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For adoptive parents the road to creating a forever family is often filled with bumps and hills and the occasional blind curve. There are stories of agonizing fertility issues, babies lost during pregnancy and long difficult waits during the adoption process. Unless your adoption is an open adoption, most likely the birth mother is not first and foremost in your mind. Focus is on the child that is about to be your love and your life and for good reason. But on the other end of the equation is the one person that is making your dreams a reality. A woman that maybe we feel better not thinking about. A woman that we don't necessarily question all the motives for giving up her child because most are just thankful that she did.
CNN's Robyn Curnow sat down for an emotional and personal interview with two brave woman in South Africa who had to make just that decision. While every situation is unique, most times you will find a common thread among these birth mother's who have to make the decision to give up their child. So many are just not able to care for their child either financially, emotionally or both but they are brave and strong enough to make an adoption plan for these children. It is a decision that most of us could never fathom.
Comments
What is brave about desperation and having no other choice?
These two women do not have any idea as of yet how they will truly feel once it is done, since as of now, it is only an idea...both the baby and the surrender.
CNN, IMHO, should be criticized for how this was handled by Robyn Curnow and the very - albeit unknowingly - insensitive, judgmental and cruel thing she said (that she couldn't "do it") to make one of the women leave in tears.
Mirah Riben, mother who lost a child to adoption and author
"The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry"
Advocate Publications
To think about adoption without thinking about a mother's loss is a selfish and unfair to the child you are considering parenting.
Although the current adoption system is built on lies and secrecy and falsified birth certificates that promote myths and pretend babies come from cabbage patches...the reality is that the child you might be fortunate enough to care for has a family that is his or her heritage, genetics and kin. If you cannot embrace that as part of your child, you might want to reconsider adoption.
Your child needs you to embrace and care about ALL of him, and may resent - openly or not - being treated otherwise...as a "dirty little secret."
You must accept and embrace his mothers loss and pain and his loss and separation and feelings of rejection of abandonment, despite how painful those issues are for you. It is not about you, or how much you suffered wanting a child and waiting for one.
It is important to try and see adoption from all perspectives so that one can understand, as much as possible, what the others are or may be experiencing. Compassion, empathy and understanding are key.
Thanks for sharing this.
Are you congratulating yourself for taking another woman's child (or two)?
How women like you can live with yourselves is beyond my human experience. Do you really think women who surrender have a "choice"?
In 15 or so years, you'll be on the losing side of the equation. All kids go back to their mothers.
Notice how these women are giving up their flesh and blood because they can not afford them? Then Notice that there will be $30,000 or so LESS in the adopters bank accounts? Hmmm, seems to me that $30,000 would buy a lot of food in South Africa.
These women are not going to be bad parents. They WANT their children, but have NO OTHER CHOICE (therefore it is not a choice at all) but to give thier children to strangers and HOPE that they have a goode home.
It seems to me, that if adoption was really about the CHILD, then the adopters would be helping these familes stay together instead of spending that money buying children. However, we all know that adoption is NOT about the child, but rather selfish, entitled, ADULTS that want a baby at all costs.
These children need SPONSERS, not kidnappers
Thanks Lori! It is extremely important to see all sides when considering adoption and I think the video is just a reminder of difficult decisions that go into placing a child for adoption. It's unfortunate that there are views out there regarding adoption as being some type of baby buying or selfish act, but it seems crazy to me that others would rather a child stay in an orphanage or foster care system with no hopes of adoption on the chance that a birth mother may change her/his mind in 15 years. How sad for those children. And, it's such an untruth that it is always about the money with birth parents. I can speak from experience that often times birth parents may have no desire to take care of a child even when given every opportunity. Not to mention children around the world who's birth parent(s) have died from Aids or other causes. Should they not now find a loving home and family?
NO ONE is saying that children should be forced to live in abuse, neglect, or wait in foster care for 15 years. What we have a problem with is when mothers WANT their children, they just dont know how it is possible. Children who have no capable gaurdians should have the oppurtnity to live with people who love and care for them, but for Domestic Infant, and most International adoptions (such as these) the children ALREADY HAVE parents who want them. It is EXTREMELY RARE for a mother to relinquish a child because she doesn't want the child. (And if that if the case, then she should have an abortion. What is better? Not existing and therefore not feeling, or living you entire life with the pain that your own mother wanted nothing to do with you?)
I, for one, find it utterly REPULSIVE that you think it is ok to take a child from a LOVING familiy just because you have more money than they do! And then you try to pass yourself off as some sort of selfless hero!
At no time did I say it was OK for a person to take a child from a loving family! Again, the point to show this video was to make sure all sides are considered. If anything this video could be watched by a prospective adoptive family and make sure they do know all the facts regarding the adoption. I too am repulsed but it is that you would prefer a child be killed instead of find a loving home. What an ethical platform you stand on.
Are you kidding me??? Better of dead? My 3 children are better off dead? Let's go ask them. People put way too much stock in to bloodlines. Kids join gangs looking for a 'family'.Your family is the group of people that will do what it takes to make your life better and that always care for you and have your back. People place their child because they are not in a position to parent but they choose not to kill a fetus. It can be a college student, a person without funds, without support, without the desire to be a mother, or due to loss of life of the mother. Some children are removed from the home because of issues. YOU do not have to adopt. No one asked you to. But to criticize the lives of real, beautiful, loving HUMANS and say they should never be born bc the uterus owner can't raise them is DISGUSTING.
Uterus Owner, huh? That just goes to show what you REALLY think about about your childrens mother. I would love for you to call her that in front of them and see how that makes them feel. Sounds to me like you have a superiority complex, and yet you wonder why Adoptive Parents have such a bad rap with us... (rolls eyes) You do realize that feeling superior leads to entitlement which is EXACTLY what I was talking about in my first comment.
As for putting too much stock into bloodlines, you are obviously OBLIVIOUS to the loss that an adoptee experiences, and the fact that you think that more emphasis should be put onto material possesions, rather than FAMILY, is disturbing, to say the least.
I think that we can all agree that children should stay with their family unless there is abuse, neglect, or parental death with no capable gaurdian
As for the abortion comment, YES. If your children were aborted, then they would have NO CLUE, and therefore wouldn't care one way or the other
For everyone that is anti-adoption on this thread your accusations are severely misdirected. Why are you criticizing the people that have chosen to love, cherish, nourish and provide a loving home to these children? Whatever their reason, they are doing the right thing here. Take a look at the statistics of children that are raising in orphanages (prostitution, drug addicts, etc) and you too will understand that you should the thanking these adoptive parents.
Your criticism should be directed to the leaders of the countries that allow their monies to be spent on areas other than human life! That is really the travesty in all of this.
Clueless? I have 3 adopted children. I have friends that have adopted children and friends that have placed children. The uterus owner comment was for the abortion people. They do own the uterus, they do choose the outcome of the (future) baby. The birth parents are, in many cases, handing over what feels like their heart and soul. I searched out my childrens' birth families so they could have some type of connection IF THEY SO CHOOSE IT. Oh, And I am their mother. Their REAL mother. I have a birth child and adopted children. The only difference a mother notices between a birth child she raises and an adoptive child she raises is that when you adopt it doesn't burn to pee for a few weeks. We cannot adopt without birth mothers. They deserve our respect, admiration, and empathy. As for your material comments, superiority comments,and other ignorant crap-- You are the one with the superiority issue, you think you choose who lives and dies. Can't understand your hate for adopted children.
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