Happy Birth Mother's Day

Today is the second Saturday in May. While everyone will be celebrating Mother's Day tomorrow, some will be celebrating Birth Mother's Day today. Any adult adoptee knows that it took two mothers to nurture them into the person they are today. There is no competition and no comparing. They each have a major role in shaping one life. Birth mothers don't get much recognition. They seem to fade away after giving birth and placing a child in another woman's arms. It is a thankless job. But that's motherhood, isn't it? Mother's Day can bring sadness to those who aren't recognized for their own motherhood, no matter what type of mother they are -- birth mother, adoptive mother, or just plain mother.

As women, we should understand that any motherhood is worthy of recognition and celebrate it. Carrying a baby is hard. Giving birth is hard. Raising a child is hard. Motherhood is not for the weak-hearted. Every part of motherhood takes strength. There is joy, but there is also heartache. A priest once told me "Love equals sacrifice". Motherhood is the highest form of love, so it makes sense that it's also the highest form of sacrifice. I can't really think of any greater sacrifice than relinquishing a child and entrusting that child to someone else for a lifetime. If you are a mother, you understand this. If not, when you become a mother you will.

If you know a birth mother, celebrate her and recognize her sacrifice today -- and tomorrow too.

Searching for birth families

Listening to a podcast called "Journeys to Motherhood" by Barbara Winters, I smiled when I heard that a 70 year old adoptee had recently found his 90 year old birth mother. What are the odds of that? Adoptees have always searched. It's important to know who we are and we all want information about our past. Why should adoptees be any different? Background information, for adoptees, is much harder to come by. In years past, closed adoption was the norm. Getting information from closed adoption files was similar to a CIA operation. Fort Knox is less protected than some of these adoption records. In recent years, though, open adoption has become the norm and many states have opened the records. Bastard Nation -- an organization dedicated to the civil and human rights of adoptees -- has worked to change the laws state by state so that adoptees can have access to who they are and where they came from. Shouldn't everyone have access to that information? I've heard the arguments that back in the day birth mothers were promised that their records would never be unsealed. It seems to me, from the conversations I've shared with birth mothers, that most of those adoptions were sealed to keep information from the birth mothers. It wasn't necessarily the birth mother's request to have the file closed. Once upon a time, if you placed your child for adoption, your rights were severed just as totally as if you had put your arm in a wood chipper, never to be recovered. The nurse whisked away the baby after you labored to give birth and you weren't even allowed a peek at the newborn. Never mind saying goodbye. This seems like cruel and unusual punishment and the birth mother never even got a trial. It wasn't until I listened to a presentation by an adoptee who was trying to get the legislature in Tennessee to open the records that the denials by congressmen of what seemed to be reasonable requests on behalf of adoptees began to make sense. It seems logical now. Congressmen tend to be away from home a lot, either in the state capitals or the federal capital. How often do we hear about congressmen having affairs or mistresses, like the recent disclosures of John Edwards? It makes sense, then, that it would be a difficult, if not impossible, task to get the states legislatures to vote to open the records of adoptees. The adoptees get peace of mind, but what do the congressmen get? They get found out. Interesting how the whole process comes full circle.