Tag Archives: adoption loss and grief in birthmothers

A New Essay in Under the Sun

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I have a new essay in Under the Sun about losing my first child to adoption.

A writing accident

I never meant to write about any of this. For decades I was a reader, not a writer. Then a terrible thing happened. And I began writing a story about it. One morning my husband went to work and left a legal pad on the kitchen table. I filled most of it that morning, making the terrible thing into sort of a fiction. Over the next weeks, I kept writing, even though I hadn’t done any creative writing since high school. I was processing the terrible thing by making it into a story.

At some point I stopped into one of my favorite coffee shops before picking my kids up from school and saw a stack of flyers about a writing workshop that was going to be held in their backroom on Saturdays. Cool, I thought. Because I think the thing I’ve been writing could be a novel. I folded the flyer in half and put it on my bulletin board in the kitchen.

Without ever unfolding the flyer and reading the bottom half of it with the description of the workshop, I showed up. That’s when I found out it was a memoir workshop. The story of my secret teen-age pregnancy poured onto the page. At the end of this weeks- long workshop there was a reader’s theater type performance. It made me brave. And I found out people wanted to hear the story about the son I had lost.

Writing on purpose

I took the workshop again. And again. At every performance there was always a birthmother or an adoptee in the audience. Even though starting to write memoir had been an accident, the telling of the story became more and more important to me. And it seemed important to other people too.

I also kept writing the story that was a fictionalized version of the terrible thing. When I was 54-year-old empty nester/new divorceé I got into an MFA program, and the novel about the terrible thing became a my master’s thesis. But all the while I was sending out personal essays about adoption and they were getting published. I thought my essays and the other essays I was reading about adoption might change the adoption industry.

Time has passed. I’ll be 70 this year. I am marching forward while the world marches backwards. A new Baby Scoop Era is coming. Amy Coney Barrett as much as told us so when she touted adoption as an alternative to abortion during her confirmation hearing. The recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion has confirmed it.

I wrote about the loss of reproductive rights on this blog way back in 2012. And here’s a weird and creepy thought. Has the Hulu version of the Handmaid’s Tale been desensitizing us to our dystopian future? I was obsessed with the Handmaid’s Tale for the first few seasons and its parallels to the adoption and the Baby Scoop. You can read about that here and here.

A Birthmother on Mother’s Day

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One dozen ways to be with a birthmother on Mother’s Day

Here’s the thing. It’s not easy to be a birthmother on Mother’s Day.

Try this. Google birthmother. The search results will lead you to sites promoting adoption. This is how the world is. It is pro-adoption. Not pro-family preservation. And certainly not pro-birthmother. Unless you’re planning on handing over a baby. Let’s say someone who’s recently relinquished a child goes to the internet seeking support this Mother’s Day. Well, she’s going to be gaslighted.

If you know a birthmother/first mother, reach out to her in the next few days. Don’t let her sit alone staring into a screen, reading stuff that makes her feel sad and crazy.

A list

I’ve published this list of things to talk about with a birthmother before, but here it is again, with a couple of additions.

  1. I know you’re a mother, so I want you to know I’m thinking of you.
  2. Is there a way I can bring some comfort to you today?
  3. Do you feel like telling me your story? I might not know all of it.
  4. Would you like to go out for some coffee, or a walk, or maybe a movie?
  5. Have you searched for your child? or How is your reunion going? Tell me about that if you feel like talking about it.
  6. How do you think your life would be different if you’d raised your child?
  7. What would you do if your son/ daughter contacted you?
  8. What’s the hardest thing about Mother’s Day for you?
  9. Do you like the term birthmother? Or is there another word you prefer?
  10. I really appreciate your friendship, and I want you to know I’m here for you.
  11. Do you know about the support group Concerned United Birthparents? And that they have a Zoom support group meeting coming up? It’s on May 21st.
  12. I’d like to know more about adoption and its history. What can you tell me about it? Or can you suggest some books or information I can read?

Birthmothers and Witches

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Scotland’s Witches

King James VI of Scotland and subsequent rulers vilified people believed to be witches with great fervor during the 16th and 18th centuries. They tortured and executed over 2500 during two centuries of Satanic panic. The witches have recently received a formal apology. This apology, delivered by first minister Nicola Sturgeon in early March, was a very long time coming. It’s been hundreds of years since the witches of Scotland, most of them women, suffered their terrible fates.

“I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and extend a formal, posthumous apology to all of those accused, convicted, vilified, or executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563,” Ms. Sturgeon said. The apology was the result of an activist campaign. The campaign asked for three things. A pardon. An apology. And a national memorial. Discussions regarding the memorial are in progress.

Scotland’s birthmothers

Between 1950 and 1980 over 60,000 Scottish women gave up their children for adoption. A group of activist birthmothers began asking for a formal apology for these forced adoptions around a decade ago. In 2015 Scotland decided against issuing that apology. But the struggle continued. By the end of 2021 the Scottish parliament was reconsidering. Australia had apologized to its birthmothers. And Ireland apologized. And England’s families minister, Vicky Ford, apologized. Way back in 2013 the Catholic Church in England and Wales apologized. At long last, the government of Scotland is now seriously considering an apology. But as of yet, Nicola Sturgeon has not made a formal speech.

It is easier to apologize to the dead. There are no surviving witches from Scotland’s execution heyday. Officials do not have to look into their eyes. The dead witches will not sit at the table to discuss the details of the memorial. They cannot shake anyone’s hand or say thank you. Or stand there weeping inconsolably while a politician awkwardly ponders what to do. Modern day witches will, no doubt, participate in discussions about the memorial. But their ancestor’s fates are long-ago history.

Movement for adoption apology

Thousands of Scottish birthmothers are still alive. The Movement for Adoption Apology is asking for mental health support for these birthmothers. They want changes in the management of adoption records, which currently are closed for 100 years. And they want an adoption reunion registry. And a memorial. They also want a formal apology.

Will they get it? I don’t know. But it seems Scotland finds birthmothers more frightening than witches.

Ireland’s Last Magdalene Laundry

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A Magdalene laundry memorial

According to the New York Times, a new memorial will be developed in the last remaining “Magdalene laundry” in Dublin. The compound with its convent and laundry buildings is the only facility of its type in Ireland that has not been demolished. Narrowly escaping development as a hotel, the memorial will become an education center and a museum know as the National Center for Research and Remembrance. There is an awful lot to research and remember.

Fallen women and girls in trouble

Ireland turned its “fallen women,” its “girls in trouble” into slaves. According to most sources, from the 18th century to the late 20th century some 30,000 women were confined in these institutions. But there are no official statistics. Secrets are by nature resistant to statistics. Imagine a family desperate to rid themselves of the shame of having a pregnant unmarried daughter. There may have been tears and regret when she was delivered to the gates of one of these places. But I’ll bet you your firstborn child there was also an immense sigh of relief by the parents who left her. By some estimates, in Ireland alone there were 41 of these facilities and perhaps as many as 300 in England.

My own troubles

I lived in a small Catholic town in Iowa when I got pregnant in 1970. I was in my final year at a Catholic school–the only high school in my home town. It seems like a miracle, but I kept my pregnancy a secret throughout my senior year. I went to prom. I graduated. When my parents found out I was pregnant I was due to give birth in six weeks. Plans were made very quickly.

After I confessed my plight to my mother she went downstairs to the phone. She called my father and asked him to come home early for lunch, and then she called the home for unwed mothers in Dubuque, a city of approximately 30,000 a half hour’s drive down the highway. I figured a place like this would be my fate. I imagined girls who smoked and wore too much mascara. Girls who were mean, perhaps, and way wilder than I was. I needn’t have worried. There was no room at the inn. Imagine, there I was feeling completely alone, and there was so many girls like me that there was not enough room to house us.

I went to stay with a foster family in the deep Iowa countryside. I helped the mom, Sarah, take care of her four kids while her husband was away on National Guard duty. There’s a lot more to this story, but here’s the thing–I was treated with love and kindness.

A Magdalene baby in Iowa

If you want a personal story about the Magdalene laundries, watch this movie. And believe it or not, my family had a connection to the real-life son of Philomena. You can read about him here. My mind was pretty much blown to find out he was adopted into the family of my brother-in-law. A Magdalene laundry baby in Iowa.

Adoption’s Legacy of Harm

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Witnessing the evidence of harm

It’s been years since I’ve spent a Saturday morning in a room, passing around a box of kleenex while listening to birth parents and adoptees weep through their stories. I used to regularly attend Concerned United Birthparents meetings back when I was searching for my son. Until I went to one of these meetings, I thought I was somehow maladjusted. Some rare freak who was unable to forget that she’d given away her baby. Because of the secretive nature of being an unwed mother, I’d never met another girl like me. I knew they were out there, but I told myself that they (whoever they were) were fine. I was the defective one. The meetings demonstrated how wrong I was. I witnessed the evidence of harm.

The ongoing legacy of adoption

After I read this article a few days ago, I realized that adoption’s legacy of harm extends far beyond the borders of the Baby Scoop Era (1945-1973) here in the U.S. The U.K. Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights recently published its first batch of written evidence after gathering testimony from mothers who relinquished babies between 1949 and 1976. Although the dates don’t match exactly with what’s generally considered the Baby Scoop Era, a couple of years on either end is a mere detail. Adoption practices in the United Kingdom as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland were similar to those in the United States. And when we speak of the Baby Scoop era, we’re really talking about all of these places.

Writing down the evidence of harm

The U.K. Parliament has published their evidence–both transcribed oral testimony and written testimony. There are many pages. And of course this is a fraction of all the stories out there. In the U.S. alone, at least four million babies were relinquished.

Here’s a quote from one of the testimonies made to the U.K. Parliament:

“I was severed from my birth family, and they were severed from me. I was prevented access to familiar faces and the people that I look like. I didn’t have information pertinent to familial medical history. I grew up without the facts surrounding my life. I was raised with the knowledge that I am adopted, although my experience of dialogue around my adoption is shut-down. It is not talked about. Adoption has deeply impacted on my sense of self, my self-esteem, my relationships to others, and my relationship to the world.”

Harry Barnett (ACU0091)

As for me, I’m reunited with my son. I guess I’d say that I have one of the happiest birthmother/first mother stories that I know of. But I’ll repeat what Mr. Barnett says above. Losing my son “has deeply impacted on my sense of self, my self-esteem, my relationships to others, and my relationship to the world.”

How to Adopt from Ukraine

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How, exactly, do you adopt a baby from Ukraine during a war? By any means necessary. What is necessary? I will tell you what I learned from a story I read recently.

But first, I will remind you that I am a birthmother/first mother and that I write from that perspective. I write about adoption because I want you to pause for a moment and reconsider the heartwarming stories so often in the news. I want you to peer inside these stories and open the door to that dimly lit room where the birthmother resides. I want you to imagine a woman in a hospital bed, the sound of shelling, her empty arms.

Escape on foot

 In this story the baby’s mother is in a hospital room in Ukraine. Bombs are dropping the morning her newborn daughter leaves with a new set of parents. But the new parents take the baby out of the hospital without getting an official discharge from the doctor. They take her even though the nurses advise against it. The baby is having trouble eating and needs special formula, and so the parents must go in search of it.

Flights out of Ukraine have been cancelled. The parents and the baby must exit by car through Poland. The bombing could intensify with each passing hour. The hired driver cancels. Then the car with the new driver gets stuck for hours in a traffic jam. Finally, the parents decide to walk. Border control officials separate them.

Leave the birthmother behind

The adoption process, whatever its particulars, is inherently designed to leave the birthmother behind. The story in the article mentions surrogacy, but does not get into the particulars of sperm and egg. The particular fact that interests me is that, even when bombs are falling, the birthmother, who may have contributed an egg as well as a womb, is barely considered. The adoptive parents tried to get the doctors to induce labor so they could take the baby sooner. Did the birthmother have a say in this?  What about when the adoptive parents took the baby from the hospital without a formal discharge? What desires did she have regarding the child she gave birth to? Did anyone honor these desires?

Tell a heroic story

Things have continued to deteriorate in Kyiv since the final week of February when a two-day-old baby girl left a hospital with a new set of parents. The three of them made it across the border into Poland, trekking through the cold, the last seven miles on foot. They got a hotel and reserved a flight back to the United States. A baby rescued from war as bombs fell. This is the story in the newspaper. This is likely the story the American parents will tell their daughter about the day she became theirs. They will tell her how they adopted a baby from Ukraine. Drama. War. Rescue. Escape. What they will say to her about the birthmother left in a city under siege?

What I Spent to Give My Child Up

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What I Spent
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What I Spent to Give My Child Up for Adoption is on Medium.com today.

It’s my response to a piece in the New York Times about the high price tag of adoptions.

And here are a couple more thoughts on the price of giving up a child.

The Birthmother Myth

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Preconceived notions

The birthmother myth. What myth? You already know plenty about birthmothers, right? Or you think you do. But these women and girls who have given up their children might not be quite what you think they are.

Myth busting

I have another piece that was featured on Medium yesterday in their publication called Human Parts. It might surprise you.

Birthmother Myth: A girl can't go to her prom secretly seven and a half months pregnant.
Birthmother Myth:
A girl can’t go to her prom secretly seven and a half months pregnant.

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Adoption is Everywhere

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Writers working at night in Maverick Writers’ Studio on the Gihon River at the Vermont Studio Center

Adoptees and birthparents are everywhere

But sometimes it feels like a secret society, this adoption thing.

I’ve been at a writer’s residency the past month at the Vermont Studio Center. As I read from my book manuscript a couple of weeks ago, I looked out at the faces in the audience. I know that whenever I read from my memoir there will be whispered conversations. Later people tell me their stories. Or maybe not the story at all. Maybe just that they are a birthmother or an adoptee.

I’m still thinking of the young man who waited until the day before he left to tell me how much he appreciated the reading. “I’m a child of adoption,” he said. I saw loss and longing and questions in his eyes. The intensity of it threw me off balance. I had one of those moments wherein I tried to say something right and good. But because I was trying so hard, I can’t remember what it was I said.

I would have liked to have said that I’d bet a million dollars that his birthmother loved him and has missed him every day of her life.

The Handmaid’s Baby Scoop

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A scene from “The Handmaid’s Tale”

The Handmaid’s Tale and adoption

As is often the case, I’m a little late to the party. I just finished watching the last episode of the Hulu version of Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale. It pretty much killed me. Ever since I began watching I would frequently google, “Is Margaret Atwood a birthmother?” When that didn’t bring up much, I’d change tactics and google, “Is Margaret Atwood an adoptive mother?” With still no luck I tried, “Is Margaret Atwood adopted?”

Okay. I gave up. But somehow Margaret Atwood nailed what it was like to be a birthmother in the Baby Scoop Era. Secrecy reigned in the adoption industry then. Hell, secrecy still reigns in many ways. Anyway, Atwood’s fictional vision and the real life Baby Scoop are quite similar. Young fertile unmarried women were coerced into giving up their babies to those society deemed more worthy under the burgeoning theocracy known as the United States of America.

In the last episode of season 1 Jeannine is about to be stoned by her sister handmaids for the crime of endangering a child. She took her baby from its adoptive parents and nearly succeeding in hurling both herself and the baby off a bridge. In an act of civil disobedience not one of the handmaids will hurl the first stone. This communal act is what made me weep.

There was very little support for birthmothers in 1970 when I had my son. I labored and delivered alone. And after signing the papers, there was no mourning. The entire experience was a deep dark secret. End of story. For two decades, anyway. After watching that last episode, there’s now a scene In my head in an adoption agency with a contingent of birthmothers, and no one will pick up the pen.

And there’s this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/watching/the-handmaids-tale-tv-finale-margaret-atwood.html?mcubz=1

Baby Scoop and other tragedies

Ms. Atwood pays homage to the women whose reproductive rights were abused under Nicolae Ceausescu and Hitler, and she mentions the 500 babies in Argentina who were disappeared, and the indigenous babies of both Australia and Canada, but there’s not a word about the women and babies from the Baby Scoop Era. According to the Adoption History Project from the University of Oregon, the Baby Scoop Era in the United States pertains to the period between 1945 and 1973. It is estimated that up to 4 million mothers in the United States had children placed for adoption during that time. Four million handmaids.

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