THOUGHTS

I have spent the last few weeks being reflective. I have told many people about how adoption needs to be changed. As far as pregnant teens, I believe in honest discussions on birth control and human sexuality. We want to reduce these, right? Well the only way that is possible is to inform our children what their bodies do and the consequences of their acitons. I have already begun the process with my oldest child. I can't honestly say how I would respond if either one of my girls got pregnant. I only pray that I stand up for them and their decisions.

When I look out my backdoor, I see how adoption affects me. I see our dogs. I know their lineage because they are for the most part pure bred. My yorkie is a Blue Diamond yorkie out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My pit bull is also from a good line of pit bulls. She has not an agressive bone in her body. She considers all the cats, dogs, kids, horses, and adult humans her children. That we all need her love. (Just off the beaten path - she would have been a good adoptive parent) The horses which stay in the pasture around our house have all their lineage. We have gotten the heritage of one of them, - Shorty. All of the horses have this. Some of them go all the way back to Poco Bueno. He is even buried on this ranch standing straight up. He has a huge granite headstone in front of the gate of this place. All the cattle have their lineage. It is a matter of health for the cattle. If a cow has a large calf and it kills her, it is traced back to the bull. Adjustments are made to keep that bull off the smaller cows. My cats have their lineage. Two of which are traced back to siamese lineage.

I find it interesting that the human race deems it okay to take a newborn away from its mother immediately when it comes to adoption. That has been known fact Just look at the way birth mothers were treated in the fifties, sixties, seventies and even as late as the eighties. Some people call the Baby Scoop Era. With puppies and kittens, we try as caretakers of these divine creatures not to take them from their parents for four to six weeks. With horses and cattle, their offspring stay with them until they are close to a year old. My husband doesn't get a colt until he is two years of age. The only time a human raises a calf is when the cow dies. Then one of the cowboys and their wives raise it. We have done it as well as many others on this ranch. When I was pregnant with my first child, I raised three bull calves on the bottle.

When the Evan B. Donaldson Institute came out with its study on birth parents, I was jumping for joy. At last society will hear about the pain, the heartache, and struggles of a birth mother. This study was about birth mothers and infant adoption not foster care adoption. Something that is very different. I even posted it myself as did many other bloggers. It was in over 100 newspapers nationwide. It made my newspaper, Wichita Falls Times Record. Everyone in my orientation class was happy for me. I do plan on still using that report along with many other petitions, studies, law cases and other reports. I will use these when I am writing my letters.

My excitement had its bubble burst in a major way. I went to MSN 's and Yahoo's message boards. I was horrified at what was written. So many people blasted birth mothers. They actually called them whores, crackheads, drug addicts, and many other detrimental words. When it calmed down a bit, it became more about the adoptee rights. Well this study is not just about that. What many people don't realize that we have even less rights that birth parents. Only five states have adoptee access to their original birth certificate. The so called registries have about a 4% success rate. In some states that is even less. Like Indiana for instance - only birth mothers and adoptees have access. In Indiana, birth mothers can overrule everything. I can have access at my birthmother's death. For the most part though these message boards were scalding to birth mothers. Here's where that comes into play. The pro-life and the pro-choice has dictated to Joe Public that mothers have an antagonist relationship with their children. This survey throws that out the window. I have read in Oregon where records were opened up about five years ago the number of adoptions have not decreased as feared. At least 90% of birth parents would never go through another closed adoption. They would prefer an abortion than to never know their children.

The money is another thing that just bothers me. I know my adoptive parents paid the adoption agency. It bothers me. Why I think is because of the ownership thing. One of the things in those message boards that came up slightly. The adoptee belongs to the adoptive parents. God do I hate the ownership thing. It angers me that Joe Public thinks that I am owned by my adoptive parents. Some of these people would like to guilt me and others like me into thinking I am property. Children are not property. If anything we are on loan from God. Even He gives us free choice. I think the money should be taken out of adoption. Many think birth mothers get that money. Nooooo they don't the adoption attorneys and adoption agency get the money. If an adoption falls through, those adoption professionals keep the money. The adoptive parents might get some of the money back. I have read where that is not the case.

I noticed when some of us actually came out to defend that study attitudes did mellow. Many of those that posted, myself included, kept it clean and close to the facts. The MSN board was hostile but not as vulgar. The Yahoo Board was despicable. At least it is being discussed. A step in the right direction. I still believe that those of us in the triad need to be the ones making the laws not those who have no association with adoption.