Links to posts on late discovery…

From 2015

Not that I can ever imagine what a Late Discovery Adoptee (LDA) goes through, I’m sure it would break my heart and take a long time to come to any level of peace.  I’m also sure there are many future LDA’s that will find out when their parents pass away and they deal with the estate paperwork, or decide one day to innocently take a DNA test that has become such a popular tool. Why did any parent think it was proper to lie to their child, especially, when others around them know the truth. Today there are parents of adopted children who don’t want to, or intend to tell, still. To me it’s selfishness of the worst kind, setting your child up for a heart-breaking discovery down the road, all to make you feel ‘real’ and keep your secrets. I have a hard time understanding anyone who willingly chooses not to tell – how can you parent your child with such a huge lie between you?

 

Lucky

I’m one of the “lucky” adoptees from the era referred to as the Baby Scoop Era (BSE). I’m lucky for all the reasons listed below and more. I also wish I never needed to be “lucky” in the first place.

And my use of the term Lucky is not giving any non-adopted person permission to use it in regards to an adopted person.

 

Rambling thoughts after reading an article.

I stumbled across the article linked at the end of the post when I was looking for something else, so I saved the link to do a post on it that I never got around to doing, until today, and yes, I’m rambling and letting my mind go where it will. The article is from 1990, and it’s about adoption and a time before Facebook existed, it talks about how people advertised for expectant mothers to pick them.

 

Nip it in the bud if someone says it.

It isn’t okay to say “family has come out of the woodwork” when you are hoping to adopt the child you’ve been fostering.

It just isn’t.

 

Heaviness

There’s a heaviness to everything right now that weaves itself into every aspect of my life. A heaviness I haven’t felt for years. There are times when I find myself just sitting in my chair and watch my thoughts shuffle through my mind, none sticking, rather, they are gone the instant my mind randomly shuffles to the next thought. All I know is this isn’t my normal, my normal is boringly normal, not heavy, not carrying a level of fear like it is now, I haven’t had this level of fear simmering just below the surface of every waking moment since I had my health events.

 

Dear pro-life would be adopter…from 2015

(Lots of online discussion on adopting due to the recent SC nominee so it seems timely to re-up this post and hopefully make some think)

Readers know I don’t use the term ‘adopter’ lightly, and it applies only to a few out there. I read a very disturbing post today by someone with infertility, who is pro-life and also wants to adopt. I was ready to rebut her post, it felt good writing thoughts down, but it wouldn’t have done any good.  Instead, I decided to write this post, perhaps she’ll read it, or someone just like her. Perhaps it will trigger reflection, perhaps not, but I’ve tried in the kindest way I know…

She’s not ready to adopt…

 

Musing on Adoption and More

When did it become okay to treat Adoptive Parents as the enemy? Yes, they benefit from how adoption is currently practiced and many of the practices are wrong anyway you look at it, but the question remains – when did it become okay to be nasty for the sake of being nasty?

Maybe I’m just too old to understand.

Maybe the other Adoptees are right and I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m right and they are the ones who can’t see that being nasty doesn’t work.

Maybe the world changed; people changed and shaming is the only way to change anything. If that is true then we are all in a heap of trouble with no way to move into a kinder, gentler world. I hope not.

 

What adoption shouldn’t be.

Long-time adoption agencies and lawyers have been dealing with adoption for decades, nothing new there, except they now compete, co-exist with an ever expanding list of *new and improved* so-called adoption service providers who call themselves consultants, whose goal is to get you (a hopeful adoptive parent) a baby, and fast.

 

Are you a HAP hoping to adopt?

If yes, this post is for you. If you see yourself reflected below, do better, be better, because that’s not the moral standards an adoptive parent needs to have.

 

Making Choices

We make choices every day, but the values that drives those choices is what is important. I shopped at the same grocery chain for decades, even after their ownership changed, I resisted trying their competitor for more than a year. During that year I noticed older employees disappearing, new employees so young I wondered if they’d ever shopped for groceries before. Name brands disappearing, replaced with no-name products I’d never heard of before, or knew what company produced.

 

Quick thought

I think sometimes prospective and adoptive parents don’t realize that how they say something – tells the reader the person’s feelings of privilege and entitlement to adopt someone else’s baby. The quote below is in response to a comment about how birthparents should be allowed to spend time in hospital without the adopting parents there:

 

You need to respect the gravity of all that adoption is

You know what? This isn’t cute. This isn’t funny.