Continuing on from part 1, more comments not to say to a birth parent in reunion.

5. How brave, courageous and unselfish you were.
Some women who relinquish babies or children to adoption are all those things. However, as I mentioned previously, it is making a huge assumption without really knowing the facts, to say that to someone. Many women who relinquish do not feel as though they were "brave"; they feel that they were weak and powerless. Therefore, they may not want praise for what they may consider a wrong or poor decision. They believe that if they had been strong and courageous, they probably would have kept their children and parented them. There are some women who relinquish that may be unselfish. Others may feel very selfish and not want to parent because they do not want to raise a child. I believe that those who truly do not want to parent are in the minority however.

6. I thought babies were a wonderful miracle gift from God, how could you have given your child away? Many of us at reunion do ask ourselves that same question. We wonder too. Now we know how blessed we were and wish that we had cherished our babies, and found a way to raise them.

7. I could never have done that.
No one knows what they might do given a specific set of desperate circumstances. Most birth mothers never expected to be in the situation that they were in. To say that "you" could never do what we did impies that we are either subhuman, ultra brave or heartless. Most birth moms I have met are just regular, normal human beings, not alien beings with some special gene that allows us to give our children away without enormous pain and heartache. You do what you feel that you must, or what someone tells you that you must do. Desperate circumstances cause hard, sometimes excruciating choices. It was as difficult for us to do as it would be for anyone else.

8. He/She's not really your son/daughter. A child that one gives birth to is our daughter or son - nothing can ever change that - not decades or distance or not knowing else other. The children birth parents relinquish are still ours, but, they are also the sons of daughters of another family too.

9. It must be wonderful to know now that you did the right thing.
Some women who relinquish feel as though they make the right decision. Many do not. Whether it was the right choice or not, to lose a child does not "wonderful". Because our children survived and/or thrived does not necessarily indicate that we did the "right" thing. No one ever really can know whether the decision was the right choice or not.