Marie Myung-Ok Lee, our fertility blogger, wrote an interesting post about her experience working with birth moms in Korea. Here is a quote from that blog:

…..they hoped that by helping give me an accurate — warts and all — picture of themselves as birth mothers, that perhaps I could write a story that might explain to their children the circumstances in which they found themselves, and how that led to the adoption. The women felt strongly about refuting common notions that they "threw away" their children (indeed, in common speech, this is how "placing for adoption" is phrased) or that it was a frivolous decision. The women I interviewed all felt such a strong love for their absent children, even after all these years, and the way they described their pain at the separation was so vivid, it was as if no time had passed. Perhaps most poignantly, they all said they hoped their children in America might read the book and know how much they had been - and still were - loved.

Read her complete post.

The birth mothers that Marie spoke to knew that their children might believe that they did not want or love them. They were aware of what many people believe about birth mothers. They wanted her to set the record straight.

That is what I want to do as well. Our adopted children here in America also need to know how most birth mothers really feel about their relinquished children.

All of the birth moms that I know love their relinquished children with a passion beyond compare. One of the most difficult aspects of being a birth mother is knowing that many people cannot understand the deep and abiding love that we have for our children. We are sometimes perceived to be uncaring women who do not want or love our children. There is a whole litany of descriptive ways to describe what we did in surrendering our children to adoption – "gave up" - "abandoned" - "walked away from" -"threw away".

All those terms are ones that I have heard adoptees use and I understand that is how being relinquished feels to so many of them. Therefore, when birth moms enter reunions with our children, there is a weighty challenge ahead of us.

The challenge is to convince our children that it was never about anything being “wrong with them”, “throwing them away”, “not wanting them” or "not loving them" in most cases. Somehow, we need to hit home the message to our children, and to adoptive parents too, that most birth parents love their children.

P.S. This photo is me and my youngest child, the son that I raised. He is now 31!