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Friday, August 31, 2007
Birthmom
If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Maggie's blog, take a look. She posted her feelings about her son's birthmother and it got me to thinking about Addy's. Ironically, I just got done reading Danielle Steele's book "The Gift" about a teenager in the 1950s who gives up her daughter for adoption.

I have nothing but empathy and compassion for Addy's birthmother. I was able to read what a crappy life she and her siblings had, of her very low IQ that inhibited her from ever being able to fully grasp how to be a mother. Frankly, at 15 even the most intelligent mothers would find the task difficult. And I am so, so grateful for her for the gift that she gave me (tearing up as I write this). Giving up your child is the biggest sacrifice a mother could ever make and it is the biggest gift that could ever be bestowed on another family and for the child.

The birth grandmother, however, I have a much different opinion of. She is same age as me and has managed to have child after child after child and has not fulfilled even their basic needs - to be properly sheltered, clothed, schooled, cared for, etc. She has allowed Addy's mentally challenged birthmother to get pregnant again and now the stories I have heard of what he is going through make me sick. (I wish I could get into it here but he's living in a house with 20 other people and there are major neglect and health issues). Why hasn't he been removed yet??

I'm heartsick that this cycle gets repeated over and over. It could have stopped with the grandmother but for whatever selfish reasons she has, she keeps producing children and those children are producing children and the cycle continues. When Addy is nestled into my arms and contentedly sucking her thumb, I sometimes wonder what her life would have been like had the state agency not existed. She's such a sweet, bright little girl and she deserves the best of everything life can give her. She is so much luckier than her mother and aunts and uncles who never made it out to get the opportunity to just be a carefree child.

I thought finally getting a daughter would quench the desire to have any more children but experiencing adoption has only made it worse. If I had the bedrooms and the money, I would adopt 10 more. To see the same faces on my state's photolisting website month after month, year after year, just breaks my heart. They deserve the oppotunity to have a mother and father to let them shoulder the adult stuff. They all deserve to be part of a family, something we all just take for granted.

I wonder who hit the $315 million Powerball this week? What I could have done with that money...from helping birthfamilies to get what they need to keep their children, to helping prospective adoptive parents along the process, to providing good homes for the waiting children, or providing services and counseling, fundraising.
2 Comments:
Blogger StarfishMom said...
Are you still open to taking Addy's sibling? Have you moved yet?

Blogger Ahauna said...
We haven't moved. The housing market is so bad here right now and we got skittish on how high our mortgage payments would be if we bought the other house.

Still weighing in - we're busting at the seams here but ok money wise. Is it worth it to be able to spread out in the bigger house but really have to watch every penny?

I would take him in a minute. DH is another story. It's been so hard for him and Addy to bond. I think we really need to work on this before we even think about adding another to the mix. I don't know if my marriage would handle the additional stress.