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Birth mothers

Dear Birthmom Danielle I Am Three and a Half

Submitted by JuliaFuller on Sat, 02/06/2010 - 22:54
  • Annual Child Report to Birthmother
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3 year old ballerina

 

I am three and a half years old now, but look about five because of my height. I have inherited your athleticism. I love to dance and currently am taking ballet and tap. I have already caught up with the second year students, although this is my first year. I can’t wait until we perform this summer on stage.

My favorite activities are reading, puzzles, coloring, dressing like a princess, and dancing. Even my big brothers occasionally succumb to dancing with me when I beg.

  • JuliaFuller's blog
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Everything You Wanted to Know about Birthparent Searches: Part I: What to Consider Before You Start a Birthparent Search

Submitted by LisaS on Thu, 01/28/2010 - 09:55
  • Adoptee rights
  • Adoptees
  • Adoption Ethics
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
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  • Guatemalan adoption
  • Human Trafficking
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  • Searching for Birthfather
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  • searching for birthmother in Guatemala

Recently I shared that I completed a successful birthmother search for my adopted daughter. Since posting that blog I’ve received questions regarding how to do the search and which searcher to use.

Regardless of which country you are searching in to find your child’s birthmother* take the time to ask yourself a few questions before you begin a birthmother search. By doing this you will perhaps prevent heartbreak and stress up the road.

1. Why are you doing the search? Has your child asked you to search for her birthmother or have you taken the initiative? Are you just curious or is this a serious enterprise?

2. Are you going to tell your child about the search only if it is successful of if it is a failure as well?

3. What knowledge do you want to gain from this search? Personal information? Medical information? Continued contact? 

4. Finding a birthmother will be emotionally and possibly physically traumatic for the birthmother, particularly if the adoption was intentionally closed. As the person who has initiated the search, you are setting off a chain of events that cannot be reversed. Can you handle the responsibilities that will accompany this birthmother search?

5. Searches in some countries, like Guatemala for example, can be dangerous for the searcher. Are you ready for the responsibility of paying someone to do something dangerous?

  • LisaS's blog
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Guest Blog: Doing the Right Thing

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 21:07
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Special needs
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

Continued from here…

I get very torn when considering all of this. My whole adult life has been about caring for children, as a preschool teacher and owner and being a mother and birthmother. They have always come first for me. It is the most impossible thing for me to imagine NOT putting a child’s needs first. I admit I get very angry when I hear of parents who do not. My heart breaks for these children. I would do anything to be able to scoop them all up in my arms and hug away all the bad in their lives. I highly doubt I could have had such a quiet and respectful encounter with a drug addict parent as Leigh Anne did in the movie. I’m not even sure I could act out a scene like that with other actors with any believability! But watching that scene, and witnessing the quiet but powerful encounter, I realized that it was the right thing to do. Horrendously difficult, but right, movie or not.

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New TV Show: “Life Unexpected”

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 07:42
  • Adoptees
  • Birth fathers
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  • Brittany Robertson
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  • Kristoffer Polaha
  • Life Unexpected
  • Shiri Appleby
  • TV show Life Unexpected

Plant (c) Lynda BernhardtIf you liked the TV show Gilmore Girls and/or the movie Juno, then you will love the new CW TV series Life Unexpected. You will doubly love this show if you have any connection to adoption/foster care, which is why I am telling you about it!

Here is the basic storyline: Cate (played by Shiri Appleby) was a high school “nerd,” and Baze (played by Kristoffer Polaha) was a popular jock . They hooked up one night during a school dance and had a crisis pregnancy. Baze would not admit to having had sex with Cate at all, much less that he was the father, and he always assumed that Cate “got rid of it” until his almost-16-year-old birth daughter Lux (played by Brittany Robertson) showed up on his doorstep at the beginning of the pilot. Baze peaked in high school and is now an immature bar owner. Meanwhile, Cate went on to become a very popular morning disc jockey at a local radio station.

Cate placed Lux for adoption as a newborn with the foster care system and was assured that there was a long wait list for people wanting to adopt a blonde haired, blue eyed newborn. However, unbeknownst to Cate, Lux was born with a hole in heart and endured multiple surgeries during her first three years of life. By the time she was declared healthy, nobody wanted to adopt her as an older child, and she has lived her entire life in the foster care system.

  • FaithA's blog
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Guest Blog: The Sake of the Child

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 21:06
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Special needs
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

Continued from here…

That’s what it really boils down to: the sake of the child. Right or wrong, children love their parents – even if these parents abuse and neglect them. They are still their parents. They may come to hate the choices made, but rarely do they come to hate the person. It’s this separation that I think can help those who are working to rebuild what was broken, the counselors and the adoptive parents. Birthparents that make choices that hurt their children are often in situations that prevent them from putting the child’s best interest in the forefront. Drugs, alcohol, mental illness, these all bring them to a place where their priorities are their own needs. They simply are not capable of changing this priority at this time. But this doesn’t mean they don’t love their children, it’s more that they just aren’t sure how to do it at that time.

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Guest Blog: The Movie “Blind Side”

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 21:02
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
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  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Sandra Bullock
  • Special needs
  • The Blind Side
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

I recently saw the movie “Blind Side” with my husband. Aside from the great message that when a child is given the chance, they can go on to successful lives, I was particularly touched by one scene. The mother in the family that took in the boy, Leigh Anne Touhy, played beautifully by Sandra Bullock, has decided she wants to gain guardianship of Michael. But before doing so, Leigh Anne finds his mother. This scene not only took me by surprise, it left me examining my own feelings of respect towards birthmothers.

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Adopted Children's Birth Relatives Are Their People

Submitted by JuliaFuller on Mon, 01/18/2010 - 23:12
  • Birth Family
  • Birth fathers
  • Birth grandparents
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Birth siblings

This is the promised continuation of “When a Birthparent Get Scammed They Lose a Child.”

We all understand that sometimes visitation is not in the best interest of the child. For example, if the birthparents are actively and currently involved with any type of addiction or illegal activity that is a sound reason to discontinue visitation. However, adoptive parents should still honor the agreement to send updates and pictures even if actual face-to-face visitation is not possible.

Unfortunately adoptive parents may not realize the affect they have on the lives and adoption choices of others. Recently, a young mother whom I have known personally for seven years wanted to place her unborn child for adoption. She went so far as to actually match twice and almost match a third time.

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Learning to Read the Signs that Your Adopted Child has Heard Enough

Submitted by LisaS on Thu, 01/07/2010 - 12:47
  • Adoptee health
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  • Birth Family
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  • watching for the signs of discomfort in your adopted child

In one of Faith’s recent blogs, she reported that her son had said “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” when he no longer wanted to continue the conversation about the sad passing of his birthmother. This is a standard response from an adopted child of his age and parents would be wise not to push their child even one iota beyond what their child can handle. Faith’s son is in grade school.

Younger children, such as my daughter who is 4 years old, may simply say, “I’m done,” or just jump off your lap and walk away when they want the conversation about birth parents to end. I recently received updated information about my daughter’s birthmother that I shared with Ella.. I knew the instant the conversation was over.

 That’s enough,” she said, and bounced off my lap.

  • LisaS's blog
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Open Adoption: When the Adopted Child Lashes Out

Submitted by FaithA on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 07:37
  • Adoptees
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • not my real mom
  • Open Adoption

Bridge (c) Lynda Bernhardt

On Monday, I wrote about the pain of the adopted teenager telling his adoptive mother, “You’re not my real mom.” That got me thinking that adoptive mothers are not the only people who have to deal with this. What about birth mothers who are in open adoptions with their birth children? I can see them getting hit with even more painful words, such as, “You walked away,” or other such variety. That’s got to hurt even worse than being told that you are not the “real mom.”

I can see the open adoption scenario now. The adopted child has an argument with his adoptive parents. He walks out in anger and goes to see his birth mother, certain that she will “take his side.” The birth mother chooses to support the adoptive parents, and the adopted child lashes out in anger, “What do you know? You’re not my real mom, anyhow. What do you know about parenting a child, anyhow, since you gave me up?”

Whereas I can only think of one dagger for the adoptive parent (“You are not my real parent”), I can think of multiple daggers that an angry adopted child could throw at a birth mother. If the birth mother is already feeling regret or insecurity about her decision to place the child for adoption, those daggers could do some serious damage.

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Other Names For Birth Mother

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 07:19
  • Birth mothers
  • Foster adoption
  • Infant adoption
  • Intercountry adoption
  • International adoption
  • other names for birth mother
  • What should adopted child call birth mother?

Woman and children (c) Lynda BernhardtA reader wants to know what other names there are for birth mother. There are many names for birth mothers, and they run the gamut from being respectful to incredibly disrespectful. I will not cover the disrespectful names on my blog.

The most common ways to refer to a child’s biological mother are as the birth mother or the first mother. Adoptive parents seem to prefer the term birth mother (likely because the term first mother is a reminder that an adoptive mother is a second mother). Many birth mothers seem to prefer the term first mother. The term biological mother is probably the most precise term, but that is a mouthful, so few people use that terminology conversationally.

Some people call the birth mother the “real mother,” but really both the birth and adoptive mothers are the “real mothers,” so that term winds up being offensive both ways. Don’t ever tell my adopted child that I am not his “real mother,” or he might hit you! My son’s birth mother gave him his life, his beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair, his love of the outdoors, and her love. I gave him my home, my time, my love, and my kisses to make his boo-boos feel better. This makes us both his “real mom.”

  • FaithA's blog
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