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!

Living a mystery

          By Trace L Hentz (blog editor)

Grief grows when someone’s missing. My “someone” was Helen, the woman who grew me in her womb. Helen decided to sign me away to be raised by total strangers.

            What type of blind faith was that? What was required for her to decide to make me an orphan? How could she know I’d be safe? Someone must have told her.

            Maybe the Catholics convinced her. The Catholics arranged everything for her and for me.

             Why doesn’t America know being orphaned hurts the baby in a profound way? Prisons and psychiatric wards are filled with orphans and adoptees, some of the scariest and most violent offenders. Why haven’t we heard about this? 

            Losing Helen did hurt me in a profound way, but not enough to kill someone.

            Adoption was an experiment. Remember this. No one really knew how closed adoption would turn out. Our mothers never imagined how this could hurt us as much as it hurt them. Mothers were assured giving us up would be ok, and we'd be better off. 

             CUB Mothers are rewriting history and fighting to get us back and fighting adoption secrecy. (CUB means concerned united birthparents). An important essential book on America's unregulated adoption industry is Stork Market (there is a link on this blog). Riben's book will open your eyes in ways you cannot imagine.

            Then I find out our government forgets to count adoptees.  As a journalist, I was disappointed but not surprised to find out their U.S. figures are not recent, reliable or computed systematically. We’re not that important, I guess.

            Writing One Small Sacrifice, I was confronted with one reality then another. I woke up. I lived in a mystery novel. I can say now with certainty, it was an adventure solving the mystery.

             With obvious fear, I opened my adoption, even if it got me banished from my adoptive family or arrested for criminally trespassing in my own family tree!

            What lawmakers decide about unsealing adoption records in 2010, if they were not adopted and if they know their names, they may not get it. Expecting an adoptee to be ok with living a mystery is crazy.

            When you think about this, it’s obvious. The tree roots of trauma takes its hold in children. Orphans roots are scarred. My roots are scarred.

            I don’t think it should be so hard to find the woman who grew you in her womb. I don’t think an adoptee should be denied their name and their family tree and their relatives.

            I think about a lot of things but I pray that moms and dads across the planet can raise their own children and those children become strong and healthy moms and dads. 

** An adoptee wrote on Facebook: My sister and I have so many issues that a shrink wouldn't know where to start… Another wrote: I shut down my emotions at a very early age. Because I agreed with them, I wrote Ghost Shell and posted it on this blog on July 1.

The Culture of Adoption

In March 2007, I gave two workshops on the Culture of Adoption here in western Massachusetts. I used a subtitle, “We can’t fix adoption until we fix poverty.” I know that I’m different. I am a writer who successfully opened her adoption, which is rare.  I do understand the stigma for women who give up their baby and I knew the pain of infertility for my adoptive mom.

In my workshops, I gave un-apologetic, uncensored testimony of what I’d lived as an adoptee and some (shocking) facts I’d learned as a journalist.

My topic drew women who work in social service agencies in our area, in important programs that serve the poor. I structured the information using my adoption insights, using current statistics. I gave them handouts that focused on the adoptee, adoptee organizations, an up-to-date booklist, and opinions from a feminist who writes on adoption choices (with views contrary to public opinion of "good outcomes in adoption.")

My morning workshop, a trial run of sorts, was a disappointment - I felt I shared too much personal information, perhaps too quickly. A few women reacted as if they were shocked or they were just plain horrified. It was hard for them to accept what I was saying, even with my proof. I know the majority of people prefer to believe adoption is a good thing, a saving thing. That is adoption propaganda. Some even reacted to the words bastard and orphan when I said them.

The laws and secrecy about adoption were made for women but not necessarily controlled, managed or scrutinized by women. Saving children is a tiny fraction of a much bigger equation. I wanted them to see this, and see a bigger picture through my own experience.

It was a good learning experience for me. My perspective has been ignored and not widely broadcast, compared to a louder, more focused adoption industry. My reality affects everyone in a unique way, depending on their own involvement in adoption.

Fortunately, two adoptees and one adoptive parent were there to share their experience in my first workshop, and politely disagreed with some of what I presented, even challenging the statistics.

Little attention was given to the climate of oppression for the birthmother and the trauma of separation for the baby, I told them.

I asked both groups if they knew the definitions of many buzz words related to adoption – they didn’t. They were not even aware that hospitals and clinics are now serving a growing population of international adoptees. Many were unaware of a growing “bogus” ancestry in America because of sealed adoption records. Many couldn’t fathom that adoptees are so damaged they get committed to psych wards. Many had not heard that some adoptees are adopted for body parts, destined to become future transplant donors. Many had not heard of birth psychology, the bond between mother and child, even before birth. Many were surprised at what I’d experienced. They were shaking their heads when I said I might accidentally meet and date my own brother, or that I had no medical history… Most people don’t think about this.

Yes, this is the Culture of Adoption – a lot of missing information - even for those who work in social services, in agencies that serve the poor.

In hindsight, I would lay it out differently and not give so much information in a one and one-half hour presentation. It was too much! A book on Adoption Culture, which I plan to do eventually, can be administered in small doses, to process slowly.

Some people will always prefer the myths: Cuddly babies aren’t damaged but older children are…All babies need is love…Babies are given up by underage, over-sexed careless girls…

Since the 1990s, more adoptees come from poor families in foreign lands, since single Americans are not so quick to give up their baby. Some of the stigma of an unplanned pregnancy shifted. It's common now to find un-wed moms keeping the baby.

Many families who adopt don't realize such poor living conditions exist until they travel to foreign lands to adopt a child. It appeared some New Englanders at my workshop lived a rather sheltered existence. (They’re not the only ones.)

Truly this blog is about ideas. Not everyone will agree or accept my research. I accept that.

Some of my information can sure raise eyebrows.