If you have read much about adoption practices during the 60's and 70's, you might be familiar with the concept of wage homes. Maternity homes were so crowded with young pregnant women during the 60's and 70's that there was often a waiting list before a young women could get into a home.

Often women spent time during their pregnancy at a wage home first, and then entered the maternity home for only the last two months or so. Wage homes... more

For adoptees from the closed adoption era, there are several ways to learn about what your birth mother's experience might have been like. One of the best ways is to meet and hear stories from other birth mothers from that era. Reading about the era can provide you with insights as well. Chatting on forums like Adoption.com can help as well.

One purpose of learning about birth mothers is to understand how her experience has shaped her. It could offer some idea of how she felt about the child that she relinquished and her reasons for the adoption.... more

If you read a post of mine on any given day, you might believe that I am stuck, and angry. Read another day, and you will find that is not the case. Although I have angry moments, I use those to fuel my fires and give me the incentive to keep working to change some bad adoption practices, and faulty counseling for pregnant women.

Although adoption continues to tinge my life with sadness, I embrace life and lead a full and rich life. In my day to day life, I have made some peace with my adoption loss, and it no longer prevents me from a measure... more

What kind of a baggage do birth mothers carry at reunion? Some are burdened more than others. It depends on the personality of the birth mother, her experiences and her ability to deal with loss. What do adoptess generally expect? An adoptee recently commented that after discovering how affected some birth parents are affected by adoption, he was questioning his desire to search. Since I devote a great deal of time and energy singing the praises of reunion, I found that comment somewhat disheartening. It made me ponder what most adoptees... more

This comment that I referred to in Part 1 made me decide to look up the word “victim” in the dictionary. I prefer to think of myself as a survivor rather than a victim. “Victim” has connotations to me of cowering in a corner, meekly accepting your fate and not speaking up.

Victim is what I had to be to allow my son's adoption; I went along with the plan. Even though, it felt horribly wrong; I let it happen. However, victim does NOT define me now. Nor does "victim" fit now for any of the feisty, courageous birth mothers that I know who dedicate... more

I hear a lot of "victimhood and woe is me" in your writing-whose's choice is it to place and whose responsibiltity is it when the adoption is complete? Not society or adoption parents are at fault-IMO it's the bfamily.

The recent reader comment mentioned that she detected a “woe is me” and victim-type attitude in my writing. I did not respond to her comment as I decided that I needed to ponder a response for awhile. I also realized that I probably could not give a two-line response. Brief answers are not something that... more

Adoption is sometimes the right choice for a woman in a crisis pregnancy. Parenting is the right choice sometimes too. For some women, abortion may be their right choice, whether you believe in it yourself. It is presumptuous to tell a woman that her decision was right or wrong. You cannot possibly know that.

No one can know for certain, and she may or may not believe that she should have parented her child. Telling her that you believe that she made the right choice by choosing adoption may insinuate that you believe she was never meant to be a mother. It could... more

If there is one phrase certain to irritate many birth mothers more than any other, it has to be "You did the right thing." This particular comment first surfaces when a woman in a crisis pregnancy is considering adoption. Some people felt quite confident in telling a woman at that point that she is "doing the right thing". They may know almost nothing about her, and yet they are convinced adoption is the best solution for her.

Later, after a woman has made the decision to relinquish, more praise comes her way for "doing the right thing". In some people's minds,... more

Many of you probably can imagine some of the ideas I used to hold about adoption. A few of you probably still fervently believe some of the same things that I used to believe. You know - stuff like birth mothers forgetting and moving on with their lives - not holding their babies because it would make it harder for them later -ideas along those lines.

Domestic newborn adoption is the area that I feel needs the most reform, so, I focus on that area of adoption most often. Many of the "old" ideas still abound in newborn adoptions. My views on both pre-birth matching and adoptive parents... more

There are times that I become impatient when I hear opinions about adoption that I now consider undated and false. However, I try to catch myself and remember that I was guilty of believing most of the inaccurate and totally false ideas about adoption myself. When my son found me, all I knew about reunion, other than having relinquished a child myself, I learned from the media. And that wasn't much!

Since I was so mired in denial prior to reunion, I never sought out any information about adoption. Therefore, at the time I was found, I had not read a single adoption book,... more