Bitter Winds ~ A Day of Remembrance

 

 

My First Mother, Norma Carol, was born on 9/11 in 1947. 
Today would be her 69th birthday. 

 

She gave birth to me as a young, unwed mother in 1968 and was one of the first to join the ALMA Registry (Adoptee's Liberation Movement) looking for her "son". 

She was told by the hospital staff and attorney, after going through a difficult labor and c-section that she had given birth to a boy. 

 

 In truth, she actually had a daughter, who, indeed, did come back, 10 years too late to meet her (again) this side of eternity. 

 

I still haven't been able to obtain birth records from the hospital, even though I needed this important information for my own medical care during pregnancy. 

Even with a court-order and doctor's request I am still waiting. 

 

As I watch the 9/11 memorials on television, I cry for the victims of a horrible act of terror, and for my Mother. 

 

It has taken several years of slowly unthawing from the nothingness I felt inside after finding my Grandmother and hearing my Mother's story.

On my own birthday a few years ago I was driving alone, listening to the radio, when a beautiful lullaby I had never heard came over the waves. 

 

It was Bette Midler singing "Baby of Mine" and the tears flowed again ~

 this time they were tears of acceptance.

 

I could finally embrace the love I knew my Mother had for me all along,

and the strong connection we share. 

I miss her.

I post this link in her memory - "Bitter Winds"

~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvO75R-QrqA ~

The Shadow Self

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

Originally posted on October 22, 2007

I went to church yesterday and came home with 3 different "revelations" of God's love.  

They all pertain to adoption issues, because my entire life is affected by them.
I even danced with my own shadow.

The first happened during praise/worship ~ the regular worship leader was not there because her Mother had just passed away this week after a long battle with leukemia. She had lived for many, many years longer than the doctors predicted and she had a wonderful quality of life with her children/grandchildren for years through God's sustaining power.

Half-way through praise & worship I saw Aimee come in and immediately she walked up to the front row (it was dark in our church during song time) and approached the senior pastors. They saw her coming and put their arms out in big all-consuming hugs and kisses over her, just holding her and letting her cry. It was very touching, as I saw the love of this couple envelope this young praise leader and bring comfort and unconditional love over her while she was grieving. I began to cry....and then it hit me.

Adoptees lose their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins (their very identity and place in their God-given family). 
They lose everything their lives revolved around and identified with ~ the only place, the only love they ever knew, felt, smelled, and was enveloped by, in complete warmth. 

But adoptees are probably NEVER, NOT ONCE, given a hug of comfort for this devastating loss we all carry inside our entire lives. We are not validated or accepted for who we truly are ~ we are only given acceptance as the ones we are engineered by adoption to be ~ our adopted selves. 
Our adoptive identities, lives, families. 

We go through life completely numb/shut-off to the PAIN of losing our very selves as connected to our mothers and family line, our first and most significant love, truth and self.

I so yearned to be able to run into the arms of real people as I stood there in church crying over the loss of my own Mother and all she represents. 
To receive the same immediate acknowledgement of my pain, validation, and comfort. 

Aimee wasn't afraid to run to the front of the church, the light, and receive unconditional love ~ she knew grieving was necessary and accepted because of losing her beloved Mother. It was expected and completely understood.

Adoptees emotionally sit at the back, in the dark, scared to feel, because they receive a sentence of life-long shame and unacknowledgement ~ if they DARE look deeper into their own feelings and tap, even lightly, into the pain.

  No one in society is comfortable with this pain ~ because ADOPTION is the big cure-all, the blessing, the win-win, the building of a family
~ FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF ANOTHER ~ THE DESTRUCTION OF IDENTITY ~ an amended birth certificate, parents who did not birth, names erased and re-invented ~ and pasts erased ~ at least legally. 
All at a huge price.

NOTHING can erase the spiritual reality, the emotional reality and connections within a human being to their lineage, their core, their pain.

Aimee, I cried for your loss today. And on the backrow, I cried for mine as well. I lost my Mother, too ~ twice ~ and I know how it feels. 
Bless you, my friend.

The Best Advice I Ever Got...

 

 

Came from my Mother(s)...

{Left to me as part of my First Mother's china collection}

***************************************************

 

 

{A gift from my Mom to my husband and I on our Anniversary}

Adoption Truth: "Yes, I Gave Up My Baby"

An insightful article written by a First Mother at Adoption Truth..."Yes, I Gave Up My Baby."

"Privacy and Anonymity in the Law" by John J. Green

John J. Greene writes in his article, "Privacy & Anonymity in the Law"...

"Privacy; Anonymity...There’s not an advocate who breathes air that isn’t absolutely fed up hearing those two words. I heard those words from legislators, external organizations of interest, strangers on the street, family, and friends so much I wanted to be sick to my stomach! I really did."

....read the rest of his enlightening article here, about state adoption law which debunks the myth of birth parent anonymity.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit Tennessee State Supreme Court, and the Oregon Court of Appeals (upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court) have affirmed that birth parents do not have a right of privacy or perpetual anonymity from their child. Seven US states have passed legislation restoring the unconditional right of adult adoptees to access their original birth certificate.

Here is a birth mother who writes in her article "Open Records vs. Birthmother Protection", asserting that she was never promised, nor asked, for anonymity; and other thoughts and articles in this post also addressing this long-standing issue.

Musings of the Lame: It's not about you, but it is..

Musings of the Lame: Life as a Birthmother: It's not about you, but it is..: Adoption Facts Demand Infant Adoption Refomation There are some facts about adoption that, really, you cannot dispute unless you are just tr...

Last Night...

Last night I had a dream...so vivid, detailed, real.

It started out hazy, but with each scene became more clear.

I was watching a baby in a huge yard, just learning to crawl. She looked like any normal baby ~ beautiful, innocent, voiceless. But it was like I could get inside this baby, and inside, she was lost with no way to express herself. She crawled aimlessly, reluctantly, in circles, like in search, but could not find. She kept going from one stranger to the next, looking up, and realizing it wasn't right. All the while, the adults in this hazy picture were unaware, talking and laughing, and thinking the baby was just so cute. I finally picked her up and held her in my arms and comforted her. She smiled at me with a knowing smile.

The next scene in the dream was in a courthouse. With the baby still on my shoulder, I peered through a window, like we weren't supposed to be part of the happenings. It wasn't our business. I could see three young women sitting on the front row. They were all beautiful ~ the middle one had short curly red hair, the other two had black shiny hair. But all stared with blankness in their eyes. As if sitting in a line-up.

All of a sudden I KNEW I had to give this baby to her mother, but I didn't know which one. I felt they needed to be together, if even for a moment. Nothing could stop what I did next. I opened the courtroom door and walked through. Me and the baby.

My eyes were riveted on these three women. I wished I could hand the baby to all three, but couldn't. So I handed her to the one closest to me, on the end of the bench. She acted as if she couldn't take her from me, but let the baby fall gently onto her shoulder, unspeakably grateful. Immediately the baby curled into her like a glove and the women began to weep.

Then all three women cried uncontrollably, like a dam had been released in their souls, and they couldn't help it. Like someone had finally seen them.

I sat next to the woman and the baby on the bench as we watched the proceedings go on; like clueless foreigners, not able to understand the language being spoken. We just knew it was about us.

At one point I leaned over and whispered in the woman's ear, "You know you can change your mind, don't you?. You don't have to do anything today." She looked at me with surprise on her face, not able to believe it, and then answered back, "but wouldn't I just have to do it tomorrow?"

Scene 3 ~ I was in the backseat of a car being driven from the courthouse. It was packed full of people, driven by a sullen adoption worker. The mother was holding her baby in the front seat. We all sat quietly, but you could cut the air with a knife. The baby lifted her head off her mother's shoulder long enough to look back at me briefly, kind of like she was doing a double-take, and realized I was the one who had taken her to her mother. She sighed, like she had not breathed deeply in a long time, and smiled. Then snuggled her head back into the crook of her mothers neck. The mother seemed relieved too, as if it was dawning on her that she was a mother, and this was her child, whom she felt deeply.

The only conversation going on in the car was taking place between the driver and another woman who was leaning over the backseat as they whispered in concerned tones, snarls on their faces, carefully watching the mother with child.

This seemed to make the woman nervous, but she was relishing these moments snuggling close to her baby.

I tried to break the ice by casually talking to the mother and pointing out the amazing likeness she and her baby shared, even down to their beautiful hair. She was amazed too, how they just seemed to fit together. Like she never realized how her daughter would take after her so much.

After awhile, she glanced warily at the authority figure beside her, and finally burst out, "Why is everyone trying to pressure me?" She knew things were going too fast for her mind or emotions to keep up with, and was completely overwhelmed.

It was at this moment in the dream that I realized I had to do something. I could no longer just sit quietly and hope for the best, no matter how hard it was to open my mouth and speak. In the next few minutes I found myself telling my story with great urgency and emotion.

"I was adopted as a baby, and although I loved my adoptive family very much, I have always been searching and longing for what I lost so long ago and could never find. The connection to Myself, through my Mother."

I so wanted the baby in my dream to have that chance. So I kept speaking, through shaking voice and tears. Then, not knowing the outcome, I thought silently, "Please hear me", as the car pulled over and I stepped out onto a busy downtown street.

Strangely, I watched myself walk away, carrying a book bag at my side. And then I woke up.

You Said What?

I think adoptees & First Moms have our fair share of "You Said What?" moments, don't we!

Cassi, a First Mom, writes an enlightening post on "Adoption Truth" ~ "You Said What?"

True Confessions

...Yes, I've actually written one of these, "Dear Incubator" letters. I even saved it for several years as a momento of my journey through "waking up", but can't seem to find it now.

My husband and I had been married for quite a few years and hadn't even tried to have children. Not because we were infertile, but because we both were dealing with "family" issues with taking care of controlling and elderly parents...as well as my adoption issues, that I didn't realize were "issues" for way too long. I was too scared to TRY, even though we both loved kids and wanted children.

It amazes me now (and probably you too, if you read my blog ~ lol) that I could have EVER written a "Dear Birthmother" letter...but I did. We thought we would adopt. What I didn't realize, is that I really needed to be writing completely different kinds of "Dear Mother" letters ~ one to my natural Mother, when I found out she had passed away while searching for me. And one to my adoptive Mother who I needed to "break the apron strings" from. Instead, I locked the pain deep inside. And pretended. It didn't matter. When it did. If I had dealt with the unresolved and disenfranchised grief I was carrying from growing up adopted and finding this news, I would have had more courage much earlier in my life.

Alison Larkin spoke at an AAC Conference about how having children was a deep, emotional breakthrough for her as an adoptee. I sat there and bawled. I was embarrassed. It felt like it would never go away if I let it out.

I'm so thankful for adoptees and first Moms who are speaking their lives and their truths, so it can reach others to help set us free.

I realize, now, I could have never made myself go through with adopting an infant. It would have been too close to home. But I still can't believe I even wrote the letter. Oh, it was flowery and wonderful, just like most. But underneath all the flowers and goo, it was just like the rest...this natural Mother hit the nail on the head at Adoption Critique.

"The Baby Scoop Era"

Today (9/11) would be my First Mother's 63rd Birthday. She passed away in 1980 from breast cancer while searching for the "son" she gave up for adoption 12 years earlier in 1968. She never got to hold me and was told I was a boy...one of "The Girls Who Went Away" whose stories are finally given voice by adult adoptee & author, Ann Fessler.

I write this blog just as much for her as I do for myself. I love you, Mom, and so wish you were here today.

"Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective

"Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective
Anne Patterson

Of all the most condescending insulting visions of adopters and baby brokers, the day called "Birthmothers Day" would win the prize for ignorance and disregard.

While the traditional adoptee has had to live with a blind invisibility about our issues of loss and grief this celebration takes the whole thing to the largest level of illusion.

Adopted adults have lost their mothers, their fathers, their families, their names, their heritage, their history, the rights to who they were when they were born, their birth certificates, and their identities. It is quite a long list of losses, and one's that should never be ignored.

The expectation for adoptees to swallow their pain at the expression of their true feelings to keep adopters happy has been very damaging. Few adoptees are allowed to express their true feelings of loss and grief at being separated from their mothers and natural families.

Birthmothers Day Celebrations is not only a total disregard for our feelings of sorrow but an overt exploitation of our pain. Not only now do we have to ignore our pain in adoption but the perversion of celebrating it is the expectation.

I would never expect any mother who surrendered a child to adoption to celebrate that loss. I would further never expect any adopted adult or adopted child to ever celebrate their loss either.

In researching what some call "Birthmothers Day Celebrations", it occurred to me who would be stupid enough and cruel enough to ever expect anyone to celebrate the loss and separations that occur in adoption. It didn't take me long it know that this three ring circus of celebrations was in itself both devised, orchestrated and planned by baby brokers and adopters. According to them, this celebration is a way of recognizing natural mothers.

If they valued natural mothers, and moreover those who have been separated from their natural mothers, then "Birth Mothers Day" would not exist. The presumption that we adoptees need a separate day to think of our mothers is shocking.

Most adopted adults have spent years both mourning, dreaming, fantasizing, grieving, hoping and trying to come to terms with our separations and loss in adoption. Our birthdays are of course the day of the most intimate connections to our mothers - whether they are shadows of what we hope to find, or real as in we have found and reunited with them this day is a day of reality, and deep feelings be we in contact with our natural mothers or not.

Mothers day, recognized holidays and other regular days are also days that cannot change that we are adopted. We think of our natural mothers on all kinds of days. To designate a special day and to be told that this is the day to "celebrate" adoption by others is sick.

This celebration is an in your face slap to natural mothers who are seen as not being worthy enough to be thought of, loved or cherished on what a normal society calls "Mothers Day". It is a coercive measure to dismantle the meaning of natural mothers and to give them a lower status while perpetuating the pedestal worship of adopters at their expense. What is even more damaging though is that adopted adults are supposed to participate in this. How dare a group of adopters and baby brokers tell me or anyone else what to think of our mothers, when to think of them, or to boldly be expected to celebrate our loss?

Birthmothers Day Celebration Day - It is a day of cruel expectations, illusions and manipulation. Its goal is to promote the oppression and exploitation of other women so that baby brokers can sell their children. It is sick, twisted and highly offensive to me as an adult adoptee.

It is bad enough to have feelings of being not good enough. But to think of my mother or any mother celebrating their separation from their child is very cruel. How painful it would have felt to me to know my mother celebrated this loss. It would have if anything told me that she did not love me and she was happy to not be able to raise me. That would have turned into feelings of self-hatred and no self worth.

How sick and damaging it is to children to have this type of thing going on. It would be up there with divorce day celebrations and/or celebrating diseases and other tragedies.

Shame on those who participate, orchestrate and promote this bizarre parody of truth.

I personally and professionally decry all days called "Birthmothers Day Celebrations". Neither my mother who surrendered me to adoption nor I would wish to celebrate.

If we created "Infertility Celebration Day" I bet the brokers might be offended. Maybe that is what I will do: bake a cake and celebrate another person's pain?? Where is humanity going when such cruel orchestrations exist?

Copyright 2002 © Anne Patterson


Anne Patterson is a reunited adopted person and professional private investigator. She has 11 years experience and a 95.4% success rate in reuniting families separated by adoption. Visit her website at http://www3.sympatico.ca/searches

Truth in Advertising?

Here's a new booklet geared towards recruitment of young mothers to relinquish their babies for adoption. You can "click" on the title of this post to read more "heroic" babble being fed to young, vulnerable mothers. As a product of this industry, I am appalled that advertising in the adoption "market" is even legal, but since it is, what happened to the ethical standard of "truth in advertising"?

Not to mention accountability to the professional standards of non-directive and non-coercive counseling?

Adoption agencies and attorneys are not required to adhere to any of these. They spout unbalanced and one-sided facts/stats/information about adoption and fail to provide proven research and information available regarding life-long issues affecting both "birthmothers" and adoptees. Why doesn't this comic book include such important information such as "The Primal Wound" or even "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew" when they advertise how wonderful the adoption "option" is for all involved? Because it may adversely affect the mother's decision, that is why, and that would affect their numbers, their bottom line, their industry of supply/demand.

Adoption is far too serious to be sold in a comic book to young mothers for the agenda of exploiting them and their babies.

State to Apologize for Harsh Adoption Acts

State to apologise for 'harsh' adoption acts

DANIEL EMERSON, The West Australian
March 5, 2010

WA is poised to be the first State to publicly acknowledge the aggressive adoption practices which resulted in thousands of mothers being unlawfully separated from their babies after giving birth out of wedlock.

Health Minister Kim Hames has revealed he is personally overseeing the creation of a memorial to the families affected by State hospital and welfare practices during the 1940s to the early 1980s.

Dr Hames is also likely to read an apology on behalf of the State Government either in Parliament or at a dedication ceremony opening the memorial at a yet to be determined location. Dr Hames said many women and families had been emotionally damaged and he wanted to help them heal.

"You look back on those attitudes of the day and wonder how we could be so harsh," he said.

"Things like taking children away from their mothers as soon as they were born and not letting them see or touch them. We are apologising in the same way as with the Stolen Generation, recognising that those practices . . . were ones that today wouldn't be acceptable and that they caused considerable hurt and harm."

Experts say tens of thousands of WA babies were taken illegally when their unmarried mothers were prevented from seeing, touching, naming or bonding with their children immediately after birth.

The practice, which has been linked to post traumatic stress, was illegal under the Adoption of Children Acts but widespread at public hospitals throughout Australia.

Also common but illegal was asking women to sign adoption papers earlier than five days after the birth.

Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital apologised for their "ill treatment" of unmarried mothers in May last year.

Christine Cole, convenor of the NSW-based Apology Alliance which lobbies on the issue, said a memorial dedicated by a State health minister would be the most significant acknowledgment by authorities "probably anywhere in the world".

"These adoptions happened for two key reasons," she said. "First, it saved the State money because if a child was adopted they didn't have to pay for foster care or mothers' benefits.

"The second was this eugenics-based notion that young women who gave birth out of wedlock were feeble minded and unfit mothers."

Australian Medical Association WA president Gary Geelhoed said the memorial would be symbolic but "very, very important".

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/6889508/state-to-apologise-for-harsh-adoption-acts/

Mother & Child Reunion

Mother & child reunion: Louisvillian says ‘Karma' played a role in reconnecting with her firstborn

By Katya Cengel
December 13, 2009
NOTE: This adoptee's background was totally fabricated in her adoption file.

Whatever your belief system, every once in a while something happens that is too perfect to write off to chance.

Maybe that is why Susanne Howe named the cat “Karma.”

This story could have been written in the usual way: the trend story about how families around the world are reuniting on Facebook; the one shown in heart-wrenching airport reunions on the evening news, rehashed on morning TV talk shows.

Only you won't read that here. Despite an alluring Facebook connection, that isn't what this story is about. It's about two women who found each other despite numerous roadblocks. It's about a woman whose timing hasn't always been perfect, acting at just the right time.

And it's about the sense of disbelief and hope you feel when you realize that every now and then things really do work out.

A difficult beginning

When Susanne Howe discovered she was pregnant, the timing was not right. Howe had just resumed her college education and had moved halfway across the country. Her boyfriend, who was supposed to join her, was seeing someone else.

Howe was 20 and single. She wanted more for her baby than what she could offer and decided to place her for adoption.

Because she was surrendering the girl, Howe did not feel it would be right for her to seek her out later in life. But secretly she hoped her daughter would find her, she said later, and she did everything she could to make that happen.

She requested her name be put in the baby's file and left a letter for the adoptive parents and another for the child, explaining her actions and reasoning. Then she breastfed her. It wasn't encouraged, but Howe knew it would boost the baby's immune system.

“I thought, ‘I can't give her anything else, but maybe I can give her this, a little bit of a start,'” said Howe, now 50.

Thirty years later, Howe sat in a Louisville coffee shop next to a woman with hair as blond as her own, eyes as blue and the same dimple in her right cheek.

“I hoped, I think, on some level there would be some bonding — that years down the road, in the future (that bond) would be somewhere in her subconscious,” said Howe, patting Crystal Love's knee.

After three decades, Howe was back with her baby.

False leads

Growing up in Vanceburg, Ky., Love had known she was adopted. But it wasn't until she was 25 and had read Howe's letter that she wanted to know more about her birth mother. She had her adoption records released and began looking. Only the woman she thought she was looking for went by “Virginia Suzanne Paige.” Love had no way of knowing Howe went by her middle name, or that “Susanne” had been misspelled in the records.

Even worse, a lot of the details about her birth mother were wrong. Now that she knows Howe and they can laugh about it, Love enjoys talking about the way the records described Howe.

“You were Methodist, you played piano, were into needlepoint, cheerleading …”

Howe cut in, “ … made my own clothes.”

“… debating, she was studying speech pathology,” Love continued.

The only problem was none of it was true, Howe said.

“It was like somebody just fabricated that stuff just to give her a picture,” she said . “Give her a mental image.”

That image sent Love searching for women named “Virginia,” checking out speech-pathology programs and generally tracking dead ends. She joined adoption sites and used all the tools she was familiar with as a lawyer. But she found nothing.

Over the years she would try again and again, and at some point was able to figure out that her biological mother was a member of the Franklin County High School class of 1976.

Then, Love, a longtime MySpace fan, defected to Facebook and decided to search there for women in that class. When she found “Susanne Paige Howe,” she sent her a short e-mail explaining who she was — and waited.

‘Timing is everything'

Howe said she almost deleted the e-mail. She had gone online only because a cat had shown up on the doorstep and kept trying to get inside her house. Howe lived with her mother and stepfather, whose home was purposefully pet-free, and was trying to find an online list of lost pets. When that didn't work, she decided to check her e-mail before getting off the computer.

When she saw an e-mail from Crystal Love, a name she didn't recognize, she was ready to send it to the trash, but at the last minute recalled a high school student named Crystal and decided to see if it was from her. When she saw who the e-mail was from, she wrote back right away.

It was Mother's Day.

Her parents decided to keep the cat; she named it Karma.

“My stepdad and mom actually, I think, associate the arrival of Karma with her (Love),” Howe said.

Howe had spent three decades in Pennsylvania and raised two children, Kelly, now 27, and Ryan, now 23. But with her children grown, her parents' health declining and her own marriage over, she had recently returned to Louisville.

When Howe moved, Kelly urged her to join Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family members who lived elsewhere. Two weeks before Love e-mailed her, Howe had joined a group for her high school on Facebook, using her maiden name so old friends could find her.

“Timing's everything,” said Howe, squeezing Love's hand.

After replying to Love's e-mail, Howe told Kelly and Ryan about their older sister. Two hours later, Love received a Facebook friend request from Kelly.

She accepted.

In the months since, Love, who works as a public defender in Ashland, has met with Howe several times and also with Kelly, Ryan, Howe's parents and her birth father. Occasionally, she gets a Facebook friend request from another member of Howe's extended family. Coupled with her adoptive parents and brother, Love has family galore.

“Some people have absolutely no one, and I have more than enough,” she said.

When she is with Howe, they are as affectionate and giggly as teenagers.

“It's all been sort of surreal,” Howe said. “The reason I named the cat Karma is I felt I must have racked up an awful lot of good karma somewhere to have everything happen.”

Origins-U.S.A.

Origins - Protecting the natural right of Mothers to nurture their children from saravideoproducer on Vimeo.

Mother Reunited with Child

Mother reunited with child she gave away 26 years earlier
October 30, 2009
By Sean Rose
srose@courier-journal.com

She gave up her daughter for adoption in 1978 in a decision fueled by
panic and desperation. In doing so, Marcie Roth, now 54, lost not only
her child but also the love of her life.

And then, almost three decades later, she found one, which helped her
regain the other.

Marcie Roth's life is a story of regret, acceptance, forgiveness, and
finally, joy; of walking away from her child's father, then
rediscovering their love 26 years later; of coming to terms with the
fact that she was a birth mother of an adopted child who was a
stranger to her.

One thing she knew for certain: She needed to search for that child
and reach out to her — if her daughter would have her.

On Father's Day, 2008, she placed the call that she both longed for
and dreaded. She identified herself to a person who answered.

"Momma," the voice on the telephone replied. "Is that you?"

An adoption tinged with regret

Thirty years earlier, Marcie Roth was a divorced, single mother in
Ephrata, Pa., raising one daughter while juggling a full-time job and
school. She didn't know what to do when she found out she was pregnant
again.

Her boyfriend, Roger Roth, told her he wasn't ready to be a father.

With little money and no plan, she confided in her doctor, who
suggested she give up the baby for adoption and arranged the
proceedings with a nearby couple.

It seemed the smart move for Marcie and a blessing for the couple.

But in the hospital, as an exhausted Roth glimpsed her infant daughter
for the first time, and felt her tiny fist wrap itself around her
pinkie, Roth regretted her decision.

Yet she kissed infant Jessica Dale Roth on the forehead and said a
prayer as her baby was taken away.

She said she didn't see Roger Roth for two months. One day as she
walked the neighborhood as a light snow fell, Roger pulled his car
next to her and rolled down his window.

"Want to go to breakfast?" he asked.

She got in. The snow grew heavier. They waited in the car, hardly
speaking. Then Roger took her hand and they both cried over the
daughter they had given up.

He asked if they could get her back, Marcie Roth said, but she told
him it was too late. Their daughter's original birth certificate and all records of the adoption were permanently sealed. Neither knew where she had been placed.

The two got back together, but they never spoke about their missing
daughter.

Marcie Roth felt the loss acutely. She said she would be perfectly
fine, then see a baby on the street and break down bawling.

"When you are a birth mother, it's like something is just ripped out
of you, and it's never acknowledged," Roth said. "And so you go on
thinking, `I made a hell of a mistake.'"

Her anger at Roger Roth for not stepping up to fatherhood immediately
and her inability to turn to him for comfort drove them apart. Two
years after the adoption, Marcie Roth moved back to New Albany, where
she had grown up.

"Somebody dies, you have family, you have friends, you have coworkers,
you have support groups and then there's an end to it, there's
closure," Marcie Roth said. "There's no closure to an
adoption, it's just there.

Daughter struggles to fit in

The child that Marcie gave away, meanwhile, grew up as Kara Gianna
Cerullo. She and her adopted mother, Sandra Cerullo, lived in Berwick
and then Harrisburg, Pa., just hours from where she had been born as
Jessica Dale Roth.

By age 10, Jessica said she knew that she was different. Her blue eyes
and blonde hair did not fit with her mother's dark complexion. And her
loud, outgoing nature did not match the quiet home in which she was
being raised. She started asking questions about her biological parents.

When Jessica Roth was 11, her adoptive father drove her to meet with
the doctor who arranged the adoption, who refused to tell Jessica Roth
the names of her parents.

Instead, he described Marcie Roth to her, telling the young girl she
looked just like her mother.

While Jessica Roth described her relationship with her adoptive mother
as good, she was a troubled teen. She began doing drugs and drinking
at 13, and by the time she was 17, she was a mother herself, she said.
With little money and no father to help raise her daughter, she gave her
first child up for adoption.

Jessica Roth had begun searching for her birth parents as a teenager,
scanning adoption registries online. But two events, the death of her
grandfather, who she was very close to, and her father's death four
years later, made her redouble her efforts.

The urgency to find her own medical history was clear as she Jessica
began experiencing seizures and even suffered a stroke in January
2008, she said.

The odds were stacked against her. Although by now her adopted mother
had given her birth parents' names, Jessica didn't have much to go on.
Because adoption proceedings were closed, Jessica Roth's birth
certificate was sealed under Pennsylvania law.

A majority of states, including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky,
require court orders for adoptees to access their original birth
certificate or identifying information about their natural parents as
adults. The three states have some measures to allow access to records
as long as there is consent from the biological parents.

Medical reasons are often not enough for a court to unseal the
records, said Robert Stenger, an adoption and family law professor at
the University of Louisville.

By 2008, Jessica Roth had been searching off and on for more than a
decade — with nothing to show for it.

Re-ignited love spurs search for daughter

Marcie Roth, meanwhile, remained paralyzed with guilt, which kept her
from trying to find to her daughter, she said.

"I felt like I didn't have a right," Marcie Roth said. "Who was I to
go marching into her life after all these years and turn her world
upside down?"

She figured that if her daughter wanted to find her, she could.

Roger Roth changed her mind.

They had not spoken in 26 years, until the day he unexpectedly called
her. They visited each other, and on their first date, he apologized
for not being a father for their daughter. He proposed. She accepted,
and the two were married in April 2008.

Marcie Roth saw a reason behind their reunion and began searching for
their daughter two months before the couple married. For the next five
months, she would stay up late into the night searching online
adoption registries online for any sign of her daughter, she said.
Reading strangers' stories online, she began to open up to others and
learned to forgive herself.

"I punished myself, and that's what every birth parent does," she
said. "You mentally beat yourself up over it, what you should have
done."

On Father's Day, 2008, Marcie Roth received a call from a woman named
JoAnne Stanik. Earlier that day, Roth had registered with Stanik's
adoption search Web site, adoptiondatabase.org.

On it she had left a typed message intended for her daughter:
"If you are looking for me and want to hear your story, I am ready to
tell it."

Stanik started looking, and in just four hours, found Jessica,
who was now Jessica Roth-Jendrick after marrying and had moved to
Florida.

Marcie Roth was stunned, but Stanik assured her that she had verified
her daughter's identity. Stanik gave her Jessica's phone number.

Marcie Roth hung up, picked up the phone again and dialed. It rang and
a young woman answered. Marcie Roth identified herself.

The response was clear: "Momma? Is that you?"

Reunion creates new family

A week later, on a summer evening, at Louisville International
Airport, Marcie Roth and her husband waited at the gate. Jessica
walked forward, surveyed the crowd and — even with no photo —
recognized her mother right away.

"I could spot her a mile away," Jessica Roth said.

That first night, the questions and answers flew as Marcie, Roger and
Jessica tried to catch up on 30 years of lost time. What were her
birthdays like? Did she go to the prom? Any boyfriends?

Jessica stayed for a week. Then she and her parents traded visits
until last June.

She started classes at the end of September at Daymar College studying
medical coding and billing moved into her own apartment in early
October. Cerullo, who'd been diagnosed with liver cancer earlier in
the year, joined her daughter in her new home, as did her husband, who
came from Florida.

Marcie Roth began sharing her story online with others struggling with
adoption. She said she's dedicated to raising awareness about the
anguish the adoption laws can cause.

She is also writing book about her experience and hopes that any
profits will further help Jessica and also go toward Stanik's search
organization.

And when there is friction in their relationship — as there sometimes
is, Marie recognizes it as inevitable as the two get to know each other.

"I just kept saying, `Honey, it's going to get better.' The main thing
is that we're together."

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words



These pics may not seem to anyone else to be adoption-related.

But to me they are intricately woven together with adoption.

My entire life, experience, being, emotions, connections, and decisions are all intricately, life-long, and personally tied to adoption ~ my own.

When first hearing these devastating words back as a young, naive college-graduate, from my newly-found Grandmother Carolyn:

"But Norma didn't have a girl, she had a boy," followed by "I'm so sorry ~ she passed away."

 

I never realized how they would dramatically affect me, as my reunion unfolded over the next minutes, months and years.

Although inside I felt numb, overwhelming grief came gushing out as I found myself almost doubled-over in uncontrollable sobs. Part of me undoubtedly died with that phone call. My Mother had been searching for me too, when she died of breast cancer at the age of 32. None of the "adoption registries" worked because she wasn't "allowed" to see me and was told I was a boy.

 

It has taken years of working through disenfranchised grief, while trying to go about everyday life, work & marriage, pursuing connections with my reunited family and incorporating these in my own identity; while also helping my Mom (adoptive) overcome the same disease that took Norma's life ~ to finally accept that vulnerable part of me, and lovingly coax her out of fearful hiding. To trust God enough to teach me (my name means "teachable") how to risk living, even when it brings unspeakable fear of loss.

Think about it. For adoptees, to love means to lose. We lost ourselves as connected with our very mothers. Words can't express how thankful I am for God's mercy in holding me through this journey and the connections I have finally found. With myself and my entire family. I truly could not embrace myself or my family until He led me on this roller-coaster ride of a journey.

Most of all, I'm thankful for my son. My only blood-relative I have the privilege of enjoying natural family-life with. With all these delayed developmental tasks to accomplish, I regrettably waited in paralyzing fear to have a child, until my 14th year of marriage. I am thankful for hearing Alison Larkin (another adoptee) as she eloquently and emotionally described her own battle to motherhood; leaving that conference in tears, realizing I was surely not alone in this journey. Thank you, Jesus, that it is never too late for miracles.

I gave birth to Andrew three months early. Leaving him alone in that NICU every night was like yet another slow death for me, triggering grief of my own relinquishment, along with overwhelming mother-guilt, knowing instinctively how shattering this was to my baby.

*The hospital (interestingly enough, he was born in the same hospital as my own birth) has yet to release the medical records (in spite of countless requests from my OB) that may give vital answers as to why my mother had to give birth to me by c-section and could have aided my own doctors in making decisions during my prenatal care.

I would literally have to peel myself from bed each morning by devouring Words of hope from my Bible; somehow finding the strength to rush back his side, where I found the most peace. Holding him was like a healing balm for both of us. Still is.

His little 1.4 pound spirit fought valiantly through heart surgery and numerous blood transfusions. I'll never forget his first Valentine's day, turning one-month old and coming down with a severe staph infection; looking into those tiny, intense eyes and declaring "Live Andrew!" as the doctors and nurses hurriedly worked to help him breathe.

Then watching him endure weeks and weeks of strong antibiotics daily pumped into his tiny veins (he was the first baby at Hillcrest to receive Zyvox, a brand new antibiotic at that time; I often wish the doctors had not insisted on giving him this particular one since it wasn't even started until the day his blood culture finally came back clear). It produced a severe drug-induced jaundice which lasted far longer than what the infection caused alone. By the end of his hospitalization I was a complete wreck emotionally, so wanting to rescue him and run. The only sanity I got was from continually journaling and speaking healing scriptures at his beside, which brought hope.

"He forgives all our sins and heals ALL our diseases, He redeems our life from destruction and crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies." Ps. 103

It is images like these that will be forever imprinted in my heart and mind. And the amazing, life-giving grace of God that brought us through and is still bringing us through.

What a difference a year makes! And learning to hold on through the darkest journeys of life, because joy truly does come in the morning.

A heartbreaking assignment

By Mary Ann Jolley

Sit for any time in the foyer of the Hilton Hotel in Ethiopia's
capital, Addis Ababa, and you'll see a procession of Americans and
Europeans wandering from their rooms across the marble floor to the
restaurant or swimming pool with their precious new possessions -
babies or infants they've just adopted.

I'd never really thought a great deal about international adoption
until I was confronted with the scene as I checked into the hotel in
September last year.

I'd arrived to film a story for ABC TV's Foreign Correspondent program
about the drought-induced famine.

The longer I stayed, the more I started to think about the adopted
children - where they were from and how they must feel to suddenly
find themselves alone with someone whose skin colour doesn't match
theirs and whose language they don't speak.

They're dressed in alien attire - a brand new Red Sox baseball cap and
T-shirt with some cute and cheery foreign slogan plastered across the
front - and in an environment like none they've ever seen, when just
out on the street is the one they know so well, where their extended
family and fellow countrymen reside.

There was something incredibly disturbing about seeing international
adoption en masse. All these children about to leave their country to
begin a new life in a faraway place, disconnected from their heritage
and culture.

Out on the street where poverty and hardship prevail, my attitude
softened. While I was filming at the produce market in Addis Ababa a
little urchin appeared beside me.

She had short hair and was wearing a torn, faded dress with sash tales
hanging loosely from the waist at both sides, and shoes with no laces.

Her toes exposed where the leather had worn through. She would have
been about nine or 10, but she was already working; her job was to
sweep up the rubbish in the markets.

"Miss," she said, "Americana?"

"No." I nodded with a smile as I rushed off to catch up with the crew.

"Where are you from?" She was at my side again.

"Australia," I replied, thinking in my ignorance that her next
question would be, "Where's Australia?" But, no, she knew it was the
land of the kangaroos and wanted to know if I could take her back so
she could go to school.

"I would love to," I said, impressed by her request. "But
unfortunately I can't." I was hoping, I must admit, that would be
enough to send her and her friends back to work, but she persisted.

"Do you have any pens for me?"

"Sorry, I don't," I replied, quite surprised she was asking for pens
and not, as is usually the case, money.

"What about paper? Do you have any paper for me for school?"

I didn't have anything on me because I'd been told to leave my bag in
the car to avoid pickpockets. I felt terrible that I couldn't help
her.

Here was this child desperate to write and learn, but instead of being
at school she was dragging rotten fruit and vegetables from the mud
and slush between the stalls.

What obvious potential she had. Imagine what she could achieve if I
could take her back to school in Australia. Perhaps adoption is the
answer, I thought to myself.

But that was an emotional reaction. It would be almost a year before I
would have the chance to dwell seriously on the subject. In July I was
on a plane heading back.

Ethiopia is not a signatory to the Hague Convention, which requires
international adoptions be used only as a last resort after all
domestic adoption options have been exhausted.

There is overwhelming evidence to prove it is far better for a child
to remain with its family or, if that's not possible, with another
family in his or her own country than to be shipped off overseas. But
in Ethiopia today it seems it's not about what's best for the child,
but rather meeting the demand of foreigners wanting a child.

There are more than 70 private international adoption agencies
operating in Ethiopia. None of them are Australian. In Australia,
international adoptions are a Government affair and strict regulations
help to keep the process transparent. Almost half the agencies in
Ethiopia are unregistered, some doing whatever they can to find
children to satisfy the foreign market.

While there are more than 5 million legitimate orphans in Ethiopia, a
large proportion of these will never be considered for international
adoptions.

Foreigners prefer younger children - babies to five-year-olds. Older
children or those with health problems are more difficult to pitch. So
while many children languish in underfunded and overcrowded
orphanages, some international adoption agencies are out spruiking in
villages asking families to relinquish their children for adoption.

It's a phenomenon known as "harvesting" and it's shocking to see.

A DVD sent to families wanting to adopt by an American adoption
agency, Christian World Adoption, shows one of the agency's workers in
full flight surrounded by families and children in a remote community
in the south of the country, where the vast majority are evangelical
Christians.

"If you want your child to go to a Christian American family, you may
stay. If you don't want your child to go to America, you should take
your child away," she says.

The DVD goes on for some hours with the woman introducing each child
offered for adoption one at a time. They sit on a bench in between her
and their parents or guardians.

"Here are two brothers, but only one is available at the moment," she
says for one family. For the next she tells how "it's very hard for a
widow to care for her children in this culture".

"Oh no, you mustn't pick your nose," she says to a child. She then
points out a rash on another's face and reassures the viewer it isn't
permanent and that it can be healed with treatment. All children are
asked to sing the alphabet song made famous on Sesame Street. It reeks
of a new colonialism. It's hard to believe it's happening in the 21st
century.

Parents are often unaware of what they're doing when they offer their
children for adoption. They're led to believe they'll hear from their
children regularly and their children will be well educated and
eventually bring the family wealth.

But in reality, the parents and families never hear from their
children and receive little information about where their children
have gone. We filmed a room full of grieving mothers who gave their
children for adoption after agencies promised they'd be given regular
updates.

Some were even told the agency would help support their remaining
children. Their stories are gut-wrenching.

No one disputes there is a real need for international adoptions, but
for the sake of the children and adoptive parents there needs to be
some protection from unscrupulous agencies who purport to be driven by
humanitarian interests, but in reality are stuffing their pockets with
dirty cash.

The Decision That Changed My Life

The Decision That Changed My Life:
Keeping My Baby
by Maya Angelou

Originally Published in Family Circle Magazine; October 8, 2001, Page 56

At age three, after the dissolution of her parents' marriage, the poet, playwright and director Maya Angelou was raised, until age 14, in Stamps, Arkansas, by her paternal grandmother. Angelou's eloquent series of five memoirs includes I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and, most recently, A Song Flung Up to Heaven (Random House). Here the 74-year-old recounts the most important event of her life, a daunting decision she faced after she returned to San Francisco as a teen to live with her mother:

"When I was 16, a boy in high school evinced interest in me, so I had sex with him -- just once. And after I came out of that room, I thought, Is that all there is to it? My goodness, I'll never do that again! Then, when I found out I was pregnant, I went to the boy and asked him for help, but he said it wasn't his baby and he didn't want any part of it.

I was scared to pieces. Back then, if you had money, there were some girls who got abortions, but I couldn't deal with that idea. Oh, no. No. I knew there was somebody inside me. So I decided to keep the baby.

My older brother, Bailey, my confidant, told me not to tell my mother or she'd take me out of school. So I hid it the whole time with big blouses! Finally, three weeks before I was due, I left a note on my stepfather's pillow telling him I was pregnant. He told my mother, and when she came home, she calmly asked me to run her bath.

I'll never forget what she said: "Now tell me this -- do you love the boy?" I said no. "Does he love you?" I said no. "Then there's no point in ruining three lives. We are going to have our baby!"

What a knockout she was as a mother of teens. Very loving. Very accepting. Not one minute of recrimination. And I never felt any shame.

I'm telling you that the best decision I ever made was keeping that baby! Yes, absolutely. Guy was a delight from the start -- so good, so bright, and I can't imagine my life without him.

At 17 I got a job as a cook and later as a nightclub waitress. I found a room with cooking privileges, because I was a woman with a baby and needed my own place. My mother, who had a 14-room house, looked at me as if I was crazy! She said, "Remember this: You can always come home." She kept that door open. And every time life kicked me in the belly, I would go home for a few weeks.

I struggled, sure. We lived hand-to-mouth, but it was really heart-to-hand. Guy had love and laughter and a lot of good reading and poetry as a child. Having my son brought out the best in me and enlarged my life. Whatever he missed, he himself is a great father today. He was once asked what it was like growing u p in Maya Angelou's shadow, and he said, "I always thought I was in her light."

Years later, when I was married, I wanted to have more children, but I couldn't conceive. Isn't it wonderful that I had a child at 16? Praise God!"

Copyright © 2001 First Mothers Action
www.keepyourbaby.com
www.mayaangelou.com

Do We Need To Be Protected?

© Photographer: Mrspants | Agency: Dreamstime.com
Open Records vs. Birth Mother Protection: Do We Need to be Protected?
From Jan Baker, for About.com

Many voices purport to speak for birth mothers to explain to the world what we want and need in regards to open records. Some say we did not want our children to begin with and, therefore, we want/need to be protected from our children coming back into our lives. Unfortunately, many of those who claim to know how we felt about our children and how we feel about them now, actually know nothing about our true feelings. Yet, they do not hesitate to speak on our behalves.
Like many other birth mothers, I have finally found my voice and can now speak for myself. I will be silent no longer and will challenge those who claim to know my wishes and desires. To begin with, I did not relinquish my child because I did not want or love him, nor did any mother I know.
Our pregnancies were unplanned, and most of us were young, unmarried and with limited financial resources. We were led to believe that it was "better" for our children to be raised by a two parent family that "wanted" to parent and was wealthier, more mature, better prepared and more deserving than we were. All the authority figures that swarmed around us (priests, parents, social workers) had little faith in our ability to raise our own children and gave us no encouragement to do so. Their lack of faith in us, coupled with our own insecurities, made adoption seem a reasonable option for our unplanned pregnancies. Little did we know. We expected it would hurt us, at least for awhile, but had no idea the pain of losing our children would last a lifetime. No one hinted our children might be affected in the least - that is the cruelest deception of all.
Two main scenarios prevailed: 1) We were brainwashed into thinking adoption was a nearly perfect solution to an unplanned pregnancy, and, therefore, made a choice based on flawed and inaccurate information; or 2) We were minors and therefore at the mercy of parents and given no choice at all. Our trusted "advisors" made it appear that if we loved our children, and had their best interests at heart, we would let them be adopted by those better suited to parent them. If you check out adoption sites on the Internet even today, most still highly praise those "brave" young women willing to "put the best interests" of their children first, i.e. relinquishing them. They still insinuate it is selfish for a young woman to keep her child if she is not as well-equipped as adoptive parents waiting in the wings that are older, wealthier, more "deserving" and prepared to be parents.
We needed to be "protected" when we were young, pregnant, unwed and profoundly vulnerable. However, instead of protecting and nurturing us, helping us develop the skills to become good parents, providing some temporary financial and psychological support, our "advisers" took advantage of our vulnerability. They convinced us we were incapable and unworthy to be parents to our own children and snatched our babies away into the waiting arms of adoptive parents deemed more deserving than we were to parent.
Some of us did have some say in the decision to relinquish, but, a choice based on flawed information and typical adoption propaganda is hardly a legitimate choice. Society did not protect us when we needed some protection and support. Now that we are older and wiser, we can make decisions for ourselves. We can and should decide if we want to reconnect with our children without being "shielded" by archaic laws to protect our anonymity. Giving birth to a child is not an event that should be shrouded in lies and secrecy - our children deserve better. Few mothers want or need to remain anonymous, most especially from their own children.
To view this page in its original form, please visit: http://adoption.about.com/od/adoptionrights/a/openbirthmompro.htm