Women who surrender their babies to adoption have a very difficult time getting on with their lives.  Some of the problems women face after the separation of their children include such things as unresolvable grief, relationship difficulties, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The pain of the loss can become so unbearable, that it can even lead to suicide. 

There is the tendency that is growing out of the demand for babies to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines as a way of securing babies for quick adoptions.

Exiled mothers believed what "The Experts" - those in the adoption industry, told them, that they would forget thir babies and that adoption would be painless. 

There is evidence that suggests that the experience of relinquishment causes a high risk of psychological disability in women.  Research indicates that the actual disability may not diminish years of even decades later.

Consequences of the effects of relinquishment of the child on the mother:

1. Althought it might be considered "voluntary" most relinquishing mothers feel that relinquishment is their only choice in the face of financial hardship, pressure from family, professionals and the social stigma of illegitimacy.

2. The child continues to exist and grow while being inaccessable to the mother and will one day reunite with them.  The reunion fantasy makes it impossible to say good-bye with a sense of finality.  This causes chronic long lasting grief.

3. Lack of knowledge of the child causes the development of all kinds of disturbing fantasies such as the child being dead or ill or the child hating the relinquishing parent(s).  This leads to tremendous guilt on the part of the mother.

4. Women see their efforts to gain information about their child as being blocked by an uncaring bureaucracy.  Confidential files are kept "just out of reach."  Because of this, the anger associated with the relinquishment is kept alive and refocused on those who come between the mother and the child. 

Feelings of sadness and depression were seen as "the most intense ever experienced" at the time the child was relinquished.  Anger was also seen as being very intense.  Only 33% of those studied said that their anger decreased over time, and over half the women said their anger increased. 

Almost all women who were studied said they did not receive enough support or help from family, friends or professionals.  Many women tured to alcohol or some seditive medication to help them cope after relinquishment.  Almost all women said they had bottled up their feelings and withdrawing to cover up their distress.  One third of the women sought professional help.

A View of Open Adoption

Open adoption has supposedly elevated the mother's status in some ways, but the injustice of adoption is still very wide spread.  Would-be adopters and social workers still have an image of the "typical" first mother, and they look down on her in smug condescension.  They think they are resequing the poor confused dear and expect her to be grateful to their charity of their "saving" her child from a life that is not solidly middle class or a family that is not a two parent family. 

Personally, I could NEVER be grateful to CPS or the adoters for what happened in my own case.  As far as I'm concerned they didn't "save" my son.  They are only hurting him in the long run!

Even after two decades of a progression towards open adoption, mothers still pay.  They pay every time someone says that their child is lucky to have found a good family (i.e. to be away from us?)  They pay when coworkers ask in disbelief, "How could you have given away your baby?"  They pay dearly on Mother's Day, and they pay everytime they are asked, "Do you have any children?"

Adoption is a disgrace.  It is an industry not geared toward "the best interests of the child" but toward serving people who think they have a God-given right to add a child into their home. 

The "Black Hole" of Grief

On October 30, I lost my son to adoption.  In reality he was stolen from me.  I had no choice.  The Intervention Team of CPS came into my hospital room three days after my son was born, and I was told that he would be taken into 72 hour protective custody.  I cried endlessly when this happened.  When my mom got to the hospital after driving such a long way to visit and help out, I was even more devestated.  My son was taken from me at the hosptial by the CPS Intervention Team and the foster parent.  He was in foster care for three months (during which time I had to go to court hearings).  I was told by CPS that I had to sign the relinqishment papers or I would never see my son again.

I buried the pain in writing and in group therapy initually not realizing that I was in shock.  I thought I was doing "okay" until the shock wore off right after my son's birthday in October 2004 when the poential adoptress told me that I wasn't my son's mom!  This was a real blow!  Then what made it worse was in January of 2005, the potential adoptress attempted to interfer with how I was dealing with the grief of adoption claiming that I was "too attached" to my son.  I was accused of "not trusting" the potential adopters 100%.  I can't trust ANYONE 100% let alone someone who is causing pain and is trying to tell me what to do and how to live!  The potential adoptress also had the nerve to claim I needed adoption counseling and asked if I was receiving it.  I told her the truth that I wasn't.  I wasn't receiving adoption counseling then, but I needed counseling immediately afterwards to try to find a way to deal with the verbal attacks because the attacks were causing symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which I know is extremely common for moms to experience anyway). 

No one told me the pain would never go away.  No one told me that it would be so severe that I would end up with devestating nightmares with symptoms of panic attacks and Post Tramatic Stress Disorder. 

The adoption industry and CPS would respond:  "This is a woman who cannot put the past behind her.  She is flawed." 

When a child dies, the grief can be resolved.  It will pass with time.  When a child is lost to adoption, there is no possible resolution as our children are still LIVING!  Living grief is an inescapable pain and loss that is goes on daily is a living nightmare.  This is the reality of adoption, something that agencies and adopters will NEVER admit to.