Reply to Did anyone have an adoption fall through at the hospital

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm an adoptive mom.  My son was born in the Spring of 2017 and is a completely healthy toddler now.  Our BM chose us.  She wanted to get to know us and we spent some (awkward) time on Skype getting to know each other.  She is a good person and we still have some contact.  We went through an agency in a different state.  The law of that state are that once she signed the papers, he was ours and there was no right of rescission.  She signed the papers the day after he was born.

We were told by the agency with whom we were working that most BM fear the adoptive family taking the baby and that she never knows what happens from there.  We send letters and pictures a couple of times a year as well as some pictures and gifts at Christmas.  We also have a secret Facebook page where I post pictures and videos when my son does something cute.  She always responds with an "I love you (baby name)" and she will post a nice message to us from time to time.  You may want to offer a couple of those type of things to your BM.

I wish you all the best.  Parenthood has been an absolutely amazing experience for us.  We constantly ltalk about how lucky we got to have this little guy.  We feel this way even when he iis throwing a tantrum. (He is a toddler so it happens)

Fingers crossed for you, OP.

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Thank you so much for this kind post.  It says the world about you that you continue to make the effort to stay in touch with your child’s first mother (or birtgmither, as you prefer).  My mom said the worst thing was the loss of every moment of parenting.  But the most painful thing was the not knowing.  Was she safe?  Was she loved?  Was she healthy?  Even if you choose to limit f2f contact, offering regular updates is so kind and loving of you.

I am the PP who used the term “first mother” earlier.  I do not use the term as an anti-adoption term.  I am by no means anti-adoption!  I am a teacher and have taught so many children whose lives were enriched and sometimes saved through adoption, especially my kids who were lucky to be adopted out of foster care when parents were grossly unable to parent.  (Even that involves loss, though.)  I came upon the term “first mother” and have seen it used neutrally in circles of adopted advocates, particularly among advocates for adoptees who are fighting for their original birth certificates, as my sister is.  I think the term is more than appropriate to OP’s post.   The mother in question here is not a “birthmother.”  She is a mother!  She is the mother of that baby until she chooses to relinquish him to another mother, and beyond that, because she, too, will always be his mother.  As will his adoptive mother.  I am lucky enough to have gotten pregnant very late in life after many heartbreaks and I nearly lost my son to pre-eclampsia. Even if I had only had him for one day, I was his mother.  I sang to him in my belly.  I wrote him letters.  I loved him with every breath.  I don’t think it is disrespectful to adoptive parents to acknowledge that a child has a first mother before the adoptive mother, and will truthfully have both mothers as part of the adoptees identity, no matter how inadequate the first mother, and no matter how superheroic the mother who gets to raise and be with and cuddle with and laugh with and snuggle with and be a daily part of her child’s existence.  She gets all that, and that can be everything while at the same time not erasing the first mother.  I understand not everyone in the adoption community shares my views, but I am informed by my experience as the daughter of a mother who lost two children to adoption and as the sister of two adoptees, one whose mother loves me nearly like a daughter, now, too, now that her daughter and I are sisters in reunion.  Her adoption of my sister was 100% closed as was the norm in the 1960’s but she said that every night she would pray for my mom and she taught my sister to love and pray for her first mother, too.  It was no threat to her, and I thought it was so loving and generous, and my sister said it meant so much to her to have a ritual to remember her first/birth mother with love and imagine that she was loving her back at the same time.  She had a great life and they adore each other and it certainly didn’t diminish her motherhood in any way to acknowledge my mother.

In contrast, my first sister’s adoptive mother cut her off when she found out that she was seeking information in our mother and didn’t talk to her for years.  She refused to allow any of her 3 adoptive kids to use the term “mother” at all for their birth/first mother.  One of the three has never sought any connection with her genetic family because she fears rejection by her mom.  And my sister essentially has no relationship with the mom of her childhood anymore.  In contrast, my second sister had Christmas with her children and their grandmother, and then the day after Christmas they celebrated with my family, and on New Year’s Day I visited with her mom, too, when I was in their state to visit my family.

Sorry this is such a long ramble.  I’m not anti-adoption.  My second sister has a great life and I love her and her whole family.  My first sister had a terrible childhood and is now estranged from her childhood family and close to her maternal genetic family.  Neither situation makes me anti-adoption.  But both of their experiences plus my mom’s make me an advocate against erasing the first mother and a HUGE advocate for mothers considering relinquishment.

OP, I am so sorry for all the heartbreak you have experienced and I think it is wonderful that you are respecting this woman’s wishes.  And I know your own loss will make you compassionate for her loss should she choose for you to be her child’s mother.  I wish you and her and the baby to come all good things and the best possible outcome.

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