I am doing ok with it all and I'm starting to plan the next visit :)

Answer 13

My fam has been on the other side, the family that was able to adopt..It was my bro and his wife who had been trying for ten years...They cherish those children more than anyone could know..