CHRISTMAS WISHES

I finally got all my baking done yesterday. Made cookies, banana nut bread, and almond bark candy for two other families that our family hangs with. Sometimes I don't really think that adoption and its issues are that wide spread. Then I meet two young women who have given a child up for adoption. I realize that I am wrong. I have met many other adoptees at work alone. We are out there. Its up to us to make our voices heard.

As I read and browse the internet for news stories like the previous ones, I am continually amazed at the lack of compassion, lack of respect, and total disregard to those in the triad. I came across one blog where the blogger consistantly encounters cruel comments about her adopted child. I have come across another blogger where the blogger deals with the "shut up because you gave up the child" comments. Of course adoptees of all types deal with the "shut and be grateful that someone adopted you" comments.

I have also been actively seeking out blogging adoptive parents. I want to see what they say about their children, both biological and adoptive. I want to see what they say about birth parents. For the most part, they do appreciate them. They do acknowledge their existence to their children in a kind and loving way. I like knowing that my own mother is not one of the few. I did find one that blew my mind. She adopted her child from China in order to not have interference from birth parents. She owned up to the fact. It will be very interesting in the future what the transracial adoptees do about finding their original parents. Just as the adoptees from the fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties are fighting for their equal rights, they will doing the same soon.

With the Christmas holidays coming upon us fast and furious, there are always lots of adoption stories. Most are about adoptees wanting to find their extended families. I really liked the previous stories about birth mothers. With Ann Fessler's book, the Evan B. Donaldson Institute's research study, and now with Mirah Riben's The Stork Market, I am hoping society as whole is beginning to realize that that adoption as a secret was a failure. The secrets, lies, the coercion that the birth mothers went through, that adoptees have to fight, and the pain that adoptive parents have to watch their children go through is purely ridiculous.

Soon Christmas will be here - many of us in the triad feel our pain full force. My eyes will always be to the northeast. Hoping and praying that she is feeling something. Hoping and praying that she realizes that she doesn't have to do the crap that she has done for years in order to survive. That she has long since paid her dues. That she let go of that pain and be free. I pray for my birth father and he hangs tight for a little longer. Just let me find him before he dies. He deserves to know that I am alive and kicking it here in Texas. That I have been fighting for his rights as well as my own.

I pray for my family. I am so thankful for the blessings that they have given me. I thank them for the strength to fight this battle even when I don't really have it. I pray for the state legislators that they do finally see this adoption thing as desparately needing changes.
That all in the triad need protection, access to their information, that it needs to be less about the needs of the adoption agencies and attorneys and more about the children. I pray that all get access to their loved ones.

To All that have inspired me, loved me, pushed me to think outside of the box, and forced me even to feel my own emotions, Thank You. May God Bless Us all in the triad.