Dear Martin,
Today started like every other day: I got up, fed my two daughters breakfast, and began to attempt to pick up around the house. I sent a text to my husband. I yelled at the dog. I tried to keep the kids entertained since we were trapped in the house thanks to a steady downpour. I fixed lunch. I put the baby down for a nap. I cleaned a little more and began to prep chicken for dinner.
And I thought about the daughter that I lost to adoption 4,084 days ago -- You.
I was not the same person 11 years (and 2 months and 5 days) ago as I am now. I was not in a good place. I had run from a bad relationship and placed two-day-old you into what was SUPPOSED to be an "open adoption." I was broke, unwed, and young. Well, I was 22, but I still felt too immature to take on the responsibility of another life -- I couldn't get my own life together as it was.
So I trusted a dreaded "Christian" crisis pregnancy center for help. And I chose a couple through them. And I bought into the lies. And 11 years, 2 months, and 3 days ago I signed you away... and was thus shunted aside by the agency.
Now all I can do is wait. Wait until June 11, 2017 when I can legally contact you.
The good news: the wait is half over. The bad news: there's still another 6 years of waiting. Two thousand, four hundred and ninety more days to be exact. This waiting game, this "do as the adopters say and they'll toss you a photo every 18 months or so" bullshit, is excruciating. Thus, I have decided to start keeping a record of my daily musings for you, Martin, in hopes that you will one day read them and understand a little better.
And I hope that these rambling thoughts will be able to help someone either keep their baby, or help them get a legally binding contract should they choose adoption for their child.
I suppose for this all to make sense, though, I should start from the beginning. The following was sent to an old friend when they asked about my adoption story. It's a very long story made short and will hopefully help you and others come to understand how I came to sit here today with only two of my three daughters sleeping comfortably under my roof.
(Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of all involved.)
I got involved with this man named James in October 1994. He was older than I was but he was wonderful. It took a year for his asshole side to surface. Fast forward through 4 tumultous years to Fall 1998 when I found myself pregnant.
I hid it because I knew that he'd want me to kill it. But abortions were only legal in South Carolina until 16 weeks. When he found out, however, he was adament that the baby would not be born. So, after quite a bit of fighting and a lot of tears, I agreed to an abortion.
The morning of Jan. 22, 1999 found me driving myself to Charlotte, N.C. for an abortion at The Hallmark Clinic (now defunct). I saw the 19-week-gestation baby on the ultrasound, heard her heartbeat... and I couldn’t do it. I voiced my opinion to the doctor, got a partial refund, and left.
When I returned home, I looked up “Abortion Alternatives” in the yellow pages. I called the first name on the list -- Bethany Christian Services. I met with a counselor there the next day. The agency sent me to a local doctor for a check up to ensure that both the baby and I were OK. Then they began to pitch adoption.
I hadn’t approached the agency with the idea of adoption. I had called them to help me get out of the abusive relationship and on my feet so that I could prepare for a baby. I was immediately cited rates (and the stigma) of poverty among single mothers. Then they talked about how wonderful open adoption was, how I’d get to see the child grow and thrive but not be responsible for its well-being.
Once I’d been sold on the idea, I was taken to the local Department of Social Services and placed on OCWI – Medicaid coverage for pregnant women.
Yes, you read that right. The tax payers of South Carolina paid for my prenatal care, the birth, and hospital stay for the baby and me. NOT the adoptive couple nor the adoption agency. (Let's face it -- Bethany is an adoption agency. They are not there to help keep families together. They are in business to tear them apart.)
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| My first South Carolina Medicaid card. The taxpayers of South Carolina paid for my prenatal care and for the birth of a baby that Bethany sold. If I had kept this baby this would have been considered welfare. But since I "gave it away," that's OK. It's not considered welfare for the adopters because, well, they're adopters and thus mini-Gods in the eyes of society. I received a card like this every month until the policy expired a year later. |
Between then and late March 1999, I met with the counselors at the agency and planned to move to Myrtle Beach to finish the pregnancy away from James. I was appreciative of that, though, since he had become more and more resistant to the idea that the child would survive. Plus, I didn’t want my father to know because he would be heartbroken that I was going to give the child up.
At each meeting, adoption was trumped as the most glorious choice; I was treated like a saint. Oh, the attention and praise that was lavished upon me for choosing not only to give this child life, but for giving it a "way to live it!"
I moved in with the Foster family on April 12, 1999. The day after I arrived, the family received news that Mr. Foster’s brother in Arkansas had been killed in a car wreck, leaving behind his pregnant wife and four children. (She delivered her fifth child two days after I had mine. I’ve often wondered why she wasn’t encouraged to place her newborn for adoption since she, too, was now a single mother.) Anyway, the family left and went to Arkansas for two weeks leaving me behind, not knowing a soul or having a way to travel.
But the was nothing to how bad things were when they returned. Seriously, my time there was utterly depressing.
Life with the Foster family is an entire post all its own – from my faith being demonized to my thoughts of parenting the child alone being scorned... but I’ll spare you those details for now.
Then there was my Bethany "counselor" – Gina. Oh, she was nice enough and personable, but she was a freaking lousy counselor. Our meetings pretty much consisted of us going out to eat on Bethany’s tab and talking about her other cases and how my baby was “highly adoptable” since I knew who the father was and that he was more than willing to sign over his rights, too. Oh, there were days when I would sit in the office and fill out paperwork while Gina did other things, but I was never, ever properly counseled on what to expect when the baby was born on in the days and months following the adoption.
And I was never told that the child’s adoption would not be open as they'd promised in everything from their ads, brochures, and their in-person talks about "adoption plans."
I got to look through a huge binder of potential adopters -- think of a Christmas catalog from Sears. Each couple was trying their damnedest to get a pregnant woman to choose them. Their profiles showed pictures of happy couples in various places -- on vacation at Disney World, in the middle of a group a church, in front of their nice, big house. They'd each written a "dear birthmother" letter telling you all about them, their education, their Christian lifestyles, and about how family-oriented they were. Each couple was competing for a hard-to-get prize: a healthy, newborn baby.
I chose a couple, met them, and really did like them. I naively thought that we had connected. I had them attend my final OB appointment during which time they got to view an ultrasound of the baby. They were in the delivery room, too. The adoptive father even cut the umbilical cord.
I named her Elizabeth.
Then reality set in. I found out in the hospital that I would NOT be getting identifying information on the couple. Let's call them Maria and Edgar. All correspondences between them and I would be filtered through the agency, and that the couple were only required to send monthly updates for a year. I was crushed. That is NOT an open adoption.
For nearly 24 hours after Elizabeth’s birth, I didn’t sleep and I didn’t eat. I just held her, crying over the fact that I had to give her up. I contemplated keeping her, even going so far as to call the Foster’s to ask them to help me out. Mrs. Foster told me that she would not allow it and Mr. Foster railed me for thinking about keeping the baby, going so far as to say, “What do you have to offer this child? A life on welfare? Being raised by its grandfather?”
After a long crying spell, my nurse called Gina, telling her that I was having some problems and that Bethany should start making arrangements to help me out. (I have my hospital records, complete with nurse’s notes.) I had nothing for a child – no clothing, diapers, car seat … nothing. And, according to the Foster’s, no place to go if I kept the baby.
Gina came to the hospital, but not to counsel me. She brought Maria and Edgar, sobbing, to my bedside. She also told me that if I left the hospital with the baby, that I’d lose it anyway since I would be on foot and homeless -- it would be taken by child protective services. Gina was never there to help me, she was there to obtain a baby for Bethany.
I wrote the following in my journal that night:
“Saturday, June 12, 1999: Today was hard. I don’t know if I can go through with this! I love this baby so much already. I’ve been crying all day. I am sure that the nurses think that I am crazy. Oh, I know that she is much better off with Maria and Edgar, but I can’t help feeling this urge to take my baby home... The nurse called Gina. And Gina brought Maria and Edgar to my room tonight. They were crying and scared. I felt awful for putting them through this. They deserve her more than I ever did. ... I have nothing to offer her. Nothing. I have nothing to offer anyone, I guess. Tomorrow, at 8 a.m., I have to sign her away forever. I am going to put this away now since my time with Elizabeth is limited, the minutes ticking away like water in my cupped hands. – no matter how hard I try to stop the ebbing flow, the faster it goes.
So, until tomorrow, I remain lonely and broken hearted."
I was up all night again. Sunday morning found me in a daze – I hadn’t slept in nearly 48 hours and my eyelids were swollen from crying almost nonstop the entire time. I signed the papers from my hospital bed while holding my daughter. Once they were signed, Bethany rushed me out of the hospital without even getting me discharged. Elizabeth was named Martin and I went from being a “saint” to being persona non grata.
I spent the last money I had on a one-way bus ticket back home. Bethany wouldn’t help me get back home and they never had the time to counsel me once I got there.
My story is referred to in an article done by a friend of a friend last year. (Kathryn’s article ran in a seemingly pro-abortion paper, but the story is still true. http://www.thenation.com/article/shotgun-adoption).
Since then, I’ve gotten outside counseling and started a new life. I have found peace with my decisions, but I cannot say that they were 100% mine. And I am not alone. I have met so many “Bethany mothers” and the story is always the same. Coercion is the way they obtain babies. And it’s completely legal and BINDING in South Carolina. To this day, I cannot stomach even seeing the Bethany logo.
I actually found the adopters back in Dec. 1999. (They actually live less than 10 minutes from me right now.) They have known that I know who and where they are since then. They even know that we have friends in common. (One of my good friends is the Martin’s voice teacher!) Yet, they refuse to even consider opening the adoption. I've never harassed them, gone to their house or church, or otherwise interfered in their lives. We've kept loose contact through the dreaded baby mill, but it's such a slap in the face to see a letter that has been forwarded to Bethany then to me when Maria could have just sent the damned letter to me directly and saved a lot of time, gas, and money.
I do understand Maria and Edgar's allegiance to Bethany, but I wish they’d see things from my point of view. The only thing that I’ve ever asked of them is for direct contact. I have tried to find a way to express to them my deep gratitude for everything they did for Martin when I could not, as well as my ability to be trusted.
Yet, they resist.
I have even been told by one mutual friend (one which Maria does not know we share) that "Maria knows what happened to you... she's just not empathetic." These mutual friends always make a point to tell me what a wonderful, kind-hearted person she is, that she's overprotective, but that she's not trying to be hurtful. Whatever.
Maria and Edgar have a second child that they adopted through Bethany, this one born October 11, 2001. And I often wonder about this other first mother. Do they treat her just as badly? Does she know as much about her son's adopters I as do? Is she being shut out, too.
