Women placing their babies for adoption sometimes have tunnel vision, and their advisors may as well. Separating a baby from its mother affects more than just those two people, and the affects are more long-lasting. Few birth/first mothers I know thought much about the wide affects within a family that an adoption would cause. I know that I certainly did not.

Babies and children placed for adoption lose not only their first parents, but grandparents, cousins and siblings, etc. Many birth grandparents may not feel the loss of their grandchildren until years down the road, and they may wish then that the adoption had not happened. If the birth grandparents are involved in pressuring for the adoption, they may later feel a great deal of guilt for their actions.

Families are often involved in coercing a woman to relinquish her child to adoption. This can and often does place a serious strain on family relations. Many first/birth moms relinquished as teens during the baby scoop era partly or wholly due to family pressure. Worries about disgracing the family name and wondering what people would think played a large role in many adoption decisions during that time frame.

Several first/birth moms from the baby scoop era have confronted their parents over this issue in the preceding years. For many, frank heartfelt discussions about the pressure exerted and the damage that it did have resulted in some forgiveness and healing. Receiving apologies from parents who forced adoption on their children has been very helpful to some birth parents.

Other parents of birth parents accept no responsibility in the adoption decision and stubbornly refuse to apologize for their sometimes misguided advice. Some birth mothers may have cut off contact entirely with especially cruel and unbending parents who exerted enormous pressure on them to relinquish their babies.

An interesting fact to note is that many parents of birth mothers did not realize how much they would feel the loss of their grandchild. Not only did they not understand the painful affect that losing a child would have on their child, but that it would affect them adversely as well. Many birth grandparents mourn the loss of their grandchildren deeply and are regret their part in the adoption.