The Reader's Digest Version of My Story

I got pregnant when I was 14, and was given a lot of pressure to abort my baby. I refused. So then the pressure and coercion to give my baby up for adoption began. I felt hopeless and helpless, and I finally decided to do what all the adults wanted me to do. No one told me of the psychological damage that a newborn can have that affects them for life by being ripped from their natural mother. No one told me the lifelong grief I would experience.

We had contact all through her growing up years, and I thought this adoption thing had worked out just fine for everyone involved. Then my daughter cut off contact last year, after I had basically stabbed her heart and ripped it open by rejecting and abandoning her again and again. I thought it was my duty to push her to her a-parents. I thought I didn't have any right to feel motherly feelings towards her or even call her my daughter. She was supposed to be NOTHING to me. I complied. I was always a good birthmother, well-adjusted, and at peace with my decision. Always deferring to her a-parents.

When I was expecting baby #11, I was asking for baby name suggestions, and explained to my FB friends that I don't re-use any of the initials of any of my children, but I said we could re-use a J, because she was given up for adoption. Ouch. That really, really hurt her, but I thought I was doing what she wanted. I didn't think she wanted me to consider her my daughter. I didn't think I was allowed to think like that. So, after she saw that post, she cut off contact with me, and I believe she probably hates me.

Since that event, I have set out to educate myself and have learned a lot about the not-so-pretty side of adoption. I'm done drinking the adoption kool-aid. I am setting out to educate others, and by some of my posts, I have been successful. There have been a lot of debates in response to some of my posts, and I think it has been a learning experience for me and all those around me. We must never forget that everyone in the adoption triad had a choice, EXCEPT THE CHILD. Adoption is something that happened to the child.

Anyway, so that is the Reader's Digest version of my story.