Birthmother posting

I always here about how the aboption parents feel, but what about the birthmother.  Most agencies and aparents don't even care what a great and painful lose it is for a birthmother - for that matter most adoptions are pressured - not all but most.  Most of the pressured adoptions are teen girls.  I was pressured and didn't want to place my son for adoption - not once did the aparents send me a picture, a letter.  I think that this was the most horrible thing for them to do, not to metion the agency who fooled me and didn't tell me my rights.  I was lied to and most young girls are.  My adoption happened in 1992.  No one cared about how I felt.  What if someone took you baby out of you arms and you cried and cried for him and no one would help you.  What the heck was I suppose to do - I had to place him.  I want all the aparents to realize the pain and suffering that most mothers go through when they place their children.  My son will always be my son and no one can ever take that from me.  I was a victum of rape and then had to place my son.  I would never do this to my daughter no matter how old she is.  Not all parents feel as I do but most do.  If you do get a child please a least take time to say how are you and I'm sorry you couldn't keep you baby.  Send her pictures.  We love our children but it was just the wrong time.  Let you adopted children know they were loved.  It is ashamed that I was stripped of my right to parents, as well as my name from the birth cert, the name I gave him - i am nothing and no one even cares to hear me out.  I gave my son a gift - two loving parents but come to find out they are divorced and it wasn't a happy loving two parent home like they told me - things happen.  

[suzi-q]

I am an adoptive parent of a chinese girl.  In China, the young girls are abondoned because of strict laws stating only one child per family.  There are no records of her birth parents at all and that is one of the reasons why I went to China.  I think adoptive parents feel that the birth parents may want to take them away and have a change of heart.  There are also many times a birth mother will change her mind at the last minute and not give up her child.  This is the heart breaking for the adoptive parents who have loved this child before even knowing him. This is why I feel the adoptive parents are leary to contact the birth parents.  However, I also want you to know, deep in our hearts, we DO say thank you to the birth mother for giving us such a precious gift.  I pray for my daughter's birth mother all the time that she will be at peace knowing her little girl has a good family and will never have to want for anything.  We NEVER forget the birth mother and I know my daughter will be told her whole story and how her birth mother loved her so much but had to give her away.  I pray for your peace also, and I am sorry for what you had to go through.  

[kris123]

I understand what you are saying but just take the time that if you had a biochild and then someone taking her away.  I will always be his mother to and she or anyone can not take that from me.  I am so sick of the adoption system in the country.  I do however agree that you adoption was a good thing and most are.  Heart breaking for adoptive parents - I think the pain of carrying you child for 9 months and having them taken from you or you pressured into giving them up is more painful.  You will never know the pain that is involved because you have not went through it.  Just think how you would feel if you lost your daughter now and never knew where she was or even if she is alive - that is a horrible thing.  I am forgotten.  I will never ever take the place of his parents and I know he is happy and he is loved but I love him to.  He has a right to know me and my family - i am not trying to take him away the one thing they fear happened to me.  They won I lost.  I am working to get my peace and forgive the agency and my parents.  It was not the adoptive parents fault or my son's.  I hope to meet all of them and buit something with each of them.  I am moving on and have his best interest at heart.  I am not only a birth mother to him I am his mother.  Birth mother is such a crapy term.  I am not trying to be hateful but only trying to let adoptive parents understand.  Just think how it would be if your child was taken.  I have lost three children in total - Seth, and two miscarriage but My Lord has blessed me with two other children.  I would never do to my dauther what this agecny did to me.  If she was 13 and had a baby I would take care of it.  We do what we have to do sometimes and have no choice but peace yes - I gave life and I gave him a gift of two loving parents even if they aren't togeather any more.

[suzi-q]

There is a poem that I will have to post here...It is called "Two mothers" and both are equally as important.  You are right that I have never gone through what you have and it is terrible what was done to you.  You did not give your consent freely, you were young and scared and they forced and tricked you.  I can only imagine the anger you must have inside to be robbed of something so precious.  Please try to let that go because it will only hurt you more.  I wish you peace of mind and the best of everything.  

[kris123]

I am to meet my 15 year old son in Jan.  I found him and wrote his parents just wanting to know he was alive and happy that is all i asked just a letter saying he is fine.  they called the agency and told me he wanted to meet me so i am waiting.  it is good to take it slow because i need to work through the resentment that i have  it is so hard not to be emotional but i want his parents to see i am stable.  how should i act when i see them - it will be hard not to cry - i want to show them pics of my other children but realize this is a slow process.  sorry if i sounded so hard.  i hope my son can at least love me in his own way but if not at least he has two loving parents and that is all i could ask

[suzi-q]

Do not be afraid to cry!  That just shows that you are a human being with deep feelings for a life that you have given.  You are a good person and I am sure that they will see that.  Like you said, take it slow.  I am sure it is going to be hard for your son at first.  He will have many mixed feelings at first, but once he gets to know you he will love you and feel very thankful for the life that you have given him.  You gave the world a tremendous gift.  But, as you have said, you will have to give it time.  The first meeting will probably be awkward, but it will turn out fine.  I just also want to let you know that I have 2 very dear friends who were also adopted.  They do not have any bad feelings toward their biological mothers.  In fact, they feel more loved knowing the sacrifice that the bmother made, by enduring the grief and sorrow so that they can have a good life.  

[dej69]

i have been reading your comments, and am in tears right now. i think that this 15 year old is so lucky to have a mother who obviously cares more deeply about him than anyone could know. you are a breath of fresh air. so many times you see on tv people who just throw there kids in the trash, or worse, murder them when they don't want them. your situation is entirely different. you were forced to hand your baby over, you were still just a child yourself, and being a rape victim is a whole other traumatic situation. i think your son will understand when he hears the story from you. it will be so hard to talk to him about it, but i think he will want to know the reason for his adoption.  i am afraid and nervous for you to meet him.  i got pregnant when i was 16, and although people were rooting for me to give him up or get an abortion, i was able to keep my baby. i now have an amazing 11 year son. i would never give up one second of my time with him.  one good thing about your story is that you sound like a supportive mother to your other kids, and if they ever get into a hard situation, you will help them decide what is best for them.  they are all lucky to have you, and i wish you the best of luck. please keep us posted about your meeting. take care.

[bowla004]

Good luck to you! Your awesome! Im 23 and i was adopted when i was 3. My birth mother termanted her parental rights. I don't know much about her but it sounds to me that she gave me up willingly. It sucks. I want to find out more about her what she was like, why she gave me up. Tell her how i turned out. But i love my adopted mother so much im afraid to hurt her feelings. Your son is lucky now he gets to know all the answer to the qeustions i have. I don't even know if she is alive and if she cares to see me at all. Your son is very lucky to have a birth mother like you.

[LJ307]

I've just received some devastating news regarding my fertility.  I am unable to have children of my own.  I'm single, 42 and a school teacher of modest financial means.   Would love to adopt a chid from China.  Can you give me any information that would be helpful.   Cost, where to get started, policy and procedures?   Thank you!!!

[suzi-q]

China has changed it's guidelines and is not allowing single people adopt anymore (yes, I think that is HORRIBLE).  The good news is, is that Viet nam is one of the Eastern countries that allows singles to adopt.  Start will finding an agency.  Google that with your city and state.  It will give you lists of agencies in your area.  Go on their websites.  Most of the websites will give information regarding what countries you can adopt from, the wait time, the approx. cost, and other guidelines.  I live in NJ.  If you do too, let me know and I will tell you what agency I used.  I really found them to be wonderful

[LJ307]

Thanks suzi-q.  I'll start looking.  No I don't live in NJ.  I'm on the west coast, Oregon.

[suzi-q]

Best to you!

[for_kids]

You anger me.  I cannot believe how selfish and self-serving your wants and desires are.  Yes, I am sorry you had to give up your child, but he is the one with the rights here now, not you.  Two wrongs do not make a right, and your insistance that he be reunited with you at such a vulnerable time and age in his life is obvious of your absolute disregard for his total well-being. This is about the child....You cannot undo what has been done, but you have the choice to "mess it up" for him, and it looks like you are on a path to do just that.  I have adopted, my brother is also adopted and two of my precious grandkids are adopted.  In each case the birth-mother (I do not apologize because that is all you should be to this child) has never interferred with the lives of the children, but placed the security and adjustment of the child above their own selfish needs.  You know there is a story in the old testament about the two women who were fighting over a baby, and a very wise judge said, well just cut the child in two pieces and let them each have a piece.  The true mother of the child, screamed oh no...let her have him...because she would rather give up the child than cause the child pain.  You want to claim you are the true mother, then let me see you follow this example.  My grandkids know who their birth-mother is and why she chose to place them in a better place.  They are extremely confident, secure and loved beyond measure. However, a house divided cannot stand and if there were two sets of standards, two lifestyles, two (for goodness sake....)mothers or fathers....they would be emotionally torn and fractured.  If when they are of age, they want to contact their biological parents, then we will send them with God's blessing, knowing they are able to deal with what may be as adults. Meanwhile we send pictures and stories of how they are doing about once per year. Just as you fiercely want to protect your children, so does an adoptive parent.  These are our babies whether we gave birth to them or not and regardless of how you came to be separated from the child you gave birth to, you cannot go back and fix that, because it is not about you...It is about the child.

[Gayle48]

I want to tell you that your comments to Kris123 are not helpful for her recovery. She obviously was not treated in a right manner at the vulnerable age of 13. She loved her son and gave him life even though he was a result of a rape. This is honorable and you should be commending her for it. Secondly, she has never had the closure that your grandchildren's first moms had. (as far as we know)  Also, they have recieved pictures and updates, which Kris123 has never had the luxury of having. Most domestic adoptions that take place in the recent past are now open adoptions that are agreements between the first mom and the adoptive parents. The range of openess is dependent on both set of parents. This has proven to be a healthy solution in so many ways.
My two sons are adopted from Korea. Kris123's pain only convicts me to rewrite their first mothers and include pictures and updates and re-encouagement that we are open to "openness" if not now in the future. I honor them for first not aborting these precious individuals and secondly for trusting us as their adoptive parents to love them as they would have hoped. Please don't add to Kris' pain that she is trying to make sense of. If she seems selfish it is because she was wronged, not because she wants to wreck her son's life.  She seems like a wonderful lady that wants God's blessings and best for Adam. If she gets positive affirmation from caring people, she will only do what's best for her, (yes "her") son.  If anything I get from being an adoptive mother myself is that we did not build our family in a "traditional" way and I should never pretend that I did. There are other people involved in MY children's lives and that is not a fact I can erase. Your child(ren) who have adopted live with that fact every day and should not deny it. My story has an added fact of that my children are of a different race from us which will bring some added senerios. Should I deny that fact too? No, I have to embrace that fact as to ensure that they can come to me with all their questions, fears and concerns.
Adam will have questions and what better person to answer them than Kris123. If she approaches it right and keeps her love for her son in the forefront, the relationship will develop to what he and his adoptive parents AND Kris123 feel comfortable with.
I can't stress enough that your comments may have set her back.
Kris, I am sorry for your pain. I can't imagine losing my children. I can't imagine the pain you have lived with for 15 years. Even though I agree with you that a two parent family is best, your choice  was not respected. Thank you for giving Adam life. He will thank you for it.  Your story could help others understand the importance of the feelings of the first mother's who so much want the best for their children who they love so much that they bore them. You and Adam could also bring about the importance that EVERY is worth living. Not just those from perfect circumstances. My second son's mother became mildly retarded from a disease that was left untreated as a child. He, by all circumstances would have been considered best to be aborted. He is a precious life, perfect in every way. He deserved life and she gave it to him. She was unmarried and physically unable to care for him, but does that mean she should not be honored for giving him life. NO! I fear the choice was made for her too because of her mental state. I am sure my son's first moms think about them every day and part of it is because of the fact that they don't know where and how they are. Kris' meeting Adam or at least knowing how he is may be all she needs to be healed of her distress. Don't belittle her feelins
I hope I made my point and hope those who may think this first mom is being selfish may now think more highly of her.
God bless!

[ronpaul4prez]

I think about my real mom all the time.

I wonder what she looks like

If she's like me

or even if she's still alive


I also wonder if she still thinks about me. she was in a state hospital, kinda nutty, well I don't know really, she could have been sooo far gone, she might not of even known what was going on.

I still wish and hope and pray though

[kris123]

It was not my idea to meet - it was the adoptive parents and adams - BTW he wrote me a letter and called me mom and said love your son.  I let my child go not to cause him pain.  His aboptive parents are divorce.  His adoptive mother is remarried and his father is not.  

"However, a house divided cannot stand and if there were two sets of standards, two lifestyles, two (for goodness sake....)mothers or fathers....they would be emotionally torn and fractured" - Looks like his adoptive parents gave him more adults to be around they divorced when he was very young - So I guess they screwed him up right???

He will always be my son and it is a shame that you are so selfish and only thing of you.  I have faith in my GOD and he lead me to Adam and made is so easy to find him HIS hand was in it.  I only asked to know he was ok - IT WAS HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS THAT WANTED HIM TO MEET ME AS WELL AS HIM - Read the post ok

I think you only read the first post so get all the info -

[kris123]

Gayle -
You words were so so caring and it really means a lot.  I encourage you to write the first moms letter put pics in them.  You have no idea how much joy you will be sending them.  I have only one pic and I have carried it with me for 15 years - it is gold to me :-)  The letter I got from him where he called me mom and said love your son is with me too :-)  Even though his parents are divorced and he is with him dad, they are wonderful parents to let Adam and I meet.  It was all adam's idea not mine.  i never said anything about meeting just wanted to know he was alive and happy and maybe one pic.  You are such a wonderful person and it is a mother like you that understand that makes a difference.  You understand the pain - my son is bi-racial and raised by his white parents now divorced.  You can make a difference in your childrens first mothers lives by send letters and pics it only take a min.  if is hard not to see your child not to know they are ok.  I was 15 i must have did a typo

Ron -

I feel for you so much.  As a birthmother, I am so sure she loves you.

[kris123]

You know, you think the way you do for some reason so I souldn't attacked you.  You are entitled to what you feel just as I am.  I hope God blesses you with this new year and your children are happy.

[Texheart]

I am the adoptive "Nana Banana" of a darling Asian girl.  I say girl as now she is 7 years old.  We have had the pleasure of knowing this angel since she was a month old.  
My heart goes out to the Birth Mother as she was hoping she could keep her baby.  The adoption agency gave her time to think about this. She held her baby.  She fed and diapered her baby and she loved on her baby.

She was given profiles to look over and pictures of prospective families in case she felt best to let someone else raise her baby. The Birth mother did not have the names of the prospective parents or addresses but did have pictures of them and of the inside of their home and that of the nursery for the baby.  The birth mother was also informed on the education of the adoptive parents, their nationality, religious beliefs and if there were other siblings in the family.  When the baby was a little over a month old, we got the call. She had chosen us.  Over the years we have sent some pictures of our beautiful child to the adoption agency in case the Birth Mother, inquired.  We do not know if she has ever seen these pictures.

I pray for the Birth Mother as she loved this baby immensley.  She bought a gold cross and chain for her and asked that she be told where this came from.  We have done that.

This child has given us nothing but the greatest joy to our lives. We do not know how we have lived this long without her.  She is precious and very smart and plays the piano well.  

I feel when she is an adult, she may look for her birth mother.  We will help her.   People say how fortunate she is to have us. NO!  We are the fortunate ones to have her. God Blessed us when He placed this baby in our arms on that cold, winter day. Thank You, Adoption Agency. Thank You, Birth Mother. Thank You, God.

[freddy3rd]

My Daughter was taken when she was 6 months old although I was left for dead the family services placed her in a home I helped pick out.
The adoption was closed and I never saw her for 18 years after she was 2 years old.
In October of two thousand and one she found me she said her parents had both passed away when she was a teenager in high school.
We bonded over aol instant messenger for the next three years and became close.
She spent a weekend at my house and me one weekend at her college and later a weekend in her home.
She had many oportunity's I could never have offered her and she is an achiever at the age of 26 she is engaged and my disability won't allow me to attend the wedding.this spring but I will be there for her when ever she needs me I am 3500 miles away or just one phone call.
I lost my parental rights and have no other children but I will always love her even when we are fighting. I know the adoption agency was pulling in big bucks for young blond haired blue eyed baby's. And I was homeless shortly after she was born with walking pnemonia (pneumonia) and soon afterwards hospitalized for a long time.
Twenty years after the fact they put back the clock to the time when all my money and luck had run out and sent me social security checks for my college years when she was born. A little to late to spend and save my young family but I spent it on her for our five year anniversary/ She is the wonder of my life . I Know how you must feel and never would I abort a child.

[Renee31]

My mom died when i was 9 years old and my step mom raised me since I was 10. Although we were always close you always wonder about your real mom. You always having a longing for your mother who gave birth to you, it's only natural.
I feel for your pain of having to give up your child against your will. I too like you would never do that to my son or daughter. I've already talked to my 13 year old son who is in 8th grade about teenage pregnancy and how some teenagers panic and hide it and they try to hide their babies after they are born and they die. I am very open with him that he can always come to me. I also let him know he is way too young for sex and what comes with it, emotionally and so on.
I'm glad your getting some closure by your son writing you. I hope for peace and closure for you and your son. It would be great if he could have a relationship with all loving adults involved. All adoption are unique I believe. In your case it sounds like meeting him is for the positive. As long as your aware your not putting your pain on him and he's not carrying that then having you in his life is only a +!!!
Best wishes~~~

[polly22]

Kris, as a reunited birthmother I can't tell you how glad I am that you will be able to soon meet your now-teenage son. Don't let any unpleasant posts on this discussion bother you, particularly now. I agree with you that, in a reunion, one needs to "take it slow" sometimes----but the very best advice I had, just before my reunion, was, strangely, from the agency counselor: "Have no expectations" and "Bring no one along---just you and him" (though, in your case, probably the adoptive parents will be there too; perhaps they'll have the courtesy to leave you and your/their son alone for a few minutes, I hope). Don't be afraid to cry, to hug, to show your love, your joy.  ---The resentments, I agree, are best not let interfere, to the extent you can help it.--- I hope you have a birthmothers or triad-members group? Preferably also an online one, preferably one with a bit of political awareness.  My very best to you on your reunion. Giving up one's child is painful, and the years of not knowing carry their own shadow.