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A Birthmother's Perspective, by Shannon Lews

Continue reading A Birthmother's Perspective

This perspective should help us all to realize that even if the birth mother relinquishes her rights to her child, the child is still hers in her heart. She still worries and wonders if her child is safe, secure, warm, and healthy. It does not stop with the placement. Yes, she knows that the adoptive parents will do everything in their power to take care of the child that she has given them, but she also has the normal, everyday thoughts of mothers across the world. This should open up the eyes of adoptive parents and adopted children to realize that the birth mother still carries that child in her heart, even though she does not have him or her in her arms.

I agree that this piece illustrates the fact that a first mother is a real mother. However, I found myself feeling revulsion, and I think I've figured out why. I feel revolted, because this is a portrait of a woman whose mind is using a disaster as an excuse/weapon to punish herself for letting go of her child. There's no realistic worry here - only an opportunity to beat herself up.

Before we adopted our son at age five, we met with his Birth Mom, he had been in foster care since he was two. She was a young girl, she tried but she knew she could not raise him. We took our son to the last vist he would have with her until he was eighteen. I watched her suffer, i could see that it would be the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life. I was torn in two different emotions, the sad emotion watching her cry for the son she would not see agian for years. A happy emotion, it was over and we were going to adopt our son we dreamed of. I made an agreement with her before we left, I told her she could send him Birthday Presents and Christmas Presents,through the agency, he would always know they were from her. I write her every year around this time, giving her updates on his life along with alot of pictures. I did that for her, but most of all I did it for my son, i want him always to know that she let him go because she loved him,she gave him life. She thanks me in every letter for loving her son, I thank her for giving him life.

That is a sad article. Thank you for sharing.