It's Complicated, Baby

All across America, people still prefer to adopt babies. Millions of Americans adopted babies and some of us were adopted as babies. I’m guessing it’s because tiny babies don’t show their feelings; baby screams sound just like cries.  This may also explain why so many children languish in foster care: they’re just too old. Older kids do exhibit fear, uneasiness or apprehension; some kids even act like babies.

            Adopting babies is easier. Adoptive parents can hope their new baby will adjust and bond favorably by the time baby will talk. Some adopters believe they saved us as babies since our mother was a slut or wretched teenager, or maybe a sick woman on an Indian reservation or from a trashy tenement. Maybe we're Third World babies from an over-populated Chinese, Russian or African orphanage. Sometimes adopters simply ignore our culture and history, like it doesn’t exist. Some of my friends heard words like “dirty savages and filthy heathens.”

            Adopters might hope to mold “orphan babies” into something they want. They'll try loving us first. Yet we know love doesn’t cure everything. Love can’t erase genetics or ancestral memory. If love doesn't work, the adopters might try bullying us or drugging us into submission until we show them some gratitude.

            An even more complicated reality exists, a much bigger untold desperate story. 

            Adoptable babies are scooped up quick, especially if they are white and healthy and from America. You can even order one, but it will cost you thousands of dollars.

            If that doesn’t work, and if you can afford it, you can always buy a surrogate mother; these women widely advertise now. She’ll carry and deliver your baby for a price. Some sisters will do this for an infertile sibling.

            Then there’s a huge “underground market,” where they still kidnap and sell babies. Baby peddlers, some who practice law, are out there making money, too. Some abducted babies were made child sex slaves. Guatemala is now under investigation for illegal baby peddling. Someone made a ton of money on babies!

            A newer adoption scam is happening online – when a woman fakes a pregnancy, offers her unborn baby as bait, then steals the unsuspecting couple’s money (thousands of dollars) using the internet as a trap.

            There are tragic stories about sick women or couples who will kill a pregnant woman just to take her baby. This happened in Massachusetts recently.

            There are more stories about babies being dumped (abandoned) all across America. One mother dumped three babies in California (two were saved but one died from exposure). In New York, three sisters were arrested for helping one sister dump her newborn girl in the trash, causing the baby to die.

            Some mothers are illegal immigrants and don’t want their new baby. They'll do their child a favor by dumping them off at a firehouse. Those adoptees rarely find their mothers, since birth records won’t exist. There is a slim chance their mother will seek them out for a reunion since they are considered felons and criminals in most states.

            For the millions of us who have been handed over, dumped, or exchanged (or sold, or taken) for a hundred years – has anyone dared to ask how we felt at the exchange? 

            Apparently we are studied, not consulted.

            Bear in mind, babies didn’t create this billion dollar adoption industry or cause infertility. Babies can't solve social issues but we're sold as one solution. Babies can't cure the pain in women who can’t conceive. Babies didn’t create poverty. Some would say certain babies arrived at the wrong place at the wrong time. We were an inconvenience, or a sin, or a mistake.

            How will we ever fix this? It's complicated, baby!

Comments about FIND MY FAMILY TV SERIES and Reunions

I wanted to include this in my blog. I was contacted by the producers of Find My Family last year but I had already done my reunion. No word yet on this series and if it will continue.

New TV Show Highlights Adoption Search-and-Reunion Stories
by Kathie Forward
A new television program on ABC, called Find My Family, focuses on search and reunion, primarily adoption-related. It is hosted by two adult adoptees, including Tim Green, author of A Man and His Mother, the story of his search for his birth mother. By going to abc.com, and then findmyfamily, one can download a 13-page application to be considered for the show.
I am an adult adoptee who, so far, has failed to locate any of my birth family. So when I first heard of this new program, I was excited. The first show aired on Monday, November 23rd. It featured birth parents who had relinquished a baby girl when they were only 14 and 15, then later married and had more children. The hosts went through the usual questions as to why they wanted to search now and how they thought it would make a difference. Next, they explained the steps taken to locate the child. The birth mother had named her daughter Tanya, but the birth records came up blank. Finally, the Find My Family staff went to the hospital and went through all birth records until they found a match by birth date. It turned out the daughter grew up only eight miles away from the birth parents. Then the show featured the reunion, held by a tree in an undisclosed location, one of the show’s “gimmicks.”
The second show aired on November 30th and featured two stories. Story One was an adoptee looking for her full brother who had been raised by the birth parents, who ws only 16 months older than she was. Again, the breakthrough was searching all birth records for her date. When they found her records, they backtracked 16 months to find a boy. Again, the parents were married. When they actually contacted the brother, he informed Find My Family that there was a younger sister, not relinquished. In all cases, once the match is made, Find My Family obtains permission from all parties to set up the reunion.
Story Two of this episode was a daughter searching for her birth mother. Again they searched birth records. This time they had the birth mother’s name. However, this was no help. Finally, Find My Family decided to check marriage records and that was how the birth mother was located.
I realize these reunions are set up for television, but everyone seemed too agreeable and way too happy. They even showed follow-up visits (a few weeks or months later) and everything was “just wonderful.” Realistically, it doesn’t always work out that way. My concern is that it portrays reunion as the answer to everyone’s lifelong problems. However, it may motivate a lot of people to search.
I downloaded the application and found many of the questions helpful in deciding to search and in planning how I might handle a reunion. The program would also be good for starting a discussion about search and reunion between adoptive parents and children, or in families where there has been a relinquishment in the past, or even between parents who were adopted themselves and their own children. Time will tell how popular this program is and how it develops.
Excerpted from the January 2010 edition of the Operation Identity Newsletter
© 2010 Operation Identity

http://www.nmoi.org/articles/FindMyFamily.html