Mary Gauthier’s search for her birthmother has inspired a new album.
A friend sent me this interview with her the other day.
The music is beautiful and haunting.
And sadly, her birthmother has refused contact.
Annette Baran passed away on July 11th.
Annette Baran is one of the co-authors of the book, The Adoption Triangle.
The Adoption Triangle is a classic. I found Baran’s book to be honest, articulate, well-versed in historic adoption practices, and full of insight. But here’s the thing. This book came out in 1978, and the fight for open records continues to slog on. Why? The known best practices of a lifetime ago are still not being practiced.
I read The Adoption Triangle ages ago as I began to search for my son, and found it to be a helpful book as I took my first steps on the road to reunion.
Thank you, Annette Baran. Rest in Peace.
There are videos of her interviews on Youtube. It’s really a thrill to see how her thinking on closed records evolves.
And here’s a quote from her obit in the L.A. Times. It says a lot about her clear thinking and her practical approach.
Her acceptance of working in an era of sealed records and secrecy surrounding adoption eroded after a birth mother insisted on meeting the potential adoptive parents, Baran later said.
As Baran watched the back-and-forth between the couple and birth mother, she said she thought, “This is pretty good. Why does this have to be secret?”
Illustration from Alice in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel
I’ve been lurking around over at Birth Mother, First Mother Forum. Their blog has 117 followers. I’ve been clicking on each little picture, wondering who all of these women are and what their stories are. If there is a link on the profile, I click on it and read a bit of their blog. And then I look at their followers and I click on those little pictures and see if they have blogs and who their followers are, and then……
Are you following me? I mean, this is a journey through a cyberspace rabbit hole where there are birthmothers around every turn!
One thing I’ve noticed is this: Many of the followers and the followers of the followers, etc. do not have blogs of their own, so I don’t know for sure if they are are birthmothers or not. But I bet they are. Or adoptees. There are quite a few adoptees who follow Birth Mother First, First Mother Forum, too.
There are so many of us. So many birthmothers. So many adoptees. From the Baby Scoop era alone, there were four million adoptions.
So now I’m hooked. Every day, I’m going to click on a couple more pictures. And of course the blog itself is very thought-provoking. I admire the writing team of Lorraine Dusky and Jane Edwards. They have a lot to say. And they say it well.
In addition to Birth Mother First Mother Forum, there are more resources here.
Family traditions are important. Ritual and rhythm in the life of a family are good things. The same vacation spot every spring. The Christmas candles on the mantle. The turkey centerpiece. But it’s harder to establish traditions in a family separated by adoption even after there’s been a solid reunion. An adoptee in reunion can be going in a lot of directions.
There’s a lot on the calendar already if you’re a 21-year-old. Ditto, if you’re a birthmother with other children, and a husband, and in-laws, and a big extended family. And as everyone gets older more complications (albeit mostly happy ones) spread through our calendars like kudzu. Nineteen years post reunion my son has his own family. My other children are grown with mates of their own.
Then a new complication! Three years ago my husband left me for another woman, and what was left of our shifting sense of family rhythm veered completely out of sync. So now my daughters have a new brother and a new household to visit.
This 4th of July (cue the big sunburst-like golden fireworks) my son and his family came to spend the holiday with me for the 2nd year in a row. The same park, the same blankets in the same spot.
It made me insanely happy.
If you are a birthmother and have not read Meredith Hall’s memoir “Without a Map” I highly recommend it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a book in the pit of my stomach the way I felt this one.
And if you’re not a birthmother, I recommend it too.
A secret baby? Sandra Bullock had a secret baby?! I chuckled a little to myself when I read THIS. If Ms. Bullock had concealed a pregnancy under her Oscar gown–now that would have been news.
But not exactly remarkable. If you would like advice on how to conceal a pregnancy under your evening gown, ask a birthmother. There are countless birthmothers out there whose survival has depended on a well-kept secret. I was one of them.
It was easy to keep my secret under wraps, aided by the fashions of 1970. The empire waist, wildly printed tent dresses, the A-line and the casual look of men’s shirts worn un-tucked over jeans or shorts. An old dress shirt of my grandfather’s surfaced at my house, and I wore it constantly. In addition to these fashion statements, I wore a school uniform for eight hours a day. A frumpy pleated skirt and a large blazer concealed a lot of things, which is the intention of a Catholic school uniform in the first place.
No one suspected. Not at the prom at the beginning of May. Not at graduation at the end of May. Six weeks before my son was born, I went away with a tale concocted to explain my disappearance.
A month later, I returned bereft–and concealed that too. Like so many of us did.
The Miriam Project is an idea I have. A birthmother fantasy.
It’s how I wish adoptions would work in the case where the child has a birth parent who is still alive. I would call this sort of “adoption” The Miriam Project.
The adoptive parents would adopt the parent(s) and the child. They would also sponsor some major life-changing intervention in the birthparent’s life. Like education, or job training, or provide an upgrade in healthcare and living conditions so that the birthparent could take the child back after a year or two of mitigating whatever sad thing had pushed the parent to the inevitable-seeming breaking point. That breaking point where parting with one’s child seems the only answer.
In many households, both the wife and the husband work. They need child care; they need the general support and love that all families need to survive. The birthparent(s) could be part of that support network and be supported as well. Blended families are the norm now. Why not blend in a birthparent or two? Like Miriam taking care of her baby brother after she poses as a nanny in the pharaoh’s palace.
I think reading the news about the Russian boy being sent back nearly did me in. The ruckus over Artyom has mostly settled, but I can’t stop thinking about foreign adoption, and how the child loses so much.
I met a woman once–a writer. We were at a writer’s conference. I was deeply involved in working on my birthmother memoir, and she was writing a book about the the adoption of her two children from Guatemala. We treated each other delicately when we spoke. I assumed her children were orphans. Well, okay, I thought. With so much poverty in Guatemala, maybe the only way was to come north.
Then came the conversation when she told me that she wanted me to know how much she appreciated birthmothers in general. “I’ve gone back to Guatemala to see my children’s birthmother,” she said. Then I think she told me that she gave her some money and that the birthmother was very poor and had other children. I couldn’t quite organize anything articulate to say while both my heart and my head were exploding. I mumbled something. I’m not sure what.
I know someone else who has a child from a foreign adoption. I like him very, very much. He’s honest and brave. He’s sweet and smart and has had way more than his share of hurt in this life. I think he told me his child’s father is still alive. I’m almost positive that’s what he said, but there’s something that happens to my brain during conversations like this. I can’t think or hear or begin to hope to say anything smart.
Of course there are the true orphans. But how do we know if there are really no family members who want them. Remember Haiti?
And it turns out things weren’t really on the up and up in Guatemala either.
I haven’t posted for ages, and maybe that’s because I’ve been trying to get comfortable in this hat again. My special adoption dunce hat.
In my previous post I exclaimed that I wished I was young enough to adopt a Haitian orphan. That was ridiculously naive. And I’m probably drinking way too much wine. It’s a post divorce thing. Commenters pointed out the foreign adoption scam angle. And 24 hours later the news story broke about the kidnapping of the Haitian children under the guise of adoption. Since then there have been other unsavory stories in the news about foreign adoptions.
I want to believe that if there are children (orphans) who need adopting, that there are decent people who will love them. I want to believe that because I am a birthmother. Unfortunately, in many, many cases the adopters are unscrupulous, and the children are victims.
For years I’ve had this scenario in my head that adoption should include the birthmother (and father) if at all possible. Why not foster a teen-ager and a baby?
Meanwhile, while on the subject of bad adoption news, I was struck by an article in the L.A. Times a few days ago by Marilyn Elias about depression The article isn’t about adoption per se–it’s about parents who suffer from depression and the effect that has on their children. “Evidence is mounting that growing up with a depressed parent increases a child’s risk for mental health problems, cognitive difficulties and troubled social relationships.”
Another ripple in the adoption pond, I thought as I read on. The interminable sadness that is the legacy of giving up a child goes on to effect subsequent children. Well, that’s depressing. And the depression could go on to effect the children’s children. And so on. Adoption. Big ripples in a deep, deep pond.
Orphans. I’m not a weeper, but the Rachel Madow show was more than I could take tonight. Haitian orphans on a plane headed to the U.S. Adoptive families probably in their futures.
I hope they will find love.
I hope there’s no one left behind in Haiti longing for them, looking for them.
If I were just a little bit younger, maybe I would try to adopt a Hatian orphan.
“No!” the poet said. I’d caught her by surprise and her eyes were filling with tears. We were at my friend Barbara’s annual Book Brunch, and the poet and I had just introduced ourselves to one another as we were standing in the hallway. “What’s your book about?” she asked me. So I told her.
“It’s the story of getting pregnant at 16, giving my son up for adoption, and then reconnecting with him just before he turned 21.”
“I gave up a daughter,” the poet said. “In New York.” Then she went on to tell me she searched and searched and finally gave up. That she eventually forgave herself for not finding her daughter.
I’m not surprised anymore when I meet another birthmother in this fashion.
I’m just beginning to wonder how many of us there are. How many of us have searched and found--and how many are still looking. And how many have given up. I would like to see us standing shoulder to shoulder in one place, willing to be counted.