Creating Still More Anonymity Plus Distance

I understand that anyone contemplating having a baby dreams about rocking a newborn in their arms and cooing into his or her face that smiles back lovingly at them.

I understand that it is impossible to think beyond that to temper tantrums and vomiting all night, teens telling you to f@ck off or walking in on them "doing it" in your bed!

I intellectually understand that the more trouble one had conceiving and carrying a pregnancy, the more obsessed some get with having it work...and having a baby AT ANY COST!

The part if find so SAD is that the caught up in the turmoil of reproductive treatments, the quest becomes everything and the goal is completion for the competitor running this endurance testing triathlon with stamina and endurance.

Like a bride who gets more caught up in the wedding than the marriage . . . to many of these moms-wanna-bes forget that they are creating a sperate human being who will not forever be an infant you rock in your rams but will someday be totally autonomous...a human being who had needs of his own that may be different than your own need to jusr create and have him. 

I saddens me that on a fairly regular basis I read on adoptive parent blogs that they wish they had asked - pressed - for more information about the birth family, but that at the time, they really didn't want to hear it!  They wanted to pretend that God himself meant this child just for them, and nothing else mattered. They could not bear the though off "sharing" him or perhps could ber the guilt of who had suffered for them to have the gift they marveled at.

It is with this sadness of heart that I read in The Times of India, Embryo adoption is latest trend,
about the popularity of totally anonymous fertilized embryos being purchased in India and transplanted - in every sense of that word - into waiting anna-be moms in the U.S. and Europe.

"...this method is called embryo adoption or embryo donation, depending on which side one looks at it from." From my side I'd call it what it is: selling humans. 

Like all adoption and repro technology, it is all about filling the needs, wants and desires of the paying customer with no concern about "rights" of the children affected.

"Adopting an embryo [created of anonymous sperm and anonymous egg] allows a woman, who is infertile, to experience motherhood, complete with labour pains, as against rearing an adopted child," says another infertility expert Dr Indira Hinduja. Even postmenopausal women can get into the act!

One recipient mother realizes an Indian baby "will be difficult to pass off as her own."

"I may let the child know as soon as possible that it was adopted—albeit in a different manner."[emphsis added]

And it gets more complicated...

A new book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, which hit the New York Times bestseller list this week, reveals even more insidious and secretive facts about medical science, technology and tampering with our DNA.

Lacks died in 1951 from cervical cancer, survived by her five children and her husband. She is also survived by some of her cervix: Without her knowledge, Lacks' doctor had removed a piece of her tumor for research purposes.

The cancerous cells soon proved to be a hardy bunch, multiplying indefinitely as long as they had access to a few nutrients. Unheard of at the time, the immortal cell line offered scientists an unlimited supply of raw material and a chance to keep experimenting on the same cells as long as they wanted.

For the next half-century, Henrietta Lacks' cells, dubbed HeLa by researchers, left lasting marks on science: They provided a cheap and easy way to test the polio vaccine, for instance, and helped develop the techniques that later made Dolly the cloned sheep a reality. They even went to space so that scientists could explore the effects of zero gravity on human tissue.

Skloot focuses on the wonderhip rights and whether the cell owners should reap profits of medicines and tretament screated from their cells.

Of more concern would be whether we could be cloned after our death without or knowledge?

...since a 1990 California Supreme Court decision, cells are considered biological "waste" once they leave the body. Leukemia patient John Moore sued the physician who treated him and later helped develop a commercial cell line based on his cancer tissue.

Although divided, the court found that Moore had lost the property rights to his cells after doctors removed them from him. By the same token, he had no rights to profit from any commercial application of the orphaned cells.

Rewriting Our Legacy

Back in the 80's this anonymous poem was very popular in adoption circles. I still have plaques for sale with this poem on it:

Legacy

Once there were two women

Who never knew each other,

One you do not remember

The other you call Mother.

Two different lives, shaped to make your one.

One became your guiding star

The other became your sun.

The first gave you life
The other taught you how to live in it.

The first gave you a need for love

And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality

The other gave you a name.

One gave you the seed of talent

The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions

The other calmed your fear.

One saw your first sweet smile

The other dried your tears.

One gave you up - all that she could do.

The other prayed for a child, and

God blessed her with you.

And now you ask me, through your tears,

The age old question, unanswered through the years

Heredity or environment - which are you a product of?

Both, my darling, both

They're just different kinds of love.

There was another version that floated about with the ending changed to "Neither. my darling, neither" which never made any sense whatsoever to me.

So, I ask you now... is it still true today? Or, do you think it needs an update?   

What changes would you make to it?  

This is a first draft of my personal rewrite. What's YOUR Legacy?:

I am Your Legacy

Once their were two women

Who barely knew each other,

One became your Mom

The other, still your Mother.

The first gave you life

The other took you for her own.

The first one's love was used against her

Forced to sacrifice so you wouldn't live in strife

One gave you a nationality

The other changed your name.

Both are always proud of you

Though you sometimes feel ashamed.

One was there to wipe your tears

The other suffered through the years.

One gave you up - told it was best for you

The other prayed for a child, and

Was able to pay for  you.

And now you ask me, through your tears,

The age old question, unanswered through the years

Heredity or environment - which are you a product of?

Both, my darling, both...

Nature made you who are and that's your legacy

If nurtured well, you'll be able to embrace
All who contributed to your life and heredity
Without any tugs of loyalty 

But laws unfairly took your name

And turned it into shame

They're not protecting me or you

Just tearing us in two.

Rather One-Sided View of Reunion

I call you attention to a Boston Globe Lifestyle piece that begins with the myriad of adoptive mothers who felt "left out" of the Finding Family TV series. 

In response, they have birthmothers, adoptees and adoptive parents all assuring anxious adoptive parents that it's just a "phase" and in then end their loyal adoptee with still sit obediently at their feet and wag his tail for them and only them!  And of course they are and always will be "THE" mother!

I wanted to barf.

I encourage you to enlighten them with some comments that show other points of view.

Brotherly Love? Sister Solidarity?

Joe Villegas and Lindsay Smith of Fort Worth, Texas had four children.

But Lindsay's brother Ryan, and Joe's sister Amy are married and have been unsuccessful in having a child.

So Joe and Lindsay had a baby and gave it to them to adopt.

Lindsay now says that she considers herself Christopher's aunt, rather than a mother. The adoptive parents both said that they were very happy for the gift of a child, that so closely resembles themselves.
Because Christopher Ryan Smith's adoption is independent, no agency needs to be involved.

I've Struck a Nerve!

 Mahatma Gandhi,  who challenges us t be te change we want to see, also said: 

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, 

then they fight you, then you win.”

 

I am proudly at phase THREE of four!  Hallelujah! 

 

David Brown of the SALT LAKE CITY (!) CHRISTIAN EXAMINER takes umbrance at my article, "Prophecy, Proselytizing and Profit: Adopting Christian Soldiers" in Conducive.

Brown's counter-piece is aptly entitled: "Adoptive Christian parents, church politics and child laundering." Thank you, David. Could not have said it better myself! And I doubt David Smolin minds the reference to is fine research onthe subject of child laundering.

Brown will have to write a duplicate column in a similar attempt to refute the words of Kathryn Joyce, author of Quivetfull, who has written: "The Evangelical Adoption Campaign" ...

And, yet another to explain how the act of the Idaho missionaries in Haiti is anything BUT Christianity gone to extremes to obtain children through adoption!  Ah, the "good" deeds accomplished in the name of religious zealousness....enough to fill all the history books in the world...

Brown and others who want to defend such acts of extremism to the point of law breaking - never mind immorality and decency -  have their jobs cut out for them.

Our 27 Kids

Discovery Channel featured John and Jeannette Murphy who, in addition to raising four kids of their own  have adopted a staggering 23 children, all of whom have special needs, from blindness to several with Downs syndrome. Like most families fo this kinds, they live of welfare and subsidies and the older kids help care for the younger (something one blogger found very offensive.)  They felt "called" to help children with disabilities.

I was intrigued and found their home life not at all institutionalized, or run like little military camps, as many families so large tend to be, including the Duggars.

An adoptive mother blogger also began with intrigue but she became turned off due to the chores the kids did and the home schooling that focused more on self care and practical issues like shopping more than academics.

Interestingly, she did mention the two things that bothered me:

First was the moderator calling the children "unwanted" and mentioning a couple of times that they were children "no one wanted."

The second issue is particularly disturbing and makes the "unwanted" label glaringly wrong!

Nor did this blogger mention the controversy mentioned:  The Murphy's fought Cody's grandparents for custody for fourteen months!  The case received nationwide attention and became the subject of a 1993 made-for-TV movie starring Patty Duke called “No Child of Mine.”

Cody’s grandparents vehemently fought for custody even though it was the dying mother’s wish that John and Jeanette raise the baby when she no longer could, although this is not mentioned on the Discovery documentary but it is included in this report on Points North. Instead their explanation for the prolonged fight is that they made  commitment and could not go back on that.  They never said that they felt the child would be better cared for by them or that his grandparents were in any way inferior as care givers. The audacity and arrogance of this is glaringly in opposition to the Christian giving they do. Why on God's green earth would you keep a child from family who were willing to devote their life to their grandson and get him in private school, do anything and everything for him?

"We're trying to be servants," John Murphy said. "We're not trying to be the Messiah."

Points North also reports that the case also stirred up an angry social worker who attempted to remove all the children, claiming they were unfit caregivers. City officials stepped in and stood up for the family, calling the charges ridiculous.

TV Show Has Some REAL "Reality" to It!

'Life Unexpected' draws on real-life adoption experience

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

PASADENA, Calif. -- They say to write what you know. Liz Tigelaar took that at face value. She's the creator and executive producer of the new CW show "Life Unexpected," about a young girl lost in the foster-care system and seeking her parents.

Tigelaar is an adoptee herself. "I knew I was born in D.C., so I was always asking my mom, 'What's the deal?' I was, like, 'I think Nancy Reagan's my birth mom, and this really sucks. I should be living in the White House, and I should have $100-a-month allowance.'

"It started when I was little. And weirdly, it lasted for a long time, until finally when I was 8, my mom was like, 'You're an idiot. You're not doing basic math. There's no way that Nancy Reagan could be your birth mom.' I was very insistent. That was my Texas upbringing,"Tigelaar says at a press gathering.

She has parlayed her own childhood into the TV series which airs Monday nights. The show is about 15-year-old Lux (Britt Robertson), who searches for her birth parents so she can become legally emancipated.

The parents turn out far less mature than the daughter.

"What I brought into the series, is that fantasy of who your parents might be. I think when you have no idea and you really have nothing to go on, you really create something in your head," says Tigelaar.

"So this story is very much a story of Lux having this fantasy, and in some ways it's really coming true. Her mom is this super-successful, glamorous radio DJ, and her dad is this pretty cool guy who owns a bar and lives with friends and lives in a sweet loft. I think the idea is that just because people are kind of cool, fantasy people, doesn't actually make them fantasy parents."

Tigelaar got her start by working as an assistant to writer Winnie Holzman, who penned "My So-Called Life" and wrote for "thirtysomething."

"It got me kind of thinking about what are thirtysomethings today, and how is it different? And in our parents' generation, maybe thirtysomething means 401(K) plans and mortgages and suburbs and dogs. And for me, and maybe some other people, thirtysomething can mean a person who really has prioritized their professional life over relationships or whatever -- or not ... Or a guy who still lives like a frat guy and lives with his buddies and plays video games and drinks Coors Lite, and that's cool. And I just think it's like a whole different thing."

So it became a backward coming-of-age story, she says. "The grownups are the people that need to come of age, and Lux is the catalyst for them to do that. I think that was the impetus of the idea."

Tigelaar did locate her birth parents. "I found both my birth parents, and actually, I just met my birth mom in November for the first time, and the first thing she said was, 'I'm not a radio DJ.' And I said, 'That's OK.'"

Being adopted can leave a child with feelings of inadequacy, according to Tigelaar, whose credits include "Brothers and Sisters."

"It's like an initial rejection. Your mom has given you up, and that's a thing that you carry with you in your life. On the other hand, if you're adopted, it's juxtaposed by two people who want a kid so badly. My own parents, they made me feel so special and so wanted, and what I want to tell a story about was ... a girl who doesn't get that. She didn't get to feel special and wanted ..."

Shiri Appleby, who plays Cate, the DJ who becomes a surprise mom, says her life does not parallel her character's life at all. "I'm settled in myself, and I feel very secure with myself, where I am at this point in my life."

"So I feel like I can go just about anywhere and feel pretty cool. I'm not married. I don't have kids. So playing a parent is something that's definitely new for me, but at the same time, it's new for Cate. So I don't feel like I'm playing a character that I can't relate to. And quite the opposite: I think that Cate isn't a stable person either. She's having a hard time committing into her relationship. And when Lux comes back, it's the piece in the puzzle that's been missing for her that makes her stable.

"So have I found that peace for myself? It could be this show. I feel pretty stable in Vancouver (where the show is filmed.) I haven't lived in one city for five months since I graduated from high school. So I'm feeling more stable than I've felt in a while."

I have not seen the show yet, but it might just add a bit of reality to what Juno left our to the young audience it is geared toward.  This young couple made s bby, gave her up for adoption - and she wound up UNLOVED in foste rcre! Not exctly the better life we are all promised adoption will provide.