By the Not so Cheerio...

This is a post, from a firstmom on a forum I frequent. I wanted to make sure her post was salvaged (just in case it gets removed, or even if it just simply finds its way down the pages and never is seen again)...
PLEASE read this, and PLEASE keep it close to your heart... If there was a way we could make agencies CHANGE things, I would sign my name any day! This is just not fair, and should NEVER happen :(
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*copied and pasted w/ permission*~~~~~~

For those who might remember me, this is where I am in this botched adoption journey. It might be my last post. It might get edited and/or removed.

Every year around his birthday - since the aparents cut off sending pictures, I struggle more than usual, reflect, ask a bizillion questions, and I search the www for more to read --- hoping to find help.


While searching I found some sites that made me uncomfortable because they felt angry. I don't want to become bitter, I'm trying to find a way to get rid of the anger. Trying to find how to forgive when there is no closure.

But I also found some sites that seem to express how I feel ...one in particular has a statement of 'healing families dismembered by adoption'.
Yes, that is how I feel, totally.

I found articles on how adoption is a billion dollar industry.
Industry. Not a ministry. I don't care if 'christian' is in the middle of the adopt agency name! It's an industry - that's why the one branch that treats natural mothers so awful (yes, where my adoption was botched), and the home office doesn't do anything about it. Because that branch makes $$$$ - moolah! It's all about the bottom line! Get those babies any way you can - no matter how much deceit and lies it takes to dupe the natural mom! Apparently that office is very very good at it.

I found articles on offering financial help to potential aparents.
What? Isn't a primary reason natural mom's even consider adoption, is because of financial security? So, let's spend money ripping families apart, instead of keeping them together, so babies can be placed in financially insecure homes.

I found articles that mention that 80% -
that is EIGHTY % of open and semi-open adoptions are closed.
THAT is pathetic! Darn tootin that my 'counselor' at the time I was carrying did not metnion that to me. No way.
I remember very clearly stating that I would ONLY choose adoption - IF,
IF - IF I would get pictures and update every year. Hmmm, nice of the 'agency' to tell aparents they only had to send them for first 5 years.
Then SLAM - the door is CLOSED - and I'm just a statistic.

I read part of a book for healing for natural moms - there was a 'as if story'. Suppose there was a plane crash - and there were women and babies and mothers. The babies were given to women who did not previously have a baby, and they were told to go on in life 'as if' it was her baby. The babies were told to go on in life ' as if' it was their natural mother. The mother's were told to go on in life 'as if' she never had a baby. The point of the chapter was pointing out that adoption is not based from truths.

This next part was the straw ...it was not an article I read. It from someone I know. A baby boy adopted by two homosexual women.
Tell me how that was in the best interest of the child?


So, this is where not so Cheerio is now in her journey -
grieving like mad
missing my son. I just want to see his face.

I am going to find whatever outlet I can to stand against adoption.
I'm not swinging to pro-abortion, but definitely anti-adoption.
For instance there is a pregnancy center in a county nearby, that does not promote adoption. They promote - yes, you can raise your baby! Here let us help you get the tools you need to do it.
That is what I can agree with.

Do I have regret? Let me put it a different way -
If I knew then what I knew now? would I have made the same choice.
Well, considering that when he was in my womb, THEN I knew I could not live without seeing his face ... NOW knowing that they won't send more pictures. NO I would NOT have made the same choice! (gee i wonder if that's why the counselor accidentally? did not point out the 80% statistic).
If I would have known that the afamily could close the adoption - NO I would NOT have let them have him! If I had known that the 'agency' was just an industry, I would have sought real counsel from another source.

Speaking of counsel - here are the three things forefront of my memory of when I was pregnant and deciding.
The agency sent an intern.
An intern. You don't send an intern to do work that would destroy someone's life!!!
Another thought that keeps coming to mind was that I was told repeatedly "it's ok to be selfish". I guess they honestly feel that way at the agency, because they definitely are.
The third thing that reverberates through my memory was the topic of punishment. "you made a mistake. is it really fair for you to be punished for the rest of your life for that one mistake?" wow, and I thought the mistake was getting pregnant - no, the mistake was releasing for adoption, and guess what it is a punishment that sometimes feels so heavy I can barely stand it.
No, If I had known then what I know now, he would be here with his natural mother and natural father.

But the fact is that I did not know those things at that time.
And now I have to find a way to live with this seeping wound in my soul.
I cry, I ache, I grieve w/out closure.
I go on each day, putting on a smile on - but that's not what is inside.
I'm weighed down, as if I'm wearing a cloak of iron.

- not so cheerio