Tag Archives: birthmothers

Me and Kate Mulgrew

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Kate Mulgrew and her daughter
photo credit AARP

The actress Kate Mulgrew and I were born in Dubuque, Iowa. She went to New York to become a successful actress. I went to L.A. to act with less success. The both of us Catholic girls, our lives were unhinged by our pregnancies. Hers, not so secret at 20 in 1977; mine, buried in secrecy at 17 in 1970. We both searched and found the children we relinquished for adoption–her daughter at 22. My son at 21. We both wrote memoirs. I plan to read hers, Born With Teeth. If you’d like to read mine, you can find it here.

Years ago when I was struggling to make ends meet in Los Angeles, my mother would frequently advise me to contact Kate. Not that our families new one another. My family moved out of Dubuque to a smaller town. And Kate was, after all, in New York, not L.A. Still, my mom knew that she was famous and I wasn’t. I scoffed every time my mother mentioned her name. I wasn’t a soap opera fan and never saw a single episode of Ryan’s Hope. If I had watched it, maybe I would have tried to contact her.

Kate Mulgrew’s pregnancy was written into the script of Ryan’s Hope. She returned to the set just a few days after relinquishing her daughter while her character on the show was raising a baby. On her first day back on the show, Mulgrew had to hold a stunt baby and deliver a monologue about how she’d love the child until the day she died. If I had witnessed that, I might have hitched a ride (cue the music: “Bobby thumbed a diesel down, just before it rained…”) to New York. Given what I’d already been through, it might have been me who’d given her advice.

“Fable” –a poem by Louise Glück

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Judgemnt of Solomon by Raphael(1)
“The Judgement of Solomon” by Raphael

Though the poem, “Fable” by Louise Glück is not meant to be about adoption,  it resonated with me nonetheless. But not in the way you might think-not pitting adoptive mother against birth mother. In the poem we read about the suffering of a daughter in a strained relationship with her sister. Loss and grief are deep and primal in this poem. Like the loss and grief in adoption.

A Fable

BY LOUISE GLÜCK
Two women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn’t bear
to divide the mother.

Edith from Downton and Me

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Unknown
Like me, Edith had a secret child.

Binge watching Downton Abbey

I binge-watched the first season of Downton Abbey after coming down with a horrible flu. I’d heard about it ad nauseum, and finally succumbed while feeling a bit nauseated myself. The show hooked me, and I avidly watched the next couple of seasons until I grew weary of the problems of the English upper class. This year, well, here I am, grieving the loss of the man who loved me. Why not sit on the couch for an hour and escape? And then Lady Edith gets unexpectedly gets pregnant and gives birth to her secret child.

How Lady Edith and I are alike

Edith and me, we have things in common. Edith got pregnant after her first (so it seems) tryst with her boyfriend Michael. The same thing happened to me with my high school boyfriend. She had to keep her pregnancy secret and went away with her aunt as her confidant. (Somehow Granny finds out, but I missed that part.) In my case, only my parents and boyfriend knew, and I went away to live with a foster family in the Iowa countryside. My siblings were in the dark just like Edith’s.

Secrets and shame

Shame and ruination figured mightily in English society in 1924, just as it did in my small Catholic town in Iowa in1970. Edith manages to keep her secret, as did I, and returns home with her reputation in tact. Life goes on, right? Well, no. Sadness overtakes everything. My son was adopted by stranger in a closed records adoption. And though Edith can see her little girl occasionally since she’s been a adopted by a couple who work on Downton Abbey’s farm, she’s beset with grief. Giving one’s child away to someone else whether they are known or not, close or far, is impossible to bear.

An elaborate plan

Edith concocts an elaborate plan to be her daughter Marigold’s special guardian and bring her to the Abbey to be with the other grandchildren in the household. And then she runs away to London with her. At the 11th hour before I signed the papers relinquishing my son, I concocted my own plan to adopt my son.

I asked for a special meeting with my social worker. One evening after supper, with a thunderstorm brewing, he drove out to the farm where I was staying with a foster family. My boyfriend comes to the meeting too, and the three of us sit at the kitchen table while I tell them my latest plan. “I want to keep the baby with a foster family instead of doing a permanent adoption,” I say. “I’m staying with a foster family, and I get to go home in a week or so. The baby can do the same thing; it’ll just take longer. We’ll go to college at the end of August, just like we planned,” I say, looking at my boyfriend. “We’ll get engaged at Christmas and get married next summer.” I’m thinking we’ll be ready to be parents when we’re just a little older. “Then we’ll tell everyone that we can’t have our own kids,” I say, feeling my idea is pretty smart, “and we want to adopt.”

None of that worked out.

I hope Edith makes it work. That she keeps her little girl as her own.

And I’m not the only birthmother breathlessly praying for Edith and Marigold. There are probably thousands of us. Here’s one.

Burger King Baby Update

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A Burger King baby update tells us that things are going well!

Of all the adoption stories out there on Facebook, this one has certainly captured my heart. I blogged about the baby a while ago, and here I am again with the update.  

I like the candidness of the interview of the birthmother and the daughter, known as the Burger King baby, in the update. There’s so much redemption in the story. And I’m humbled.

I didn’t exactly have a solid plan when I was a pregnant 17-year-old. What I hoped was that I’d have the nerve to take a Greyhound bus to Chicago. I’d been there only once–on a school trip with my high school chorus where we sang in a church with other Catholic high school choirs. I told myself that when I got off the bus, I’d look for a church steeple and go there, hoping to find a convent. I’d ring the bell and ask the nuns to help me–to take me in and let me work for room and board. I would tell them I had amnesia, and that I didn’t know my name. You get the picture….how could this have possibly worked? The Burger King baby–or any number of other things could have happened to me. Desperate people do desperate things.

The Pregnancy Resources List

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Cassatt_Mary_The_Young_Mother_(Mother_Berthe_holding_her_baby)_c._1900
“Mother Berthe Holding Her Baby by Mary Cassat

I’ve been working on the California Pregnancy Resources List at the behest of Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy who is a major force in the world of birthmothers. Click on that link and scroll down to her map. She’s got a nifty template where, with a bit of Googling, all of the resources can be plugged in for a particular state. But she needs our help.

Imagine you are pregnant. And you are desperate. You want to keep your baby and somehow be the best mother you can be. But you lack of money and/or support. And you don’t know where to start. Claudia is envisioning an online Crisis Center for Pregnancy Options that will lead to pages of resources other than to links that promote adoption.

For example, Claudia’s resources list for New York state is full of information. It looks like this.

This state-by-state resource list is super important. If you Google “pregnancy help,” you’ll see why. The results page has three top links. All are paid adoption ads. Let’s change that. Please check Claudia’s map and pick one of those white states that hasn’t been spoken for. If you’re a birthmother, you could perhaps choose the state where you relinquished your baby. You could help create a comprehensive list of resources for women and girls who need it. Just like you needed it. Only there was no list for you. So, let’s work together on creating this list!

National Adoption Month

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What N.A. M. is not meant to be

Today is the last day of November. But it’s still National Adoption Month. I feel like pouring myself a glass of champagne and then maybe crying into the bubbles.

Originally created to call attention to plight of children in foster care, National Adoption Month is a particularly harrowing time for birthmothers. The media bombards us with accounts of adoption that don’t reflect the birthmother reality or perspective. National Adoption Month was never meant as a platform for touting infant adoption, or foreign adoption, or crowd funding for adoption. And I dare say that anyone involved in the foster care system is unlikely to be so delusional as to promote adoption as one big happiness fest. Yet, all of that has somehow elbowed its way onto the stage of National Adoption Month.

Adoption’s worst practices

And now it’s almost over. Of course as the media spotlight dims, all of adoption’s worst practices will carry on behind the curtain. But the fight against them must continue. Education is key. I’ve only recently found my voice as a birthmother, and in the coming year, I hope for the courage  to speak out when the opportunity arises. I’m grateful to Carrie Goldman and her National Adoption Month series, 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days. “Designed to give a voice to the many different perspectives of adoption, this series featured guest posts by people with widely varying experiences,” and there’s an awful lot of good reading to be found. I have an essay in the series. It can be found here.

Adoption Begins With Loss

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Mourning attire from the exhibit, “Death Becomes Her” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

National Adoption Month

What I would like to say to everyone who is happily celebrating National Adoption Month is this: Every adoption begins with loss.

You are happy.

But.

Some of us are dying inside. This piece in the Huff Post by Mirah Riben explains it rather succinctly in rant-less fashion.

You might also want to read this.  Tarikuwa Lemma is as eloquent as a poet about her own adoption.

Every adoption begins with loss.

Crowd-funding for adoption

And as if a National Adoption Month and a National Adoption Day are not enough, there’s now the 4 million bucks  that a pastor recently crowd funded to establish International Adoption Day. Here’s a quote from the article in Forbes just in case you’re too busy eating your Happy Adoption Day cake to read the whole thing:  “The main obstacle to adopting a newborn child is the cost.”

Checking out their website, I’m willing to concede that maybe these folks aren’t  dealing exclusively in newborns from foreign countries… but the pastor did say newborn. Newborns, by the way, have never been the focus of National Adoption Month. According to the North American Council on Adoptable Children, there are currently over 100,000 children in foster care who cannot be reunited with their original families. National Adoption Month was created for them. This four million dollar funding effort is not connecting families with those kids. Adoption from foreign countries is a thicket of concerns, even when older children are being placed. The loss that initiates every adoption is compounded in international adoption.

Every adoption begins with loss

So while you’re toasting to your happy family,I’d like a pause–a deep breath, a nano second of silence in which the happy consider the gravity of loss in adoption. Every adoption begins with loss. That loss is like a stone dropped into a pond. It ripples out, and out, and out. Baby loses mother. Mother loses baby. Grandparents lose baby. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Sisters. Brothers. On and and on.

When is adoption truly necessary?

I want you to know that I believe some adoptions are good and necessary. BUT family preservation should be the number #1 goal. That said, I question the North American Council on Adopted Children’s statement above. Are there really 100,000 children who cannot be placed with family members? Rephrasing the quote from the pastor in the Forbes article, the main obstacle to family preservation is the cost. Crowd fund that.

Now party on.  Festoon your house with balloons. I’m going to change my brightly colored clothes and find something black.

photo credit: New York Times

Adoptees and Medical History

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Lily Tomlin playing Edith Ann on Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh In.”
If Edith Ann were and adoptee, she wouldn’t know her medical history.

Closed records hide medical history

Adult adoptees often don’t know their medical history. Treated as perpetual children, in most U.S. states they have no access to their medical histories. Why? Because their adoption records are sealed. Therefore, they don’t know who their biological parents are. Imagine going to the doctor and filling out that sheaf of forms by simply scrawling across the top “unknown.”

Adult adoptees need their medical history

A few months back the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement regarding adoption records.  Therefore, the Academy is aware that adoptees don’t know their medical history. They say they want adoption records to be unsealed. Well, sort of. Their recommendation contains the caveat “unless specifically denied by the birthparents.” I’m a birthmother, not an adoptee, but I’m pretty sure many adoptees viewed this as only a partial victory.

Pointedly, it was the American Academy of Pediatrics that came forward to voice their support for open records. Not the American Medical Association. Doesn’t the silence of the A.M.A. perpetuate society’s view of adult adoptees as children? And as a person grows older, doesn’t medical history become even more important?

When I was searching for my son I contacted the agency in Iowa that had handled the adoption, and I petitioned the court. I asked both entities to forward vital medical history to my son, who was 20 years old. But I got nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

National Adoption Month

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Me, age 17 and a secret mother

How N. A. M. began

National Adoption Month began in 1976 in the state of Massachusetts as a way of bringing awareness to the plight of children in foster care. Designating a month to this consciousness-raising effort had its heart in the right place. Children need families.

This year’s theme

This year the focus is on sibling connections–which I hope means that siblings ought to remain together, rather than be separated by adoption. All of this is mostly good. Although, I’d prefer a campaign that got more to the heart of things. Something like “Adoption: Designed for Children Who Need Families.” Maybe even throw in a subtitle. Like, “Not designed for families who want children.”

N. A. M., a different perspective

National Adoption Month can be a festival of pain and frustration for people who’ve been separated from their loved ones through adoption. Adoption is often touted as a fairy tale. But what if the tale doesn’t end happily ever after?

Explore adoption

Adoption is more complex than you think. Explore it from all points of view. There’s always plenty to read about adoption. Type adoption into the search box on Facebook and see what turns up. Then try it on Google. Check out the links under the “take action” tab in this blog. Maybe check out my book. Keep your eyes and ears open, and ask yourself how often it’s really necessary to remove an infant from a  mother simply because she is very young, economically disadvantaged, or lacks family support. Is that ever really necessary?

Ask if adoption is necessary

I don’t think it was necessary in my case. If my narrow minded hometown/Catholic Church/Catholic school environment would not have made the lives of everyone in my family miserable, I could have kept my son.

My sister was already married and living far from town out on a farm. What if I’d had a hideaway deep in a cornfield–a little cabin or house trailer? Every night I could have carried my baby down a stubbly path to her house. I might have had supper at the kitchen table with her and her husband and her two little kids. We might have sat together after the dishes were done, rocking our babies and feeding them their bedtime bottles. Then she’d carry her baby upstairs, and I’d carry mine back through the cornfield, fireflies lighting our way.

In our secret abode I would have loved my son, and he would have loved me. No one would learn my secret. Happy years would go on in this secret place, my clothes wearing thin while I witnessed my son learning to walk and talk. He would grown tall, and my braids would grow long, so long that they reached the ground.

That was the fairy tale I imagined as a 17-year-old. It’s not what really happened.

Birthmothers Everywhere!

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Adoptees are everywhere too! Adoption! It’s huge! Everyone drank the Kool-aid.

No matter where I go

This past month I’ve been to Albuquerque and to Santa Barbara for T’ai Chi Chih retreats, and I’ve done some traveling with friends in Hawaii. Whenever I meet new people and strike up a conversation, more often than not, I find out that the person I’m talking to is either an adoptee or a birthmother. Or someone very close to them is. Adoptees and birthmothers are everywhere.

the cover my memoir, published by SheBooks

On the plane to Albuquerque, it was obvious the guy next to me wanted to talk. Business cards were exchanged. He stared at my card (the front image is the cover of my book) and out spooled a stream of questions. It turned out that his best friend is an adoptee. This friend had recently seen a lot of ups and downs with reunion. On Maui, one of the people in our group was an adoptee. Also in Santa Barbara. Adoption is everywhere.

Myth busting

When people in a group setting are party to these encounters and hear that I surrendered a child for adoption, there’s a very common comment. “Oh, what a wonderful generous thing you did,” they say. A few years ago I would have mumbled some sort of sheepish reply and changed the subject. But these days I’m much more comfortable telling people that it wasn’t like that at all. “That’s not how adoption works,” I say. So I tell them that I didn’t give up my son to be kind or generous. I tell them I had to in order to survive. And I tell them what it was like living in a town of 3000 Catholics in 1970, and how my family would have been ruined. More often than not people seem to get it.

Drinking the Kool-aid

It’s not just birthmothers who drank the Kool-aid, brainwashed into believing we were doing what was best. The adoption industry has been really thorough at handing out samples of that beverage to everyone. It always feels good to tell the truth about it.