FIRST MOTHERS can you share with us your experience with the agency and PAPS?

Question

We hear a lot about how expecting women are being treated, by a lot of people who are not a first parent. Can you share your experiance with the agency, PAPs and why you chose them.

This is also open to women who made an adoption plan and decided to parent. You insite would be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm not going to be much help to you. I was the one who decided that I was going to put my daughter up for adoption. Opened adoption was almost unheard of back then. I really don't remember much of the details. My mom found the agency. All I really remember is them trying to get me to name her when we went to court. I refused. I never met her parents and never had contact with her again of any kind. Pretty much carry to term and hand her over. I don't remember any counceling, pep talks, nothing. The hospital story is one I remember, but not the agency.

Sorry.

Answer 2

I remember crying my eyes out at every visit with the counseler. When we said maybe we want to keep her, we were told you will have to pay back all the money we spent on you. You are not doing what is best for your child. My boy friends parents were at him all the time to do what was right, which meant to them, don't embarrass us. We had no idea who adopted our daughter and what qualifications they had. This was in 1972.

Answer 3

No.  You are asking for too much.  I have written about my experience for almost five years now on my blog, and still have nowhere near been able to write the actual full account of what happened.  How can I be expected to simplify it down into a yahoo answer?  Especially since there is so many nasty things said about mothers like me.  Why would I put my story out there to be hurt once again?

Answer 4

I didn't choose adoption it was forced on me so I guess my feelings of hatred towards the agency are loud and clear.

I did partly choose his parents, they were his foster family and I love them dearly. They are wonderful people and he couldn't have been blessed with a better family to raise him. I chose them because he had already been in their care for 10 months and they had experience adopting through foster care, his older brother by 10 months was adopted a year prior. She is a stay at home mom and he has his own business. They were warm and caring and loved him. There would not have been any other choice, it was them or nobody.

Answer 5

My story is my story and therefore I will not subject it to Yahoo Answers.

I am allready looked at for being a bad person not worthy of my child because I chose adoption for her.

I am allready a bad person because I remain in her life.

My story and experience is for MY daughter to hear.  Not for others to vote upon.

Answer 6

I went thru a lawyer because all the agencies were out of state and I was not willing to relocate for a few months (wouldn't allow my older daughter to accompany me).  Only my close family knew of my adoption plan, which I decided on in my seventh month.  The lawyer was very kind (and a natural mother herself) and she did seek all avenues for me, but I told her that this was what I wanted and this was what would be best.  I interviewed three couples (my daughter was also included).  First couple had a daughter who was adopted and had only just started the process again, and were unprepared at the time of my selection.  Second couple did not sit right with me at all.  Third couple were a fluke, picked at random.  Both my daughter and I liked them immensely.  We had similar interests, hobbies, etc.  We never got a good chance to get to know them better since I went into labor three weeks early.  We exchange emails to one another, even gifts on holidays.  Baby Z's mom and I are working on a scrap book for both our daughters so they can see each other growing up (we live pretty far away from one another, and we do want the girls to meet once they are a bit older).  Baby Z is only about 7 months old now, but she will always know about her first mommy and big sissy (just as my daughter knows of her baby sissy).  All three of us adults are working to ensure that.