Author Archives: declemen

About declemen

Author, birthmother, advocate for adoption reform and other good things

Surrogacy Scam

Leave a reply
collage by author
 

Women deceived

THE ARTICLE on the front page of the Sunday Los Angeles Times about a huge surrogacy scam left me stunned. Women lawyers were operating a baby-selling ring!

The surrogates were required to give birth in California. Because, apparently, California is “one of the only” states where the adoptive parents can be listed on the baby’s birth certificate without actually going through an adoption. In other words, the adoption is completely secret. No one will know that the baby and parents are not biologically related.

Adoptees clueless

These adoptees won’t have the option of petitioning some court for their original birth certificates. In fact, they won’t even know that they’re adopted unless their parents choose to tell them. They might never know their ethnicity, or their medical or cultural history.

Ringleader gets rich

These unscrupulous criminals initiated their scheme in 2008. One of the ringleaders admitted that “she had carried and delivered at least half a dozen babies for the business.” Adoptive parents paid $100,000 to $150,000 to call one of these infants their own. So, the big-boss-baby-carrier made a tidy sum on her own efforts alone.

In my opinion, these women should go to prison. But maybe there’s another way for them to use their legal acumen. Maybe they can pay their debts to society for this outrage while under modified house arrest.

Battered women’s shelters, orphanages, the guardian ad litem program, and other causes that have to do with women and children could use their services.

Here’s an idea. Let’s seize their assets and donate them to the Open Records movements.

Steve Yockey’s play “Heavier Than…”

2 Replies
 

Is the playwright adopted?

“Is playwright Steve Yockey adopted?” I typed the words into Google and clicked. And clicked. I didn’t find an answer. For not being about adoption, Steve Yockey’s play “Heavier Than…” raises a lot of questions relevant to the subject.

A classic from a new P.O.V.

I saw Yockey’s play last Sunday at Boston Court, an excellent theater company in Pasadena that focuses on new works.  

Yockey’s ingenious play turns the ancient Greek myth about the minotaur upside down. Like in John Gardner’s “Grendel” and Barry Unsworth’s “The Songs of Kings,” ancient heros are booted out of the limelight, and the story is told from an opposite point of view. In the case of “Heavier Than…” it’s Asterius, the monstrous minotaur in the labyrinth, who is finally given his say. Asterius is the love child of a snow-white bull (sent by the god Poseidon to King Minos of Crete) and King Minos’s queen, Pasiphae. The queen kept her boy close until he became unruly and incurred the wrath of his step-father. After Minos consulted the Oracle at Delphi, Asterius was cast into the labyrinth that Minos had built solely for the purpose of confining his wife’s monstrous son.

Is the minotaur really a monster?

But in Steve Yockey’s excellently acted and produced play, “Heavier Than…”the relinquished boy is not a monster at all. True, he’s killed dozens of warriors sent into the labyrinth according to local custom year after year. But now on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, he wants what he has craved all these years–a visit from his mother. He had a dream about her and he thinks the dream portends a visit.

But the Three Fates, who also inhabit the labyrinth as his guardians, insist that the queen, though she loves him very much, will not appear. The best they can do is invoke their special powers which allow them to conjure scenes of life outside the labyrinth for Asterius. These scenes are rendered as if they were movies, and they show him his mother and his half-sister in action. Asterius watches raptly as Pasiphae laments her youthful past to her daughter. She misses her boy, she says. But she had to relinquish him. She had no choice.

Icarus tells the truth

But the Fates don’t control everything, it seems. Asterius’s only friend Icarus, who is able to fly into the labyrinth on his massive homemade wings, tells Asterius what he knows about the queen, and it doesn’t match up with the version the Fates have revealed. When the Fates do show Asterius the truth, he learns that his mother and his half-sister Ariadne have plotted against him in order to save the young warrior Theseus from certain death in the labyrinth. Why? Because Ariadne has fallen in love with him.

Good mother/bad mother

The duality of the good mother/ bad mother is fertile ground for literature, but I’ve rarely experienced it as heartbreakingly as I did in “Heavier Than….” This mother in question has relinquished a child. Because I’ve written a full-length memoir about giving up my own son, I am always sensitive to the question of what really happened. Did I really have to give him up? Did I really? I wonder too, how subsequent children ever completely trust the mother that gave away a sibling. Do they trust me? Really?

I’m a pretty happy person these days. I’ve made my peace with most of my demons. But I think it’s good to ask the questions. Not to be too comfortable with one’s own story. There’s always another point of view.

Rhode Island Adoptees

1 Reply
 

Rhode Island Adoptees Win!

Rhode Island Adoptees have won the right to access their original birth certificates! And isn’t it cool that the Rhode Island flag says, “Hope?”

It’s enough to make me want to move to New England. Along with Maine and New Hampshire, Rhode Island has restored the rights of adoptees. Rights advocates battled for twenty years in Rhode Island, and it could be that Connecticut will be the next state to win its battle for adoptee rights.


So now there are seven states where adoptees have access to their original birth certificates. Maybe soon there will be eight. So…while we’re all excited about that, let’s pause for a moment. Really, what that means is eight out of 50. Eight out of 50 states allow adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. That is dismal.

Just in case you have questions regarding the importance of this legislation, I will refer you to another post here. And also to the adoptee rights group Bastard Nation.

Iowa Adoptees lose!

My son’s original birth certificate resides in the state of Iowa.
Dear Iowa, please look east and pay attention. Your mutual consent registry excludes some people and it’s kind of a money-grubbing operation. $25 bucks for each application?

Complicated Family Trees

Leave a reply

Mother/Aunt

I enjoy reading about complicated family trees. I found this story interesting, given my perspective as a birthmother. It opens with a pair of sisters, one who served as an egg donor for the other’s pregnancy. It’s this story from England. Of course, there are probably a zillion other children who’ve come into the world in this fashion. Egg donation began in the 1980s. In addition, there are certainly women who’ve raised a sister’s child as their own.

A multifaceted family tree

School children are often asked to make a family tree. That’s cool. If there’s honesty and actual facts involved. It would be a fantastic way to discuss the way families are formed. It could segue into talking about two mothers, two fathers. Blended families. Kids being parented by grandparents. Or foster parents. This one lesson on the family tree could lead to a lot of discussion.

The child in the story above has a multifaceted placement on her family tree. Biologically, she is the daughter of her aunt. While the mother who is raising her is actually her aunt.

None of this complexity is anything new to me.

My family tree

My family tree would amaze you. Get out your whiteboard and some colored markers.

My father was married before he married my mother. And this previous wife of his was married before she married him. She had a daughter from that marriage. And together my father and the wife had a son. My father and his wife raised the daughter along with the son.

The daughter had a daughter of her own when she was only 16. My father and his wife helped the daughter raise her daughter. In fact they adopted her. But the wife died. My father remarried. He married the woman that would become my mother. By then the first wife’s daughter was grown up. However, the daughter’s daughter was still a kid and she went to live with my mom and dad who raised her.

I came along and thought of this girl as my sister. Or my half-sister. Actually, she was my adopted half-sister. We called her biological mother my step-sister. We called the son my half-brother. It was all kind of weird and not talked about much. I think that was because we lived in a very small, conservative Catholic town. But we knew who was who. At some point.

That small Catholic town is why I gave up my son when I got pregnant at 16. I kept my pregnancy a secret. It was necessary to survive. Only my parents and my boyfriend knew about my son.

Another complicated family

After I found my son and we planned to meet, I needed to tell my daughters they had a brother. My husband thought they were too young to understand. They were two and five. “Let’s tell them he’s a relative, and explain more when they’re older,” he said. I wanted to tell them the truth. The truth won out. I showed my daughters a picture of me and my son’s father at our senior prom.

“Mommy was in love with another guy before Daddy,” I said. “We had a baby. He’s all grown up now and he’s coming to see us. He’s your brother.” They understood perfectly. And they were super thrilled to have a big brother.

There are so many ways to form a family now. So many ways to make a baby. We need straight talk. Honest talk. The truth. If we are not ready to have conversations about egg and sperm donors, surrogate mothers, and about birthmothers and birth fathers, I believe we are doing a disservice to the child who is the result of these adventures. How can we so dearly want the child, but not his or her genetic history? Not their true story? Let’s open our arms to all of it.

My family was beyond unusual for its time and place. But I grew up loving all my siblings. And none of them was any less lovable to me. When I was a little kid, I was confused about us a bit, but once I got it, I loved my family even more.

Unseal Records

1 Reply
Well, not that kind of record. An ADOPTION record. Sign the list to unseal adoption records.
Collage by author.

Sign to unseal records!

Birthparents can now sign a petition to unseal adoption records. I joined American Adoption Congress recently and saw their call to action asking for birthparents to sign their list in support of open records for adoptees.

No gatekeeper!

I’m not much of a joiner. I don’t especially like meetings. I don’t have the business skill-set to be a good organization volunteer. But I liked the idea of this list. Birthparents willing to write their names on a list to say, yes, I believe adoptees have the same rights as other adults. And no, I’m not hung up on confidentiality. Studies and surveys have shown that many birthparents do not feel the need for a gatekeeper.

And here are some further thoughts on open records.


I was pleasantly surprised when their newsletter,”Decree” appeared in my mailbox. Essays and poetry with multitude of perspectives. I recommend it.

Finding Kevin Parker’s Birthmother

Leave a reply

She gave birth at Parkview Hospital

Kevin Parker’s birthmother gave birth to him in 1977 in Riverside, CA.

I recently met Kevin Parker’s adopted mom. She and her son are searching for his birthmother. She’s asked me to re-post what she has posted on Facebook:


I believe my son has a right to know who his birth mother is. He was born in 1977 at Parkview Hospital in Riverside. His birth mother named him Kevin, and she used Parker as a last name on the birth certificate. She would be in her early 50’s now. She once lived in Southern California, and we were told she joined the army not long after his birth. If you know anyone who fits this profile, please contact me.

I hope Kevin Parker’s birthmother will be found!


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Finding-Kevin-Parkers-Birth-Mother/208443199189095

 

This Mom’s Mother’s Day

Leave a reply
 

If you’re a birthmother, Mother’s Day is different. Really different.

Tobias Wolff, author of This Boy’s Life, has this to say about his mother:
“In her life she didn’t get anything right, except one thing, and that was love. After reading This Boy’s Life she said: ‘ I’m glad you didn’t tidy me up and turn me into someone I wasn’t. That would have meant that I hadn’t been of any use to you as a mother.’ “

Giving birth to my son at 17 and giving him up, I have to admit I didn’t get much right. But I loved him. That story is not a tidy one. Hallmark doesn’t have a card big enough, wide enough, or ragged enough to cover all that.

But anyway, Happy Mother’s Day. You know who you are.

Open Records. Do Your Part.

Leave a reply
 

Why open records?

Open records are a crucial part of adoptee rights.

As as 17-year-old about to place a child for adoption, I wondered exactly what was meant by sealed records. Just a humble envelope? Closed with sealing wax, maybe? An envelope with the state seal? A locked file cabinet? A vault? I still don’t know exactly how they seal those records.

Birthparents

But I do know this, birthparents can help the adoptee access movement in their struggle to obtain original birth certificates for adult adoptees. You can sign this form: Birthparents for Access .


Because “birthmother confidentiality” is often trotted out as an argument opposing open records, it really can help the cause if birthparents sign. Only a handful of U.S. states grant adoptees access to their own original birth certificate. Even worse, some state claim that adoptees have access to their original birth certificates, but they don’t really. They’re only conditionally open. As an adoptee in a state like this, you have the right to request your original birth certificate, but it might come back redacted. What good is that? I think more birthparents would be in favor of unsealing those records if they really considered what’s at stake for adoptees..

Under the Same Moon

1 Reply
 

All of us are under the same moon.

Last night I went looking for the moon. I wanted to see it rising over the red tile roofs of my condo complex. Benign brightness and beauty, a silver river of light pouring out of the darkness. Instead there was a dirty blanket of sky, one corner torn– and a scrap of light showing through. 1983, the news reports said, was the last time the moon came so close in its orbit. In 1983 I’d already been in Los Angeles nearly a decade. 

I had no children in 1983. Although my son was thirteen years old and somewhere under that moon,  I didn’t know where. I didn’t know his name. Maybe he was in a park playing basketball, or going into a movie theater to see Star Wars for the the twentieth time. Motherhood was my secret then. A part of me, covered over and not allowed into the light. I wouldn’t be having any more children, I thought.

In the year of this super moon, the light resides in my children. All three of them. It seems something of a miracle that both of my daughters, now grown women, are asleep in my house tonight. And just four nights ago I stood in my son’s backyard with him and his wife and children as we took turns peering through a telescope at the moon.


photo credit: art.com

 

 

The Word Birthmother

5 Replies
 

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare

Words

I’ve posted about language before. Here.  and Here.  I understand that  words can upset people. Some words are mean to obfuscate or insult or demean.

I got pregnant when I was 16. I kept my secret and I kept it well. Six weeks before my son was born, my mom took a guess at what was going on with me. She told my dad. Then my parents insisted that I tell my boyfriend. My sisters and brothers were kept in the dark. My boyfriend’s parents had no idea. I was hidden in a foster home in the Iowa countryside for eight weeks. Then I came home. A couple of weeks later I left for college.

Later, I told the man I married about my son. I didn’t tell my friends.

After each of my daughters was born, I slipped into an abyss of grief. Then I met a young woman who told me she was a birthmother. Until that moment, I believed myself to be an unwed mother. I loved the word, birthmother.

CUB’s Word Choice

Shortly thereafter my new friend took me to a Concerned United Birthparents meeting. Here is what CUB has to say about language:
The terms “birthmother” or “birthparent” were coined by CUB founders, including Lee Campbell, who wrote an article in a 2005 issue of the CUB Communicator describing its origin. It is a term that honors the connection between parent and child, and has never been intended as a degrading or perjorative term.
We are Concerned United Birthparents. We welcome those with adoption experiences to share with, inform and support each other. Whatever terminology you wish to use will be respected here. We ask that you do the same for others, and exercise tolerance when others do not use the words you like.
The #1 search query that leads people to CUB is “birth parents.” That’s what people are typing into the search engines.
From time to time, arguments will occur on the list over the terms “birthmother” or “birthparent.” Others may suggest the use of “first mother” “natural mother” or just plain “mother” with no prefix whatsoever. We respect the use of the terminology you feel comfortable with, and do not impose any particular terminology on anyone. At the same time, we request you extend the same respect and courtesy to anyone who does not use the terminology you prefer.

This is my sentiment as well, and the protocol I will follow on this blog. I moderate my comments, and while I enthusiastically welcome comments that evenhandedly make a case for one word or another, I will not post comments that demean the vocabulary of others. Let us use the words we chose to use, but let’s not allow our words to divide us.