There was a time when adoptions
were a source of shame for a birth mother, and weren’t discussed in the
adoptive family. But that slowly changed with birth control, a demographic
shift in babies available for adoption, and the “adoption rights movement.”
Today, 95% of infants in the U.S. are placed in “open adoptions” where the
birth mother and the family have some sort of contact. Thursday, we’re talking
about how adoption has changed over time, and what it means for children and
families.
At
the beginning of the program, Doug revealed that he was adopted in the 60’s
when adoptions were closed. You knew nothing. No medical records, no nothing.
(Jeanne, adopted in the 60’s, was 5 months old before we found out she had a
congenital hip deformity, which is hereditary. Usually they discover it at
birth. If we had known she had a propensity for it and found it sooner, she
would not have had to be in a brace for so long and wouldn’t have missed the
critical creeping and crawling stages.
When I called the LDS Adoption Agency to ask them if they had record of
it, they didn’t say. All they said was: “Do you want to return her?” That blew my mind. Upset me to the core.
Return her? Is that the way you talk about my baby? She is not damaged
merchandize. She is our child. I told them I simply wondered if they had
withheld helpful medical information.)
The
first person Doug interviewed was Amy, a 40-year-old landscape architect who
gave her baby up for adoption. It was an open adoption. She sees him to this
day. They had no contracts as far as visitations rights, photos, contact; they
trusted each other. She interviewed many couples before she chose this one and
it has worked out well. Yet she grieves. She can’t touch him. She yearned to
hold him. She feels like it would be a
betrayal to his parents if she told him what is in her heart. She thinks he
might feel a loss too. In her dream she
touched him, tousled his hair. “The fantastic thing was touching him.” When she awoke, she realized she would never
ever ever be her son’s mother. When she
found out she was pregnant, she realized what she felt was the early seeds of a
lifelong grief. She felt she didn’t have
a right to grieve or make others aware of her grief. Her social worker told her that grief would
eventually fade away. “It doesn’t. It changes. Now I’m missing a 16 year-old;
next year I’ll be missing a 17-year-old.” They text and email and he asks her
questions but they are noncommittal and simple. She wrote the book God and Jetfire, Confessions of a Birth Mother by Amy Seek; in
which she writes in beautiful prose how “In my dreams, I can touch you.”
Reviews:
“My son,” she writes over and over. It is important that she is able to claim
her rightful role, but her sadness and loss is tied up with ownership. Still, I
have not read a more comprehensive book on the grieving that accompanies the
adoption process. Seek’s eloquent if occasionally self-indulgent prose makes
this important memoir resonate. As she shows, adoption does not end when a
child changes hands. It’s a sad, lovely and continuing conversation that she
bravely documents. New York Times
Sunday’s Book Review (last paragraph) By JENNIFER GILMOREJULY 20, 2015
Written
with literary poise and distinction, God and Jetfire is the story of a life
divided between grief and gratitude, regret and joy. It is an elegy for a lost
motherhood, a celebration of a family gained, and an apology to a beloved son.
Next
Doug had an emeritus history professor who wrote a book 20 years ago on the
history of adoption. He talked about how adoptions used to be secret and
shameful; closed records. Unwed pregnant women were considered neurotic,
psychosomatic, very sick; and it was best for the child to separate them from
their mothers. The mother was feeble
minded for having a child out of wedlock and the child was carrying the feeble
minded gene. (I wonder where the fathers
were. They were probably brilliant.)
After World War II, it was considered patriotic to have children and
those who couldn’t, in desperation, adopted.
Then
he introduced a couple from Salt Lake City who adopted a baby boy in an open
adoption. Emily, who lives back east, is the birth mother; Tyson, the
father, lives in SLC. Curt and Jerry are
the parents. Jerry is an adoptee himself.
“All
four people love him and want the best for him.”
They
were so full of love. They’ve had their trials. One lost a brother; then he
came out to his very LDS parents. But the kindness and love oozed from both of
them.
There
is only one person who can carry the title “Mother” in our family. He has three
fathers: Papa, Daddy, and Tyson but Emily is his only mother.
“All
four of us love him so much.”
No
matter how much we love him, Emily and Tyson love him too and they will always
be his parents. There cannot be too much
love for a child. We love Oscar. He is our son. We love Emily because she is
part of our family.
Emily
wanted us there when he was born; she wanted us to be the first ones to hold
Oscar.
Grief
and joy at the same time.
Open
adoption is not co-parenting. His birth
mother doesn’t make day-to-day decisions.
We
don’t like to hear “giving up a child for adoption”. That’s a swear word in our
house. Giving up or give up connotes a
sense of loss. We say a child is placed.
Curt
and Jerry want the birth parents to be physical (hugs) with Oscar if they want
to.
Emily’s
experience is just as important as ours and Oscar’s. The best thing for all of
us is for her to stay involved.
I
feel so privileged to be his father.
The
first part of this podcast was about grief and loss.
The
second part was statistical and scholarly.
The
third part was about love, joy, and acceptance.
The
profound truth I learned today:
The
reason God put gay people on earth was to
show us how to love. Truly love. Not fake love. True unconditional
enlightening edifying love. Heartfelt
and genuine. And I felt that so keenly today just listening to Curt and Jerry
tell their story.
Re
adoption, personally I have ambivalent feelings. We have been rejected and hurt
by adopting. No, we weren’t perfect parents but we did the best we could. I
have always maintained that I don’t blame our daughter because I don’t know
what it feels like to be adopted. On the other hand, she doesn’t know what it
feels like to be an adoptive parent. We
had hopes and dreams too. We felt a keen
sense of responsibility, love, and gratitude for her. I remember driving up the hill toward home
one dark stormy ominous night holding her in my arms and I thought: “How could anyone
trust us with this precious baby? What if harm comes to her?” I don’t know how
God trusts any of us with tiny, helpless babies. They are so beautiful and
vulnerable.
