Do most birthparents regret their decision to place their child for adoption?

Question

I am an adoptive parent through international adoption. I know that there is no way that placing a child for adoption could not be incredibly painful and cause incredible grief, so I'm not asking that. It seems to me that a lot of birthparents regret their decision later on and say that they would not do it if they had it to do all over again. Is this true? My daughter's birthmother's tears as she said good-bye to her baby haunt me. I love this person who created my daughter, and I think about her all the time. It is hard for me to deal with the fact that my daughter, the light of my life, had to come to me through such loss: Her birthfamily's incredible loss; my daughter's loss of her first family, foster family, culture, and language; and my own losses associated with infertility. How do others deal?

Answer 1

you have a caring and kind heart. god bless you!

in your case, most likely the parents are more thankful than regrettful. just think about it, international adoption is a complicated process and it takes forever for it to finalize.

the parents had plenty of time to think things over. it was their decision to give her a chance for better life.

dont look at this as a loss. it really was a gain for everyone, therefore it should leave a positive energy in all of your hearts!

remember, everything happens for the best.dont torture yourself over this, just love your daughter and enjoy your life!

Answer 2

I think most parents regreat giving up their child for adpotion at some point but it may not always be right away

Answer 3

I keep a mental picture of my little baby in my heart.  I also have one ultra sound pic for me and her big sissy who still resides with me.  The pain comes and goes, but I keep my attention and devotion to my older child to get through it.

Anyone who says look at all the good it brings obviously has never had to place a child.  We do regret it from time to time, but we remind ourselves why we did what we did and that our children will recieve what we cannot give them.

Answer 4

My mother placed a little girl up for adoption before she met my father.  That little girl is now 32 years old, and mom and her have been talking on the phone...they have exchanged pictures, but have not met face to face yet.  

My mother says that she has never once regreted placeing her for adoption because she knew that without the support of the daddy, she wouldn't be able to give the baby the life she needed.  She misses meeting her once in a while, but never once regrets it.  She knew it was best for her daughter.

Answer 5

I tried to be a hard-*** thru the whole adoption, being strong was the only way I could do it, but when I handed my daughter over to Monica and Dan in the Hospital room, I broke down and wailed like I'd just found her dead. It was the worst time in my life. The nurses gave me a hard time about being a young mom, and said that I could never raise a child properly anyways, my parents weren't there to comfort me, I was all alone. I had no baby, I had empty arms. I had nothing moving in my belly as it had for those 9 months. I know what pain your daughters mom felt. It rips at your heart and  pains into your arms. Theres nothing. No baby, nothing. It is the worst feeling to have. A close friend of mine that lost a baby to SIDS has that same pain in her arms. Its comparable to the baby dying. But at least with adoption, I can see my daughter again. I'm okay with it all now, even tho I'm crying and I'll look like c**p in the morning, but I get to see her this month, and that's what makes it all worth it. We have both grown and matured, There never were any hard feelings between any of us, It was just soo d**n painful, it still is having to re-live it.

Answer 6

It is the ultimate sacrifice. I know for me that if I couldn't afford a child, I would have to put that child up for adoption- the love of my child far outweighs my own need to have that child.

Answer 7

I don't think that most of them do regret it, at least not the ones I've talked to.

If my daughters hadn't been relinquished, they wouldn't be alive right now.  I'm thinking that their birth mother knows that and doesn't regret her decision to give them life.

It is a terrible loss that created our families.  My daughters lost their birth family, two foster families, their birth culture, their birth language being the primarly spoken language, etc.

I'm grateful to the girls' birthmother.  She gave me a tremendous gift & I can never even come close to repaying her for what she's done.

SG

Answer 8

i regret it in my heart. it hurts after all these years (7) . but i know it was best for my daughter. i just wish i could have a little more contact. i get pictures and updates but wish i could get videos or see her  just as a family friend until she was older. my advice is to not hide things and to send pictures and videos if you can. and understand, we will sometimes be jelous and sometimes hate you. you have the one thing we would give anything for. our baby.

Answer 9

I adopted my son domestically a year and a half ago.  We have stayed in touch with his birthmom and she even came halfway across the country for a visit a few months ago.  The impression that I got from her (and I think she would have let me know her honest feelings) is that even though she misses him terribly and thinks about him everyday, she is grateful for the life he has been given.  She knows that she couldn't give him the life that she wanted him to have.  She tells me that she doesn't "regret" it for a minute and would never change the way things have turned out.

I felt the same way you did as we said goodbye to her the day before we flew home- how could my happiness be causing someone else so much pain, but it was the life she chose for him out of the love in her heart and I think she's at peace with knowing her dreams for him are coming true.

Answer 10

Every Birthday, holiday or family event I grieve but I believe I done what was right at the time, the regret came way after when my life was in place to have given my son a good life, but when you have a unplanned baby you cannot fast forward your life to a better place and time. God Bless

Answer 11

I can only speak of my own experience.  It used to be that I wouldn't admit to any regret of the actual decision of relinquishment.  Now it's not that I regret the relinquishment, it's that I regret my actions or lack of actions with that time.  I can find joy in my son and all of the love that his family gives him, and yet at the same time feel upset that because of how it all turned out he's there and not with us.

The had to do it all over again question sucks beans by the way.  It's the bane of dumb questions that are posed to me (whether it bugs anyone else, I dunno).  I wouldn't want to go back in time and do any of that over again.  Which part would I still do the same?  Which part would I not do?  How does that retraction of action effect a very real person with a very real good life?  Even worse is when the would I do it all over again question is about if I had another crisis pregnancy!  How would I know what I would do?  The nature of the crisis makes hypothetical ideas really off the mark in relevance.

As far as others and how they deal.  It seems many don't acknowledge this plurality of emotions.  It's like head in the sand mentality.

Answer 12

Each case I agree is different. Some probably do regret it while there are others that realize they did what they felt was best for their child and have a peace about it.  Really its just like how all adoptees handle being adopted differently.

Answer 13

Each adaption case may differ.  You stated that your case is an International adaption.  In most countries, 1st reason to have put a child for adoption is financial reasons.  They may not be able take care of themselves, and they would  probably worry about raising a child.  Yes, it may be hurting them to give up their child, but they also may feel that their child will have a better future by their adoptive parents. May God bless you for adopting.

Answer 14

I know how you feel.  My oldest son is adopted, and I gave birth to my two younger children.  They're all grown now, so I've had a close to thirty years to think about things, listen to things, read things, etc. about adoption.

My son was removed from his biological family as an infant; and, in general, he's a healthy person.  Still, there were some pieces to be picked up over the years because he had quite a rough start in his first two or three months.

One time when I mentioned to the social worker about trying to put myself in the place of the biological mother (even though I didn't think much of her in view of the healed fractured skull my son had) one social worker (right or wrong) said to me, "You can't do that.  You can't try to put yourself in her place.  You are such a different kind of person than she is there is no way you can put yourself in her place."  At the time I wasn't sure I believed her, but over the years, as I began to see - in one place or another - how some mothers are with their babies, I began to realize that they were not the same as I was.  If they were they wouldn't do some of the things they were able to do with their baby.

I have my three children.  There is no financial situation in the world that would have made me put any of them out for adoption.  I suppose - if I couldn't feed them, and they were gong hungry - there's a chance I'd put them out for adoption, but under those circumstances there would be that feeling of relief that they would get to eat and go to school and play baseball etc.  I don't question the heartbreak, but the heartbreak would be of a different nature than it would if you - in your suburban home with your well fed children - had to give them to someone else.

When my mother died after suffering for a long, long, time I couldn't believe that when I found her I was actually relieved.  My point is there are times when we are relieved that someone doesn't have to suffer, and there can be comfort in that relief.  

As far as your not delivering your own children, I've delivered two.  I don't feel any different about any of the three of them.  It was a heck of a lot easier to be a mother to the two younger ones.  I didn't have to pass screenings or prove anything to anyone, and I didn't have to think about biological people "out there" and explaining about them.  Other than that, how I feel has not been different in any way.  Don't consider the fact that you couldn't have biological children a loss now that you have your child.

Once I mentioned to someone how I couldn't believe "God had sent me this beautiful baby boy" and how I worried that I owed something in this life because of this gift I had been given of my adopted son.  My friend said, "Have you ever considered that you are a gift to him?"  I was stopped dead in my tracks.  I had never considered that maybe I was a gift to him.  Either way, I don't see my relationship with him as involving loss.  I see it as involving gifts.

My son's biological family has a different culture, but to whatever extent my ways of doing things are the product of my watered down, Irish/Scottish ancestry, my son was raised with my culture.  He has the same grandparents as my other two children do as far as I'm concerned.  Part of what went on with his awful beginnings came from the culture of the woman who had him, and I didn't see any reason to try to falsely give him a culture that was so foreign to me.  I wanted him to know his culture came from the same place that made me what I am.

When he grew up he got to meet his biological family, and he was surprised to know about their culture.  The biological mother was disappointed to know he didn't speak her language.  As far as I'm concerned and as far as he was concerned, she lost her right to share her so-called "culture" with him when she fractured his skull and whatever else.

I didn't think he'd feel "like every other kid" if I said he had a different culture from my other two kids.  I told all of my kids that they are all "melting pot babies", which is exactly what America is really about.

When my son went to meet his biological mother I wrote her a little card and put one of those little guardian angels with his birthstone in it.  He saw her a couple of times, met some relatives, and that was it.   A couple of years later on Mother's Day he gave me the guardian angel I had thought he  would give her from me.  

From what I heard, many biological mothers do regret putting their children up for adoption.  Some don't.  Most, from what I hear, always feel there is some void in their lives or fracture in their lives.  There's no doubt about it, there's loss for all but the most uncaring of them.  Some biological mothers, though, are able to do certain things to their children or with their children that someone who was more bonded would/could never do; so there's that too.

I learned that my son's biological mother is "of limited mental capacity" but through a school evaluation of his skills I also learned that my nurturing actually developed some of his intellectual abilities beyond what they would have been.  (Go to www.zerotothree.org and look up the article on "nurturing and brain development in the first three years.)

I had to tell myself, too, that this child was going to an adoptive home whether or not I was the one who adopted him.  I believed I could give him an absolutely beautiful childhood and beginning, and I believed that by signing on as his mother I was going to assure that he'd have the childhood all children deserve.  

We all grow up in the cultures of our own family.  We speak our mother's language.  We take it for granted, and we tend to like our own language and culture.  Your daughter's culture is YOUR culture.  Later on she can learn about the culture of her biological mother, but she didn't lose a culture that's any better than the one in which she's being raised.  Presenting two cultures to her could fracture her view of her world.  She can learn five languages if she wants, but she shouldn't be given the impression she lost "her" language.

Her foster family signed on knowing the loss involved, I'm guessing.  They're grown ups.  They probably felt they did their part and were ready to deal with some heartbreak when she left.  Her loss of them, depending on how old she was, is something to worry about; but if she was young enough she'll forget.

Whenever I hear the song, "I'm everything I am because you love me" it makes me cry.  Listen to the words of that song some time.  I know it was supposed to be a romantic song, but its awfully appropriate for so many adopted children.

I had the benefit of knowing (or presuming) I would be able to give birth to more children when I adopted.  You didn't.  You may be thinking how you were given this great gift "even though" you couldn't have biological children.  I saw it differently, and maybe you should too:  I adopted my son because he needed a home and because I was planning to have a family anyway.  "What's one more?", I thought.  

Most of us have loss of one sort or another in our lives.  Its a mother's job to make children emotionally solid and strong and secure so they can deal with loss.  Its a mother's job to try to help their child deal with any loss too.

Try not to see the adoption as surrounded by loss, though.  Your child and mine were children who were "up for adoption" and needed a mother.  You and I said, "I'll be that mother for that child."  That's not loss.  That's that gift I was talking about.  Its a happy and wonderful thing that we were there for children who needed someone; and maybe we actually are better mothers than any number of the other potential adoptive mothers.  

As a result of some early learning problems my son had in kindergarten I spent over a decade studying up on learning problems and planning to someday write a book that would address the more subtle problems.   Sometimes I've wondered why I've spent so much time researching this subject when it was never in my plans or field of expertise.

I can't help but think that God wanted my son and me to be the "us" we've always been, and there's no way I can ever believe there could be anything wrong or negative about this precious relationship we have.

Your daughter's birthmother made a decision for her own reasons.  As with all loss and tears, she'll get over it over time.  I don't mean to sound callous, but I think its important that you not let your sense of all that loss color your enjoyment of that light of your life or color the way you present her story to her; because I'm convinced that adopted children, more than biological children, need that 150% sureness and solidness of a mother who questions nothing about their relationship.

Your daughter has been given a new and better life and a mother who wants her, can take care of her, and can provide her with a life she couldn't have had.  Her birthmother probably doesn't want you thinking about her tears.  She'd want you to concentrate on the joy of the situation.  Don't add baggage to a situation that doesn't have to have baggage.  Be the fresh, new, start that birthmother wanted her child to have.

We all come into this world with our unique circumstances, and your child was born into a stormy world.  You had nothing to do with the storm, but still you're her shelter from it.  See that shelter you build for her over the years as a wonderful, strong, stable, positive, place where storms are not allowed in and where people and families are strong and whole and forever.

We deal by knowing that if we bring into that shelter we build for our children the loss and sadness that isn't (and shouldn't be) ours, and that may nor may not exist in the degrees that we imagine they must, our children and we don't get that clean start that adoption is supposed to offer children and parents.

We deal by remembering that even though our children are gifts to us, the fact is that when these tiny creatures needed someone we were ready to be that person.  I don't think we adoptive mothers "deserve a medal" for accepting the joy of being a mother.  My point is that we, as mothers, are responsible for being guilt-free, sorrow-free, mothers to children who need most to be just llike all the other kids.

I don't know if anything I've said has at all been of any help, but I thought it was worth a try.