Why would an adoption agency provide accurate information in counseling expectant mothers?

Question

Are there any agencies which warn expecting mothers of the lifelong pain many feel after surendering her baby? Do they provide the statisics which show women who relinquish are at a much higher risk for depressive disorders, suicide, and secondary infertility? Experts have know for years that separating the mother-infant dyad causes harm to both.

I doubt this info gets conveyed by agencies. And why would it? Their business involves gaining babies to sell to adopters.

Answer 1

first of all, the term 'counselor' is misleading.  

there is little counseling that takes place.  yet someone who usually holds an undergraduate degree and no state licensure in counseling psychology, being PAID by the adoption agency to encourage you to give up your baby. the counselors at the agency i worked with were all amoms, and just went on and on about how wonderful adoption would be for me. never did they discuss my right to change my mind and parent; nor that many women regret placing their babies. the only thing i was told was, "you will be sad for a little while, but will realize that you made the right choice for your baby."--bleehhhhhhh!

they also went into over-drive to get me to "reconsider" my decision, when i changed my mind, stating that "the hormones were talking."

and i venture to believe that my experience is not unique.

like, really, would a counselor whose salary is based on the income from placing babies want to waste their time helping women parent???  let's get real, folks.

Answer 2

I absolutely understand the point that you are trying to make.  I would like to offer this though - and it is what I've been told by my son's bio grandparents....

When we adopted our son, we used an agency because of issues that arose between the State involvement, and what the bio family wanted.  It was suggested to us by a lawyer for both sides to have an agency do a "identified adoption" to insure that everything was done properly since the state was originally involved.  

It is my understanding, in speaking with the bio family, that the agency did in fact speak to all of them (the parents & grandparents) in detail and offer counseling to them that was beneficial to their decision.  The grandparents were surprised to the extent the agency went to make sure that this is truly what everyone wanted that according to them, they asked the counselor if she was trying to talk them out of the adoption.  Again, I do not have 1st person experience, but I do trust my son's bio grandparents with my life and I don't think they would tell me something just for the sake of saying something.  The agency we used was Adoptions From the Heart.  Again, from what I've heard from everyone here, it sounds that our agency was not the norm.  And perhaps it wasn't the agency as much as it was that particular staff member.  But I did want to let you know that there are some good ones out there, who do focus on the child and the bio family first.

Answer 3

Yeah, can you imagine what would happen if an agency required potentials to read "The Primal Wound"?  They'd be climbing over one another to get out of there.

It's never going to happen.

Answer 4

I just read the "Primal Wound' last weekend and I feel so, so sorry for those women and girls.  What horrible parents and families they came from!!  How awful to feel you have no place to turn.

How fortunate am I that I could not relate to one single story in that book.  I'm a bmom and not one thing in that book ran along the same lines as my experience.  My family was surprised I chose adoption, even tho i am adopted.  They were never embarrassed of me or for me.  My counselor was wonderful and made sure i had plenty of literature and made sure I knew I could change my mind at any time.  I started seeing her when i was 9 weeks pregnant (I found out at 3 weeks).  I am the one who made the decision to go to the girl's home...my mother was very much against it and they picked me up every weekend to come home and came and got me 3 days a week to go out.  I finished my first semester of my SR year there.  I am so sorry for those women.  So sad...but theirs is not my story.

Answer 5

Agencies counselling expectant mothers is a blatent conflict of interests

p.s.  I think dreamweaver may have muddled up the book 'Primal Wound' with 'The Girls Who Went Away'

Answer 6

I'm gonna change a couple words of your original question around...

Your question:

Why would an adoption agency provide accurate information in counseling expectant mothers?

New question:

Why would a used car dealer provide accurate information in counseling potential customers?

Answer for both:  Because there is NO incentive to do so.

Answer 7

I read a blog by a first mother who had done research on adoption agencies.  The results of her investigation were that, out of the hundreds of agencies, less than ten in the US provide unbiased counseling.  I think that the study was first mother centric - the acknowledgment of the effects of infant adoption on the child is, in my opinion, even more rare.  After all, the child had no say in the "transaction".

Until the customers of the baby sellers demand ethical adoptions, most agencies will never provide accurate information about the effects of the barbaric removal of infants from their mothers.  This is the US - the consumers drive the marketing.

Something that really galls me on Y!A is adoptive parents who post their agencies with glowing recommendations with total ignorance of the exploitation that the agency uses.  I have gone to those WEB sites and have gagged at the obvious coercion and manipulation.  The most recent example that I saw was "Adoption is the loving alternative to parenting".  On that same WEB site was the classic list of "expenses" that a loving parent must incur to properly care for their child (e.g. $1500 for furniture!!!).  Are adoptive parents so desperate that cannot see the attempted exploitation?

Answer 8

When my husband and I adopted out children, through an adoption lawyer-  he offered counseling to our children's birth moms- through a different source of course and if they had wanted it, we would have had to provide the payment for that counseling.  I remember the birth mom of our son specifically saying, "I do not need counseling-  I know it will be hard, but I also know that I love my child too much to not place him for adoption." I am not saying that counseling the birth parent is not a good idea- but it depends on the mother.