I’m back – did you miss me?

I’ve been unusually quiet lately because I’ve been trying to sort out the waves of feelings I’ve had over the moves by some states to install safe haven boxes; that seems to be the newest way to get babies for adoption now, it’s also a dream come true for some people wanting to adopt, no pesky birth parents to worry about, no open adoption, no updates, visits, fears about the child wanting their parents by birth over their adoptive parents.

 

Canadian Reunion Story – 2021

Your typical story about boy meets girl, they date, she gets pregnant and they chose adoption for their son.

The difference than most is they did the adoption together, and the father also signed off on the relinquishment. They also stayed together, got married and had three more sons. To read the rest of their story, you’ll need to take the time to go read it at the link below.

 

More Thoughts on The Baby Box Legislation

I can’t stop thinking about the safe haven baby box legislation in Indiana and how archaic and wrong-headed it seems to be. Wrong-headed that the state may not even know it has another citizen it is responsible for as babe’s guardian, as it’s optional whether or not to tell the state, or they can just contact an adoption agency when a baby is left in a safe haven box. When there is no documentation of the babe to even give to the state other than the baby was left in a safe haven box, let alone provide the merest bits of knowledge of where and who brought the babe into the world, they are just left with the fact they were left in a box to tell the child – it sure seems both archaic and dehumanizing at the same time.

 

Dear Adoption Agencies – Yes You!

Now is the time for those of you who pride yourself on being a Good Ethical Adoption Agency to stand up and say No, this isn’t how adoption should be practiced. To speak up loudly and often, not just once. To demand this is not anywhere close to how an ethical adoption is done the right way. My goodness, the adoption agency receiving the baby from the safe haven baby box doesn’t even need to report that they received a safe haven baby to the regulatory authority in Indiana. No one there to even give the mother a handout and phone numbers to call that they’d do at a Fire Station or Hospital, just put your baby in a box and walk away.

Damn and double damn.

 

From 2016: Physical and emotional scars…

The other day I stapled my finger, it caused a momentary sting, I noticed it was bleeding, put a band-aid on and went back to what I was doing. Until I sat down to write this post, I didn’t think of it because the wound was so minor I’d forgotten it in a matter of days. If I do it again, it may trigger a vague memory that I’ve done this before, then it will be gone.

Some wounds are so minor they just aren’t part of your conscious life, the above is an example that is vastly different from my next tale…

 

Novel worth reading: “Looking For Jane” by Heather Marshall

I read a review of the Novel “Looking For Jane” by Heather Marshall, a first time author I believe. It’s a book set in Ontario, Canada back when unwed parenthood just wasn’t done, abortion was illegal and girls were sent away to maternity homes. Very similar to the Baby Scoop Era in the US. Article from The Toronto Star here about what happened back before abortion was legal in Canada. Note there was also a “Sixties Scoop, where Indigenous children were removed from their reserves and families and placed into non-Indigenous homes” that is also in the link above but isn’t part of this book.

 

Adoption Then and Now

I stumbled on this paper and became curious, so I read it. It’s good, it starts at the beginning of adoption in the US circa 1850 and travels through the different periods of adoption history. It’s a must read, grab a beverage of choice and settle down to move through the many eras adoption has evolved through, while also keeping you up to date with what society was at that point in history.

It’s worth your time to stroll down the path adoption in the US has taken since the 1850’s.

David R. Papke, Pondering Past Purposes: A Critical History of American Adoption Law, 102 W. Va. L. Rev.
(1999). Available at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol102/iss2/8

 

I don’t think they thought this through.

The tweet below is why I’m writing this post, I also clicked the link below the tweet, a clip of that post is shown below the tweet.

 

The Year 2022 is almost done and 2023 almost here.

We had the Christmas we wanted, very quiet just the two of us plus the two cats. We also didn’t decorate because of the two cats. Tonight we are going to order Chinese food and pick it up, same thing we used to do before the pandemic happened for New Years. We’d do it to get me out of my memories that come to the forefront at this time of year, it has always worked well to have a change of pace.

 

Secrets Part Two

Most who have been here for awhile know CB, she made a comment on the post Secrets. A comment that expands on different comments made on the WAPO article that I wrote about in the above post, and one in particular from an AP. (that was hard to explain without me ending up confused.) Anyway…

 

Secrets

Every once in a while I read the advice columns on Washington Post or in the New York Times. Today, I’m doing laundry so I went and scrolled through the columns and found this one in WAPO Ask Amy.

 

The Loss Becomes Deeper

I have spent countless hours doing my folks family trees, and my family trees, as well – the difference between the trees of my adoptive family is I can recount so many family stories I was part of, and all the stories told I wasn’t part of, and yet can tell them, because they were told, retold and talked about over the years.