If you’re considering adoption for your baby, especially an open one, you’re probably getting tons of free advice on whether this is a good thing or not.

Most people do not understand openness. They seem to have a desire to punish the surrendering mother for her inability to parent, telling her to “move on” and forget her baby. (The standard line is something like, “If you aren’t willing to stay up nights and change diapers, you shouldn’t get to see your child. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”) The implication is that if you can't parent, you no longer have any value to your child.

Yet another typical objection to open adoption, one that you’ll probably hear more... more

Over in the Ethiopia blog, I was just reading Owlhaven’s excellent post about what we can say when ignorant people make glib, hurtful remarks about adoption.

It got me thinking about how many of these comments are rooted in a simple lack of knowledge.

Those of us who live with adoption every day know that not every aspect of this ongoing experience is easy, shiny or happy.

But that’s just us.

The rest of the world doesn’t particularly want to face the fact that behind every adoption is a tragedy. It can be a small tragedy (a woman left all alone with no one to help her through an... more

I don’t like when people refer to adoption as "the loving option." (Does this mean choosing to parent your child is not a loving act?)

When talking about surrender, I think it’s really important to make sure our words stay away from overly emotional language, such as “Adoption is the loving option,” “Birthmothers are angels performing miracles,” or “You can help make waiting couples’ dreams come true.” While these may be heartfelt and genuine feelings, they are not really appropriate to express during a process as serious as the decision to surrender one’s child. That’s because they tend to... more

It isn’t just women who are affected by crisis pregnancy. Men are involved too.

That’s why I view this news as a depressing step in the wrong direction for everyone involved in crisis pregnancy. It’s yet another erosion of fathers’ rights.

(If you have trouble with the link, the article is called "Supreme Court upholds adoption" by Rob Moritz of the Arkansas News Bureau.) Basically, what the article says is this: the Arkanasas Supreme Court has ruled that “a woman who has... more

A while back I was talking with a birthmother and advocate for ethical adoption that I know, a real powerhouse of a woman. She’s a fun and positive person, with a strong vision of how beautifully adoption could work if everyone involved would just behave themselves properly. (Unfortunately, for right now, her vision is still more of a dream. Adoption As It Should Be is not very common, while Adoption As It Really Is has a deeply ugly side. You can think of it as the difference between a noble ideal and a poorly regulated business.)

So anyway, this friend gets a lot of calls from women in crisis pregnancy.(It’s impossible to take such calls lightly;... more

My lack of a husband/partner played a big role in my decision for adoption.

I grew up with moderately conservative parents, who taught me to believe that two-parent families were the only right way to raise a child. Back then, I too thought that if a kid didn’t have a father in the house, he/she was pretty much doomed to a life of hooliganism. During my pregnancy, I remember staying up at nights, scared that since I couldn’t offer my son a father, he would turn out badly, no matter what I did.

In the end, so much of my adoption decision depended on the person who wasn’t very... more

An excellent response to one of my recent posts got me thinking. What should we call it when a woman is considering adoption for her baby?

If you didn't see it, here's what my fellow blogger Jan wrote:

I have gotten so much grief from some for using the term "give up". However, I prefer either "give up" or "relinquish". "Give up" - that is how it felt to me. The term "place" thankfully did not exist in my era.

"Placing" sounds like such a logical, reasoned and positive decision. I do not believe that to usually be the case. "Placing" tries to sound less harsh, but, I think the reality of giving your child to others to raise IS harsh. I would rather us be... more

At some point in the adoption experience, every member of the triad feels powerless and very much at the mercy of others.

We’ll start with adopted people. Because they are usually infants at the time of the decision, they never have a say in the matter. They can’t say if they’d like to go to a new family, which family they'd prefer, or if they’d rather stay with their first mom. They are truly without a voice. (For many adopted people, this feeling of a lack of control over their own destiny lingers, returning to haunt them throughout their life.)

For potential adoptive parents, the sense of powerlessness comes mostly at the beginning of the process. First there is the loss... more

I’ll never forget the first time I visited a website full of "Dear Birthmother" ads from hopeful adoptive parents. The year was 1998, and I was about four months pregnant. I sat at the computer in my office after hours, feeling surprised and shocked as I clicked through the pages.

I literally could not believe the amount of people struggling with infertility. (Infertility isn't the only reason people adopt, but it's the most common.) Letter after letter seemed to jump off the screen and plead for the baby I was carrying. I felt pain for these people, and wanted to help them all. Their lives looked picture-perfect, except for the child they were missing. And they all seemed so "deserving,"... more

This one may be controversial, but here goes.

When birthmothers think and talk about their adoption decision, one especially touchy area is the notion of "carrying someone else's child." Birthmoms seem to be divided between those who see their relinquishment as part of a grand plan, and those who view it as more practical, i.e., the best solution that could be made at the time. Some women feel strongly that they were never meant to be the parents of their child, and that their purpose was to serve as a vessel or agent for creating the adoptive parents' family. Other women do not like to think of themselves as (essentially) borrowed wombs. These women feel that the adoption... more