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A Not So Perfect Solution for Your Baby

March 27, 2015 By Linda Russell Leave a Comment

Adoption offers a “perfect solution” for a baby whose mom isn’t ready to raise a child. Adoptive families offer better financial circumstances, “stability,” opportunity for college education, an “intact” family, and happiness that mom (who isn’t ready to parent) cannot offer. Statements such as these are often used in advertising on adoption sites. However, these phrases offer eloquence in the wording to entice moms to consider placing their child with a loving family, albeit strangers.

Looking back on a lifetime of pain and complete regret, advice from this side of the world comes easy. Looking back from the current vantage point the change in life circumstances, overcoming those temporary circumstances seems so certain and obvious. However, when mom begins the journey of making decisions about an unplanned pregnancy, the present and current circumstances give an essence of never ending. Stress, anxiety, uncertainty, lack of familiarity, and the involvement of others about something that feels so personal becomes a difficult matter.

A few points follow to help you begin to bring perspective on the frantic feelings you may have.

1) First of all, put off freaking out until after some decisions are made. This is critical because you feel like freaking out. But think about it, freaking out will not change the pregnancy and will only cause you to feel much worse. So put it off and go to your calendar. Set a date (make it at least a week or two out) to freak out. Now you have it on your calendar and you have given yourself permission to freak out at that time.

2) Understand, this is your baby you are carrying. Babies are their own individual human selves. They are not a “part” of you, they are now another human being. Your baby is shared by the person you were with when your baby was conceived. However that circumstance may not be a pleasant one. You may have difficulty considering the involvement of the other person. Right now, making the decision about the involvement of the other person isn’t critical. You have a baby to nurture and protect.

3) Do your research on your options. As pointed out earlier, going to an adoption site and talking to someone at an adoption agency can result in no further research. What does that mean? It means that an adoption attorney or an adoption representative will tell you that adoption is the very best solution for you and your baby. However, they will continue to state that it is your choice. If the father of your baby happens to be at risk for as a good parent, all the more reason for the agency to encourage you to place your baby. However, adoption agents are NOT about your best interests, nor about your baby’s best interests. You are a supplier of the product that commands a lot of money from adoptive couples who desperately want children. In fact, that agency and private adoption attorney can offer you quite a bit of money for living expenses and help you with your financial indebtedness. An exchange of money for your baby is selling your baby. You can get resources and helpful support. If money is what you need, you can get help.

4) Find someone you can trust to confide in. Friends may or may not be your first point of contact. There is an organization, Family Preservation Outreach, linda@familypreservationoutreach.com, who will talk with you and help you in this unplanned circumstance. Of course, the options out there are: parent your baby, place your baby, allow guardianship arrangement, or even find a doctor to do an abortion. Getting educated on these options is critical because you are making a life altering choice.

5) Getting counseling will help you with any guilt or shame you may feel. While these emotional responses come naturally they can impose another layer of anxiety and stress, unproductive energy. When more anxiety happens, it’s impossible to make a good decision.

Before making a decision, remember time is on your side. Research, talk to people who have truly been there (you don’t have to tell them your circumstances), read books, articles, and get some good counseling help. Letting someone tell you that you MUST make a decision now, make up your mind, or pressure you in any way, will not result in a decision that you can feel good about later.

You will get through this and you can get through this with a good life decision. Next article on threats or circumstances of having your child removed from your care.

NOVEMBER – ADOPTION AWARENESS

November 2, 2014 By Linda Russell Leave a Comment

The month of November is Adoption Awareness Month. This awareness theme gets a little old and can be lost on those who might turn away from the truth in adoption. Most of us learned that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Adoption begs for squeaky wheels to step up and recreate adoption to address the appropriate audience, the children without homes.

Following the adoption blogs (just Google for the latest) will educate you on the swell of awareness that has started. Adoptees are beginning to find their voices with help and support. Birth families find it easier to speak up about the difficulty they encounter in “getting on with their lives” after placing a family member. Fathers find themselves in forward motion to claim a stake at parenting versus placing a child for adoption unlike ever before in history. Adoptive parents find voice and something to add when the integrity of adoption is at risk.

The parties whose silence is deafening in helping change guidelines of adoption are the agencies and attorneys who complete adoptions. Anyone who follows the trend of ethics in adoption practice easily understands the reasoning behind the silence of these entities. The “almighty dollar” serves to quiet the disquieted soul of destruction. When did society decide that a price tag could be placed on the life of a child?

Apparent in the voices of all those who must live out the decision of adoption is the common thread of trauma. Trauma in separation, loss, identity, belonging, and family, seep through every pore of those separated from families of origin and grafted into families of strangers. This statement offends none but those who deny the substantive loss of the “other.” Money fails to connect family. DNA and biology came together to fashion an offspring, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandchild, or cousins. Money only buys the paper to make those feigned connections.

Growing up hearing that money cannot buy happiness defies the attempt being made at buying happiness when acquiring a child in exchange for money. The purpose of the exchange is perverted when the attempt is made to create a family (not for the real purpose of offering an orphan a home). Money substitutes for a lot of tangibles these days, children being no less attainable by the same means.

Advertisements, “gofundme” accounts, adoption fund car washes and garage sales, fertility funds, court funds to fight biological parents commonly headline social media sites as well as websites of adoption services. One adoption advertisement site proudly posted a picture of a nice looking young lady with the words: “Will find your baby a good home,” “Will pay living and medical expenses.” Advertising for children would place them in a category of a good piano for sale “will pay moving costs.” How did stooping to the level of offering children as commodities happen in a civilized society? When connected with money, the answer boils down to greed, selfishness, and lust. Harsher words could not be spoken about the evils of humanness and carnality that is disguised as being Christian.

Taking a good, long look at what adoption should be and what adoption really is would behoove everyone because with nearly 70% of the population being touched by adoption, the dilemma will be faced by many. Educate, speak out, find compassion to recognize the trauma that adoption leaves in its wake. Make November a month to become aware of adoption more than ever.

5 Steps to Being Ready to Adopt

September 18, 2014 By Linda Russell 1 Comment

You can know you are ready to adopt when:

1) You don’t have a need for a child but a desire to provide parenting to a child whose parents cannot.

2) You are willing to keep an historical and relational connection to a child’s biological family without conditions. Getting a copy of the original birth certificate is mandatory and can be accomplished at the time of adoption.

3) You recognize the child as an individual whose DNA and biology will not match yours but understand they deserve love as all children do.

4) You are willing to be second. An adopted child has first parents. God loves the first parents as much as He loves the second. Adoption embraces human design not God’s design.

5) Most importantly!!! Love is not enough. Is love required? Absolutely, but as human beings, the love offered falls far short of what will conquer feelings when behaviors become overwhelming, when rejection seems to be all that is offered, when a child whose life was enhanced by being provided a family doesn’t seem “grateful” enough.

Preparation for adoption requires emotional and mental stability that can withstand normal upsets magnified a hundred times. Adoption brings a set of challenges that add a layer of unknown, unfamiliar, unattached feelings. Adoption requires in depth, ongoing support and resources. Adoption hardly represents the wonderful world of an optional way to create a family; “the new pregnant;” or getting a brother or sister for an already existing family.

Remember the old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”? I would suggest adoption falls into that category. Is adoption a wonderful option for a child who has no family willing or able to raise them, indeed! Legislation must be designed and implemented to allow adoptees to obtain their original birth certificate with “required” accurate information at the age of majority. No reason exists for an American citizen to be denied their original birth certificate into perpetuity.

Read and be informed on all the issues in adoption. One reason for failed adoptions and unhappy adoptive situations is because the information was lacking and decisions made about adopting were founded on that information. Be wary of the “wonderful” stories and testimonies on adoption sites and the “happily-ever-after” testimonies by agencies or adoption agents who profit from making adoptions happen.

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The Practice of Adoption

September 8, 2014 By Linda Russell 3 Comments

“Are you pregnant, scared, with no one to talk to? We can help you with finances, medical expenses and secure a great home for your baby. There are many loving families who can provide a stable home with all the advantages for a child.”

This message simulates the messages that lure mothers who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy. A “loving and right” choice offers the mom a way of “redeeming” herself in this untimely circumstance. Unfortunately, while the websites and billboards of adoption agencies make adoption sound like a panacea for solving the dilemma of an unplanned pregnancy, the details of the future fail to surface in the information before a decision is made.

A family is chosen and programming reinforced of all the “right and loving” messages that follow such an “unselfish” decision. While these statements ring true before all the negotiations have completed and before the baby has been born, it is the time after the birth that has not been truthfully and forcefully presented in concert with the other information given.Continue Reading