Saturday, August 18, 2007
One Voice...
One Voice..You know in the last two years I have learned much about adoption. I have learned the havoc it wreaks on the unsuspecting mother who truly believed that the right thing to do was to let her child go, so that her child could have everything that she, that child?s mother was told she could not provide. I have learned that in reality that far from having a choice in surrendering my daughter, I really had no choice. Once the agency got involved, it was basically a done deal. Even if I had known about the six-month revocation period I would probably never have gotten my daughter back. You ask why I say that? The simplest answer lies in these simple facts: I was unmarried, I lived at home, I had a low paying job, and her father walked out on me, not even having the decency to tell me he couldn't stay even for the sake of our child, who he thought might belong to another man. (Long story I have told it before and I won't tell it again.)So, what does one do when she learns all these harsh truths? Does she sit back and not care that the thing that happened to her and her child is still happening? I for one cannot do that. For me, action must be taken. I have to fight, because to be frank, in my head, I feel responsible to all the women who came after me, who lost their children. Why? I feel responsible because if I had spoken out then, perhaps now we would not be seeing in the news women like Jamie Kiefer, who was coerced into signing the adoption papers while in a state of severe Post Partum Depression, and when she began to wake up and wanted her daughter Cali back, the adoptive parents (who say they are though I have my doubts as to the legality and exactly how legitimate the adoption was) would not return her child. So Jamie and her family took her child back. If you have seen the story you know how that happened and the result. For all the women who have felt on the verge of doing something similar when they realized how they had been duped and coerced, I have to fight, I have no other choice. Why? Because their voices would haunt me to my dying day and beyond. A good friend of mine who is a Baby Scoop Era Mother told me, that she feels so guilty that she did not speak up when she lost her child, because maybe if she had, I and many other mothers may not have met the same fate she did. For those that came after me, I too feel guilty in the same way and because it took me 23 years to find my voice and start to speak the truth.I recently was asked to run for a seat on OriginsUSA's board of directors. I accepted, because I knew that finally things were going to change there. I want to be part of that change. I have made some very real and very close friends there in the short period of time that I have been an acting member of the board. Things are changing there, and changing fast. Incorporation of OUSA was but a stepping stone to something larger. Something I and others believe will make a difference in adoption as it stands today in America.What most of this is about is not gaining new membership for OUSA. Although that group has a bearing on what the real crux of the matter is for me. We all of us, BSE mothers, New Era Mothers and all of our found children need to speak with one voice. If you are reading this and you have been affected by adoption in the way I have been or my daughter has been, you need to know that we have a place that is starting to speak with one voice! Our Voices all together cannot be ignored. There are how many of us in the US alone? How many natural parents and how many adoptees who do not speak because there is no one group or umbrella of groups that let us speak with ONE VOICE? Do you want to speak with one voice? Do you want things to change so that no mother or child be needlessly separated from each other again? Post here in my blog or look at OriginsUSA, or Adoption Crossroads, read about us. If you feel your one voice can make a difference, please join us! Every person?s voice counts, and the more voices we have saying the same thing, the harder it will be for us to be ignored any longer!
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