Should APs be there for the birth?

I think not. Ever.

No woman can predict 100% how she will feel about her child once it's no longer part of her body, when she can gaze and marvel and bond in a completely different way.

Every woman should have the privacy and opportunity to reconsider. To change her mind; or not. To weep with joy at the first true understanding of what it means to be a mother. To realize that this is what she wants after all, and that she is enough and that she will find a way to make it work.

Or to grieve a separation she believes she must make and will make and will live with for the rest of her life. To kiss the perfect lips, the feathery brows, the everything everywhere every inch while she can. To memorize the face that she may never see again, that will never look the same again.

Our son's first mom asked me to be in the delivery room with her. She went into labor earlier than expected, and by the time I got there she was already pushing. Her father kept urging me to go in, but I couldn't. A nurse offered to escort me in, but I couldn't.

I pressed my forehead and palms to the door and listened. I heard. I heard her bring him into the world. I heard his first cry.

I will always have that, and it is more than enough. It's more than she has of him, and she was his mom before I was.


Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.

Sally Bacchetta - Freelance Writer
The Adoptive Parent
Freelance Writer

Best-selling Adoption Book on Sale (Kindle)

The Amazon Kindle e-book version of What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective is available for just $2.99 during the month of November.

Sally

Frozen (adoption-style)

I wrote this post sometime this past spring, and I didn't post it until now because I've been... well, frozen.

I've been frozen for too long. Frozen because any movement is risky. Frozen because most everything I see and hear and read and feel in Adoptoland makes sense enough until I move in any direction. The slightest shift springs a crack that splits into 2, then 4, then 8, which spread like a spider army marching, marching, marching in all directions at once, until everything cracks and nothing bears weight and I'm drowning once again. I'm bone weary of talking about adoption.

I stay out of the adoption cybersphere for months, and then on a brisk, sunny day in early spring I'm pulled back in by Claudia's piece about Gaslighting. I love reading Claudia's thoughts. And I'm jealous. Jealous because the whole world gets to know what Claudia thinks and feels, and I don't get to know squat about my kids' first moms. Oh sure, I know demographic details, I know superficial things about them and their families, but I don't know anything that matters. I don't know how they feel when they look at the pictures we send. I don't know what blogs they read. I don't know if they're planting a garden, taking a class, resenting me...  I know more what strangers think and feel than I do my own kids' first moms. That's messed up. Frozen.

Casey's Story

When John Brooks first emailed me I didn't respond. I read his request to share his family's story here, and for a while, I just did nothing. It's summer vacation, and my kids and I are living the life with trail hikes and fresh berries, fireflies and flying kites, we're painting rocks and rocking out in our wading pool air band, and it's nothing about adoption or adoptive parenting or having been adopted, and then here's this stranger... this, this father... and I know he's trying to help other people heal, but his experience as an adoptive parent was (thankfully) very different from my own. It's awfully sad, and I think about how each time I slip down the slope it takes more out of me, and I'm afraid one of these times I won't be able to climb back up, so I don't write back. 


But his story tugs like a plaintive child. And I think of Myst and Von and Christina and Amanda and Linda Lou Who and Ariel and Jeni and other people who reveal adoption's disturbing underbelly... and the children I know who were adopted from orphanages. And Casey. So here it is: Casey's Story by guest blogger John Brooks, with gratitude to him for reaching out and telling it.  


Casey's Story

Ours was a familiar story. My wife, Erika, and I turned to adoption in 1991. We thought surely there were millions of babies out there in need of two loving people desperate to be parents. Then we learned about the realities of adoption. A foreign adoption seemed our best bet, but options were limited then. To improve our chances, we’d need to be open to an “older” or “special needs” child. This was not how we envisioned starting a family, but we wanted to be parents.

A chance encounter with another adoptive family steered us to an adoption attorney in Warsaw, Poland. Erika was of Polish descent and spoke the language. Maybe this was our chance. In a late night phone call to Warsaw from our home in Connecticut, the attorney was sympathetic but discouraging. She had a long backlog of clients and available children were scarce. What about an “older” or “special needs” child, Erika asked. It was then that we first heard about a fourteen-month-old girl in a rural orphanage. In a matter of five short months, we’d rushed through home studies and background checks before boarding a LOT flight to Poland to receive our daughter, who we’d named Casey. It was nothing less than a miracle.

Casey was an unwanted pregnancy, a three-pound preemie whose twin sister had been stillborn. She went straight from the delivery room to an incubator to an orphanage in Mrągowo in Poland’s northern lake district. At fourteen months, she was withdrawn, listless, unable to sit, crawl or feed herself. Medical records were scant. But to us she was perfect; nothing that two able bodied Americans couldn’t fix with love.

Indeed in the years that followed, it seemed that a loving home was all Casey needed. We moved from Connecticut to the San Francisco Bay Area where she transformed into a bright, spirited, charming little girl. 

 But in the privacy of our home, things were often different - violent tantrums, crying jags, defiance. We looked for answers from friends, pediatricians, therapists, counselors and pastors, but were assured repeatedly that Casey was just high-strung; she’d grow out of it. In the meantime, we had to be tough with her. Though fully aware of her abandonment and adoption, the professionals never explored the matter.

At seventeen, Casey gained early admission to Bennington College in Vermont with a bright future ahead. She wanted to make a difference in the world.

But she never made it.

Just five months shy of her high school graduation, she took the keys to our car, drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped.

Drowning in grief, I looked for answers. How could this have happened? What did everyone miss? What could we have done differently? I went to the library and scoured the Internet for everything I could find on adoption, something I’d never thought to do before. I learned about attachment disorders that can have a devastating effect on orphaned children. It explained everything – the angel at school and the tyrant at home, the tantrums, crying jags, low self-esteem and defiance, things that she kept carefully hidden behind a suit of armor from parents, therapists and friends. 

 How could everyone have been so blind?

I connected with other parents of children adopted from foreign orphanages and heard similar stories. Some stumbled onto appropriate treatments whereas others, like us, were left in the dark. Adoption and attachment experts shared with me the therapies and parenting techniques that have proven effective in dealing with the unique emotional needs of orphaned children. This information was in the public domain, yet everyone involved in Casey’s short life missed it.

I can’t have another Casey, a do-over. She was one of a kind. But regardless of the tragic outcome, I’ll always consider myself the luckiest guy in the world to have been her dad for sixteen of her seventeen years. 

 

From her death we learned that adoptees can be exposed to disorders that are still misunderstood by many professionals. Not every adoptee has attachment issues, but for those who do, treatment can be illusive.

Other adoptive parents who may struggle with what we did can use our story as a learning experience. Acknowledge your child’s loss, parent her in a way that may not be intuitive to you, get her the right kind of help. Just “loving her enough” may not be enough.

Hopefully, that will save a precious life.

About the Author

John Brooks is a former senior media financial executive who has turned to writing, suicide and adoption advocacy since Casey’s death in 2008. He recently completed a memoir about his experience as an adoptive father and his journey to understand his daughter’s suicide, titled The Girl Behind The Door: My Journey Into The Mysteries Of Attachment. He also writes a blog, Parenting and Attachment. 

Sally

Please Read Ariel's Blog

If you haven't found Ariel's blog yet, please go there today. Her voice is essential to the adoption conversation.

She writes: Even all these months later, it doesn’t take a lot for grief to overpower me. I don’t know how to think about him, this little person that I can’t bring myself to address anymore, and not have it ruin my day. I’m starting to think that a blog is not enough as an outlet. I hoped it could be enough, but it has also enabled me in ignoring my feelings and never talking about him in real life, which doesn’t lend well to my sanity. But I can’t do anything else, not when everyone else is completely fine with the omissions, and I am literally the only one who notices a big hole everywhere.

Adoptive parents, we need to listen... 

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Open & Closed

The following is a revised version of something I posted three years ago. My understanding of and perspective on adoption continues to evolve. I hope it always will.

To spend any time in the adoption cyber-community is to be convinced that first parents (almost) always want more openness than adoptive parents. The majority of blogging first mothers and fathers are eager, sometimes desperate, for more contact, and they’re simply waiting, impatiently waiting, painfully waiting for inclusion by the adoptive parents.

Many of the most vocal adoptees are either craving a deeper connection with their first families or mourning the realization that such a connection is erratic, inconsistent, unexpectedly toxic, ultimately unfulfilling, or will never be at all.

I can relate. Boy, can I relate. Most days I want more from my children’s first families. Most days I starve for information, details, history, stories, updates, and contact. I want responses to my emails. I want emails that aren't just responses to mine. I want pictures of you as a baby, as a child, of you pregnant, of you holding your baby, and as you are now. I want continuity that I don't have, that my kids don't have, that only you can provide.

And yet, I hesitate. I don't ask for what I want. I keep hoping you will read my mind and feel the same and know how to do this relationship better than I do. 

Most days I'm uncertain. Have I asked for too much? Have I asked too soon? Have I gone too far, crossed a line, rattled a cage, cut a tightrope, popped a bubble? Did I step on a crack?

What happens next? And when is next? Is it now? Why isn't it now?

Is this it? Is this all there will be? Is this enough for you? How will I know?

I'm afraid to ask for more because I'm afraid you'll say no, afraid you'll walk away, afraid of what I'll find. I'm afraid that after everything you've given, you'll give even more. For her. At your own expense. Because you don't want to say no. Because you don't want to be "that way." Because you love her.

Was it something I said?

Are you coming back?

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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13 "Scary" (for me) Adoption Bloggers I Love

2012 has been a difficult year for me with regard to adoption. I have felt a lot like my almost-eight year-old, whose assessment of the world changes all the time and seems to depend mostly on what kind of day she’s having. I am almost eight years-old as a parent  – adoptive parenting, specifically – and my understanding and experience of adoption changes all the time, sometimes depending on what kind of day I’m having and sometimes depending on what kind of day someone else is having.  

Citizens of Adoptoland often talk about their Truth. This year I struggled to recognize mine. Not the core, but all the rest of it that surrounds the core and colors my days. I struggled with this because Truth doesn’t live in a vacuum; it lives in context, and in this case, the context is Adoptoland, where the terrain is well defined. Where the (battle) lines are so clearly drawn, the teams so fervently distinct, and the opinions so passionately defended that it seems nearly impossible to accept one Truth without rejecting another, to support someone without injuring someone else. To embrace my Truth without denying someone else’s.

I lost my Truth because I forgot I never had one to begin with. Not one. My Truth is many. And the many often don’t get along and they almost never make sense together. My Truth is disorderly, disjointed, and disharmonious. That’s just how it is.

I am an adoptive parent doing my best and finding my way.

I love my children. I love their first families.

I read things about adoption that I don’t understand and can’t relate to; I read things that make me want to turn away; I read things that haunt me, things that make me laugh, things that give me hope.

I sometimes write things other people don’t understand and can’t relate to. I sometimes write things that make people angry or defensive or relieved.

Some days I hate adoption and wish it would go away. Some days I don’t.

That is MyTruth.

One of my 2013 resolutions is to highlight 13 of the people whose Truth challenges me, for theirs are the voices that shake and unsettle me, and their Truths help shape my own. I'm calling it 13 "Scary" (for me) Adoption Bloggers I Love, not because they themselves are "scary," but because I am sometimes scared by their Truth. (If you plan to make a big hairy deal of how I titled this post, please spare me. This is my Truth. Remember?)

Since I’m aiming to do one a month and there are only 12 months in a year, I’m starting a few days early with Claudia. Claudia writes often and shares her truth plainly. She and I came to adoption from different places, and I am scared spitless by some of her posts and deeply hurt by others. I also have a deeper appreciation for Claudia  and her Truth than I expect anyone to understand.

Claudia’s blog is Musings of the Lame.

I especially hope you will read her REAL Truth About Adoption Campaign

and 29Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered My Life  posts. I would like to know how you are affected by her words.

Best wishes for all of us in 2013!

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Is it (Ever) OK to Complain About the Expense of Adoption?

One of the comments on my previous post (Open Letter to Prospective Adoptive Parents [PAPs]) was this, from Reagan and Trevor's Mommy:

I have to defend the talking about expense discussions. It is a common complaint for most everything related to infertility. Most of the expense complaints I hear and my personal expense complaint have everything to do with how unfair it is that infertiles typically have to spend crazy amounts of money to become parents and it is a bitter pill to swallow. It is unfair and deserves to be acknowledged whether it be the expense of IVF or the expense of adoption.

I've been thinking about her comments and asking myself, "Is it OK to complain about the expense of adoption?" I still say no. For the most part. And here are my Top 10 reasons why (in random order):

1. It's insensitive. A parent who places a child for adoption faces incomprehensible losses for the rest of their life. You can make more money. They can't re-make the child they lose.

2. It's crass. 'Nuff said.

3. It positions your child as a commodity. There are plenty of people in the business of adoption who see your child as a commodity. You shouldn't be one of them.

4. It's not anyone else's problem. It's not. Life is hard. Infertility is devastating. The costs of adoption are prohibitive and ridiculous. I get it. I do. But it's not anyone else's problem.

5. It smacks of entitlement. Any complaint about the cost of adoption implies that it should cost less or be free. Why? Because you want it? Because you need to save your money for something else? Because you'd be a great parent, but you can't afford to adopt? Again, I get it. But we're not entitled to anything.

6. It breeds resentment. Between expectant mothers and potential adoptive parents, between adoptive parents and first parents, between friends, etc.

7. It's not anyone else's problem. See #4.

8. It's a waste of time. When women started fighting back against the barbarism of the Baby Scoop Era, someone figured out other ways to exploit adoption and make it profitable. Unless and until large numbers of adoptive parents and PAPs seriously join the fight to reform adoption, complaining about the costs is a waste of time.

9. Someday your child may read your words. Can you imagine how they would feel?

10. It's a distraction. When you're a PAP, the wait is bone-deep agonizing. Every baby shower invitation and announcement of a friend's pregnancy is like a telephone pole being driven through your gut. I remember. Money is a convenient lightning rod for anguish, anxiety, fear, and frustration. But complaining about money is a distraction from more important things like getting to know some first parents, adoptive parents and adoptees and talking to them and reading their blogs to learn how adoption has impacted them (both positively and negatively) throughout their lives. Like researching the history of adoption and getting involved with adoption reform. Like volunteering with organizations that offer support to expectant mothers and mothers who need help to be able to raise their child/ren.

All that being said, it is financially expensive to adopt a child, and of course, PAPs need to talk about the cost. But those conversations should be kept private. Complain and fret to each other over breakfast. Unload your financial frustrations to your social worker or attorney. For crying out loud, keep it out of cyberspace. Please. It diminishes everyone.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Adoptive Parents: What You Need to Know About the Adoption Tax Credit

Tax time is getting closer, and can't we all use some good news about our taxes? The Adoption Tax Credit is definitely good news for adoptive parents. If you are an adoptive parent, you may be eligible for a refundable tax credit of up to $13,360. This article outlines what you need to know about the adoption tax credit.
Continue reading on Examiner.com...

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Open Letter to Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs)

I posted this a few years ago, but what I've read online in the last week compels me to run it again (with minor edits).

Dear Prospective Adoptive Parent,

Today I came across yet another blog of a prospective adoptive couple using their blog to chronicle their "journey to adoption". Sadly, it read more like an online tantrum.

We've spent a fortune already and we still don't have a baby.

We were matched with a birth mother last year who changed her mind after she gave birth and she refused to follow through. I'm still angry about that!

Everything was set until the birth father got involved and that was the end of it. He was uninvolved for the whole pregnancy and then decided to care after we made an agreement with the birth mother. It's not fair!

I'm an adoptive parent myself. I understand the agony of infertility and the gut-wrenching uncertainty, anxiety, and helplessness of the adoptive process. And I understand using your blog as a release valve; I often do the same thing. However, (deep breath), I don't understand the attitude of entitlement.
I don't understand your resentment toward parents who ultimately decide to raise the children they themselves create (How dare they?).
I don't understand how you don't understand that some of the language you use is crass and base and incredibly insensitive.
I don't understand how you think you will love a child as children need to be loved when you seem to have such a low opinion of parents who place.

Certainly, you can use whatever language you choose; it's your blog. But when I read the words below on an AP/PAP blog... it scares me. Seriously. I'm NOT suggesting you deny your feelings or just grin and bear it. You need the support of people who know what you're going through.

What I am suggesting is that if you're working so hard to become a parent perhaps you should work harder on understanding the totality of the adoption experience - the totality of your future child's history - and expressing your feelings with more sensitivity to birth families, adoptees, and other APs and PAPs.

Words to look out for:

1. Any words that refer to the cost of adoption. I know birth mothers who would give everything they have, including body parts, to be able to raise their children or to have contact with the children they placed for adoption. These women paid dearly for their decisions, and you're crabbing about what it costs you? You can choose to adopt privately or from foster care if you can't or don't want to pay adoption agency fees. Unless you're discussing ethics and the need for adoption reform, complaining about money is tacky and insensitive.

2. "Deal", "promise", or "agreement" as in "We made a deal with a birth mother but she changed her mind," or "She promised to let us witness the birth," or "She violated our agreement." I'm not even sure where to start with this one. You made a deal? She made a child. She has the right and obligation to make the best decisions she can on her child's behalf, regardless of what plans she may have made earlier in her pregnancy. Hormones, denial, stress, support resources, health... things change rapidly during pregnancy. Most parents waffle for months over what to name the baby, what color to paint the nursery, and whether or not to introduce a pacifier. Please, show some respect for one of the most important decisions parents can make.

3. "Lie", "deceive", or "manipulate." Even if it's true. Even if you can prove it. Even if it hurts a lot. Assume that it was unintentional. Assume she did the best she could under the circumstances. Assume your future child will read your words someday and form opinions about you because of it.

4. "Our" as in "our birth mother" or "our baby." They're not.

5. "Want." Of course you want a child. I get that. But what you want is still a part of another woman's body. That's pretty heavy.

6. "Hero." Birth parents aren't heroes. They make the decision to place because they think it's best for their baby or for themselves, not for you. It's not about you. It wasn't about me, either. It's not about making an infertile couple's dreams come true. It's not about being a hero.

7. "Deserve." You don't deserve children any more than I do. No one does. It's not a birth mother's responsibility to provide you with a child. She's not a breeding sow.

8. "Pray." Please, please, please don't ask people to pray that a birth mother "makes the right decision and gives us her baby" or anything along that line. Do you believe that God would rip a woman apart mind, body and spirit in order to answer your prayer? I'll pray with you for grace and patience. I'll pray with you for peace. I'll pray with you for a birth mother's strength and clarity. And I'll pray with you for everyone's health. Please don't ask people to pray for you to get what you want at the expense of someone else. Is that what you're going to teach your child to do?

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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One Down, One to Go?

I took the kids sledding last week, and we had a great time until I got plowed down by a teenager on an out-of-control snow tube. I mean plowed down. Tossed like a rag doll-lost a boot in mid air- struck my head on landing. I got CLOCKED!

As I lay on the snow I thought, "I hit my head. Hard. I can't get up."

Then I became aware of crying and my daughter's voice. "Get up, Mommy. Mommy, get up! Get up!!" But I couldn't get up. It was more than a full minute before I could even speak to let her know I heard her, and the impact that had on her will haunt me for a very long time.

At first terrified, she became angry - really angry - when I finally got up. She broke down sobbing, "I thought you were killed! I thought I was going to be without a mother forever! How could I grow up without a mother? You can't leave me like that!"

And in that moment, I didn't care about anyone's "expert" opinion. Adoption is a loss. It is. I know she was talking about me, but I also know that the loss of her first mother waits somewhere inside her. And even if she isn't aware of that loss yet, I am. And the thought of her losing two mothers brings me to my knees.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Good Old What's His Name

Our family speaks frankly about adoption. So much so that our kids assume adoption is part of everyone's birth story, which is either funny or tragic, depending on your own experiences.

I'm pained to realize that in all of our formal discussions and impromptu conversations and off-hand mentions of adoption, we've barely talked about their birth fathers. We just don't know much about them.

I know they made decisions that will reverberate in my life as long as it lasts.
I know their first names.
I know what one of them looks like. I know he was adopted and wanted to be present at the birth.
I know the year the other one graduated from high school. I know he was a straight A student and was no longer in a relationship with M when the baby was born.

That's it.

What I know about them amounts to a pile of nothing.
I can't give my children anything of substance about the men they came from.

It's an awful feeling.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Where the Wild Thoughts Are

I am never alone. Adoption is always with me. It is between the lines of everything I read. It is on the tongue of every conversation. It is a constant tow.

I have more than once told fake tales of pregnancy and labor, choosing to play along with baby-store staffers rather than say, "We adopted." To say it like that, as explanation to a stranger, seems a violation of something, or a diminishing of all of us - you, me, Daddy, your birth parents - as if Adoption is all someone needs to know about us, or as if knowing Adoption about us is really knowing anything at all.

You say things that leave me breathless, like, "Before I was born I was sad because I thought I wouldn't have a family. I thought I wouldn't have any parents to love me and take care of me. And then after I got born when the nurse put me in your arms, I looked up into your loving eyes and I cried happy tears, because I knew I had a mother forever. And I knew you were the mother I always wanted."

And you say things that leave me floundering, like when I said, "I love that you used so many different colors to make these pictures. They're beautiful! Maybe we can send one to M," and you said, Who's M? Oh, yeah, my birth mother. Should I be disturbed that you forgot (even for a moment) who "M" is? Should I be happy that you don't seem to have Adoption running through your every thought as I do? Should I think nothing of the moment and just move on?

I sometimes wonder if I've lost my sense of humor. Other people see this cartoon and crack up laughing. I see this cartoon and wonder if you will ever feel this way.


Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Adoptive Parents Committee Annual Adoption Conference

Just confirmed that I'll be presenting two workshops at the 2011 Annual Adoption Conference presented by the Adoptive Parents Committee (APC). This is a big deal to me because it's an opportunity to move APs and PAPs past the romantic adoption fairy tale that sadly, some in the industry continue to promote, and help them "get real" about how adoption shapes the entire adoptive family.

I'll post titles and descriptions of my workshops once they go live on the APC website. The conference will be Sunday, November 20th at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. I hope to see you there!

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Statistically Impossible

I've been following Statistically Impossible for quite a while, and it just occurred to me that I haven't shared the link here.

I sincerely hope you will check it out and spend some time there.

Make a great day,

Sally

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Child Trafficking in Nigeria

Why another article about child trafficking?

Because it is still happening.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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How Can a Mother Give up Her Child?

She said: I've been blessed by adoption, but still, I don't understand how a mother can give up her child. I could never do that.

I said: You could never do that? How do you know?

She said: Because! I love my kids far too much. I would never do that to them.

I said: Hmm... then surely you love your children too much to ever diminish their history or deny them access to their roots.

A mother as loving as you doesn't feel the need to compete with her kid's first family, change her child's name, or withhold any contact with their birth family.

And - hallelujah! - you're not one of those adoptive parents who tries to pretend that the life and development and attachment and love and leaving that happened before you is insignificant.

You love your children far too much to do that to them.

Whew! Good to know.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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A Poem for Your First Mother

I Think About Your First Love Sally Bacchetta

She gave you form,
she gave you breath,
she gave you then to me.
She gave away a future – the mother she might be.

She chose to set a different course for the life you were to live,
a life of joy and hope and peace beyond what she could give.
Sure she couldn’t be for you the mother you would need,
she made a choice that broke her heart,
and trusting me to lead,

she took her hopes,
her dreams, her faith,
and laid them in my hands,
and weeping love upon your face
she prayed you’d understand.

She walked away with empty arms and nothing now to show
how very much she loved you. I promised her you’d know.
She’d yet to learn – as mothers will – this truth about the heart: It remembers those who love us, however far apart.

And every moon and every morn
that I have known since you were born
pales in the light of this love like no other –
the light of your first love,
your first mother.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Adoption: It's Like Trying to Rhyme With "Orange"

PLEASE NOTE: I have friends who never chose adoption for their children; women who had the choice made for them or who were threatened, tricked and manipulated into signing papers. When I talk in this post about "walking away," I'm not talking about you, and I'm sincerely sorry if my choice of words causes you pain. This post is not to criticize choices made. It is for me to find my way through another phase of my development as a parent, as an adoptive parent, as my kids' Mama. I am an adoptive parent, and that is the only perspective on adoption I can ever have. This blog is my place to share my reality. Sally

No matter how I talk with my children about adoption I can't change the fundamental truth that they were de-selected. We can call it "She was too young" or "She wasn't able to take care of you" or "She wanted a better life for you" - all of which may be true - but it doesn't change the fact that she made a choice to not remain in their lives. They were, on some very intimate and primal level, "given away."

And though I've never had even a fleeting fantasy that my children would be unaffected by adoption, lately I find my heart breaking.

What am I going to do when my daughter, one of the most loving, free-spirited, joyous, genuinely kind people I've ever known realizes that She decided not to be her mother?

And what am I going to say to my son, truly the essence of sweetness and light and goodness, when he asks why She decided not to be his mother?

I don't imagine that any adoptive parent has the answer, because it's not anything we can answer. It's not about us. It's about the women who share breath and blood with our children and later walk out of their lives.

This post makes me feel sick.

The weight of loving my children through this realization makes me feel sick.

The idea that they may think themselves "unlovable" even for a split second makes me feel sick. And weep.

I hate that some adoptees do think themselves "unlovable." (My kids never have. Will they ever?)

I hate that some first mothers tell their adult adopted children "Lose my number. I don't want a relationship with you." (My kids' haven't. Will they ever?)

Mostly I hate that no matter how close our family is and no matter how much I love them and no matter how completely I celebrate them for being exactly who they are, I can't protect them from their truth.

It's like trying to rhyme with "orange."

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
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Adoption as Mis-Represented by the Meda

Recently I returned as a guest on Mary Beth Wells' radio show Adoption: Journey to Motherhood. Mary Beth and I talked about "Adoption in the Media", and I'm sharing a few points of the discussion with you here because I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Mary Beth asked me, "How do you think the media portrays adoption and what affect does that have on adopted children?"

Summary of my response: The media, including movies and television, generally portray adoption as an aberration, and truthfully, it is. Adoption is not the “normal” course… humans are not biologically or physiologically predisposed toward adoption. Adoption was created, not organically instilled. However, it is a reality, and adoptive families have the same potential for love and bonding and affection and permanency as any family created biologically. [blog note: Yes, I am well aware that many adoptees are not raised with love, bonding, affection, and feelings of permanency. Many "bio kids" are not either. My point is that the potential exists for all parent/child relationships, regardless of DNA.]

So, there’s a paradox there, for the media and for the rest of us. How to speak authentically about adoption – that is to acknowledge that it is in some way different, yet not make “different” mean “less than, bad, inferior, weird”, etc.
Labels such as “adoptive parents”, “real parents”, “adopted child” are placed in news stories… but why? What is the value to the reader of delineating the biology or non-biology of a relationship? If it’s not germane to the story, it serves another agenda. It’s like identifying someone as “Conservative talk show host” or “Openly gay pastor”… it may be true, and it may be an important part of that person’s life, but is it relevant to the story? If not, using the label draws attention to the label rather than to the person or the point of the piece. And it begs the question of why use the label? I think too often the adoption label is thrown in simply because it's a "twist", an "ooh, there's some drama there",... it's used to alert the audience that "something's different here."

We talked about that horrible Sony tv ad where a woman's family is trying to distract her during her turn at a competitive game. They try making noises, etc., but her attention never wavers. Finally someone shouts out, "You were adopted!" [blog note: I blogged about that commercial when I first saw it, and that's what got Mary Beth and me talking about this topic.]

Mary Beth observed that "Parents can be over protective of their children. For adopted parents, do you think one of the reasons is that our children have already lost one family?"

Summary of my response: That may be, but really, I’m more concerned about my kids growing up in a society that sanctions any kind of prejudice. Think about it, Mary Beth, a few decades ago words like “fairy” and “homo” were fairly widely accepted as humorous put downs. And before that were blatantly sexist jokes and “your mama” jokes and racial slurs. But we evolved as a society and those things are no longer acceptable in most settings. But for some reason, too many people now target adoption as a punchline. You’d never see a tv commercial calling someone a “faggot” or a “nigger” as an insult. Why is it OK to do with adoption? It’s not.

My kids know they were adopted. There's no secrecy about it in our family. This particular conversation isn't about the ethics of adoption; it's about the ethics of
ridiculing someone - anyone - about their difference.

Mary Beth asked me how I think the "Hollywood adoptions" factor into this conversation.
Summary of my response: I think the media attention is more hurtful than helpful. What we see in the media are celebrities flying around in their private jets, throwing a ton of cash around and essentially buying babies and pawning them off on a team of nannies when they get home. Mary Beth made my next point for me, which is that we don't know what goes on behind closed doors. We don't really know how any celebrity parents or embraces their child's origins or anything at all. But the media paint a certain picture, and it ain't a good one.

The media focus on celebrity adopters is tragically skewed. Rather than judge and sensationalize and stalk celebrity adopters and their children,, the media could actually illuminate the very real horror of international child trafficking disguised as ethical adoption. I AM NOT SAYING that any particular celebrity has bought a child or children on the black market. I'm NOT saying that all international adoptions are unethical, illegal, or wrong.What I AM SAYING is that child trafficking IS A REALITY, and adoption provides a convenient cover for this horror. And I AM SAYING that the media could be a powerful force in tearing the shroud away from this awfulness, but it chooses instead to prattle on and on about the clothes, and shoes, and pre-schools, and diets, and play dates of celebrity adoptees. But that would require actual work and thought on the part of the media and the readers/viewers, so it's not likely going to happen.

You can listen to the whole interview at Adoption: Journey to Motherhood.

Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective, in softcover, hardcover, or e-book formats.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel