Golden Cradle

She was 23 in a long term unmarried relationship and pregnant. 

They forced a closed adoption on us, we wanted open, and we decided on a adoption as I was in labor, not a day before that did this cross our minds, so we were NOT educated in any way shape or form. We didn't know we had a choice. 

An adoption lawyer told me that she and her colleagues always brings bagels or doughnuts to the nurses . . . .That is wrong. And it should have been a concern to the whole medical department, including my doctor, who knew how excited I was and etc about my son. I was very ready for him, yet a day or two before I said I wanted an adoption. I only got to meet with the agency for an hour and while I was medicated, then I did change my mind the day I was discharged but I still went through with the adoption because I was panicking and not sleeping, disoriented and very confused. And now, even though I am in my right to revoke it, they are coming up with a million and one reasons why they cannot return him. I know I will have my son back. I KNOW it. And I am sure after this, I will be helping out as many women as I can so I can prevent them from going through this.

This is the kind of stuff women get into when they get hormonal and are not properly educated and get scared. My son did NOT need to be placed for adoption. 

This did not happen in  the 1960s or the 70s or 80s.  It did not happen inn the 20th century.

It happened in APRIL, 2014 in the USA, not a third world country.  It happened in Gegisinger Wyoming Valley Hospital, in Wilkes Barre, Pa.

The agency, Golden Cradle, is located in [Cherry Hill] Nj, and they basically performed a Pa adoption except that the termination of parental rights was through Nj. The adoptive parents were an hour away from me. They didn't need an ICPC paper because [the baby] wasn't leaving the state, etc. The Nj paper just allowed me to have "irrevocable" parental rights. When I served them court paper for the release of my son, they panicked. Said he was in Nj with the parents I picked and was assured were in Pa, that I signed the 100a form, and it was Nj legal. But at court yesterday, they admitted the family and my son were in Pa, but that Nj had jurisdiction because their office is in Nj and I singed the ICPC contract and my termination of my rights. Basically, they did a Pa adoption and didn't think I would fight it, so they didn't do the correct paperwork. And when they noticed I would fight it, they panicked, forged a 100A paper, and now even filed for the adoption to be finalized in NJ 3 months after my son's birth. And from my understanding, also 3 months before they are allowed to, as in NJ they need 6 months of placement with the adoptive parents to finalize the adoption. 

under PA law, I have revoked the consent for adoption, several times already ( I am in my right to do so, since I am a resident of Pa, I gave birth in Pa, my son is still a resident of Pa with his adoptive parents, I signed in Pa and was Pa notarized, only thing I did was sign an Nj paper that said my parental rights would be terminated through Nj). 

The dad signed after me at the coercion of the agency, because I already singed away so it was basically "a done deal, and he didn't really want full custody of a newborn". Their words to him. He was just as hesitant as I was about this.

Why are predatory practices like this allowed? We do not allow funeral directors to solicit business to families of terminal patients in hospitals, why do we as a nation allow adoption agencies to prey on women in labor???

They HAVE committed fraud, and I am on my way to undoing it, but I know that having testimony against them will help in every way possible. Anything helps. 

I am of course going to have to go back again to court to fight this (already went yesterday for the first time), and it was even found that they have falsified my signature on an 100A paper for the ICPC (because they claimed my son was not in Pa, but at least they admitted that he was). 

You can help this mom and dad get their son back. 

If you have dealt with Golden Cradle or have any documentation of a pattern of coercive/deceptive adoption practices by Golden Cradle please contact me.

In a recent discussion of this case, while at linch with senator Diane Allen (D:NJ) after the bill signing, the senator's aid said some babies need to be signed away immediately in the hospital or they'd just be abandoned.  But this was not the case. Mothers can be discharged and babies can remain until decisions are made. Foster care can be provided until a mother can think with a clear head, and discuss option with her family and the bay's father and his family, perhaps, if appropriate. CARE of the baby is certainly necessary, but that does not neccesitate or justify pressuring a mother into a lifelong IRREVOCABLE permanent decision for herself, the child, and many other extended family that will be affected by the loss....in a moment of confusion! 

PROSPECTIVE ADOPTERS BEWARE!!!

You need to know about such predatory and coercive policies and avoid agencies that utilize them because if you engage in a slipshod adoption like this, you risk bonding with a child who may be returned to his or her rightful blood kin who want him and are capable of caring for him!

We have known about the sleazy, aggressive practices of Golden cradle since car part salesman Artie Elgart started it. I wrote about it in the Dark Side of Adoption in 1988.

This agency started out with billboards and fast food tray liner MARKETING campaigns. their goal was always clear: Finding babies to meet the demand of paying clients. they commonly housed expectant mothers with would-be adoptive parents. 

UPDATE:
A mother who relinquished through Golden Cradle in 1982 wrote in response to this blog post of her experience in an effort to help:

"Promised open.....never happened. Promised she would go to wealthy family that owned mansion and chain of restaurants....they lived in one berm apartment, were waitress and bartender...Drugged me up so much that I thought insects were crawling one me....Was bullied by attorney at hospital bedside and threatened with huge hospital bill....Called me a birth thing from day one and counseled me constantly in infertility, baby was never called mine...many things...
They said I could not take her home that she would have to go to foster care because contemplating adoption makes one unfit in the eyes of the law...I already had a child and they said that child would be taken from me too. He was twenty one months old..."

There is a long, clear PATTERN of coercive practices. 

Golden Cradle's Federal 990s up until recently said that they were non profit to "prevent cruelty to children".

Adoption Activism History: The ORIGINAL ORIGINS

Before there was Origins in Australia or the UK, and LONG before Origins-USA .... back in the pre-Internet dark ages ...

In 1980, five women from New Jersey found one another and formed the original "ORIGINS: an organization for women who lost children to adoption."

We put out a national bi-monthly newsletter and held local in-person meetings for more than a decade.

We were pioneers! I was on the Mort Downey Jr. Show twice with adoptees and adoptive parents bringing light to the issue that was never even spoken about before. I was later on the Joan Rivers Show talking about the Joel Steinberg case, with Grace Smeigel.

The five founders of The Original ORIGINS were: MaryAnne Cohen, Allison Ward, Lucy Pare, Evelyn Ziemtez and myself. 

Mary Anne Cohen is the poet laureate of adoption reform.

Lucy Pare gained national infamy in a "sting:" set up by a TV news network to catch evil mothers trying to find and "stalk" their lost children by paying money to an "underground" searcher.  They sent a couple pretending to be birthparents to infiltrate one of our meetings! The news reports of her being "caught in the act" made her look like a dug dsealer exchanging money for information in a parking lot. But, when they made it known it was a sting and shone lights and cameras on a stunned Lucy, she stood her ground and compared her work to the underground railraod that helped slaves escape and let them know it was CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE to disobey laws that kept mothers and their children apart!

Left to right: MaryAnne Cohen, Sherry Chait, Mirah Riben, Washington DC, 1989. 

First national Match on Washington DC to unseal adoption records. 

We are holding our ORIGINS quilt made with patches for our lost children and our logo in the center.

This hearty group including Marilyn Bursen, Judy Taylor, Sharon Bell, and Joe Soll...

marched from NYC to Washington where they were joined by hundred of others of us.

This entire March and SpeakOut at the Washington Memorial was organized by Origins, the AAC and Council for Equal Rights in Adoption (CERA), without the Internet! We were a powerful and strong network of support group across the country! 

WE BELIEVE YOU, Dylan Farrow!

I believe you first and foremost because, as Mackenzie Philips said: Why would you lie?  What you did in speaking your truth to power took incredible courage and strength of character. I wholeheartedly believe you and applaud you, support you and defend you.

Woody Allen became officially labeled a pedophile in my book the day his affair with Soon Yi was exposed.  I personally have not seen a Woody Allen movie since. Their continued affair and subsequent marriage removed any and all doubt in that case!

My refusal on principal to see his films has led, over the years, to many passionate discussions of his creative genius to which I reiterate my firm conviction that I personally will not ever spend one red cent out of my pocket to support this incestuous pedophile.

The argument that it was not "technically" incest, or that she MAY have been - or he may have THOUGHT she was older than she was...are all irrelevant. Their age difference alone, and his money and power, made it INAPPROPRIATE!

Those who defend Allen's actions with Soon Yi as not incestuous - are they saying that it is OK for all adoptive fathers to seduce their adoptive daughters/ What about step-fathers?  That's OK too? It wasn't so OK in the movie Precious - nor is it ever in real life OK for a mother's boyfriend to rape or even carry on a consensual relationship with his girlfriend's child.

His relationship with Soon Yi's MOTHER, Mia Farrow, made him Soon Yi's psychological step-father at the very least, and their relationship - no matter how log lasting -  inappropriate in its origins and indicative of his lack of healthy boundaries.

Woody Allen's Women

At 19 Allen married a 16-year old named Harlene Rosen. He then married Louise Lasser and never married again until Soon Yi.  Diane Keaton - whose given name is Annie Hall - was chosen to replace Mia Farrow in the co-starring role for Manhattan Murder Mystery. Allen and Farrow were on the rocks professionally and personally and Keaton stepped in in both roles. Their romantic relationship over, they reportedly remain friends

He next had an affair with but did not marry, Stacey Nelson, who like the others was featured in his films. Woody has such power over young, impressionable and powerless GIRLS that his former young lover, Stacey Nelkin, recently went public -- not prove his pattern of sick behavior (which he displays in some of his mvie plot) - but to defend the man who at 41 was in a relationship with her when she was just 17.  Power is indeed corrupting, and this unattractive, nerdy creep mesmerizes young. impressionable women by putting them in his movies!

Woody's infamous relationship with Mia Farrow began approximately 1980 and ended in 1992 whens the proverbial shit hit the fan in the form of photos taken by Allen of her daughter Soon Yi.

I Am Not Alone

I am far from the only one who believes Dylan's accusations are factual and Woody Allen's actions less than stellar. Bravo to Perez Hilton for her piece, Woody Allen's Molestation Accusations From Dylan Farrow: 10 Facts You Need to Know!  A must read.

Many who live with and have studied the intricacies of adoption and the effects on those whose lives are touched by this circumstances KNOW that absence of kinship reduces the technical or legal taboo on incest and puts adoptees - including those in step-parent adoptions - at higher risk than non-adoptees for sexual abuse, not just by adoptive parents but also by siblings. We know and recognize this dynamic on foster care but somehow wish to turn a blind-eye to it in adoptive families.

The reasons lie in the entrenched belief of adoption as a "good" in our society with the lobbying power of a mega billion dollar industry to promote it as such. Adoption is romanticized as a win-win where in a homeless unwanted orphan is rescued by a childless couple desperately yearning for a child to love and complete their family and lives. It is also, as a publisher once told me, our 'fall-back' position for child care and we need cannot afford to see its flaws.

And, after all, part of believing in the myths that surround adoption are the one that assure us that those who adopt are carefully screened and vetted in addition to being highly motivated to begin with. After all, they didn't just have a child by chance or accident.

Those of us in the know, however, know all too well of the "forever" families that abandon their kids, re-home them or send them off to ranches or boarding school. We know of ALL kinds of unspeakable, incomprehensible abuses that adopted children have endured at the hands of their "saviors" - being caged, burned, starved, forced to drink hot sauces and take cold showers, left to live outdoors... We know of the sexual abuses and, yes, even the murders that have taken place at the hands 'noble' altruistic adopters.

We know, as Nicole Soojung Callahan writes, that in the case of Dylan Farrow her adoptive status matters, and matters very much both in the horror she lived through and in the public's ability to believe her or not.

“Because adoption involves children moving from a family of lesser privilege, that move is often seen as an unequivocal good,” Gretchen Sisson told me. “These children are avoiding whatever circumstances of their birth — poverty, a teen mother, a life in a developing country, etc. — have been deemed unsuitable. This makes adoptive parents into rescuers; they are providing their child with a ‘better life.’ Abuse is incompatible with this idea, as is the idea that adopted people should speak out about their abuse. After all, might they not still be better off if they hadn’t been adopted?”

We believe you! Allen is a pedophile and adoption is a breeding ground for non-technical incest.

We know what a farce home studies that are paid for by prospective adopters are and that salaries of those who work for adoption agencies are paid for only by completed adoptions.  We know of all the other pedophiles such as Mancuso and William Peckenpaugh, and we know the sordid history of the agency though which you were adopted, almost as notorious as the Baby Seller, Georgia Tann who also served the rich and famous.

We know that money talks in adoption and buys adorable, curly blonde-haired, blue eyes prizes liek you were -- looking just like A Shirley Temple version of Little Orophan Annie!

Dylan you are not alone. The adoption reform community stands with you as you expose just one of many ugly truths of the scared cow that is adoption. Too many of us have walked a mile in your shoes, abused by those entrusted to care for us... raped by those who committed to our care and protection... You are not alone!

More on Adopter Self-Centered SELFISHNESS

A few days ago I posted on the subject of hubris and narcissism in adopters.  This is a follow-up, and i suspect there may be more to come...

Today's example of comes from an article out of India describing American and British couples complaining about having to wait "several MONTHS" to adopt!~ Yes, you read right...months, not years, and they are complaining.

the average wait is just TWO MONTHS! Now last I calculated that's a helluva lot shorter wait than it takes to have a baby the natural way!

Also.. there are people who have waited YEARS to adopt internationally.

We used to joke about Baby's Are Us - before the chain of stores actually opened. but now I am thinking what is "needed" (read wanted) by these folks is McBabies!  With a DRIVE THROUGH window.

You pull up to the microphone and put in your order:  One Female, please. Hold the illnesses and no need to supersize.  One bottle of formula and extra diapers please.

Then at the first window you hand over your CASH ONLY payment. And voila!

At the next window, your baby is handed to you!

SERIOUSLY - What is wrong with these people and this whole picture? Is there no understanding for the fact that it takes time to ENSURE that the child has not been kidnapped, or her parents deceived in any way? Or is the rush to get it all done before any background checks can all come back?  Just GRAB N' GO!

But to be fair, all the blame is NOT on the part of the consumers. From the article cited above;

State adoption agencies claim that Sara officials ask for unnecessary documents which leads to delays. “They want to know how many Indian parents a child has been shown to before putting him/her up for international adoption and rejection slips ascertain that,” said the head of a Pune-based adoption agency. 

Why Adoption is Mired in Secrecy

TAO, The Adopted One, asks: Why is adoption still mired in secrecy? 

Why does secrecy still prevail when it was based on the shame and stigma of being illegitimate which is as outdated as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.  It’s a pre WWII value still imposed in the 21^st century, so why, TAO wants to know, and proposes  these "what if" scenarios:

If there is nothing shameful in being adopted, then there is no reason to keep our original birth certificate sealed under lock and key, a lock and key that for many adoptees – was applied retroactively.

If some adoption practitioners have misled their clients that they can remain anonymous forever, and ever – then have the guts to stand up and say you were wrong.  That the adoptees are what matters most in adoption, and right now they are being treated as second-class citizens in many states – whether in open or closed adoptions.

If the adoption industry is afraid of the scandal of how mothers were treated  – stand up, come clean and apologize, it’s good for the soul.

If the adoption industry is really about what is best the child – then for Pete’s sake – act like it, children grow up to be adults and being denied the right to their original birth certificate doesn’t meet the standard – it makes them less-than the non-adopted.

If the adoption industry wanted to correct the wrongs of the past that are still in effect today – they would ask the Adoptee Rights Groups in each state how they can help, no conditions, just support for full equality, whatever it takes to make it right.   They would stand behind the adoptees as they lead the way to restoring the right taken away – simply because they were adopted.

If the adoption industry wanted to ensure the mistakes of the past stop being repeated and never happen again – they would require every adoption practitioner to educate their clients that the adoptee is the most important member in adoption, and how their rights should never be compromised to make others feel comfortable.  Your job is to do right by the adoptee first and foremost, whatever it takes.

TAO is RIGHT!  *IF ONLY** But... “IF” the queen had balls she be king!  “IF” The Pope wasn't Catholic he wouldn't be Pope!

The adoption industry doesn’t care about anything other than making MONEY, and that’s why! 

Why? Because adoption is an INDUSTRY, not a charity!  A multi-billion dollar a year INDUSTRY.

- Because the industry lobbyists and spokespersons represent attorneys, practitioners and adoption agency BUSINESSES who prefer to operate under a cloak of SECRECY rather than with transparency. In fact, that is the reason the records were sealed to begin with. And they will continue as long as they can.

- Because like any import/expert buying and selling INDUSTRY they serve their paid clientele who want it this way. Adopters want to be able to BUY KIDS WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED! It's why they prefer IA to domestic!  Some chill and develop some self-confidence later on after adopting, but at the time they are a mess of FEAR, anxiety and inferiority of loosing the kid they want to the "real" mommy!! The industry knows that and CATERS to it!! You want kids with no strings, we give you kids with no strings. End of story.

- Because the same attorneys, practitioners and adoption agency businesses who protect ADOPTERS FROM evil birth moms -- then also CHARGE adoptees and moms for post adoption services! A little side cottage industry for the baby brokers!

- Because many of the legislatures working on adoption voting on adoption bills are ADOPTERS, know adopters, side with them and buy the bullshit the industry lobbyists put forth while we are kept out of the discussions, because who cares what perennial CHILDREN and SLUTS have to say?

- Because these largely WHITE MALE FOLK are protecting all their peers who might have kids 'out there' who could find them and burst their career bubbles and/or marriages, or seek a piece of their inheritance.

So, stop being BITTER (wink, wink) and get with the program, like the rest, who ALLOW these atrocities to continue to be perpetuated:

- Because too few adoptees have any BALLS to stand up and DEMAND their rights as the gays do!

- Because this movement has not had its MILK moment...

- Because we lack a cohesive national organization that coordinates state efforts and works on educating the public, and adoptees, many of whom don't know and don't care...

- Because we don't have paid lobbyists (except in Ohio).

- Because adoptees are far too mired in gratitude, FEAR of REJECTION, or fear of hurting the hand that has fed and educated them, so they perpetuate secrecy by searching in secret or waiting till their aps die. NO BALLS TO STAND UP FOR THEIR OWN RIGHTS! Adoption has given them a clear message that they are second-class and deserve whatever CRUMBS they get...

“IF” the industry cared about social justice they would fail to exist, that’s why!  They would help mothers in crisis not exploit their temporary problems in order to grab up the product of their “mistakes.” 

If they didn't lie to mothers, and dupe fathers, even kidnap babies, who would provide them with provide them their bread and butter?

Von, commenting on TAO's blog says:

Why? Why not?  I say: Because they CAN!

Is there a Santa Claus, Virginia.... NO! Not in adoption! Just GREED and filling orders, meeting a demand!  The only ones getting presents from the AdoptionClaus are those paying for his suit and sleigh and all the stuff he brings!

So SHUT UP because you are just a COMMODITY...and are supposed to be GRATEFUL!! 

Mothers like me are just the wrapping the product comes in and are also supposed to shut up and be grateful we were helped out of our "situation" and gave our kids a "better" life!

Records were sealed - allegedly - to protect adoptees from the stigma of illegitimacy. That no longer exists. the truth of the matter is that they were sealed to being with to protect ADOPTERS from "intrusion" and possible extortion by birth mothers. it's all about protecting the paid customer!! And that is WHY secrecy  REMAINS in adoption.  To protect baby brokers and adopters. PERIOD! Read the history of adoption and The Baby Thief. You will discover the tremendous influence of baby brokers like Bessie Bernard in the sealing of adoption records.

"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE 

The Self-Centered Hubris of Adopters

Disclaimer: The following comments do not relate to ALL who adopt, so please save yourself the trouble of pointing that out to me or telling me how NOT like this you, or your adoptive parents, are.

REVISED: 12/20 6:56 pm

Adoption Can be Selfish [Duh!] admits a guest blogging adoptive parent, identified as "Kathy" at Rage Against the Minivan.

"Adoption is not an unselfish act," she says. OK, no argument there. Kathy continues:

We didn't choose adoption because we wanted to help a child or save him/her from a terrible life. We chose it because it was the only way to grow our family.  

Also, OK...  Kathy even adds: "Adopting our son was one of the most SELFISH things I’ve ever chosen to do." 

And she's not alone. The comments applaud her!

• "So much yes."
• "Yes and Amen. I could have written this post."
• "Yes!!!! Thank you!!" 

BUT, Kathy's admission of selfishness is not the end of her very brief post.  She adds:

It cost huge amounts of money, and five years later we are still dealing with the financial aftermath. We did it because it is what we wanted - not to be noble or selfless or save a child - but because the thing we wanted most was to be parents, and this was how it had to be done.  

If you offered me the chance to do anything else – travel the world, buy a brand new car– and told me it would cost as much as we spent on an adoption, I would tell you no because it would be too expensive, no amount of money was too much to bring our son home and into our family. 

Such unabashed WHINING or, is it bragging?!

Who had a gun to her head?  Kathy - like every adopter - had the option to adopt from foster care and save herself all of this expense. But she CHOSE not to, and CHOSE to pay the fees she paid.

With all her talk about selfishness, Kathy - and the vast majority of adopters - see it only in terms of themselves and miss the most selfish aspects of adoption:

• that every person who pays the outrageous fees increases the demand and thus increases baby brokering and child trafficking to meet the demand
• that a good portion of the dollars they pay go to bribes and unscrupulous baby brokers and child traffickers
• that the same amount of money could be far better spent supporting charities that help FAMILIES in crisis and impoverished villages throughout the world by building schools, digging wells and helping to provide medical care and supplies....

But instead, adopters like this choose to bring home a prize to commemorate their liberalism, or their Christianity; their altruism and their humanitarianism. Kathy could have chosen - heaven forbid - to foster a family... or, to "adopt" a child on paper only and send money to help his entire family, not leave them behind ad she selfishly chose one to "rescue" as a prize....like a hunter who mounts his trophy.

Worse still, she writes with total lack of thought, posts all of this in public where her child(ren), when they are old enough, can read it. Kathy displays utter, selfish disregard for how any adoptee reading it might be made to feel? The GRATITUDE! The indebtedness for the huge investment...the expectations they must live up to to warrant such an expense!

Most of all...what about her adopted child? If she writes this because this is how she feels, I don't doubt for one minute Kathy is not projecting it, AND saying it within earshot of her adopted child(ren)! 

And here's the kicker!  The blog which posted this guest blog post - without comment is Kristen, mom of four children "within four years via birth and adoption."  But, hold onto your hats. Kristen
is not JUST a mom and a blogger (whose credits include Huffington post)...she also describes herself as.... get this: A Marriage and Family Therapist!

And yet despite her education, her training and a certificate hanging on her wall... she posted Kathy's "all about me, me, me" essay without any without a one word of her own as a preface, a footnote or any commentary whatsoever.

Does family therapist, Kristen care how this blogpost - posted on HER blog - sounds to adoptees? Is she unaware of all the jokes about Jewish and Catholic guilt from mothers who complain: "Oy, you should only know the pain I suffered to deliver you!  Twelve hours in labor!"

In this case money is the guilt-inducer. We could have had a new car or a vacation but instead we CHOSE YOU...because we love you so much!  (Now be grateful!)

No adopted child chooses to be taken form his family, his roots, his heritage. Kathy chose to do that TO him because SHE - selfishly - wanted to and has now let him know that loud and clear.

Shameful.

Kathy is far from alone, as the responses to her post indicate... and, as one can read every day on adoptive parent blogs.

Why is it, I ponder, that SO MANY who adopt need to seek public attention and play victim?  

Why do they seek sympathy for their infertility, sympathy for their infertility treatments (and the cost), sympathy for the "imposition" of a home study and the "scrutiny" that they alone must endure and natural parents do not have to go through, sympathy if a planned abuction adoption falls through....and now this?  Are we supposed to feel sorry for Kathy's choices as to how she spends her money, too?

Why does the blogosphere just explode with so much adoptive arrogance, pomposity, entitlement and need to play victim all at the same time??  Even when they CHOOSE to terminate an adoption and DUMP their kid, they write about what a difficult choice that was FOR THEM, and expect - and get - SYMPATHY and understanding for doing the unthinkable to a vulnerable child they committed to caring for !  Outrageous!

Is it a deep-seated RESENTMENT in paying these fees to adopt that gives them the haughtiness, the air of superiority that leads some to sue for wrongful adoption or return "goods" they find "unsatisfactory"?  Or to just whine, bitch, moan and complain about the cost.

As a mother who lost a child to adoption I find it all quite disgusting, in very poor taste and THOUGHTLESS for the feelings of anyone but herself. Thoughtless to how her words might hurt the very child she selfishly took from his family and culture.

Adopters like this need to look in the mirror and see and hear what they sound like.

We were the ones victimized by adoption. We LOST in the alleged win-win process. Adopters use their money to grab our kids. They won and yet it is THEY who play victim and call us bitter. How ironic is that?

You may seek my sympathy but you get my revulsion. My pity is for your adopted child or children, subjected to being raised by a  total narcissist.

And shame on Family Therapist, Kristen, for posting it without any comment whatsoever!  In doing so her total agreement is implied.

Journeys to Healing Adoption Loss and Devastation

Laura Dennis writes an interesting blog post about “Coming Out of the [Adoption] Fog.” She uses an airline safety message metaphor to tell us to put on our own oxygen masks first before helping others.

Circumstances, however, do not always allow for us to do things in a neat and orderly way. 

I lost my firstborn to adoption in 1968. My first jolt out of the stupor of "I did the right thing" brainwashing I had received came just three years later when I met, by chance, an adoptee who had completed his search and was taking his birth moms name. I was shocked. The words that blurted out of my mouth that day were: "You don't hate your mother?"  I didn’t realize this is what I thought until I said it. I was apparently living with so much self-incrimination about having lost my child in this manner, that I naturally assumed SHE would hate me for having let her go – not fighting harder to keep her (with no support and in defiance of being told it was the “best” and “loving” thing to do and to not do so would be selfish and hurtful to my child.)

That encounter led me to ALMA and a meeting with one other birth mother, Mary Anne Cohen. I was thrust into the world of adoption reunions and now had POSSIBILITIES.

I had absorbed well my brainwashed messages including that I had “no right” to ever THINK of her again, much less seek her out and interrupt her wonderful new life.  My world was turned upside down as I contemplated HER wanting or even needing to know ME!  

I was among the first members of CUB and in 1980 Mary Anne and I along with three other NJ birth moms formed the original Origins and I was helping others AS I helped myself.  We held in-person meetings in those days and were able to give real live hugs – not cyber ones – and help dry one another’s eyes. One by one women came through the doors of our homes – or libraries – where we met and expressed the ultimate relief in learning each of us was not ‘”he only one” this had happened to, as we had lived with feeling.

My healing came as I helped others heal.

It was another decade after that – and after having published my first book, shedding light on…The Dark Side of Adoption (1988), that I had yet another major aha wake up moment. It came, appropriately enough, from a book entitled Wake Up Little Susie. Ricki Solinger awakened me to a new level of self-healing. Not only was I not “the only one” but what happened to us, and our families, did not happen in a void. Not only was not our “fault” – or our families’ fault – what happened was a sociological phenomenon that occurred within in a far broader context of morality and social engineering to reduce single households by punishing mothers for their sins and removing the children we were judged as “unfit’ to raise.

My education into all of the forces that work to promote adoption continues to this day. Awareness of the exploitation, corruption, deception and commodification that underlies what is presented to – and believed by – the public a noble, altruistic, saving grace simultaneously heals and enrages me.

My healing comes to me through my activism.

In the introduction to The Dark Side I relate my passion to reform adoption to the work of people like Cindy Lightner who founder Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the mom who got amber laws in every state to help find abducted children. These mothers never had a spare second to metaphorically put on their own oxygen masks before going to work to prevent other losses. Their healing – like mine - IS in working to prevent other atrocities through education.

Each of us has our own path through – and perhaps – out of the fog of denial. Some never make it out. Some find the fog a warm blanket that keeps them safe from the pain they might face if they lifted it.  

Like Laura Dennis, I too sometimes find myself wanting to shake some free of their kool-aid (yes, kool-aid, not ade!) daze. (Sometimes it infuriates me.) 

I have fought for equal access for adoptees from the very beginning back in the late 70s and early 80s.  I signed the full page as in Oregon to help that state break free of discriminatory laws…I testified at NJ hearings, met with congress people, and have written more letters than I could count in our state’s thirty year long battle to restore adoptee rights, wrongly denied them.  I thus want to scream at adoptees to break free of their fog of indebtedness and gratitude and stand up for their rights!  I watch the gay equality movement gain marriage rights in sixteen states while we have varying levels of “open records” on eight – and we’ve been at it since the 1940s when they became sealed and Jean Paton began the fight.  I want to scream and cry and many days I want to throw in the towel and give up.

But I cannot.

In The Dark Side introduction I write about Bonnie Lee Black, author of Somewhere Child, about the abduction of her daughter by her estranged husband. When asked why she wrote the book, she said:

". . . I want to live a normal life, but find I can't. Someone shot me in the back of the soul and made me a cripple from here down. The dead legs dangle from the wheelchair, lifeless— see? I can no longer dance or make love. Only the hands of my heart can move. They move along the smooth paper, dragging a pencil, leaving a trail of jagged marks that spell: I AM STILL HERE.”

If “healing” means we get to live a normal life, the answer for me is what is normal. I am forever impaired by what happened to me in 1968 just as if I were run over by a truck and lost my legs. Rather than oxygen, I found what I needed: crutches, wheelchairs and orthotic legs – even some pretty nifty blade runners that let me run marathons and speed races!  I am a fighter! I get it done! But at night I take off all the equipment that helps me through the say and in my bed I am an amputee who lost her daughter and can never, ever change that or what it meant for her life. And the next day, I get up and do it all over again.

  

That is my journey. All are different. 

Some run toward the fire in an effort to put it out and save whomever we can; some run from it to safety.  Some find the loss to overwhelming to ever get out of bed, out from under the warm blankets and the peace of sleep. Some mothers - mostly older women - obediently go to their grave never telling anyone. Even some of my contemporaries never told their husbands until decades later - or until they were found!  I cannot imagine living with the fear of having such a secret "found out" but such is the nature of denial. If I do not speak of it, it doesn't exist.

I have known some of the many mothers who suffered secondary infertility - never able to bear another child after the loss of a child or children to adoption. Some tried and were crushed. Others have told me that they consciously refused to "replace" their lost child. They felt it disrespectful; like it would render their loss meaningless. I have also met double-surrender mothers who shared an after-the-fact hindsight awareness that they got pregnant almost immediately after their first loss in some subconscious effort to replace the lost child, only to lose another.

I heard one adoptee say their medical history was their adoptive family's medical history! That's beyond denial and into delusion - dangerous, life threatening delusion.  I have also known of both adoptees and birth parents who go beyond denial and into justification. These are the adoptee/birth parent adopters and social workers who arrange adoptions.  

Whether our choices are conscious or not, the underlying devastation is the same. Whether it happens to us with or without or knowledge that it is happening.

Beyond the sheer physical pain of loss there is the day-to-day reality of how much was lost to us when adoption severed us from our loved ones. The effect it has on our choices; the poor choices we make. We didn’t loose limbs; we lost huge chunks of our self-esteem! Adoptees are constantly reminded by societal messages that they are lucky not to have been aborted; mothers that we were shameful and unfit. Mothers can never heal as long as we worry about the well-being of our child(ren). For both us of us the loss is devastating to our souls. We all feel like damaged goods and effects all of our choices or creates an inability to make any decisions lest it be as wrong as that monumental “choice.” The ripples affect our families and all we come in contact with.  We are forever wounded, even if we form layer upon layer of layer of scar tissue.... and with or without our conscious awareness.

Many of us wait for reunification to heal us only to find the sad reality that what is lost is lost and cannot be replaced.  For too many reunion results in secondary losses or loosing again and again as the reunion open and closes; starts and stops for endless, painful periods of time lest we close ourselves up once again - protectively revert to lie under our safe warm covers in the dark. What else can one do? 

For me, the answer is to fight back with activism. I am here now, 46 years later, still running back into fire-engulfed building. I am not "healed" and never will be, or can be, but I must keep on fighting because I didn't fight enough in 1968... and because if I ever stopped I don't know what would be left of me.

Much as I would love to see more soldier sin the fight against adoption discrimination and corruption, I understand that in terms of healing - as with religion - there is no ONE WAY.