Serious and controversial are the rights of birth fathers. And with that comes the fifth recommendation in the Birthparent Study.

Recommendation 5: Require more aggressive protection of birthfathers’ rights by mandating their identification by birthmothers whenever possible, and by personally notifying all possible fathers of adoption proceedings. In states where putative father registries exist, they should be widely advertised, and a failure to register should not be used as an automatic reason for not notifying or involving men. A national registry would help to alleviate some of this system’s inherent problems.

We don't hear much from or about birth fathers. Sadly, their rights are the most trampled upon within the system. Counseling? A rarity. Involvement in the process? Also a rarity. Some of this is to blame on expectant Mothers who don't want contact with the father of their child anymore for reasons ranging from not wanting the father to know to physical abuse protection. Some of this is to blame on Fathers who turned and ran. And some of this is to blame on a system that doesn't reach out to these men so that they may fully understand what their name on a dotted line means.

Frankly, the rights of the birth father need to be protected better. Why? It comes back around to protecting all involved in the adoption triad. The study says it best:

There are strong ethical, moral and practical reasons to involve men as fully as possible. Some of the highest-profile cases in which adoptions were overturned – and the children were returned to their birthparents – resulted from the fathers’ legal rights being circumvented or violated.

Kind of makes you sit up and take notice, doesn't it? If we're really, truly and honestly wanting what is best for these children, we should be 100% dedicated to treating their parents properly, morally and legally, from the very beginning.

And so, if you want my opinion on how some of this needs to go, read on. I'll speak from my personal experience.

When I contacted the agency around four and a half months of pregnancy, I gave them Munchkin's biological father's information as well as my own. I knew his whereabouts and shared them with the agency. They didn't send him a packet of profiles. They didn't send him the medical background information to fill out. They didn't call his cell phone or home to ask the questions that I had been asked about placement. They didn't ask the guy if he wanted to be involved. I did ask him at one point if he wanted to help me pick the family but our own communication wires were crossed with anger and hurt at that time. If the agency had stepped in, sent us the same profiles and helped us come to a mutual conclusion, perhaps he would feel more connected to J and D now. Instead, he was sent papers at the end of my pregnancy, told to sign and return them. (And one more time when the lawyer messed up.) No one counseled him on what the TPR said and meant. No one explained his rights and timeline concerning revocation in the state of Pennsylvania. (They didn't tell me either but still.) No one told him that he could also ask for pictures and letters, even visits. No one explained to him the grief that he would feel, even if he pushed it aside for years. It comes eventually. It comes. And not one soul at that agency gave him warning.

Though I didn't receive legitimate counseling, he didn't even get to talk to an agency worker about his thoughts on adoption. He didn't get to bounce anything off of anyone. In my opinion, the lack of his involvement is why he is having such a hard time easing into the role of open adoption birth father at this point in time. I have some guilt about that, regarding the fact that I couldn't get past my own anger to communicate effectively but, then again, I wasn't the agency.

To be honest, I don't understand why putative father registries exist in their current state. In my opinion, that whole mess needs a complete overhaul.

And frankly, if I was an agency, I would be wary of a Mother who says she doesn't know the father's name but wants to place anyway. Yes, there are women who are raped. There are women who don't report those rapes for a number of reasons. I'm not quite sure how to protect them while also weeding out the expectant Mothers who are purposely trying to pull the wool over their child's biological father's eyes. But really, there's got to be a way.

Birth fathers are vital to this system of adoption. Their rights need protected. And we need to help them understand that their involvement is wanted.

This recommendation leaves me feeling very defeated.