Holly commented after an insightful piece by co-blogger Jenna that it bothers her that young women placing children for adoption do not "claim their children." It bothers me too that women are not encouraged more to experience mothering their child before they say goodbye.

"Claiming your child" is something that many young women are severely discouraged from doing. In the olden days of my time, some mothers were refused even the information... more

Should birth/first mothers be strutting their stuff and talking about how proud they are to have placed a child for adoption? The simple answer is "No," and it is a response that fits in most situations. In my mind, there is nothing noble or praiseworthy about becoming a birth mother. There are rare circumstances that it might be. It is not admirable to parent a child that you can or will not parent well either.

Placing a child for adoption is not something most women can or should be proud of doing. Neither is it an act so despicable to hide... more

Although I have a list of favorite blogs in the works, I wanted to do an entire post about a new blog that I just found. It is written by a mother who had planned to place her daughter for adoption, but changed her mind and got her daughter back when she was seven(7)weeks old. She commented on one of my blog entries, and that is how I found her.

Her daughter was with foster parents while she was trying to decide whether to parent or not, so her daughter never went to adoptive parents. I think it is interesting to note that this occurred in Europe,... more

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.

Margaret Mitchell

Ah, another Margaret Mitchell quote to inspire me! I am quite fond of her quotes. I suppose it is that Southern connection we have. I liken the first part of this quote to the life of a birth... more

Today marks the 34th Annual March for Life in Washington. The Supreme Court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, ruling that an abortion was a fundamental right under the United States Constitution. The March for Life is a pro-life event in which like-minded individuals join together in a rally on the Mall and then walk to Capitol Hill.

There. Did I present that in a non-biased manner? Because I'm about to get ten thousand different kinds of biased up in this blog.... more

A recent post mentioned a study that talked about impulse control issues among birth parents.(Granted, the study did not say that all birth parents have impulse control issues.) I wonder if the implication was that most birth mothers become pregnant because they are irresponsible and cannot control themselves. I cannot agree that is always the case. For some women, all it might take could be one act of unprotected sex for a pregnancy to occur. And yes, birth control fails as well. When some adoptive parents suggest that unplanned... more

My two part post on birth mother vulnerability ended with a question. I asked if adoption stories with happy endings were truthful or lies. You might notice that in my posts, I often pose questions. I write from the heart and I have no pat solutions. What I do have are many questions and I like to encourage people to search for answers that make sense.

Instead of settling for pat, well-worn truths in adoption I seek to encourage people to dig into... more

“Coming out of the Closet” is a event of monumental proportions for many birth moms. Many might believe that only birth mothers from my era – with adoptions that happened in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s – were part of the secret society of birthmotherhood. To think that birth/first mothers today always proudly shout their status to the wind is apparently not true however. Acceptance of the act of placing a child for adoption varies depending on many factors including: the community that you live in; how you feel about the... more

I've just talked about my various reasons for being silent about my role as a birth mother both in real life and online. I've discussed the process of my coming out which, no doubt, was helped along by my therapist and the desire to live my life without shame. (Still working on it.) So where does that leave me now? I'll entertain you with some... more

I just explained why adoption wasn't always readily talked about in my daily life. However, as Sandra mentioned in her comment, I've been pretty up front about my role as a birth mother in my online ventures.

I must have missed something along the line, Jenna, as I've assumed you've been up front about this all along. Being 'introduced' to you on the forums, then reading your blogs I had no idea that you were ever in the... more