If You Want to Help a Birth Mother

In my local adoption community, I am seen as a success story. Not as any kind of hero or role model, but as a success. I placed my baby for adoption after a brief stint single parenting. I went through the messy grieving process and came out of it a better person. Four years later I have a career of sorts, an apartment, a car, and mental health. I am doing well. I have a good relationship with the child I placed and with her family. I've got 99 problems, but adoption ain't one.

I know way too many birth moms who can't say the same. I have seen open adoptions - and birth mothers - fall apart spectacularly. I am more acutely aware than ever that I hit the jackpot as far as adoption is concerned. I wish everyone could be so lucky. 


I think this is why, in the last three months, I've been asked for advice by adoption caseworkers and their ilk. They all want to know the same thing: why did things work out well for me, and how can they ensure similar successes for the birth moms they work with?

I wish I knew. I am hesitant to give advice because every situation, every adoption is its own little planet. Every person is different and every adoption is different and things can change so quickly. I've never wanted to set myself up as an example of what to do or how to be. That makes me very uncomfortable, particularly when in adoption, two people can do exactly the same thing and end up with vastly different results.

I've tried to explain this, but still I'm asked, "What can we do to help birth mothers?"

I'm expected to have some exclusive insight as a birth mother. But all I can think of is how right after placement, there was almost no help on earth for me - not that there was none offered, but that nothing worked. The only thing that made me happy was seeing my baby girl and how well she was doing. I lived for her and for those moments. Other than that, there was too much going on to be helped by any single entity or program. I had too many different issues.

That's the real gist of it, isn't it? There are always too many things going on in a birth mother's life. We can talk all we want about how there ought to be support and programs to help women who have just placed a child for adoption deal with that issue. And I'm not saying those things aren't important. But what we're forgetting is that so often, an unplanned pregnancy isn't the overarching problem. It's a symptom. When a woman is facing an unplanned pregnancy in the kind of situation where she's considering and choosing adoption, the pregnancy isn't her problem. If you want to help a birth mom, you have to realize that.

Not that there's ever one single underlying issue. There are dozens. Low self-esteem, co-dependence, abuse, depression, anxiety, daddy issues … sometimes it's a combination. But part of what makes placement so gut-wrenching is that you've got the grief of placing a child layered on top of these other issues that were never treated. In my personal experience, if you want to help a birth mom, you have to help restore her sense of self-worth. 

I'm not saying that every single birth mom has made horrible life choices or gotten herself into a bad situation. But the vast majority of those I have met (and I include myself in this number) ended up pregnant because a lot of other things were going on. My pregnancy was a symptom of a much larger problem.

I've always hated the term "crisis pregnancy" because it sounds like some sort of emergency or disaster. My pregnancy wasn't like that. The fact is that it saved my life. I was self-destructing spectacularly before I got pregnant. Roo saved my life. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, there would have been a crisis situation. If you want to help a birth mother, don't look at her pregnancy as a crisis. Look at it as an opportunity to make positive changes in her life.

So, adoption professionals, here's my advice to you. If you want to help a birth mother, stop looking at her as a birth mother. Look at her as a person. She had problems before placement and she's going to have them after. There is no one-size-fits-all help for her. Don't put her in a box. You can do better than that. She deserves better than that.

A Word of Advice ...

... for me, this time, not FROM me.

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I'm not sure exactly why. Oh, I'm sure I could come up with a number of possibilities, if I stopped to think about it. But I don't want to think about it. I just want to feel happy again. Or, at least, slightly less irritated with the world in general.

A good start would probably be to stop watching "House Hunters International." Y'all ever watched this show? It will make you want to rip your hair out. It typically features a poorly dressed American couple (frequently the sort of people who put little hats and sweaters on their dogs - seriously, who does that?) who are unhappy in Seattle/Los Angeles/New York/Miami, so they're looking for a summer home - not a new home, but a SECOND home - in a more exotic locale - Mexico, Australia, the Mediterranean. And the typical budget is between $750,000 and $3,000,000. Shows like this make me think that the economy simply isn't bad enough yet.

Of course, I think the same thing when I see teenagers driving BMWs.

I digress. It's not just TV or dog sweaters or spoiled teenagers. It's ... everything. And nothing. I just don't feel like myself lately.

And so I ask you, gentle readers: what do you do when you've had a bad week or two? What do you do to snap out of it or to try to refocus your brain? What are one or two things that always cheer you up?

You All Love Adoption, Right?

Well, some super creative, super cool people here in the Valley of the Sun who have adoption connections are putting on the Boutique in the Barn (click the name for the link). Here's the important stuff:



There's also a bonus for the first 50 people who get there. I won't be one of them; I've got something going until 1pm. But I'm going to find a few nice things in the afternoon for my mum for Mother's Day.

I'm not completely altruistic, of course. I can't be one of the first 50 there, but by blogging about the boutique, I'm entered into a contest to win a gift bag, too. I hope I win!

Win or lose, I'll be at the boutique that Saturday, doing my part to support adoption! You should go, too.

Madness

Ladies and gentlemen, I am an idiot.

Don't try to dissuade me, my mind is made up. I am a complete and utter idiot. It is 5am. Do you know what I've been doing for the past ... well, I'm not going to admit to how many hours, but do you know what I've been doing?

I've been updating my "Hoping to adopt" link list. For the past ∏ hours (that's pi, in case it doesn't show up properly). Although strictly speaking, pi is 3.14159265359 hours, and it was more than that. What's another mathematical symbol I could use? Come on, Microsoft Word, help me out here ... ℓ? ∞? ∑? ∂? Ω? Hmm ... well, let's settle for our old buddy i, the imaginary number. I updated for i hours.

I wanted to list blogs by state, first off. So I had to go through the blogs that didn't have a two-letter state designation next to them on my list.

I did that. I went through all the state-less blogs and added states where I could find them.

It looked messy; I didn't like it. I decided to list each state followed by the blogs that once had the state's abbreviation next to them. This took some time, but I was happy with how it looked. I felt that it was a bit neater, even if Utah was grossly overrepresented.

I looked at my list. There didn't seem to be many couples from Arizona listed. That bothered me. So I went to It's About Love and searched couples by state. Well, then, that was better. I checked each profile to see if the couple had a blog. I found a number of blogs for Arizona and updated my list. I was rather pleased with myself.

And then it occurred to me that a number of other states weren't well-represented on my list, either. So I searched by state again, first for California, then for a few Southern states. As with Arizona, I checked each profile for a blog listing. This took some time, but I finally felt I'd evened things out a bit and I was satisfied.

But then, I noticed a number of states I could search for that weren't represented on my list at all. Well, I had to do something about that, didn't I? Again, I searched profiles.

After an hour or two I gave up my pretense of looking for certain states, and began searching every state alphabetically. I skipped a few initially. Idaho had 100 couples listed, and I didn't feel like going though them. Utah had over 400 listed, and I wasn't even going to go there, as the saying goes.

I skipped 5 or 6 states because they had a lot of couples listed, and made a note of which ones I'd skipped, so I could go back to them later. My blog list grew, and I was terribly proud of myself for listing so many wonderful couples. Satisfied, I decided to get a snack.

Six Reese's Miniatures later, I started to think. That's always a dangerous thing, let me tell you. I still had the LDSFS tab up in my browser. Well, I thought to myself, Washington only had 35 couples. I could handle that.

Handle it I did, and I listed several more blogs. I turned again to the list of states I'd skipped. It hardly felt right not to look at Nevada, since it's right next to Arizona. And if I could handle 35 in Washington, I could handle 27 in Nevada. Again I skimmed profiles for blog listings. Again I added to my list. I was even more proud of myself, and treated myself to two more Reese's.

Now I only had three states on my skipped list. I can't ignore Texas, I thought. There were only 35 couples there, and besides, my dad used to live in Texas, and he'd always liked it there.

Idaho and Utah remained on my list. "I'll check them later," I told myself. The Discovery channel was repeating the "Mammals" episode of their miniseries "Life," and I wanted to see the elephant shrew again. The fact that it was nearing 2am didn't register as a reason to turn my computer off. I hadn't checked Facebook in nearly five hours, after all.

The tiny elephant shrew outran a lizard, and I cheered. I had a stick of string cheese and contemplated my productive night of blog-tweaking. I looked over my blog list again.

Oh, what the heck, I thought. I clicked on Idaho. 100 couples was only 10 pages of profiles. I could handle that! And handle it I did, checking each and every profile for a blog mention. I added several more blogs to my list while a baby elephant got stuck in the mud.

Finally, triumphantly, I finished Idaho. My blog list looked fantastic. And Utah was, after all, still the biggest list I had, so I didn't need to check profiles for links.

"The Deadliest Catch" came on. I got bored. A logical person would have gone to bed at this point. Well, actually, a logical person would have gone to bed hours ago, but I digress. I wasn't tired.

Wouldn't it be something, I thought, if I went through Utah as well? That would be a monumental achievement. I wondered if anyone had ever gone through the whole of LDSFS's couple profiles before, all 943 of them. Well, I thought, I'm more than halfway there already. And so, fueled by an unholy amount of refined sugar, I clicked. And clicked, and clicked. Utah had 428 couples listed. I did some quick math in my head - no small feat, considering that quick math is not a forte of mine with pen and paper. That was 43 pages.

No, no, I thought. This was madness. I needed to get to bed already. I was getting tired, and there wasn't anything good to watch on TV. But I'd already started. Okay, I thought. A few more pages. I'll do half.

I did half. I added link after link after link. My fingers flew over the keyboard and I half expected the letters to wear off on A, H, R, E, F, :, /, and ". Because, you see, I decided a number of years ago that I could remain morally superior to the latecomers to the blogging world (I started my first in 1997) by continuing to write my own HTML - ALL of my own HTML.

I repeat: I am an idiot.

It got to the point where I almost wept when a couple listed a blog. What IS it with you Utahns and your blogs? Will LDSFS in Utah not approve you to adopt unless you start a blog?

I was getting crabby and bitter, so around 4am I decided to take a shower. Dell laptops do not cool themselves well and my lap was getting sweaty. The break didn't do me the good I'd have hoped. I saw blogs when I closed my eyes. The phrase "We're a fun couple!" echoed in my ears.

Less sweaty and a bit more relaxed, I returned to my computer. I added link upon link. The English language started to look funny to me. Quotation marks turned into Sanskrit. I spent five minutes pondering the shape of a lower-case letter A.

And then, the inevitable happened. I'd finished profiles number 381-390. The end was near! I clicked on "next" and waited for a list to appear. I was puzzled when I saw the page that loaded. I hit F5. Same thing. Disbelieving, I looked at the page before me.

40 couples from the end, my search had timed out.

I laughed the laugh of the damned. I wept. I pounded on my keyboard. I had another stick of string cheese.

I may not have broken any records. To paraphrase Elaine Benes: They say no one's ever made it to the end of the list before. But gentlemen, I tell you now, I have come as close as anyone has ever gotten.

I clicked through 900 profiles.

And now I'm going to bed.

A Few (ha-ha) Words of Advice for Couples

I first started this blog as a record for Roo. I wanted her to know where she came from, how she came to be with her family, and what sort of person her birth mom was.

It's grown since then. I would have figured I'd hear from birth moms about my blog. I've heard from more adoptive couples than anything, which has been great. I've gained a new perspective and a better appreciation of couples who adopt.

I would never presume to speak for every birth mom or potential birth mom out there. I only speak for myself. But, that said, I am a birth mom (and I have birth moms friends). I went through the process of looking at couple profiles and trying to choose parents for my baby. I saw a lot of profiles that were very well done ... and some that were a turn-off. No couple's profile or blog should be a turn-off! No couple sets out to make themselves unappealing. But it happens sometimes because they simply don't know what to say - or what not to say. As such, I offer the following suggestions (for blogs, profiles, meetings with potential birth moms, and relationships with your child’s birth mom).

Meetings and Relationships
-Don’t make promises you won’t/can’t keep – forever. When in doubt, don’t promise. In that vein, don’t start something you can’t keep up. As in business, it’s best to underpromise and overdeliver.

-Remember, when planning for openness, that things will be very different once placement is done. Your feelings about contact and/or the relationship will likely change. This is why it’s best to avoid overpromising.

-When in doubt, err on the side of too much contact with the birth mom. There almost can’t be too many pictures or updates or input or visits. The birth mom will let you know if you need to back off. Just because something may hurt a birth mom (baby shower, court date, sealing, etc) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer her the chance to be there. Not being invited can hurt worse.

-Be open and honest to a fault – COMMUNICATE. Don’t ever let communication between you and your birth mom get awkward or stressful. Love her and trust her enough to be honest, open and communicative. (P and M excel at this, which I love.)

-Remember, when you’re going to meet with a potential birth mom, that she is as nervous as you are. Gifts are nice, but she’s not going to expect it, and if you do want to bring her something, keep it inexpensive and neutral. Flowers are good. You don’t want her to feel like you’re plying her with gifts to get her to choose you.

-Relax. Don’t try to sell yourself or be pressuring. Just get to know her for her, not for her baby. If you happen to have the exact same tastes and views as she does, great. But don’t pretend you do to try to get her to like you. Be yourselves.

-For the love of all that is good and decent, don’t refer to her pregnancy as “unwanted.” Unplanned does not mean unwanted. Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that birth moms choose adoption out of love, not because they don’t want their babies.

-Pray every night for your birth mother, whether you’ve met her yet or not. Pray before you meet with a potential birth mom. Follow the Spirit. Don’t let your desire to be parents override your feelings. If a situation isn’t right, you’ll know. Remember, you’re not just looking for A baby, you’re looking for YOUR baby.

-Don’t take it personally if you meet with a potential birth mother – even if you meet more than once, and e-mail and talk – and she doesn’t choose you. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you or that you’ve done anything wrong. The couples I met with but didn’t choose couldn’t have made a better impression on me. They just weren’t my baby’s family.

For Blogs and/or Profiles
-Proofread, please. You don’t have to be the world’s best writers or even have a knack for spelling. But when you’ve typed “ans” instead of “and” and not fixed it, it just looks lazy. Not every birth mom is going to be as picky as I was, but the first thing I noticed about P and M’s profile (after their picture) is that it didn’t contain any glaring errors. I appreciated that.

-If you’ve adopted before, mention what things are like with that birth mom – how open is the adoption? If you’ve got pictures of her with your child, that’s awesome. Post them! Birth moms want to know that they won’t be dumped after placement.

-Speaking of pictures, please please please have some nice ones taken for your profile. They don’t have to be glamour shots, and you don’t need to be Photoshopped, but do try to look your best. Be yourself and have fun in your pictures, but birth moms don’t want to see your his-and-hers “white trash” Halloween costumes.

-Do you enjoy hunting and fishing? Good for you, and go ahead and mention it. Maybe your birth mom does, too. But maybe she doesn’t. And she might find your blog a bit off-putting if it contains multiple pictures of bloody, entrail-strewn deer carcasses or slimy large-mouth bass. I’m going to put high-risk activities in this category, too. If you enjoy 4-wheeling, that’s fine. But please don’t post pictures of the gory flesh wound on your back from the last time you crashed. A birth mom wants to feel that her baby will be safe and protected, and that the baby’s parents will live long lives, unmarred by any sort of horrible accident or disfigurement.

-If you waited several years after marriage before trying to conceive, keep it to yourself. I’m REALLY not proud of this, but there are a few profiles that mentioned that and my knee-jerk reaction was, “Well, you should have considered your fertility ten years ago when you were young and ‘enjoying it just being the two of us’ and travelling the world and building up your careers!” Whether you did or not is your business, and it’s not my place to judge (although obviously that didn’t stop me). But you might want to keep it to yourself.

-Blog! Update at least monthly, too. If you haven’t updated in 10 months, a birth mom might wonder if you’re no longer hoping to adopt, or if you’ve dropped off the face of the earth. You might feel like you have nothing to say. Make something up. Are you wondering how “Lost” is going to end? What did you think of the latest Twilight movie? Blog about it. A blog is a great chance to really be yourselves and show potential birth moms what your lives are like and what great parents you would be.

And Finally …
Try to anticipate what kinds of questions a birth mom might ask. What would you want to know about a couple if you were in her place? Here’s a messy, random list of some things you might want to mention.

-Will she be a stay-at-home-mom?
-Do you have any family traditions you hope to carry on?
-Do you have a nursery set up (are you ready, right now, for a baby)?
-Do you have any pets?
-Any plans to move in the next 10 years?
-Do you attend the temple regularly? What are your church callings? Do you have Family Home Evening every Monday night?
-Do you have immediate and/or extended family living in the area? (Roo has tons of family nearby, and I love it.)
-Besides infertility, have you overcome any other hardships/adversity? What did it/they teach you?
-Do you have any experience with adoption? Do you know anyone who has adopted, or anyone who was adopted?
-What would adopting a child mean to you? You can’t oversell how precious a child would be, although you'll want to avoid sounding desperate, as though your lives are empty and worthless because you aren't parents yet.

Overall, be yourselves. You don't have to be perfect, and you don't have to take any of the advice I've given. Odds are, your child's birth mother will love you anyway, warts and all.

SOS

I am having a horrible, terrible time of things. I miss my baby more than I can bear, and the pain is overwhelming. It feels never-ending. I feel like no one cares, and that I have made a horrible mistake. I'm at a loss.

I don't know where to go, or what to do, or who to talk to. Any suggestions? My knees hurt from praying and my mother's patience is wearing thin.

I'm not going to do anything drastic or stupid, so don't worry on that account. I just feel lost, and I don't know how to find myself.

FYI ...

I've just gone through my HTA links - buttons and text. I've tidied them up a bit, removed links for couples who are no longer looking to adopt, or who have gone private, or who have been chosen by a birth mom. So everything should be up to date.

Also, this is totally embarrassing, but someone nominated me for some blog something or other, and I did this interview where I sound like a pompous narcissist with delusions of grandeur. And they asked how long I'd been blogging, and I thought they meant THIS blog, so I said September of 2009, but I've been blogging since before it was called blogging, back in 1997, and I want credit for that, dang it. Anyway. Here's the link, if you're bored and want to vote.

Button-less But Brilliant

Back in November I posted a whole slew of buttons for adoptive couple blogs. I have a link to it on my main page, because I think it's important for adoption blogs to get as much exposure as they can. I liked P's and M's profile on the LDS Family Services website. But their blog did more for me to convince me that I really wanted to meet these people.

Not everyone has a button for their website, of course. I don't have one for mine (although if I can ever figure out this Photoshop thing, that might change). If I wanted one, I would probably use the handy tutorial found *here* to do so.

But just because a couple has a button-less blog doesn't mean they're any less fantastic. So I thought I'd share the love and have some regular old links to the blogs of great people who would love to adopt.

This list is by no means comprehensive, it's just what I put together over an hour or two. If you'd like to be added (to this list, or to my button directory), e-mail me your URL and I'll put you on the list.

Adam and Heather
Alex and Sarah
Barry and Rebecca
Ben and Britney
Ben and Katie
Ben and Kindle
Ben and Sherrie
Bill and Alicia
Bob and Colista
Bobby and Norys
Brady and Karen
Brent and Suzanne
Brian and Christine
Brian and Janelle
Brian and Leisha
Brian and Nicole
Brian and Trudy
Bryan and Suzanne
Cameron and Jenny
Chad and Angie
Chad and Melissa
Chad and Tina
Chad and Wendy
Chris and Becky
Chris and Jamie
Clayton and Angie
Dan and Angela
Dan and Brittany
Daniel and Ashley
Daniel and Jennie
Dave and Annie
David and Kristin
David and Vonae
Davis and Rebecca
Derek and Laura
Devin and Lynette
Don and Kendra
Doug and Marianne
Dustin and Andrea
Dustin and Nicole
Eric and Christy
Eric and Kate
Geoff and Felicia
Greg and Kristen
Greg and Michelle
Heath and Alyssa
Hema and Becky
Jake and Alisa
Jake and Gina
Jason and Adrienne
Jason and Aime
Jason and Emily
Jason and Rachel
Jeremy and Becky
Jimi and Sarah
Joel and Katie
Joey and Nicole
Jon and Carrie
Josh and Andrea
Josh and Nancy
Joshua and Lindsey
Keith and Chantelle
Kendall and Katy
Kent and Tiffany
Kevin and Andrea
Kevin and Christa
Kevin and Danya
Kevin & Tenille
Kirt and Andrea
Kyle and Jessica
Kyle and Shelby
Levi and Sandra
Lincoln and Megan
Logan and Ashley
Lonny and Amy
Luke and Tina
Lyle and Janie
Mark and Nicole
Mark and Tiffany
Mat and Michelle
Matt and Courtney
Matt and Jen<----- I've met them, and they are awesome!
Matt and Karen
Michael and Camille
Mike and Amanda
Mike and Hallie
Mike and Jamie
Mike and Nicole
Mike and Risa
Nathan and Emily
Nathaniel and Karen
Nathaniel and Karlee
Peter and Linda
Rex and Jennifer
Richard and Elesa
Rick and Christi
Robby and Angee
Rocky and Whitney
Rodney and Carrie
Ron and Jessica
Russell and Jammie
Ryan and Alicia
Ryan and Amanda
Ryan and Cyd
Ryan and Jen
Ryan and Juliana
Ryan and Nici
Ryan and Nicole
Spencer and Wendy
Steve and Amy
Steve and Deidra
Steven and Kara
Steven and Jocelyn
Taylor and Lisa
Terry and Linda
Todd and Karine
Tom and Becky
Tom and Shian
Tommy and Annie
Tyler and Jen
Tyler and Michelle
Tyler and Sarah
Tyrell and Tarrin
Tyson and Jennie
Uriah and Melinda

Button, Button ...

Yesterday I did something that I’ve been putting off for eight months. Yesterday, I wrote back to both of the couples I met in the beginning of the year when I was trying to find Roo’s family.

I hardly knew what to say. I spent probably twenty minutes on each letter, struggling to find just the right words, to say the right things – to explain why I didn’t choose them. That I couldn’t choose them – that God had someone else in mind.
They are all wonderful people and I love and respect them. But I couldn’t deny what I knew. When I first chose adoption, both couples came back into my mind and I resolved, as I had in March, to choose between them. But it soon became obvious to me that I couldn’t choose either of them. I still wonder about them. I’m pretty sure one couple has since been chosen by a birth mother. I couldn’t be happier for them. I don’t know about the other couple, but I feel certain that their birth mother simply hasn’t found them yet.

It’s sort of strange, actually – I feel guilty for meeting them and getting their hopes up. Part of me wishes I hadn’t met them because I think I’ll always feel bad for not choosing them. I hope they can understand that I didn’t choose Roo’s family – God did, and I only found them. She wasn’t meant to be with them. She was meant for P and M.

I’m sure that’s cold comfort to a couple who want a child more than anything else in the world. I’ve found that I still think about both couples a lot, and wonder how they’re doing. I wonder if the second couple has had any contact with birth mothers lately, and I pray that they will. I check both couples’ blogs every so often. I find myself drawn to adoptive family blogs, fascinated. It’s the side of adoption I’m less familiar with, and there are a number of “We’re hoping to adopt!” blogs that I check regularly. It amazes me how many absolutely great couples there are out there who can’t have children.

In honor of them and other “paper pregnant” couples, here are a plethora of buttons for you to click on. Each one links to the blog of an adoptive couple, and they are all cool people. In clicking around to find buttons to post, I was floored at just how many people out there are looking to adopt to grow their families. It’s heartbreaking! Check them out – if not for yourself, then for someone you know. I’m proof that sometimes, when something doesn’t feel right, you just have to keep looking until you find not what you were looking for but what God wants you to find.








































































(FYI, I chose all of these buttons because the blogs they link to had a handy "Add our button" sidebar with an html box to copy and paste. There were several others where I would have had to save the button to my hard drive and I had to tweak the html in my blog post to make it work. I recommend making it as easy as possible for people to add your button. There is a fantastic tutorial here on how to get that little html box.

Also, if you have a button and you want me to put it on my blog, e-mail me your URL [jilleb163 AT gmail DOT com] and I'll get on it. I'm working on a kind of "Hoping to Adopt" button directory.)

By the Way ...

I just bought one of these for Roo:



You can get them here and not only are they cute, proceeds go to help the amazing Mrs R in her fight to keep her son. Go. Shop. Now.