I think I will take the rejection topic in chunks.
I can’t exactly remember how the conversation started, but we were talking about foster care at one point.
When I first met my mother she told me she had no idea that I had been fostered, and that it disturbed her. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me though because she knew I wasn’t with her and she knew I wasn’t with my adoptive family, so she must have known.
Although she would probably say, she just didn’t think about it, she says things like that A LOT. It blows my mind the things she didn’t/doesn’t think about.
Anyway, I was in foster care for an undetermined amount of time. They were concerned about my heart due to some prenatal issues. They had to see if I was in fact, adoptable. I saw that paperwork once, I used to own that paperwork, you know like a six point inspection to see if I was a marketable infant. Luckily I passed. I shudder to think what happened to the not so lucky infants, I mean who would care?
What happened to the unadoptable?
I have always had this creepy feeling about where I was fostered, that something really bad happened there outside of the scope of that scenario being totally creepy per se.
Was I medicated, molested, neglected? I do know though that by the time I ended up in my adoptive home, I had given up on crying. It couldn’t have been great.
Although I have had my OBC, the TPR, the inspection letter, one pile of documents I have not been able to secure is my history, the one that existed in between birth and adoption. Medical, behaviorial et al. I am not allowed to by law. Do you know why? According to my agency.
It would violate my ‘birthmothers’ privacy.
I know it is LOLABLE, in that mirthless kind of LOL.
I can’t believe that anyone ANYONE, can buy the b.s. about the state’s desire to protect “birthmother privacy”
Hiding my records from me protects no one but the adoption industry, the individuals, agencies and attorneys who profited off my vulnerability. It provides a complete and total shield from accountability. It protects child abusers, that is who it protects. Oh I have no evidence that I was personally abused, but there is no doubt in my mind that plenty of grieving, vulnerable infants in the care of those who had them for the purpose of financial gain were.
Adoption does not live in the magical world that so many insist it does, above abuse of power, exploitation of the vulnerable, follow the money is the most sensible advice anyone has ever given.
In other news, my sweetheart and I rewatched Milk on Netflix last night.
During the scene where Scott is leaving Harvey because he just can’t take the activism any more, my sh said, “Oh Scott, come on don’t leave”
Harvey sits impassively in a chair.
“Harvey doesn’t even care” he sighs.
“Yes, he does, he cares a lot, he loves Scott” I defend Harvey.
“He just feels like he is caught up in something much bigger than himself, that he has no choice. He can’t live with the thought of all the young gays growing up with no one giving them anything but shame. He feels that he has an obligation to try to give them a another option”
We sit quietly for a while before he turns to me and says, “You adoptees should have a Castro”
“Yeah, we should, and we should have adoptee bars”
I imagine a barroom full of people stomping out after real and imagined slights, packing up their stuff and moving away. Intense fights, lots of tears, but lots of laughs and comraderie too… I think I would call my adoptee pub, “Cry Baby’s”
How could anyone not love Janis?
Posted by Triona Guidry on May 31, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Joy, I’d like to come to that pub! I know what you mean about wondering what the hell happened between birth family and adoptive family. I was evidently taken from the hospital by the delivery doctor (who facilitated my adoption along with his pal my adopted father, an attorney). The dr and his wife fostered me for a week before my a-parents picked me up. When I tried to find out more about this I was told it wasn’t an “official” fostering so there’s no paperwork. So people can just take babies and do whatever they want, with no accountability?! I doubt anything untoward happened to me during that week, except of course for the minor detail of being severed from my mother, dumped with strangers for a week then carted off by other strangers…
If your mother already relinquished you, then that paperwork has nothing to do with her and her privacy and should be yours by rights, but of course we know it doesn’t work that way. What happens to the unadoptable? Good question!
Posted by Mei-Ling on May 31, 2009 at 10:56 pm
“I do know though that by the time I ended up in my adoptive home, I had given up on crying.”
I was in an orphanage for x months and then was told by my parents later on that when I was a young toddler, whenever I needed something or didn’t feel well, I’d never cry. Ever.
It was like I had cried myself out at the orphanage and since there wasn’t enough caretakers there, internalized that as “It doesn’t matter how long or often I cry. No one will come.” So I stopped. I never bothered. My parents would have to watch me very carefully for symptoms in case I was ill, because I’d never speak up or cry about them. Bad, bad thing…
That ingrained reaction/response has lasted through my entire life so far.
And people say the first months don’t matter… pffft.
Posted by Linda on June 1, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I had the opposite happen. I was given away to my amom and she was great really she was. Then she died when I was 5 and from then on I couldn’t stop crying.
I was moved from home to home until I left at 18 and I still can’t stop crying.
So, I will join you at Cry babies!!
Posted by Kippa on June 2, 2009 at 12:52 am
I was led to assume my son was with his adoptive family from the day we were separated. But he wasn’t.
There’s a lacuna of about six weeks, give or take a bit.
I have no idea of the reason. By all accounts he was reckoned perfectly healthy from birth.
Regardless, I do think those weeks of personal history between birth and adoption should be accounted for. There has to have been a record made.
I think it must be discomforting, to say the least, to know there’s a period of your life for which there’s no record of your existence. A sort of socially imposed amnesia. Like closed records, though of course on a much lesser scale time-wise.
Re. the “birth mother’s privacy” excuse.
As far as I’m concerned, by that time I’d already signed the relinquishment papers. Although the adoption hadn’t yet been finalized, as a parent I had legally ceased to exist.
So what’s with the “privacy” shit?
Posted by Mara on June 2, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Hi Joy. I wonder the same for me in foster care. I gave up crying for anything by the time I was removed and placed with my adoptive parents. I think foster care for an infant is extreme child abuse. Further abuse (physical, emtional, sexual) only adds to the soul torture.
Birthparents who relinquish their children and then are given rights to withhold our birth records from us? Why are these people treated like saints? Why are we treated like crap from saints? MONEY.
I want my freakin’ birth certificate. All the politicians that claim “privacy” for birth parents are getting free trips to the Bahamas paid for by crooked industry marketeers and their sleezy baby-pimping bosses. “Keep the money flowing boys and girls, there will always NEW BABIES TO SELL!!!” Muahahahaha
Posted by joy21 on June 2, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The privacy is just a lie, just like it is always, a smokescreen, a red herring.
There is no reason that releasing where I was in foster care would have anything to do this with anyone but my agency and the foster carers.
The opposition to CA 372 were attorneys and social workers, not mothers. It is a crock.
Posted by maybe on June 2, 2009 at 7:45 pm
My baby had to stay in the hospital for a few extra days for mild jaundice due to RH incompatibility. I assumed he would then go straight to the adoptive family – wrong, he had to go into foster care for 3 months, standard procedure apparently. I was completely horrified when the social worker told me this (I was only informed after they took him to the foster family, I’m sure they deliberately withheld that little tidbit of info because they knew I would freak out).
I think they do this to make sure the time to rescind has passed and to be able to make a case for abandonment, if necesary. They need mother and baby separated at all costs if they are going to have any chance of getting the adoption to finalize. This is inhumane and abusive to both baby and mother.
He has asked me where he was during the time between birth and his placement with the APs and I told him about the extra hospital time and the foster care. His APs did not know about the medical condition or the extra hosptial time, which makes me wonder what kind of care he received while in foster care. (They also didn’t seem to know about the foster care, unless they just never told him about it).
Did the agency or foster family follow up on the condition and provide appropriate care? Why did they fail to provide that info to the adoptive parents? No one knows for sure, thanks to sealed records to preserve everyone’s privacy, even those who have no interest in such so-called privacy. Good grief, we already know each other and have discussed these things, but the agency still tries to claim privacy?! Absurd.
Posted by 윤선 on June 3, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Hi! I’m a new-ish reader to your blog. I’m a Korean adoptee.
Although I wasn’t in foster care for a very long time, I still think that’s one of the scariest things about being adopted – is honestly not knowing about ourselves when we were younger. Most people have others who can tell them what exactly they were like when they were younger, but we don’t. All we can do is wonder, and that can be really scary.
I agree with what everything you said about the privacy and protecting thing.
Posted by papa2hapa on June 4, 2009 at 2:09 am
I don’t believe the “privacy” argument always holds up. In adoption, the child is almost always considered last when it comes to “rights.” Let’s hope that changes soon.
And your pub? I’d show up and share a drink.
Posted by issycat on June 5, 2009 at 11:41 pm
My foster parents also fostered my older brother and another family friend we grew up with. Weird eh?
My amom stayed in touch with them sending holiday cards with our school pics in them and whatnot. They sent me a birthday card every year until I graduated high school. I have lots of letters and stuff from them. I even met them once when they came to my brother’s grad party.
They also took lots of pics of me as i was with them for three months and gave them all to my afamily so i am fortunate to have newborn pics of myself.
The weird thing though. My firstmother says she was promised I would not go to foster care. She wouldn’t sign the papers until they promised I would go directly to my aparents. They promised her, she signed and I went to foster care for three months.
She is still pissed that I was there. But that is the thing that women need to understand before they relinquish, once those papers are signed all bets are off. They could have sold me to the circus for all she knew. All they wanted was her sign-off. Promises mean nothing.
Fortunately for me, I was placed with nice people who took good care of me and went and above and beyond in their relationship with me.
But what if I hadn’t been so fortunate? Once those papers were signed, my mother had no control over anything regarding my care.
Knowledge is power.
Posted by joy21 on June 6, 2009 at 3:34 am
That is interesting Issy, esp. because despite the similarities in our circumstances that information was hidden from my aparents as well.
They traded me off at the agency. My aparents had to come for a visit and meet me and then go home and sleep on it to make sure they were willing to take me.
That was an agency requirement, they wanted to make sure that everyone involved on both sides were not acting on impulse. One of the reasons my aparents chose the agency is it had a long enforced waiting period for the relinquishing parents. They thought that seemed more ethical.
Posted by issycat on June 7, 2009 at 3:40 pm
My amom said they picked us up at the foster home. They came, they held me and then the fosters said something like, “Well, do you want her?”
Can you say dehumanizing?
It is interesting the things the agency told my aparents. A lot of it was spot on but some was waaaaay off base. they definitely led my parents to believe that my mother was college bound and made the choice without looking back.
But that’s the thing, the agencies get to control the information AND they are making the money. How could they NOT turn us into a commodity?
Posted by Unsigned Masterpiece on June 7, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I was unaware that my son was in foster care as well.
See my post Sorry for Any Inconvenience.
We were told that we were not entitled to any information once we had relinquished, of course that wasn’t true.
I have always wondered if the opposite of what you fear may have happened with him. The foster home was waarm and loving and ten he got given to the aparents (again – see my post) and from what he told me there was very little physical affection.
I have often wanted to find out who the foster parent was because I think she probably cared for him.
Posted by joy21 on June 7, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Maybe-
I hope it doesn’t offend you if I ask this, but where/when did you sign the relinquishment papers?
My mom was forced to wait, I think 2 weeks after I was born in an effort to make certain this was a decision she was sure about. After that I don’t think she knew I was going to stay in foster care, although I doubt she would have asked.
My guess is she knew for the first 2 weeks and didn’t think about where I was afterward.
Perhaps it is different in California back then, with a longer waiting period between birth and relinquishment.
Posted by maybe on June 8, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Joy,
To answer your question:
I signed something in the hospital that the SW had prepared, which was supposedly the surrender doc. However, right after I came home, probably within a day or so, another SW showed up with another doc to sign, telling me that signing in the hospital was not allowed. I remember this because it seemed odd – why did they have me sign in the hospital if it was not legal?
Was the SW who brought the document to the hopspital unaware of the proper procedure? (granted, she was quite old, maybe she was not up to par on the current legalities). Or was it deliberate, to make it seem that everything was already done, no way to turn back? Could have been orchestrated, or could have been a mistake. Hard to guess at another’s motive.
BTW, I still had to appear in court about 60 days later. Something else I was unaware of until the subpoena arrived. I thought the signed documents were final, which was inaccurate to say the least.
Posted by Yours on June 9, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I found out 26 years later my son was in foster care. I wasn’t informed that he was even going to go there.
yts
ps, so many omitted things that should have been told directly, in front of lawyers, judges, and courts, but in the 60’s that’s how things came down, no information, after all that might make a young woman, knowledgeable, and in turn we would have known the truth. Might have changed a minds for sure.
Posted by Cyndi on July 6, 2009 at 2:53 am
In the agency we went through (but we were foster-to-adopt special needs children instead of infant adoption) the fostering period is called “cradle care.” If the adoptive parents are scared of bonding with the child before the “grace period” of the relinquishment comes up and the bio mom decides to parent the child, that they’d not only go through the grief of loving and losing a child but also be thrown back into the process. Most cradle care parents I’ve met are either young, single professional women who have a maternal instinct or older “empty nesters” whose children have all moved out.
If the bio mom is on any sort of medication for pain, the relinquishment papers can be found to be illegal and even if the adoption had been finalized it can be reversed by the courts. That’s why some moms have to sign two sets of papers. My sister is a bio mom of a baby she made an adoption plan for and she has an open adoption with the family who adopted him. The relinquishment process was a lot longer than she expected and this was just last year. She sees her son once about every three months and the family has agreed to raise her older son and the baby as brothers. The agency agreement they have is crazy extensive including what sort of info that’s shared, reports on how the child is doing at specified intervals, photos at specified intervals. The “contract” is the bare minimum, if both parties decide to go above and beyond, the agency isn’t involved.
For the special needs infants, there are specially trained foster parents and adoptive parents who have a heart for those children. The approval and training process is quite extensive. My husband and I are trained in mental and behavioral special needs (related to abuse, normally) but not medical special needs. There are parents with the agency that specialize in medical conditions like sleep apnea, cerebral palsy, and Down’s syndrome. At foster parent trainings, we meet these children and they get the love and attention from all of us. The kids have a special bond and still, our kids refer to the other children as cousins. While the kids may be in care for just a short amount of time, they are loved. If they’re in care for longer, they are just loved on by us for longer.
Adoption is always a series of losses for all of us – parents, children, infants, even the case workers. Sometimes things turn out the way they should and sometimes they don’t, but either way, we’ve all lost the security of knowing “this is the perfect plan.” We all share in the joys and the traumas. Sometimes, all we can give is the comfort of sharing and the readiness to no matter what happens, give love.