Nurturing
Barb’s pretty picture and entry today made me think a lot. I was thinking about how times are changing in the ways hospitals handle it when a baby dies. They encourage the parents to dress the child and take many pictures. They encourage the parents to examine their little bodies and love them and name them before they have to say good-bye. They need to do this for women who choose adoption, too. I know that not every woman says she wants this so I’m not saying to force it (”If you don’t hold that baby, we won’t give you your jell-o!”) but just like a woman whose child has died, a woman who is thinking about adoption deserves the opportunity to parent her child while she is in the hospital.
This is not about undermining adoption plans or even encouraging a woman to change her mind — this is about allowing her that opportunity whatever the ultimate outcome. And if it does change the outcome? Does make her decide to parent? Then clearly parenting was the right decision for her.
I told Barb this — the night before Jessica and Madison were set to be released we brought over a bunch of baby clothes for Madison so that Jessica could have the chance to play dress-up, which is something a new mother often likes to do. But Madison had this huge plastic rectangle stapled to her umbilical cord so she couldn’t be snatched from the hospital. (Noah’s was an ankle bracelet; that’s much more practical.) So all the cute dresses and jumpers we bought couldn’t be put on her (something I found out the next morning after the surrender was signed). I wish the agency had advocated for her to the hospital and told them to come in and take that damn thing off. On the one hand the nurses were great about encouraging Jessica to room in and give Madison her first bath but no one thought of the big rectangle thing.
So I think in my adoption reform vision one of the things would be better training of hospital personnel and also a “welcome baby” packet that the agency would have for the mothers. Booties and hats to do with it what evershe wanted to do with it. If it was the “starter kit” because she decides to parent, great. If it was something she wanted to send home with the baby and the baby’s new parents, so be it. And if it was something she wanted to take home herself when she went home alone that would be her choice, too. But it would be a gift to her — as a mother — that she could take or not take.
You know, another plus with that is that it would be a signal the agency would be sending to the hopeful adoptive parents that this time (when the baby is first born) is not about them at all and a reminder that the woman in the hospital bed is indeed a mother.
like we talked about…the nurses tried to make me bathe him, and i refused. i never fed him, or changed him. i let Betty & Barney do it all, under the guise of “bonding”. i was terrified i’d do something wrong. like drop him, or hurt him, or love him.
i think some sort of ‘welcome’ packet would be a great idea. i felt like i was “stealing” the spit cloth & cap that i took when i was discharged, but it was what i had. planning to place, i certainly hadn’t bought any baby clothes. more than anything, i felt like a fraud.
Oh Dawn. I know you can’t foresee writing triggering statements, but one common phrase used against women in crisis pregnancies is that we are going to “play mommy” or “play house.” I wouldn’t have touched the clothes if someone used that phrase to explain it to me. =o( Also, I agree with Barb about the bonding thing. It is an overwhelming force that taints most placement stories and how we say goodbye.
In my defense, it’s what my sister and I called it when we dressed up our kids — I really had no idea that it was a triggering statement and I apologize for it.
When Mallory was born, Noelle kept her in her room most of the night. She tried to feed her a bottle at one point, and Mallory sputtered. We didn’t think of the clothes. But I know both Noelle and Mallory’s birth father spent several hours admiring her and examing her that night. Their time was obviously too quick in retrospect. We brought a HUGE pack of pictures that we had taken the night before. Bless my father, he got the one hour photo place to not only open early but rush the photos so we had them for Noelle. The nurse gave Noelle a blanket and the hat. I never even knew that until years later.
Things I regret- that because of hospital policy Noelle and Mallory had to leave at the exact same time. Share an elevator, etc. So their first real good-bye had to take place in a very public place. It would have been nicer if they could have said good-bye in the room, by themselves and then left. It was awkawrd and overwhelming for all of us, and to have to do it in front of strangers was weird. We did have a good-bye in their room, but then we all had to make small talk for a few minutes “leaving.” It’s like breaking up with a guy and then sharing a cab ride.
Another thing I regret- they didn’t give Noelle access so those newborn photos that . I had them and chose not to use them. It was only months later that I found out that she wanted them. Woulda coulda shoulda.
I agree with you that there needs to be better process for moms. Overall I think our hospital did a good job. Just not great.
My friend Nancy had a horrible experience at hospital in a neighboring town. The nurses told her son’s mother she was wrong and criticized her decison, then one of them asked if her sister could adopt the baby instead. It was bad.
=o)
Hospital staff, nurses and doctors, need better training regarding adoption, hands down. My experience was awful and wretched and I hate to think about it at all… but I do.
There are some days that I want to reach out to the hospitals here, in hopes that they would know what to do if a mother was considering adoption while on the maternity ward… but… there’s just SO much negativity attached to it for me that I have a lot of work to do before I can get there…
That said, in one of the Adoption Stories (Disc Health) that I watched, they had a baby delivered at Riverside hospital and the social worker was an absolute dumb-head, the adoption language was wretched and I almost wrote a letter. Almost.
Oh, reading this (and Barb’s post) chokes me up. Good ideas concerning adoption reform (even with the triggering “playing mom”).
I don’t think the people who want to adopt should be in the hospital. That is the time they need to step back and respectfully give space to mother and child.
Their presence alone is coercive. The hospital is the time when the mother should be encouraged to prepare to take her baby home.
That might be a good start with adoption reform? Stay home and wait and let the mother know that you support her right to take her baby home.
American behaviour in adoption is in great need of some elegance.
The hospital I gave birth in was wonderful to me. They made two of everything (with my permission) and if there was only one of something (like the measuring tape they used to measure her and her hospital bracelet), they gave it to me. My daughter’s parents stayed at the hospital, but the staff made sure that I agreed to everything and that they got my permission every time something new happened. I want to give birth there again if I ever have more children.
[...] They were about adoption and being at the hospital. [...]
“I was thinking about how times are changing in the ways hospitals handle it when a baby dies. They encourage the parents to dress the child and take many pictures. They encourage the parents to examine their little bodies and love them and name them before they have to say good-bye.”
Um, not to be difficult here — and I understand that you’re primarily discussing adoption — but this sounds absolutely horrific.
A few months ago, my baby died shortly after her birth (her twin was stillborn). No-one at the hospital suggested the kind of things you’re talking about and, frankly, they sound incredibly cruel and unfeeling.
I’m sure people react differently, but I find it hard to understand why anyone who was looking forward to having a living child would find comfort or joy in holding and dressing a little corpse.
It’s difficult enough having a baby (or two) that didn’t make it. Why would a hospital would want to add to a grieving parent’s suffering by putting a dead body in her arms and encouraging her to treat it as if it were the live baby she had been expecting?
Oh, and for what it’s worth (perhaps not much in the adoption context). Having lost my twins, I don’t feel like I’m really their mother (not their first mother, or their bio mother, or any other terms the adoptive community uses. The children are gone. I don’t feel like I’m *really* their mother, in the same sense that, I suppose, I divorce women might not *really* feel like anyone’s wife.
I’m their “ex-mother,” perhaps. Or I was their mother for a short time, but not anymore.
This may have no resonance whatsoever in the adoption community, I’m just pointing out that it may be a little — I don’t know — flip to compare a “first mother”whose children are dead, whith one who’s arranged for their adoption to another family.
Probably totally off point, but I am just not seeing the similarities between adoption and death. Yes, they’re both losses, but, honestly, I’d give almost anything to have my children adopted (even in a completely closed adoption)– to know that somewhere they are being taken care of and loved, rather than still and silent, under the frozen earth.
Niobe
http://www.deadbabyjokes.blogspot.com
“I’m sure people react differently, but I find it hard to understand why anyone who was looking forward to having a living child would find comfort or joy in holding and dressing a little corpse.
It’s difficult enough having a baby (or two) that didn’t make it. Why would a hospital would want to add to a grieving parent’s suffering by putting a dead body in her arms and encouraging her to treat it as if it were the live baby she had been expecting?”
But they don’t expect you to treat it as a live baby. I’ve also had a baby die, and the process of holding him and etc was incredibly helpful. It helps you understand and come to terms with the experience. In no way did it add to my suffering or grieving, in fact it was the most helpful thing.