Those are good things to consider. The list does not seem anti-adoption to me, but common sense. it's an especially good idea to think through these things in light of Jan's recent post. The thought of encouraging folks to "be more aggressive" in their adoption journey boggles the mind.

Coley, I agree that it is a very good list. Even many people who are pro-adoption realize that it is wrong for women to relinquish not knowing what is in store for them.

I second everything you've said here!
It's a GREAT list.

It is very hard to know how you will feel once your baby is born, and unfortunately, most "plans" are irreversibly locked in by that time.

My most important advice would be - don't make any decisions until after your baby arrives.

Coley, This is a great list, in NO way "anti-adoption". People should be as informed as they can be.
I think there are some great things to consider in this from the adoptive parent perspective too, check the open adoption blog as I plan to do a post on them. Thanks for the great idea!

As a mom searching for the right situation to adopt a child now, I read your blog daily.

I can understand why you wrote about the guilt being neverending but wish there might be some mention of hope and trust there. In my search, I am not out to coerce, force, trick anyone and hope to ensure this is not part of my process. I do plan to do everything I can with all the gifts our family has been given to provide a home for our children. I'm truly sorry if your experiences (haven't made it throug the archives yet) have diminished hope/trust in adoptive parents for you. (Thank you for writing about it and I do appreciate your voice!)

Also, as to #4- it sounds like you assume a birthmom would never go on to adopt a child later on.

Thanks for the food for thought!

Miriam,

If you read back through my archives you will see many posts that have a more hopeful voice. I was writing raw today.

My experience has been as good as expected - it's not easy being a birthmother, but my son's adoptive parents are very respectful and know how important my role is in his life. Read through the archives here and in the open adoption blog especially and you will see many heartfelt posts I've written about my son's family and adoptive parents in general.

As for #4, I should have specified that I meant biological children. Of course, if a birthmother wanted to adopt she could. Some birthmothers faced with infertility do go on to adopt, although the few I have spoken with at length at this subject talk about how hard it is to enjoy the child in the beginning because they know all too well what that birthmother is going through.

Thank you for your comment!

Great list, Coley! Based on what I've heard most birthmoms say, I would agree with all of it.

Great blog, Coley!
Jan is absolutely right: "it is wrong for women to relinquish not knowing what is in store for them."
Hopefully this blog will help some to understand what is in store for them.

I realize that many people are sensitive to blogs that may be considered anti-adoption but I want to stress that our purpose here is NOT to encourage every pregnant woman to give up her child and everyone couple to adopt them. Our purpose here is to inform all members of the adoption triad, to help all of them understand how the whole circle of adoption works and to help all of them to understand each other better.

Thank you, Coley!

I, too, think the list is completely reasonable and should be part of adoption counseling and educaation for prospective birthparents!

And I'm the amom to three kids and an adoption educator who helps would-be adoptive parents make sound choices!

Pat Johnston MS
www.perspectivespress.com

Thank you Pat and Lisa!

Some birthmother feel disloyal even thinking of having another child.
Some feel if they weren't good enough for their first child, that they are not good enough to ever parent.

Place a child can have long reaching effects on a young mother.

One thing that was left out of the, "temporary" problem.

Age, age is temporary, each day the young woman/teen gets older. Each day progess' into the next.

For me, I could not live without my child. I married before he was one and had my second child 20 months after his birth, I was 17.

I could not agree with your top 6 itmes more. And I think I know of what I speak. I became pregnant at the age of 15 in 1968 and the baby girl was surrendered for adoption. I just connected with her for the first time since she was two days old five weeks ago.

My mother's last thoughts before she died in 2002 was that she had not supported me to raise the child.

The father and I married and had two more children. While I did not tell them of the older sibling until they were adults they knew something terrible had happened before they were born and always worried about what it was.

There is no doubt that I was highly overprotective of them and coddled them and my mothering of them has been compared with that of women survivors of Nazi death camps. I was keenly aware that i could lose them every minute of their lives

When my mother died, I could not move on and fell into a deep depression. My psychologist, an adoptee herself realized that it was the unresolved grief of losing my first born that prevented me from dealing with this loss. She recommended that I find my daughter.

Since I have found her I have found myself reminding myself that I don't have to look at the pictures of every woman in the paper to see if it could be her. I do not have to look at the faces of ever child to see if it could be her child.

Interestingly enough while her adoptive family poo pooed the idea of university she went to law school as I did, and is a successful practitioner in a very esoteric area of law that I once practiced in. We won the same price in law school 20 years later.

Adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. No normal woman can share a body with another person for nine months and then put it out of their mind and go on with their life. And the loss of the child affects your whole family, forever.

Wow, Elaine, I am so happy to hear that you have recently found your daughter and I think it is amazing that you both won the same prize in law school and praticed in the same area of law. Another notch on the nature side of the "nature vs. nurture" theory, eh?

Coley, Great post as always! I agree that the more information a women receives when facing this choice, the better. When I speak at trainings for pregnancy counselors, my number one bit of advice is: help them to explore ALL the options. The only way to know for sure that adoption IS right for you is to also find out that keeping your child is NOT the right answer for you. The more a birthmother knows up front, the better chance of it evolving into a positive situation. I really want women considering this to be able to make this intellectual journey - so I've pulled together an excerpt from my book "Because I Loved You" and put it into a booklet called "No Regrets: Making A Decision In An Unplanned Pregnancy," counselors can get a free copy by visiting my website.

Thanks again for being such a great advocate for women and providing them with the truths about adoption!

This is my first posting here. I am the adoptive mother of my adult step-daughter's birthdaughter. (She was married and intentionally got pregnant, only to decide she didn't really want to be married or a mother at the time.) My daughter is now 10 yrs old and has been with me and my husband virtually her entire life. BM is now the mother of a 3 yr old son---She now is experiencing so much of what Coley writes about!!
I think she thought she could "change her mind" somehow, that she could leave her birth daughter with us to be raised "as if she were our own", and that we would one day years later be willing to do the same thing: Relinquish her to another parent (BM).
We gave her two years+ before seeking any legal guardianship (she agreed readily), then two+ more years after filing adoption papers before we made it final (she readily agreed).
Now that she is the mother of a child she is parenting, she grieves over what she lost. I think she fantasizes that she could somehow take my daughter "back" and be her mother.
She didn't or wasn't able to understand the impact of what she was deciding for her extended family, either, just as Coley suggests. For example,BM's mother is my husband's exwife. "Grandmom" has been allowed much latitude by my husband and myself in continuing a relationship with our daughter until 1 1/2 yrs ago, when it came to light that she was telling our daughter things like BM is her "real mother" and much worse. Now the visitation is strictly limited, per family counselors' advice.
I really hate it because my relationship with my grandmother was one of the very best things in my life. BM could have done much to make this better for her birth child (now her sister) too.
Far too much to decide without MUCH reading, research, prayer, counsel...
As for open adoption, not always the lovely thing Birthmoms might envision. Read up on both sides of that issue, I would strongly suggest.

Thanks Patricia! I totally agree that before you can make a decision you need to explore both of your options! I think I may write a post about that thought alone.

Thanks for the comment. :)

Coley, thank you for your clear and candid list. As an adoptive mother, I do agree fully with your list. Every mother faces ultimate decisions about her child's future when she is pregnant -- decisions she and her child will live with for the rest of their lives. Unless an expectant mom is provided all of the information while she is making these decisions, no matter how REAL this information may seem to others, a mother can't be making the clearest decisions. This doesn't mean that her decisions will make her happy all of the time, as you share so kindly. One of my friend's children's birthmothers has shared that when she was pregnant there wasn't a "4th good choice, only three: Abortion, parenting and adoption." She says that facing these realities were hard but she had to face them. You list helps expectant mothers face their real choices. Thanks so much, as always, susan