Behind the Jamie Kiefer Headlines

In 2007 a story made headlines of a mother "kidnapping" her child.

JACKSON, Miss. - Two women and an armed man stormed a home wearing masks and kidnapped an infant one of the women had given up for adoption, authorities alleged Sunday. The baby was found unharmed at a military base three states away.

Investigators found the 5-month-old girl early Sunday at Fort Bragg, N.C., and planned to file state kidnapping charges against her biological mother, Jamie Kiefer, and related charges against the child’s biological aunt, Rikki Swann, said Special Agent Jason Pack, an FBI spokesman in Jackson.

“Apparently it was related to the adoption of the baby,” Pack said. “Apparently Ms. Kiefer had changed her mind about the adoption.”

I was recently contact by the grandmother of the child at the center of this storm and has learned what did not make the headlines. In a telephone interview Charmaine Tryst told us that the kidnapping charges were dropped when it was confirmed that the baby was her own child and that there had been no adoption, nor was one filed for.

Jaimie Kiefer’s husband had wanted the child to be adopted and knew of a co-worker who wanted a child. Arrangements were made. Jaimie gave birth on February 1, 2007 and approximately Feb 12 she signed papers at the office of Mississippi attorney, Dan Davis, with whom she spent just minutes. She left with no copy of what she had signed.

That night, after signing she called the prospective adoptive mother and told her she changed her mind but she was dissuaded from revoking consent and re-convinced that it was best. She called and called and asked for the name of the attorney and was stonewalled.

Two weeks later she moved to Maryland with her husband but was so distraught with post partum depression she kept hearing her baby crying. They found an attorney who helped them locate a Mississippi attorney and they returned to Mississippi and began with a new attorney on May 11.

By July, still deep in post partum depression and grief over the loss of her baby a friend convinced her to take matters into her own hands in an act that landed her in prison for 6 years. Although kidnapping charges were dropped, she was charged with breaking and entering the home and one of the friends who helped allegedly had a toy gun. The father’s rights were terminated and even the child’s maternal grandmother, who applied to adopt her was refused when her name was added to the indictment as a conspirator for knowing about it after the fact.

Jaimie’s mom is distraught having lost her daughter and granddaughter and is working to get Jaimie released on house arrest so she can care for a subsequently born child who has multiple disabilities.

This is a horrible tale all stemming from a total lack of proper counseling and shoddy adoption practices. Unlike any other type of crisis – attempted suicide, grief over the death of a loved one – instead of insisting that the person make no rash decisions at a time of extreme duress…only when there is a baby that is wanted by another is a person’s emotional distress so exploited. Where a potential jumper would be talked down, a recent widow comforted, a mother who considers adoption is offered legal abandonment and lawyers who will whisk their child away.

If only every expectant mother who ever considers adoption could know and understand the ramifications and irrevocability of adoption. How horribly sad, though, that Jaimie Kiefer (as did Allison Quets) felt driven to do so out of utter helplessness and frustration with the legal system. Mothers who are working through the legal system to overturn adoptions are finding it taking YEARS and more money than one can possibly earn in that time.

I by no means condones taking the situation into one’s own hands and make no judgment whatsoever on the merits of either of these women as fit mothers. I do however deplore adoption practices that totally deny any and all rights of a mothers – and fathers – to options counseling, ample time to decide, separate legal representation and ample time to revoke a decision made under duress.

Who Is A Mother?

The Allison Quets contested adoption case, discussed earlier, is bringing up many great comments pro and con of whether Allison - or any mother fighting to overturn the adoption of her twins conceived with donor eggs - is a "natural mother" or a mother at all to the twins she carried. And if not, does it matter in terms of supporting her right to her children?

In an effort to garner support from the adoption community for Allison, I was told by her supporters, that: “the DNA of the children are present in the mother for decades, and vice versa. There is a genetic component, albeit one that is atypical.” To help untangle this complex situation, following is an article explains the biological connection between mothers and children of their womb. After that is an open ended discussion I hope you will join:

Mothers 'Inherit' Some Characteristics Of Their Children
10-9-00
Researchers to Present Amazing Discovery

MILAN (ZENIT.org). - Mothers undergo permanent changes during pregnancy, in which they "inherit" some characteristics of the child they carry and, through the child, also receive some characteristics of the father. This is but one of the surprising discoveries to be presented at the congress entitled "At the Dawn of Human Life," organized by the Institute of Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Catholic University of Rome. The congress begins Sept. 6 in the Vatican, as part of the Jubilee of University Professors.
The child inherits half of his genetic patrimony from the mother. He also "hears" the outside world while in the womb, through the mother's body, a fact which substantially conditions the unborn child's life. Now, research indicates that the mother also undergoes long-term changes caused by the "person" of the child and, indirectly, also from her husband.
Professor Salvatore Mancuso, head of the gynecology institute, said: "We have proofs that beginning in the fifth week of gestation, in other words, when a woman realizes she is pregnant, an infinite number of messages pass from the embryo to the mother, through chemical substances like hormones, transmitters, etc. Such information serves to adapt the mother's organism to the presence of the new being.
"Moreover, it has also been discovered that the embryo sends stem cells that, thanks to the mother's immune system tolerance, colonize the maternal medulla, and adhere to it. What is more, lymphocytes are born from here and remain with the woman for the rest of her life." Mancuso continued: "From the fifth week there is clearly a passing of cells, but messages begin at conception. Even during the first phase of cellular subdivision, when the embryo is moving in the fallopian tubes, there are transmissions through contact with tissues touched by the moving embryo.
"Later, after implantation in the uterus, the dialogue is more intense through the blood and cells, and chemical substances enter the mother's bloodstream. "Finally, the child's stem cells pass to the mother in great quantity, both at the moment of birth, whether spontaneous or Cesarean, as well as at the time of abortion, whether spontaneous or voluntary. These cells are implanted in the mother's medulla and produce lymphocytes, which have a common origin with the cells of the central nervous system; they have receptors for the neurotransmitters and can make messages pass that the maternal nervous system understands."
He added, "An astonishing area of research is opening up. This is information of enormous importance on the first phases of life." When asked whether it was difficult to make rigid divisions of the phases of the embryo's development, Mancuso said, "It is a grave error to make distinctions between the embryo and pre-embryo. It is such an initial phase - one cannot of course speak of a central nervous system - but the messages the embryo sends to the mother express manifestations that are proper to the human species. The instruments used are highly specialized chemical substances and cells, such as stem cells.
"It should be remembered that if communication was lacking, the maternal organ would reject the embryo. The dialogue makes possible the perfect acceptance of an organism that is 50% foreign to the mother's genetic patrimony. In fact, these chemical substances, which express nutritional and metabolic needs of the embryo to the mother, cause an immune depression in her that facilitates the acceptance of the new being."
When asked how long the fetus' influence on the mother lasts, the professor answered: "Stem cells have been found in the mother even 30 years after the birth. It could be said, therefore, the pregnancy does not last the 40 canonical weeks, but the woman's entire life.
"This should be cause for reflection also in regard to the hypothesis of 'renting' a womb: In this case, the mother who carries the embryo accepts a being whose genetic patrimony is 100% foreign, and who will 'modify' her for the rest of her life. We have no idea of the long-term consequences of such operations.
Regarding the transfer of the father's characteristics to the mother via the unborn child, Mancuso said, "These are areas that are yet to be explored. Of course it calls for reflection on a new way of understanding pregnancy. Also, a very close tie is undoubtedly created between man and woman, because the child has 50% of the father's genetic characteristics. Moreover, the hematopoietic [blood-producing] stem cells go to the medulla and produce offspring cells, lymphocytes and neurotransmitters with the capacity to dialogue with the maternal central nervous system. It is somewhat as though the 'thoughts' of the child pass to the mother, even many years after his birth."

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Genetic patrimony seems to be what the DNA ancestry projects such as the National Geographics. It traces our lineage and connects us all back to Africa.

So...does that make one the "natural" mother of donor eggs she carries? Are mother and child biologically connected through passed DNA and stem cells?

Does a mother who used donor eggs then have the same "rights" as a natural mother compared to an adoptive parent, or is she still no more related to her child than a foster care giver or adopter?

Does the fact that she has carried the child inside her and felt it move within her and the baby heard her voice for nine months create an emotional bond as mother and child? Who could carry a child, labor and birth, and not feel like a mother?

Yet, do we ever want to support a child being created with half or all of its genetic and medical history lost to it through anonymity?

These are questions courts are struggling to answer as reproductively technology continues to thrive. They questions we who work to support mothers rights are going to be forced to ask and answer more and more.

For myself. my heart tells me that a mother wh carries a child is the mother. And yet I firmly believe that the answer lies with the last posed question to which the answer is clear: None of us in Family Preservation or even adoption reform and open records would be supportive of any anonymity. We need to remain firmly against any anonymity in the creation of life.

However, do we not support children created from anonymous donors who are seeking their truth? Of course we do!

So, while choosing to support to not to support Allison Quets based on her intentional use of anonymous donor eggs might be a difficult, even heart-wrenching decision for some of us - or a clear-cut no for others of us... what happens when we focus not on Allison but on the children she birthed, Holly and Tyler. Where do we then stand? Do we not support these children's right to know the mother who carried them as well as their right to try to locate their genetic parentage?

And, in this case, do we not oppose a coercive adoption that is denying the right of the individual who birthed the children and signed a surrender to revoke her consent to have them adopted? Are the children better off with total strangers? Or does Allison not have any more tight to them as they do?

Please also see comments at:

Friday, August 17, 2007
Allison Quest Seeks Support