An Arizona newspaper, the East Valley/Scottsdale Tribune, recently featured an article about several birthmoms from the semi-open and closed adoption systems. Entitled "Honoring Birth Moms," the story looks at adoption from the perspective of three different women, all of whom currently feel positive about their decision to entrust their child to adoption.

While I don't agree with every aspect of how the reporter framed these women's stories (in my opinion, she got a few small details wrong),... more

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers of every kind. On this holiday, I want to send my sincere good wishes to all the expectant mothers now going through an unplanned pregnancy. Please celebrate today, and do something nice for yourself. You are a mother, and always will be, no matter what your ultimate decision.

Today also seems like the right occasion to share a candid and inspirational story I came across. It's called "Parenting on a Dare: My Decision to Accept Teen Motherhood."... more

For the next month I’ll be in the midst of relocating for a new job, which means I'm not able to post as much as I’d like. To help kick start me into writing more, I recently asked the ladies over at the Unplanned Pregnancy forum for topics they’d like me to address.

Here’s the first request, from Jenna:

"I've recently become interested in how many first parents were told to abort by either a family member or the father of the child, and the reasons as to why they did not do it."

I... more

Do I know women who feel good about their adoption decision? Sure. That’s not to say they don’t feel grief—-all birthparents feel grief. But they don’t have the extra pain of knowing they made the wrong decision. As one birth mother I know put it, “I regret having had to make the choice, because of course it’s the most awful decision you can ever have to make. But I don’t regret the choice itself.”

Makes perfect sense to me.

So what are the characteristics of these happier birthparents? I am thinking through all of the stories I know, and several common threads stand out. Here they are:

• The expectant parents had full control over their decision process. • They... more

So what’s it really like to be a birthmom? The first year or so after my surrender was a hellish time, and not one that I want to think about much at all. Today, seven years into this process, the down times have evened out to some extent. While I still grieve a lot, and holidays and anniversaries are uniformly painful, I am certainly able to have good days. My life, in general, is happy.

However, some days are bad. Such as yesterday.

Here’s what happened: I checked my voicemail, and there was a message from my son’s mom, who I don’t hear from very often. She sounded highly stressed, and indicated that things with my birthson are getting worse. (He’s been having some emotional... more

I’ve often heard adoptive parents complain about the intrusiveness of home studies, in which a social worker visits their home and asks detailed questions that are supposed to determine their fitness to be parents.

Well, I’m not sure if other states do it this way, but as an expectant mother planning an independent adoption in South Carolina, I had to undergo a similar visit—-only it wasn’t an assessment of my ability to parent. The purpose seemed to be to gather descriptive information that could be passed on to the hopeful adoptive parents.

In my version of a home study,... more

I want to expand on an idea I’ve touched on earlier: the importance of staying true to yourself, and not making choices solely in order to make others happy.

During my own crisis pregnancy, I felt like I’d been a "bad girl," and wanted more than anything to return to my "good girl" status. (Before I became unexpectedly pregnant, I was pretty much a super-achiever: straight A’s in college, great jobs, homeowner, world traveller. I'm not saying I was perfect, or even close, but I generally tried to do things the “right” way, and to excel as much as possible.)

When I wound... more

Birthmother Alicia H. entrusted her son to adoptive parents based on a close relationship developed during the course of her pregnancy. Less than two months after his placement, the agreement had already been violated.

“The second they got home they cut off the 1-800 number they had established for us during my pregnancy. They have refused to acknowledge letters and packages we have sent. The only way we can contact them is through the attorney that handled our adoption. Needless to say, this is not what they promised, and definitely not what we expected. It is the deepest hurt I think could ever be done to me. I decided to go through with this because I cared about them,... more

To some, the idea of such an about-face is not that big a deal. “Things change,” this line of reasoning goes. “Maybe they decided it wasn’t good for the child to have contact. Maybe they wanted to move on with their lives.” While it’s true that flexibility and room for change has to be built into adoptive relationships, the basic premise or foundation of that relationship is what holds everything together, and should not be open for revision. A birthmother chooses parents for her child based in large part on level of contact promised. Reneging on that agreement isn’t... more

Part of the reason is that the balance of power shifts after the adoption. Crass as it may seem to talk about babies in economic terms, adoption today is governed by supply and demand. There are more homes needing babies than babies needing homes. Hundreds of thousands of hopeful adoptive parents are vying for a healthy baby, while a miniscule portion of women in crisis pregnancies opt for adoption. As a result, prospective parents must actively market themselves in hopes of finding a match. Some take the marketing concept too far, saying and doing things they aren’t really comfortable with just to attract a pregnant woman. The intent was never to follow through.

So while the expectant... more