e-mail
The years and months that passed our lives went on but I know that her baby was always a part of her and in her thoughts. We would talk about it off and on through out the years and I know she struggled with it.
Somewhere though along the line, she accepted her decision was final. She knew that she made the right decision for her and that it was her decision. When she met her husband we talked about it yet once again and she told her husband shortly after she realized that their relationship was serious that she had a baby in high school and relinquished her to adoption. Her husband was accepting and they married a few years later and had two daughters together.
The daughters she raised are now entering the teenage years and they know they have a sister out there. My friend feels she made the right decision, that it took her some time to get to a mentally healthy place with the decision she made, and she had to do her grieving and healing.
Recently, we had another conversation about this and the conversation revolved to the fact that her child is 18 years old. She can choose to search if she wanted to and I wanted to know how my friend felt about that. She said to me “My husband knows, the girls I raised know, and she would welcome her into their lives with open arms.” When I took it a step further and asked her how she felt about initiating a search she was adamant that she didn’t want to do that. It had nothing to do with her life or her decision but rather has opened the doors if she is searching and wants that to be her daughter’s decision.
I am not saying that I agree or disagree with the approach of speaking out. After all, it is those speaking out that have made a difference in adoption search and reunion as well as the way adoption is facilitated today. Isn’t that how the closed adoption era revolutionized into more open adoption practices?
I personally feel that the focus of many (not all) is on the pain and what happened to them in the past. Speaking out and educating can be a part of healing but it isn’t it all. Maybe the focus doesn’t need to be so much on the pain and what happened in the past but rather focusing on changing the future.
I will write a blog on open adoption sometime in the future and what my thoughts are but I know there are some who promise to do or say. There are some that do but I have to say that I am not aware of any state that has a legally binding agreement regarding the arrangements made in an open or semi open adoption. Maybe those who feel as they have been coerced can focus some of their energy on changing the way the current adoption laws are in their state to break the cycle. Adoption is not going to go away. No matter how much the select groups who are against adoption try it isn’t going to happen. That is reality but changes can be made to improve the system.
