Just in case there are any birthmoms out there reading these -- you never know where we're hiding -- I wanted to post something I wrote for my paper last year (I'm a reporter). And yet people tell me I don't deserve to hurt. I asked if I could do this in response to some dingbat who wrote an opinion piece saying how rosy and wonderful adoption is.

BTW, my T is gay, not married -- so he knows a little about marginalization. I think it's what makes him so compassionate.
==============
Let me tell you about the other side of adoption.

I am a birthmother. And, as Bob Seger once sang, "wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Given it to do again, there's no chance I would relinquish my son. I certainly can't in good conscience recommend adoption as an option to other struggling women. And I think this is a side that needs to be heard. I am Catholic, and I am pro-life, just like the anonymous woman who wrote a piece in last week's Catholic Herald. But there have to be better ways.

Mine was a closed adoption. Catholic Charities in Wisconsin won't even do those anymore. But in Texas in 1988, it was the only choice. "Closed" means closed. It means you get bare-bones, non-identifying information. No names. No towns. No meetings with the potential adoptive parents. Nothing that could be used to find your child and build a relationship. For the first six months, the adoptive parents are visited by a social worker and required to provide a picture for the file. The agency I went through forwarded those on to me. It was the last contact I had for 12 years.

In that time, I had to wonder: Was my son happy? Was he healthy? Did he have brothers and sisters? Did he know he was adopted, and if he did, did he hate me for it? That was my biggest fear.

The year my son was 12, I decided to take a chance. I wrote the agency and asked them to ask the adoptive parents for an update. I was provided some pictures, a drawing, an essay, a letter from his mother. In it she said that they had showed my son the letter they had gotten from the agency detailing my request. They asked him how he felt about it. He replied, "I'm glad to know I wasn't just given away and forgotten." I cried for three days.

Because the truth is, you never forget. Isaiah 49 has always ticked me off. Mothers—at least those worthy of the title—can't possibly forget their children. You're roommates for nine months, and then you spend hour upon painful hour trying to help them draw breath in this world. It tends to be a bonding experience.

Yes, I knew I wanted my son to have a stable family, enough money, a good start in life. I knew that I was young and alone. I knew that I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour at the time, in a dead-end job and couldn't even support myself, much less a child, except on welfare. I chose adoption because I didn't believe I had any other choice.

Let me tell you what that choice has done to me.

I came home from the hospital after giving birth, literally curled up in a corner of my apartment, and cried for days. When I went back for my 2-week checkup, I had lost 30 pounds. The nurse put me on the scale five times and then weighed herself to be sure the scale wasn't off.

I have suffered from chronic, mostly unremitting major depression for the past 15 years. I'm on three different psych meds, probably for life. I've been in therapy forever, to only limited effect. I have panic attacks. Now and then, during particularly debilitating bouts of the self-hatred and guilt I live with daily, I self-injure. And you thought post-traumatic stress disorder was only for Vietnam veterans.

I belong to a birthmothers' support group. Many of the women in it were only teenagers at the time of their pregnancy, forced into giving up their children by parents more concerned with "shame" and "scandal" than with their daughters. A few had their children taken away by legal authorities. Some have relinquished more than one child. My story isn't very remarkable, and neither is theirs. What's remarkable is that we suffer alone. No one reaches out to us. There aren't any "post-adoption healing ministries." The church doesn't include us in Mother's Day blessings at Mass. Once your signature is on the piece of paper terminating your parental rights, in most people's eyes, you cease to exist.

Well, I exist. I did what I felt would be the best thing for my child, and I've been proven right. He's thriving. I'm gratified. But if anyone had stepped forward and told me what it would be like for the rest of my life, I'd be raising a 15-year-old right now as best I could. Maybe that's selfish of me. All I know is that I didn't bargain for this kind of grief. Most certainly no one warned me about it when I was making the decision.

I realize that the best interests of the child must come first. I was convinced by everyone I encountered during the decision-making process that I would be a horrible mother. I was so well convinced that now, nearer 40 than 20, I'm still childless. I loved my son enough to give him a chance. I just wish mine hadn't been taken away.
==============
I always wondered if my son's adoptive parents ever thought of me. I guess his mom finding me kind of answered that ;-) -- but I'm one of the extremely lucky ones. Doesn't stop it from hurting, though. -- c.