Tag Archives: birthmothers

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.

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?

“The Virus Babies”

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Published on Medium.com today!

“The Virus Babies” is speculative short fiction about the end of adoption.

It’s a quick read.

I enjoy dystopian stories. Especially when it feels like we’re really living in dystopia. I find that writing dystopian fiction exorcises my anxiety a bit.

And here’s another piece of short fiction about adoption.


“Escape from the virus babies”
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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.

I write about adoption

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Here’s why

I write about adoption, but it can be awkward, this birthmother/ first mother thing. The other night I attended a birthday party, and chatted with a couple I hadn’t yet met here in my rather large condo building.  They passed their 4-month-old back and forth between them as we were introduced. I knew from our building’s private Facebook group that the baby had come into their lives unexpectedly. This little boy, with the face of a wise old man, had surprised his bio parents too. His mother denied her pregnancy until she was rushed to the ER. The father was even more surprised. 

“Denise is a writer,” someone said as they introduced me.

“What do you write about?” the baby’s mother asked.

“I write about adoption,” I said, trying not to pull any punches, as I gestured toward the baby.

They might have flinched a little. I might have mumbled a half-hearted qualifier. But then I told them my story, and they told me theirs. “There won’t be any secrets,” the dad said. “He’s going to know the whole story.”

“He’s going to know everything,” the mother said.

“It was so different back in the day,” we said simultaneously, meaning the Baby Scoop Era. “Secrets,” we muttered. “Lies.”

What I dread most

And then neither of them said what I dread most. You were so generous to give up your baby.  No one gives up a baby out of generosity. Here, have mine, says absolutely no one. Really, take him. I insist. C’mon, you know you want him. The most wonderful, kind, intelligent people utter this generosity line. They say it because they don’t know what to say. They say it because they want to be kind. They say it because they know that saying, “How could you do that?” is the wrong thing to say, and they are desperately searching for the right thing to say.

I write fiction and essays

I write about adoption because I have a lot to say about it.. So many thoughts about what we could say to others. Thoughts about how we could change things. Here’s a short story (fiction) that I published on Medium.

And here’s an essay (a true story) about giving up my son, also on Medium.

National Adoption Month

National Adoption Awareness Month is two-thirds over. I’m going to keep posting on Medium until I turn the calendar page. I’ll take a break then, but I’ll be back. Follow this blog. Or follow me on Twitter @demanuelclemen

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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Hart Family Tragedy

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Six children are dead

There were six Hart children, all adopted from foster care. And now, though not all bodies have yet been found, authorities think all of them perished in the car that was intentionally driven off a cliff in Northern California. The children were adopted from foster care in Texas in two separate transactions, two sibling sets of three each. The adoptive parents were white, the children persons of color. Now everyone is dead.

Foster care

 Children end up in foster care after a clusterfuck of missteps. A lot of things go wrong. And then things go wrong over and over again. Really wrong. And so children are removed from the home. The Hart children were permanently removed. Their parents lost custody. The children were adopted out. They were removed from the state they were born in, removed from family, both immediate and extended. Maybe things were epic proportion horrible for these kids. But here’s the thing. It didn’t get better. They were “saved” by two white women who killed them.

The birthmothers are always the tragedy in the background in stories like this. There’s a whole cast of characters in this silent background that doesn’t make the newspapers until weeks later, if ever. In this story there’s an aunt who had custody but broke a rule, and so she lost custody too. Now according to THIS, the birthmother of one of the sets of children is” taking it hard.” Taking it hard. Can you imagine? 

Adoption practices ignore research

There’s a long history of adoption in our country, and we’ve learned things that we have yet to put into practice. In Adoption in America: A Historical Perspective, E. Wayne Carp cites an early 19thcentury historian, reporting on four orphan asylums between 1800 and 1820: “But adoption did not emerge as the preferred system of child care in the early nineteenth century because elite families with whom the children were placed often treated them as servants rather than family members. This experience led the female managers to favor blood relatives when considering child placement.”

Similar conclusions were made decades later as a result of the orphan trains wherein foundlings and street children from eastern cities were sent to more rural areas throughout the country to live with families that sometimes treated them as indentured servants. Early adoption law in Minnesota was forged to combat the corruptions of the orphan trains.

The toughest truths

While there are certainly many kudos deserved to those who adopt children from foster care–those people who have the capacity to love and to work toward healing, there are still uncomfortable truths to be reckoned with. I’ll leave you with these thoughts from Liz Latty and her piece “Adoption is a Feminist Issue, But Not For the Reasons You Think,” :

“Here’s the toughest truth yet: Those children are almost always the children of poor and working class people, people of color, native and indigenous people, and young people. The people who adopt them, who directly benefit from the economic and racial oppression of these groups, are most often middle and upper-middle-class people and are primarily white”.

And if you’re the sort of person who prays, pray for everyone. The social workers in the system, the children, the foster parents, the adoptive parents, and the birth families. I’m really not much for praying myself, but I’ll be thinking of the birthmothers of the Hart children forever.

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.