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1. Shannon
   September 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm

   

   I really don’t understand anger as a response, anyway. Disappointment, sorrow, even loss and grief, maybe, but anger?

   How could I be angry that someone didn’t give their child to me? That seems like a really entitled reaction. No one is entitled to any child–not to bear one, not to be given one born by someone else. Yet it seems like a lot of prospective adopters really feel they “deserve” a baby one way or another. That’s weird to me.

   To be angry that a parent who had once considered adoption changed his or her mind seems to assume that prospective birth parents are less worthy of full personhood and agency than prospective adoptive parents. That in turn seems blatently classist, ageist, racist and/or various other “isms” as appropriate to the situation.

   Not to mention it just plain makes a person look small.

2. suz
   September 21st, 2006 at 8:27 pm

   

   Bashing first parents on a blog
   GASP! Someone bashed a first parent? OH MY. That doesnt happen, does it? LOL. Clearly, being sarcastic. Still recovering myself after a differing viewpoint adoption terrorist bomb got thrown at me yesterday. (i am fine, thank you)

   to fall in love with that child before they are even born,
   Hmm. Curious. Why is it possible for paps to fall in love with a child before it is born but those same adoptive parents find it impossible to believe the natural parent loves the child they surrendered years later? I hear so often “how can you miss or love a child you havent seen in 20 years”. Golly gee, I dont know. How can you LOVE a child that is not even born yet?

   to care for the mom while she’s pregnant, and then to have that child in your home, to finally hold that baby — and then to have a birth parent change their mind.
   no vacancy. prospective adoptive parents, imo, should NEVER EVER care for a mom while pregnant, never in their home, etc. Can we say coercion and intimidation. Yuck. “But we fed you, we clothed you, we pretended to care about you…you OWE us your baby in exchange”. Trust me, its done. It was done to me.

   it’s got to just tear your heart out
   yeah, huh? trying giving away that child for a life time. paps can line up for another baby. moms lose their that child forever. while we can have others (in some cases) each of our chlidren is unique. can never be replaced. never mind secondary infertility following surrender.

   with someone for taking back something that you thought they were giving to you?
   OMG. This makes the child sound like its a toy, an object. I hear the howls of “INDIAN GIVER” being screamed world wide. Maybe you should take your toys and go home? Move to another sand box?

   But overall, I agree that paps who lose a child they were anxiously waiting for will definitely feel something and have a right to that. I struggle with it being ANGER. Maybe sadness, disappointment?

3. kim.kim
   September 21st, 2006 at 9:31 pm

   

   The only way to ensure that you as potential adoptive parents have less chance of heartache is to participate in coercion free ethical adoption.
   The only way is to join us in our quest for adoption reform.
   1. no adoption agencies advertising lies and using coercive language.
   2. not using adoption lawyers, not using your lawyer as the lawyer for the pregnant woman.
   3. Campaigning for better welfare systems in your country so that it’s easier for single or financially challenged women to parent.
   4. Encouraging child care in schools for teenage mothers.
   5. Not assuming that wanting a baby desperately is in the same category as having a RIGHT to a child.
   6.Changing your attitudes about open adoption.
   7. Supporting and campaigning to make open adoption agreements legally binding.
   8. Not going into the delivery room, encouraging the mother to parent or try parenting first before making an adoption plan.
   9.Not writing “dear birthmother” letters that suggest she is doing a loving and corageous thing or that she is giving her baby a better life.
   10. Being generous to the mother who keeps her child, not judge her for being a worse person than you.
   11. Become friends with mothers like me, don’t call us birthmothers, don’t see us only in relation to adoption, read our blogs and try to see the whole person. Don’t demonize mothers who change their minds. It could be YOUR mother, YOUR sister, YOUR daughter or even worse IT COULD BE YOU.

4. Christina Shaver
   September 21st, 2006 at 9:36 pm

   

   We had 3 plans fall through on us before one worked. After getting attached to the first plan we had and it falling through, we approached the other situations in more of a business matter. We had to emotionally detach in order to get through something extraordinarily emotional.

   I can understand being angry for a plan not coming to fruition. It was certainly an emotion I felt, as well as disappointment, sadness and emptyness wondering what that child’s future would now hold.

   So sorry to disagree, but in my experience, anger is something I did feel and certainly is a valid emotion here. It’s part of “getting over it.”

5. barb
   September 21st, 2006 at 9:53 pm

   

   i was brought up to honor my commitments. (ex. don’t cancel plans with a friend because “something better” comes along).

   i felt that very strongly when i placed the Kiddo, too. even if i had changed my mind, i don’t think i would have verbalized it…because i made that oral commitment.

6. kim.kim
   September 21st, 2006 at 11:16 pm

   

   Christina,
   it’s kind of like saying a man has a valid reason to be angry if you decide not to have sex with him. The man who pushes it further with his justification is called a rapist. The one who is pushy for it is called a creep.
   The man who backs off even though he would have liked to have sex with you and respectfully understands that it’s your absolute right to change your mind is called a gentleman or more commonly just a decent human being.
   Sure you have a right to be angry, you have a right to choose what kind of person you want to be. How is your attitude working for you in your life right now?

7. Kathleen
   September 21st, 2006 at 11:57 pm

   

   Christina, Anger is a normal part of the process, you have a right to it.

   I do not condone demonizing first parents nor do I condone demonizing adoptive or potential adoptive parents.

   The idea seems to be that a person is supposed to have nothing but empahty for first parents and nothing but contempt for potentially adoptive parents who do anything but accept their fate with absolute grace and peace.

   Here we have potential adoptive parents being compared to rapists. What can you even say to that?

   I just wanted to let you know that someone else is reading and hearing you.

8. cloudscome
   September 22nd, 2006 at 12:36 am

   

   Dawn I absolutely agree with you. Thank you for saying it so well, again.

9. wavybrains
   September 22nd, 2006 at 1:21 am

   

   Right on Dawn. I think the problem with Nina’s comment (and others like it) is not with the emotions but with the ATTITUDE–It is statements like this “How could you not be angry with someone for taking back something that you thought they were giving to you?” that are the problem. Taking back makes the first family sound selfish, childish even for “taking back.” That sentence pretty much sums up the entitlement attitude that LEADS to these negative emotions. I believe that adoptive parents can minimize these negative emotions for ourselves if we change our attitude–we are not entitled to anything. Nothing is being taken away from us when a plan is changed. If you can approach each situation with this attitude, I think you can process grief for failed placements without heaping all that blame on the first family. Kim.Kim, I think your list rocks.

10. nina
    September 22nd, 2006 at 3:05 am

    

    Hey, all. I’m reading these comments with interest and an open mind. Just a quick reminder of the context of my original email. It was in response to a posting that talked about a father who had not signing adoption papers, therefore a baby who had been placed with the hopeful adoptive family for three days had to be removed from the hopeful adopters. There was no mention in the orginal posting as to WHY the father didn’t sign the papers or how the mother responded.

    To clarify: I believe a mother’s right to change her plan. I have a dear friend who did this and she’s a wonderful mom, and I’d fight for her right to do this or any other mom’s right to change the plan. My HOPE for all parties is that a parent who changes her plan would do it before the baby is placed with a hopeful family. I understand it doesn’t always work out this way. When a baby is placed in a home and then removed, I do understand the anger of a hopeful adoptive parent. It doesn’t mean I feel that the hopeful family is entitled to that baby, or that I think the birthmom is bad or wrong. I just understand the heartbreak and the anger.

    But again, my comment was not in reaction to a mom who changed her mind. It was in reaction to the story of a dad who wouldn’t sign papers. Which — although I don’t know for sure — sounds different to me that a dad who wanted to parent.

11. shannon
    September 22nd, 2006 at 4:25 am

    

    But why anger, per se?

    Anger? At whom?

    I just don’t understand the object of the anger here.

12. kim.kim
    September 22nd, 2006 at 7:12 am

    

    Kathleen,
    you are being too simple. Nobody is comparing potential adoptive parents to rapists.
    People who get angry at someone who says no when they have have a right to are being compared to how a man might respond to a certain situation.
    Rapist, pushy creepy guy or gentleman. Those were the choices offered, I noticed you took it in the simplest form and lost the thread.
    I apologize if I was unclear or if the analogy was inappropriate.
    Still you have a choice to be a creep or a decent person really that’s what it’s all about isn’t it.

13. suz
    September 22nd, 2006 at 12:14 pm

    

    But why anger, per se?

    Anger? At whom?

    I just don’t understand the object of the anger here.
    

    good question, shannon. I would hope the anger would be at the SITUATION, the loss, NOT the natural mom who saw the value in the mother child bond.

14. chicagomama
    September 22nd, 2006 at 1:18 pm

    

    I’m a little troubled by Nina’s decision to try to parse a mother’s rights to relinquish or parent away from a father’s right to the same.

    If I understand what Nina is now trying to say is that it is ok for an expectant mother to choose not to relinquish - however, an expectant father should not have that equal right. And I cannot agree with that.

    Both parents get an equal right to choose to relinquish or to parent. We wouldn’t expect a mother to ‘bow down’ to a father saying he wanted to relinquish - we would call this coercion. Saying that a father should bow down to the wishes of a mother is the same exact thing. And I think it is just plain wrong to still be trying to find a ‘bad guy’ when adoption plans do get utilized.

    Parents should be able to choose their children without having to also ‘choose’ the child’s other parent. Especially since that does seem to be a contributing factor to a lot of crisis pregnancies. And both women and men should be given the information and resources in order to choose to parent or not.

    As to Kathleen’s issue of their being a difference between refusing to relinquish and parenting - I guess my thought is , and so?

    There may well be that difference. However, our country does not take every single person who gives birth and parents without ever having an adoption plan to scrutinize whether or not they are ‘parenting’ or just ‘not relinquishing’. That would be a huge over-step into the guaranteed rights of individuals and families that is protected by our Constitution and other subsequent laws.

    Does this mean that there are tons of children being raised in less than ideal circumstances - as laws like these always do permit situation that are less than ideal. Well, yup.

    However, it was decided a long time ago that it is important to protect the majority of people’s rights rather than to trample those rights in an *attempt* to find the ‘few bad apples’. And to decide that the search for th ‘bad apples’ should start with those parents who have considered adoption - well do you really want to make adoption a less attractive option to parents facing a crisis pregnancy that it already is? Because if considering adoption automatically will trigger a ‘court interference/best interet of the child’ review - well then i really think you are going to scare a lot of parents away from investigating their options. Especially since the majority of parents who relinquish are not first time teen moms - but parents who already are parenting. Do you think any of them are going to risk having all their children taken from them if considering adoption automatically means that a family’s ‘fitness’ would be evaluated on different grounds than any other. I mean - this would become an equal protection issue faster than you could say “gimme that baby!”

    I guess when it comes down to it - that type of argument seems especially hypocritical coming from potential adoptive parents. Because while they are willing to argue that the child *they might have received through adoption* may not be getting their vision of an ideal upbringing if their parents choose to parent instead of relinquish - I don’t see a lot of general child advocacy being demonstrated. In fact - many infertiles/potential adoptive parents on the web (an admittedly small self selecting group) often seem to avoid all contact with children and expectant families as it is too painful for them to deal since they don’t have children. And that attitude makes it hard for me to believe that these people are fighting for the ‘best interests of children’ - rather they seem to be fighting for their unrealized dream to be a parent. And those two things are not synomous - nor are they always conflict free.

15. Lisa V
    September 22nd, 2006 at 2:41 pm

    

    Wow, what a great discussion you have generated on these three great posts Dawn. Chicago Mama, very well said.

16. Christine
    September 22nd, 2006 at 3:45 pm

    

    I was thinking about this all night while I was painting my kitchen.

    I think sometimes people get angry/frustrated when they’re in a situation that they can’t control. In this part of the adoption process there is a complete lack of control and privacy on the part of the hopeful adoptive parents (I recognize the shift that takes place after finalization…I also recognize that first/birth mothers may feel a lack of control as well, but that doesn’t take away from the experience of those adopting).

    Shannon, you didn’t come at adoption after years of infertility, a situation that also provides years of no control, no privacy, etc. Maybe it would be great if everyone came into adoption without that baggage, but that’s not the case. And if I’m remembering correctly, Nat was already born when you were called. That’s different from spending months hoping that a particular (emphasis on particular) situation is going to work out.

    I went back and checked my blog entries from 2004. And yes, I was angry when she changed her mind. Not at M., but at the situation, at my inability to control my own reproduction, and at the social worker, who I still feel was inept. Let me be clear: I don’t think anything the social worker did would have changed the outcome. But I came out of the first meeting and said that I didn’t think M. really wanted to do this, and I think that the social worker should have explored that further. Instead she blew me off and told me that M. was completely committed, which was exactly what I wanted to hear. I clung to that.

    I am a little pissed at M. now, because of what happened in January. We are no longer trying to adopt and M., pregnant again, called the social worker and told her she wanted us to adopt her second child. Again, though, I’m not mad because she changed her mind. I’m mad because she set up that situation and I feel owed us at least a phone call to us or to the social worker to TELL us that she changed her mind (knowing that the answer is no is vastly preferable to not knowing - again, loss of control). Had we instigated the second potential adoption, I would feel differently. In my head, the fact that she contacted us changes that situation a little.

17. Margie
    September 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 pm

    

    Good stuff, thanks Dawn.

    One thought on infertility, having been there myself - I personally think we need to start to view infertility from a strictly medical point of view, like any other illness, disease or medical challenge, and stop viewing it as another way to resolve infertility.

    For example, look at the RESOLVE website - you’ll find this page:
    http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_adp_home

    Although it’s good that adoption isn’t on the “Treatment” page, the message is still loud and clear - adoption is a solution, a way to resolve infertility.

    Yet what other disease, illness or medical challenge gives me the right to another’s child? None that I can think of, so in spite of the obvious parallels, this one shouldn’t either. Maybe it’s time to start educating the infertility support groups.

18. Shannon
    September 23rd, 2006 at 1:55 am

    

    “Shannon, you didn’t come at adoption after years of infertility, a situation that also provides years of no control, no privacy, etc. Maybe it would be great if everyone came into adoption without that baggage, but that’s not the case. And if I’m remembering correctly, Nat was already born when you were called. That’s different from spending months hoping that a particular (emphasis on particular) situation is going to work out.”

    Well, it’s true that we didn’t have the same experience of infertility or adoption as others have had, but we deal with a lot of things straight, married people haven’t been through either when it comes to loss of privacy or lack of certain expectations to entitlement.

    And maybe indeed that is why I don’t understand the anger thing. I am not facing loss of privilege I never expected to have, ie: “control.” To get pregnant would also require intervention for us, whether we’re “fertile” or not, including third-party gametes.

    We’re “in the pool” again, now. I imagine we’ll have one “changed mind” before our next baby arrives. That is pretty normal at our agency. I also imagine if that happens, we’ll be disappointed. But it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which we’d be angry. And I don’t think that’s because we aren’t infertile. I just think that’s how we feel and think about it.

19. Christine
    September 23rd, 2006 at 8:41 am

    

    I hear you, Shannon. Our experiences, attitudes, personalities, etc. are different so we’re going to react to situations differently.

    But I wouldn’t accuse you of being - what? heterophobic? - if you experienced a situation in your life that made you angry. What I’m reacting to here is the assertion that because I felt anger at a situation that was hurtful at the time I must be ageist, racist, classist, and small.

    I sincerely hope that you never experience a disrupted placement and that #2 proceeds smoothly for you and Cole. No matter how clearly you understand something in your head, the reality is that it’s less clear once your heart is involved.

20. Shannon
    September 23rd, 2006 at 6:19 pm

    

    Christine, I think we are possibly talking about two different things.

    Dawn, if you don’t mind, I’m going to expand on my thoughts on this topic at my own blog and stop hi-jacking yours!

21. Melissa
    September 24th, 2006 at 1:06 am

    

    Great post Dawn. I agree. Some of these comments, though, are a little rough. Anger is a natural part of the grief process. Emotions are not necessarily logical. The attitudes of the paps, I think, are a seperate matter, and may come out in how they deal with the grief. But I would not say they should not grieve, or have feelings for their loss in the situation. You did address this in a later post. I love your insight!

22. suz
    September 24th, 2006 at 3:02 am

    

    margie said:
    Yet what other disease, illness or medical challenge gives me the right to another’s child? None that I can think of, so in spite of the obvious parallels, this one shouldn’t either. Maybe it’s time to start educating the infertility support groups.

    Margie - I completely totally agree and its one of the major things that bugs me intensely about adoption.

    If I lost an eye, could I take yours?
    If I did not have a house, could I just take yours?
    No.
    Why is it okay to take someone elses child to fill a gap in the life of a infertile couple?
    I just dont get it.

23. Anger « Paragraphein
    September 24th, 2006 at 5:04 am

    

    [...] Ambrose Bierce So. There has been some discussion in blogland about anger and failed adoption placements. I haven’t even read the original blog post and comments that sparked the firestorm (anyone care to clue me in? I’m a glutton for punishment), but after reading two of Dawn’s  latest entries (and the comments), I’ve got something to say, anyway. [...]