This question was asked on “Yahoo Answers” a number of months ago:

“Do a lot of people believe that women give their children up for adoption and then in the future “change” their version of the facts/or their way of thinking, to reflect that their child was stolen or they were viciously coerced rather than truly relinquished due to whatever circumstances there may have been?”

Various people on Yahoo Answers had been posting comments calling into question the integrity of natural mothers (“birthmothers”) who had recounted their stories of having lost children to adoption against their will, of feeling they had no choice but to surrender.  This person asked whether mothers had actually changed their stories.

I found this question to be interesting for several reasons, as it showed how “general society” might still be ignorant of what happens when a mother loses a child to adoption, the trauma that occurs, or that she may be in a far different position later in life as far as knowledge of the processes of the adoption industry.  (Also interesting was that this question was asked in the first place: Perhaps the questioner was trying to wrap his/her mind around the very concept that coerced surrender could exist?).

Firstly, this question assumes that women don’t block out the memories of what happened to them — a common symptom of PTSD: you dissociate as the trauma is too difficult to face. I know women who can’t even remember their child’s birth date or signing papers, until much later, at which point the memories come flooding back, often in the form of flashbacks and nightmares. It is often with reunion or beginning their search that moms begin to remember details of what happened.

PTSD Criterion C:  Avoidance/Numbing
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma

Secondly, a young or otherwise vulnerable mother may be forced to surrender by various means, and it is only when she is much older — when she has far more information on what her rights were at the time — that she realizes that those rights were violated. Rights that the adoption industry never informed her that she had rights.

“The first thing the unmarried mother is likely to lose is her right to make important decisions. The agency or community tells her what she must do if she is to receive the services she needs . . . In most instances the plan for the baby is pre-determined. Often these matters are decided without her being able to state her own preferences.” Helping Unmarried Mothers, by Rose Bernstein, copyright 1971*

Or the natural mother realizes only much later that she was coerced, not realizing it at the time, when she finds out that carefully-researched methods were used on her that would increase the likelihood she would sign those papers. An expectant mother, labouring mother, or new mother may not realize at the time that various practices were being done to her in order to ensure she would surrender her baby. Thousands if not millions of dollars in federal money in the U.S. and Canada has gone into studies researching how to get more mothers to surrender. These adoption studies do not hide their purpose. Even open adoption was designed for this purpose, to get more babies to market.

Why was this done? In part, because of the post-WWII consumer demand for healthy white infants:

“… the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines…(by people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions.” – Leontine Young, “Is Money Our Trouble?” (paper presented at the National Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland, 1953*)

“For every healthy newborn available, there are now almost forty potential parents searching.” – (“Love for Sale” by Nelson Handel, Adoptive Families Magazine, 2000).

Adoption is now North America’s largest multi-billion dollar unregulated industry. Agencies, lawyers, and facilitators exist as “baby brokers,” practicing adoption as a commercial transaction where people pay tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for an unrelated baby (In many other nations, this is known as human trafficking).

When I found the book “Death by Adoption” back in 1982, I discovered other socio-political reasons for what had been done to me, and why adoption was an issue of discrimination against women:

“Adoption is a violent act, a political act of aggression towards a woman who has supposedly offended the sexual mores by committing the unforgivable act of not suppressing her sexuality, and therefore not keeping it for trading purposes through traditional marriage. The crime is a grave one, for she threatens the very fabric of our society. The penalty is severe. She is stripped of her child by a variety of subtle and not so subtle manoeuvres and then brutally abandoned.” – Joss Shawyer, Death by Adoption, Cicada Press (1979)

For example: My baby was taken right at birth for adoption, by hospital staff. I had never told them that I wanted to surrender my baby. I wanted to keep my baby (but no-one ever asked me about this or gave me this as an option).  They put me in a room far from the maternity ward to keep us separated, and kept me drugged for days.   I was finally allowed to see him for about 5 minutes, but bulldog nurses kept a hawk-like watch on me to ensure I could not even pick him up.  I was not welcome in that nursery.   I found out later from my son that they even transfered him over to another hospital to keep him from me! Then I learned two decades later, by reading articles in nursing journals and the government inquiry testimony of hospital administrators — and through hearing the stories of dozens of other natural mothers across Canada — that taking babies at birth was routine, and done specifically to prevent a mother from keeping her baby, to prevent all contact in the intent that she would be prevented from “bonding with” her baby, to prevent her from “changing her mind (i.e. preventing her from making ANY real decision about adoption, as that can be made only post-recovery.) At age 17, I had no idea that this was why my baby was taken. I also did not know that it violated my parental rights, discriminated on the basis of marital status (in treating me different from married mothers), and constituted abduction under the Criminal Code of Canada:

“(281) Abduction of Person Under Fourteen – Every one who, not being the parent … unlawfully takes, entices away, conceals, detains, receives or harbours that person with intent to deprive a parent … of the possession of that person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.”

A mother may also “come out of the fog” when she discovers that other mothers “not on the adoption treadmill’ were treated differently. An example is when an agency/lawyer or parents tell(s) you: “You are 17. There is no way you can to go college and get a job with a baby — you’ll be in poverty on welfare for the rest of your life.  Besides, children raised by single mothers turn into criminals and if you don’t sign he’ll sit in foster care until you finally do!” You are not told about welfare and your parents are firm that you are NOT allowed to bring your baby home (after all, they already shut you away in (or you were shamed into “turning yourself in” to) a maternity facility, wage home, etc. so that relatives and neighbours would never find out).

A mother won’t realize at the time that this is coercion as she whole-heartedly believes the lies that the adoption worker told her — and no-one tells her differently. Then years later you meet someone your age who DID keep her baby, went to college (where there was an on-campus daycare), and works at a better or equal job, and her baby didn’t starve — you realize that at age 17 you were lied to and surrendered your baby because you believed this lie. Nevermind finding out that the paycheque of the person or agency who told you this depending on them “making enough sales”! This equates to legal conflict of interest.

For me, another wake-up call came when I met my friend Pashta back in 1990. She was a few years older than me, but also had her first baby when she was 17, also in Canada. I asked her how it could be that the hospital allowed her to keep her baby and did not take her baby at birth. Her answer: The difference was that she was married!

Does this mean I “changed my story”?  No, not at all. But it means I did not realize at age 16 and 17 how coercion worked. All I knew at the time I lost my baby was that I wanted to keep my baby and that I had no choice but to sign those papers in a state of numbness and shock. At age 17 I thought it was “normal” and legal and that somehow I did not deserve or have a right to my baby. Only years later did I find out how it was done such that I had no chance or choice, why it was done, and that it had been done to thousands of other women across Canada.

To all my Christian friends! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Have a great holiday season!

To all my Pagan friends!  May the the Lord and the Lady in all their incarnations, and the Gods and Goddesses of Winter –  Father Óðinn, Mother Holda, Skaði, and Ullr — bless you this Holiday Season.

Merry Yule to All!!!

RING OUT SOLSTICE BELLS!

(And to my non-Pagan friends, here’s some links if you are curious: Yule,  Óðinn, Holda, Ullr, Skaði, Neopagan & Pagan religious traditions,  Germanic Paganism.)

I have a friend, Rowena, who is a natural mother who lost her son to adoption.

Rowena was only 17 when she gave birth to her son Blaise, and in Grace Hospital in Calgary, they only allowed her to see him sparingly for few days after his birth, and then one day the nurses took him away and refused to let her see him ever again. That was the power that hospitals had over us unwed mothers. The professionals around us, often government social workers, we trusted as no-one else showed any care for us. Little did we know of our rights to our babies – the same as the rights of any older or married mother – or that the hospitals’ actions were illegal. Beaten down emotionally and psychologically, and often cast away into exile by our parents and society, we did not know we had any rights at all.

So, in 1967, Rowena’s son was born. And the government social worker that came with the surrender papers made her believe that her only option was to sign, that an unwed mother could not be a mother at all. The growing list of “waiting parents” was more important to the worker than the emotional trauma she was doing by dismembering this one young family. Rowena wanted to keep her baby, and he was taken from her.

Because of the traumatic loss of her son, Rowena never had another child. She yearned for him for what seemed like unending years, thinking of him every single day, and doing what she could to deal with the PTSD and unrelenting grief.

As soon as Alberta set up an adoption reunion registry, Rowena signed up for it. Her name was on that registry for over twenty years as she waited to hopefully find Blaise again. All she had known was that he was supposedly adopted into a “good home” with a stay-at-home mother and a professional father.

Rowena began coming to our monthly Origins Canada support group meetings early this year, and we offered to help her find her son. Thanks to adoption records opening in Alberta (after a hard-fought campaign by people separated by adoption), she was able to apply for and obtain her son’s full adoptive name.

The search began in March 2009, and forty-two years after Rowena lost her son to adoption, he was found again!

The break came when we found Blaise’s adoptive family’s genealogy listed online, including an adoptive sister, “Alice.” We found her in the phonebook, and Rowena phoned her.

Yes, it was the right Alice. Yes, her adoptive brother was Rowena’s son. But, no, Rowena could not contact him as he was a drug-addicted homeless person living on the streets of a city far away. The sister promised to pass on the message to him, if he eventually got a contact number.

Eventually, when Blaise got a temporary cellphone, Rowena and Blaise were finally able to talk on the phone. He told her how his adoptive parents had divorced when he was young, and his adoptive mother was cold and distant. He had little contact with the adoptive father. No, Blaise had not graduated from high school. Yes, he was doing hard drugs, and when Rowena asked what drugs he used, he told her, “Anything I can get my hands on.” Rowena was shocked that her beloved son had been treated this way and was in this state, as she had been forced to surrender him by a system that had told her that these parents were fit and deserved her son more than she did.

Rowena and Blaise talked on the phone three times, when he was able to temporarily get a phone. By the second call, he was calling her “Mom,” and hoping to travel out to the coast to visit her and even live with her. He wanted to start a new life. Rowena offered to send him the bus fare for him to come out.

Rowena sent letters and photographs to Blaise through Alice. Unfortunately, Alice and her family opened up Rowena’s mail to Blaise, which hurt Rowena a lot.

In her third and tragically last phone call with Blaise, Rowena was happy to find that he had finally received the photographs and letters.

In early October, a phone call came from Alice. Blaise was in hospital with a serious heart infection, and Alice said that if Rowena wanted to see Blaise she had better hurry out to Edmonton fast. Alice offered to put up Rowena at her place. Rowena bought the tickets to travel the 1300 km trip and packed her bags, but 20 minutes before she left the house, the phone rang. It was Alice, who told Rowena in an angry voice that she “couldn’t have Rowena staying there” and that she would have to stay elsewhere.

Rowena phoned the hospital to find out how her son was doing. The staff there told her that they were not allowed to release any information, other than to people on the visitors list, and she was not on it. The adoptive father was in charge of the list. Even if Rowena had travelled, she would not have been allowed to see her son.

Last week, the final phone call came. Blaise’s adoptive father told Rowena that her son had passed away. When she asked, he stated firmly that, NO, she was not permitted to come to the funeral, as “They had enough people already.”

Thanks to adoption, Rowena never saw her son nor held him in her arms since his birth 42 years ago. Thanks to adoption, she will never have that chance. The adoptive parents had the right to ensure she would never be able to be there in his final days. Rowena is devastated. The hope of reunion with her son, the hope that sustained her for 42 years, has ended.

I write this post in dedication of the love that Rowena and Blaise had for each other, as mother and son. She never forgot her son. I hope that I am not the only one who sees the tragedy here.

If you are a mother considering the surrender of your newborn infant, please realize that you are losing the right to ever see your beloved child again. Even open adoptions may close at any time (they are not legally enforceable), and not only will you not have the right to see your child, but not even the right to know about his or her welfare. That is a right only the adoptive parents have, and even if your child is an adult — as next-of-kin — they have the right to deny all information or contact to others in case of a medical emergency. Adoption loss is a tragedy in so many ways. Please consider if you can live with this loss as well.

In Memory of Blaise
1967-2009
Loved and missed by your natural mother, Rowena,
even since you were born

This is a true  story about a natural mother and her son, and how forced adoption separation led to a heartbreaking tragedy.  Every time a mother and child are forced apart for adoption purposes, it is a tragedy; but for Rowena, the hope of seeing her son again was forever lost.

See Rowena’s article “Reunion Attempt“

I decided to participate in the  “Adoption Carnival III: Photos of Adoption,” presented by the blogging network “Grown In My Heart,” which encourages bloggers to share blog posts related to adoption.

I thought about what photographs to share, and decided that posting photos of people may be a bit more personal than I would like to be.  So, I took a photo of a print-out of an “e-card” mounted on the wall of my office.  Along with the adoption certificate from when I adopted-back my son, and his original birth registration, this is the most precious adoption-related document I have.

My precious son turned 19 in 1999.  Thanks to Open Records and Freedom of Information legislation in BC (which enabled me to obtain his adoptive name plus the adoption case file, and all birth and court records), I found him in November of 1999, and we reunited in-person in February 2000, one day before his 20th birthday.   That Mothers’ Day, May 2000, he sent me an unexpected e-card that blew me away.   “Here Mom!  A Bunch of Love  Happy Mothers’ Day” it read:

(click here for full-size image)

I was blown away by this card. After twenty years separation, in a closed adoption, I had assumed that perhaps we would be friends, if I was lucky. I knew the bond and love I felt for him, loving him as deeply as I loved my other three children, but I had no idea that he would feel similarly. But he did. Unfortunately, he had to hide his feelings from his then-adoptive parents, and they reacted very negatively (understatement) when he let slip about a year later that he considered me to be his mother, when recounting a story to them about introducing me to one of his friends. They laid down the law that they were his only parents and that he may not consider me to be a mother. In their eyes, i was not a mother to him, only a “birthmother.”

But, this e-card is very precious to me. It shows that the natural mother-child bond can endure through decades of separation, that my son felt this bond very early in our reunion, and that it will last no matter what. It shows that even then in his eyes I was not his “birthmother,” but that he loved me as, and considered me to be, one of his mothers.

An new initiative by the Chinese government to try to find the homes of stolen and trafficked children was in the news this week (see “Chinese crackdown nets thousands of ’stolen’ children“).   The news is about the creation of a website, named “Baby Look For Home.”  You can find it at http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n983040/n1928424/index.html.

As the newpaper article states:

“Many, if not most cases are not formally listed because local police are unwilling or unable to investigate crimes that usually involve crossing provincial borders. As well, many of the parents think police might be complicit in the kidnappings. It is a lucrative business that can net about $4,000 for each boy sold and about $1,000 per girl… The abducted children are mostly boys and are sold to families who want a son. The girls are often sold into marriage or to agencies that arrange foreign adoptions.”

The  sale of children within China has made the news as far back as 2001 (see “China’s Baby Traffickers“) and kidnapping since 2006 (see “Stealing Babies for Adoption“)   Despite this sordid history,China is lauded as having an “ethical” international adoption system that prospective adopters can have confidence in:

“For a family looking to adopt from the most ethical country, China is the best choice.  They are highly regulated and have increasingly good orphanage conditions” (Thome, 2007)

But, given China’s history of not enforcing laws against the sale of children within China, how is any Westerner able to guarantee that the child they are adopting from China is not stolen?  From the above quote, it appears that little girls in China, those same girls that are supposedly abandoned, are selling for up to $1000:   not exactly a price that would be charged if there were a surplus of “product” on the market.

But agencies and orphanages stand to make a lot of money on each transaction, so unfortunately they have a financial incentive to hide this information from “clients.”  (Perhap more “ethical” adoptions ( an oxymoron?) will only occur once  no-one’s paycheque depends upon the transaction being made, where there is no financial incentive to kidnap, abduct, or coerce.)

“Mr. Peng …  said some of the girls were sold to orphanages. They … often end up in the United States or Europe after adoptive parents pay fees to orphanages that average $5,000.” (New York Times, April 4, 2009).

Anyway, I wonder if this new website may be able to serve those who have adopted a child from China and wonder if that child has been abducted?  Many people adopted children from China, trusting in the assurances of baby brokers whom they now realize may have been lying or omitting the truth, and some of them now want to search, to find their child’s natural parents and discover if that child really was abandoned, or whether the child was kidnapped or the parents were coerced to surrender.   Maybe a photo-listing of that child on “Baby Look for Home” may be at least provide a small chance of finding the child’s natural parents and the truth?  I wonder if the Chinese government would cooperate?

(P.S.  If you check out the “Baby Look for Home” site and cannot read Mandarin, you’ll find Google Translate to be a useful tool.)

http://exiledsister.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/risk/

“I risk a lot of backlash in telling this story. I risk receiving comments of disbelief, people who don’t believe anything is wrong with the ethics in this story, people who believe that having me be adopted on the basis that my adoptive parents were the only ones who could pay the bill is justified and moral, people who can’t consider that my mother’s decision wasn’t really a choice after all, people who have never had to imagine what “desperation” of a choice really is.”

There is a huge disconnect in public discourse related to the subject of adoption. I believe that this disconnect is directly related to the fact that the dominant voices that “own” the conversation about adoption do not include the voice of the natural mother, when women are kept silenced and invisible in shame and blame for a traumatic event that often they had no control over. The dominant voices belong to others, and others often attempt to speak for us.

A small example of an event illustrating the unintentional but systemic marginalization of the voices of natural mothers (and adoptees) is provided by Lorraine Dusky, in her excellent article on mothers in Korea, who describes a personal experience of marginalization at a conference.

About the program for creative works, primarily attended by adoptees and natural mothers:

the program … was scheduled late in the evening and held in one of the more distant buildings… the only people who were present were a handful of adoptees, their friends and partners, and ALL the birth mothers … the overwhelming participation [at the conference] was of adoptive-mother-academics

And about the conference in-general:

… Everyone was at least marginally polite, but I did feel like a stranger in a strange land there. The academics did not seek me out. I was more of a…um, pariah.

It is no social coincidence that the main body of “academics” at the conference were primarily adoptive mothers — adoption is more popular and accessible among the more educated and “monied” classes in our society, and, on the other hand, mothers are often pressured by poverty to surrender babies.  As well, a career in academia can often entail putting off reproduction until fertility is no longer assured.

This experience will sound familiar to those whose voices are marginalized and disenfranchised, whose voice is not heard in the “dominant discourse.”

And the dominant discourse surrounding adoption (and of course its underlying paradigm) involves the repetition and acceptance of the theme of “abandonment.”

The main focus of Lorraine’s article is about a recently published article about mothers being forced and coerced by lack of resources and social pressure to surrender their babies for adoption. Sounds familiar? Happened to thousands if not millions of mothers in Canada United States, Australia, the U.K., for decades. It was called the Baby Scoop Era. But this latest story is focused on Korea:  “Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers,” where the Baby Scoop Era obviously has not ended. This is tragic, because this systemic coercion of mothers in Korea was also pointed out 21 years ago, in the article “Babies for Sale”(Progressive, 1988, see footnote). Has no-one been listening for the past two decades?

With “Western” governments and society finally acknowledging their human rights responsibilities and providing at least token support and resources to mothers, the demand for babies has moved overseas to other nations where mothers are still vulnerable, where women are still second-class citizens, and human rights abuses and acts of reproductive exploitation go unnoticed and unchallenged. Similar to the Baby Scoop Era in Western nations, adoption serves in placed such as Korea as a “social safety valve” to remove the children of single mothers and provide them to strangers who are judged to be “more deserving” of their babies than they are. I know this feeling all too well — others were judged by society, Victoria General Hospital, and the government social wrecker adoption worker to be “more deserving of, more entitled to” my own beloved baby.

The disconnect?  The dominant discourse surrounding babies for adoption focuses on “abandonment,” exemplified by article such as this one, “South Korea’s troubled export: babies for adoption“:

Thousands of babies are still abandoned every year due to divorce, economic hardship and the difficulty of raising children in a society that sometimes looks on single mothers with scorn.

Now, I would state that a mother who surrenders her baby under pressure is not “abandoning” her baby. Abandonment has many implications: that the parent is performing the act out of genuine free will, that the fate of their child (life, death, injury) is of no concern for them, the child is rejected and unwanted, and is being  “disposed of” like some inconvenient garbage. The parent can freely be reviled and considered to be some sort of inhuman monster — after all, what kind of loving parent would abandon their child? Society justifiably considers child abandonment to be a crime.  Is it surprising that reading this phrase in her adoption paperwork would be upsetting to the adoptee involved?

“For reasons of their own they abandoned the baby…”

But are these the words of a mother who has abandoned her baby?

“I need to see him, and that I wasn’t the one who sent him away … I lost everything when I lost my child.”

These are the words of the Korean mother in the trailer for the film Resiliance.  Exiled from her baby, can anyone truly believe that she “abandoned” him?

As a mother who also lost her beloved newborn baby to adoption, I know what she and other exiled mothers must have experienced, the extreme pain they must feel and likely must still be feeling.  A mother who “abandons” her baby feels none of this. I do wonder:  Would these heartless people actually think that I also had abandoned my baby?

…. a delivery table as flat as an ironing board, my arms strapped down to the sides, feet up in stirrups … a sheet put up in front of my face to prevent me from seeing him. they whisked him away as soon as the cord was cut … not allowed to see or hold my baby. Never told I had any rights …

In Korea:

“After delivery at a hospital, the baby is taken from the mother …”(from “Babies for Sale“)

“Myung-ja Noh had no choice in giving up her baby for adoption. Her relatives took her baby to a hospital, which then contacted an adoption agency that came and took the baby away.”
(from “Resiliance“)

How different is this, in Korea, from what was done to mothers here in North America? How it is “abandonment” when a mother’s baby is taken from her, when resources and support are withheld? When her voice is silenced under oppression from those who have the power to take away her baby and withhold it from her? When someone listens to the voices of Korean mothers, it is not abandonment that is spoken of, it is trauma:

“She initially made contact with over 30 different birth mothers, interviewed six and planned to include three in her documentary. She said that the unifying thread between all the mothers is the devastating impact it has had on their lives.”

On a personal note, is “abandonment” also the rationale that the people who adopted my baby used, in order to feel entitled to “claim” him as their own? Was this the justification they used In order to lay down the law post-reunion that they were his only family, his sole mother and father? Is the assumption of “abandonment” the underlying theme that can be used in order to dismiss the enduring love a natural mother may have for her lost child?

The next time you hear of a baby being “abandoned” and adopted — even if it is in another nation, another culture — consider what this says about the natural mother of that baby.   Think about what happened to her. Did she really “abandon” her baby? Or was she forced to surrender her baby by lack of resources? By her family? By a hospital or an adoption agency?   Read this article about single mothers in Korea.  Read Mei-Ling’s story of how her parents were forced to surrender her in order to save her life.  Read about the crimes committed in the name of “international adoption.” Do you still consider her to be a “heartless abandoner”?

If the voices of natural mothers were actually heard and listened to, instead of marginalized and dismissed, if our experience of the (often violent and traumatic) loss of our babies were acknowledged, would the word “abandoned” be applied to readily, be so much a part of the dominant theme of adoption? The disconnect between the dominant theme, of “child abandonment,” and the experience of the natural mother who has no choice, should be recognized, explored, and eliminated in the adoption discourse.

~ ~ ~

Disconnect [noun]: a lack of or a break in connection, consistency, or agreement (Merriam-Webster). an unbridgeable disparity (as from a failure of understanding) (The Free Dictionary)

Excerpt from “Babies For Sale,” exposing blatant coercion of unwed mothers in Korea:

“‘According to the questionnaire that we distribute at the orientation interview, 90 percent want to keep the babies, says Kim Yongsook, the director of Ae Ran Won. But after counseling, maybe 10 per cent will keep them. We suggest that it’s not a good idea to keep the baby’…. After delivery at a hospital, the baby is taken from the mother.. ” (“Babies for sale. South Koreans make them, Americans buy them,” 1988)

We promised you a follow-up to the post “Sorry, Mrs. Smith” and here it is. This post is composed by both of us: Mei-Ling, who is the adoptee in the original story, and Cedar.

~ ~ ~

Cedar:

I began reading Mei-Ling’s first two blogs sometime in 2008. The story of her journey, an international adoptee discovering her heritage, was compelling; and the way she “wrote from the heart” eloquently expressed the challenges she faced.

In telling the story of how her parents had lost her to adoption, it seemed to me though that sometimes readers would dismiss or gloss-over her words, not comprehending some of the salient aspects of her story, and I began wondering: What was it that kept some people from understanding? Were some people having trouble relating to a family in another culture? I began writing “Sorry Mrs. Smith” with a hope: To tell Mei-Ling’s story in a fictional modern setting that native English-speaking readers might identify with, to perhaps further expose the coercion and lies such that more readers might understand, describing events as if the reader was in the same room.

I sent Mei-Ling a draft, asking for her opinion, and we corresponded back and forth for a few days, refining and correcting the story.

The new fictional account had different names, a different culture, and I put her adoptive father’s words into an agency-worker’s mouth, to further protect her privacy.

We expected discussion, but I admit we were a bit surprised by the amount of outright disbelief that something like this could happen in any country or at any time. There were some readers, especially on Cafemom, who missed the point of the story altogether. One person even somehow concluded that it was a critique of the U.S. health insurance system! Another accused us of making the story more “sensationalist” or “dramatic.” I think you will see by Mei-Ling’s account below, that there was nothing we overdramatized. The actual events were likely quite similar, with the exception of the cultural details we changed.

I will leave it to Mei-Ling to relate “the story behind the story,” but remember, although this story may have happened 22 years ago, coercion still continues today. The agency, Christian Salvation Services, still exists today. You can read their marketing materials:

“CSS provides the funds for life support and other necessary medical care for premature babies or infants with special needs. Often, parents of premature or handicapped infants are unable or unwilling to accept this responsibility and refuse to authorize necessary medical treatment… By intervening on behalf of these babies,this program has changed the lives of hundreds of babies. After the babies are stabilized and have received all necessary medical treatment, they enter the CSS Baby Nursery … Through our international adoption placement program, these infants can be adopted by loving Christian families.”

So, according to CSS, being “unable” to pay is equated with “refusing” to authorize medical treatment they cannot afford. Loving parents are stigmatized as having “abandoned” their babies. Is this how Mei-Ling was ‘”saved”?

- Cedar

~ ~ ~

Mei-Ling:

In general, what do you think of the comments made about the blog entry?

They were very interesting to watch. Many of them believed this was a horrible thing that happened. Some presented outright skepticism that due to the domestic setting of the alleged story; for example, how could medical care have been denied? In my opinion, our attempt to make the story more modernized and in a familiar domestic setting that white adoptive parents could relate to may have actually been a huge disadvantage in making the story sound believable, as health care is radically different compared to 2^nd or 3^rd world countries.

What comments in particular did you like or dislike?

I have been following the discussions on Facebook, CafeMom and Cedar’s blog for some time. As part of this back-story, Cedar thought it would be a good idea for me to expand on what my thoughts were regarding the comments. It’s always very intriguing to witness such a personal story and the reactions that come from people who don’t “know” who you are [online]. Some of the commenters were able to figure it out from the hints, but quite a few hadn’t known.

Those of you who were already familiar with my story and recognized it, thank you so much for your support. Many of the encouraging comments describing how horrible this was (my TW parents not having enough money) perhaps can lead to a better overall understanding of why my personal adoption blog posts have an underlying current of sadness and grief to them and my mixed emotions towards both sets of parents. The circumstance that caused this may be perceived as “simple” to some, but the aftermath, eventual search & reunion became far more complicated than I ever imagined. I have revealed my story to show the Western perspective in terms of adoption privilege towards the Eastern economic and adoption ethics.

There were a few comments which irritated me, but given that we had decided on the familiarity of a domestic setting, I can see how people became confused. Reading things such as “If the parents wanted to keep their child, they would have found a way” honestly stung. Other comments like “Guess their child didn’t matter that much otherwise they would have tried harder – I’d do anything for my child” also stung. I realize that the domestic setting may have led some people to think the story itself was fabricated for pity… but even so, the intention and obvious implication of “they would have found a way” indicates that my parents were “less than” since it implies that if my parents had “cared enough”, they would have found a way. However understandable the confusion was, such comments allow people to imply my parents did not care enough, and that hurt to read.

Sometimes even knowing that the story is not actually domestic is still enough to “allow” people to assume the worst of my original family [since they still relinquished me]. There are some people in real life who do know the basics of my adoption story. I have had a few people in real life tell me directly – face to face – that if my parents had really wanted to keep me, they would have found a way. They tell me that if my mother had really loved me enough, she would have found a way to keep me.

I was not abandoned. I was not unloved. I was not unwanted, nor rejected. I really wish people would stop believing that so easily under the label of “adoption.”

Those types of comments are indicative of first-world privilege and deliberate ignorance of the 2^nd-world economy.

~

This is the first time I have officially written out what happened. My purpose was to remain objective so you won’t find me commenting on the personal details much. Rather, this is a relayed combination of many aspects and chat log memories with my sister, my narration of the story as I have been told [by my adoptive parents], and my attempt to be as neutral as possible regarding all cultural and adoptive aspects. While later paragraphs indicate I do have a “position” as to how I have viewed my own adoption, I have taken care to expand and explain this position quite. Please keep in mind that any speculation on what my original mother may have believed at the time of my adoption is merely that – speculation – based on my sister’s chats and cultural information I have gathered over the past three years.

Note: Due to the language barrier in reunion, I was unable to ask my mother many questions about my birth, the agency or the orphanage. I did confirm that the motorcycle accident was true. Even when directly asking her the term for “motorcycle accident”, she seemed reluctant to speak about it. Perhaps it was too painful for her to want to discuss. The following background is knowledge I have attained from my adoption files, my adoptive mother’s perspective, my translator who patiently explained the health care system back in 1987, and my sister’s relayed translations from my mother.

Cultural Note: Baba means “father” and Mama means “mother.” In speech, Taiwanese people frequently refer to themselves in the third person, even when talking to family or about family. (Eg. My Baba would often say to me, “Baba and Mama want you to come back to Taiwan again to see us.”)

~

My name was legally Huang Mei-Ling for the first seven months of my life. I was the second child, a planned female infant. My mother had already been married and was raising a son who at the time was only 5 years old.

Then, at the end of July in 1987, my mother was involved in a motorcycle collision on her way to work.

Due to the severity of the accident, I was born 11 weeks premature.

My mother told me (relayed through my subsequently kept sister) that I was not breathing. She immediately drove me to the nearest hospital and then I was placed into the incubator. This hospital, called Tseng Hui-Kun, was connected with the adoption agency called Christian Salvation Services. This agency was actually networked with several hospitals in Taiwan and worked with these hospitals in order to provide part of the medical expense taxes for medical care that the parents could not possibly hope to afford. In fact, they set up contracts for the purpose of providing the pre-hospital expense taxes while searching for prospective parents who could cover the actual procedures.

My liver was not functioning properly; I needed blood transfusions. Because I was born so prematurely, the oxygen supplied in the incubator actually ruined my eyes as they were undeveloped. My adoptive mother has told me my condition was so severe that the hospital staff did not think I would live – even with the payment procedure assisting my life support. Around this timeframe, my then prospective parents were seeking out an adoption agency which could assist them with the adoption of an Asian child. They eventually came across the Christian Salvation Services and the social worker who spoke with them told them that I would be “available” for adoption IF the surgical procedure saved my life and IF they were willing to pay.

I quote my adoptive mother here: “[The social worker] said, ‘We have a female infant who was born prematurely. The doctors do not think she will be able to survive, but if she does and you’re willing to pay the bill, you can have her.’”

And thusly my adoption contract was drawn up between the hospital, my original parents, my then prospective parents, and the agency known as Christian Salvation Services.

~

My [original] mother and father understood what adoption meant, as indicated in the court papers. She knew that once she signed the papers, her parental rights would be lawfully terminated forever. I have not been able to discuss her thoughts regarding my adoption; rather, the only two direct sentiments I was able to understand were the following:

“I hoped you would come back to Taiwan to see Mama and Baba.”

“Did your Canada Mom treat you well?”

When I enquired online about my adoption, my sister relayed [from Mama] the situation at the time of my hospital bill expenses. Even if my mother had attempted to pay the hospital bill, it would have cost her all her assets and her home – and likely more than that. She would have had no money left for the rest of the family to survive. So the only alternative – which was conveniently offered at the hospital shortly after my birth – was the suggestion of adoption. In an alternate scenario where the hospital allowed payments in an increment system, it would have taken my mother several years to pay the bill; however, that was not the case. Seeing as my mother did not have the money nor could she ever hope to work hard or long enough to pay off the bill [in a 2^nd-world economy], there was no choice but to consent on the condition of saving my life.

My total bill was 277,107 NTD. That is equivalent to about $9500.00 USD, since 29 NTD equalled $1 USD (as indicated in my adoption files).

I do not consider that a voluntary relinquishment due to the lack of alternatives and that my mother apparently did not have any assistance, nor did she seem to know of any assistance.

~

In 2006, I had contacted a Taiwanese citizen who was an adoptive parent. She had spent many years growing up in Taiwan and naturally, my curiousity led me to question what she knew of the health care system. I revealed my adoption and the hospital contract, complete with the Christian Salvation Services and the social worker’s words as relayed from my adoptive mother.

1.) Did the hospitals require upfront payment? My adoptive mother says I likely would have died if not for the medical procedure.

Answer: Back then, Taiwan didn’t have the Universal Health care system that it has today, and most hospitals wouldn’t even admit a patient unless a deposit was paid up front. This cash system caused so many family tragedies that brought about the medical system reform and Universal Health care systems in 1995. Under the old system, you could have died if your family couldn’t give direct payment, or your family could have gone into a huge debt that would totally have bankrupted the family.

2.) What would have happened if my then prospective parents had not paid? Would I have been taken off the incubator?

Answer: It was not uncommon for private hospitals to discharge patients as they failed to pay the bills. The patients just went home to wait to die. I also remember reading news articles about people with chronic illness committing suicide, because they didn’t want to be such a financial burden to their families. There were also patients seeking emergency care who died right in front of the hospital, because the hospital refused to admit the patients without upfront cash deposits.

I am not sure how long you were in the incubator, but your parents were probably paying the bills as they went and at some point they just couldn’t raise any more money*. As soon as they stopped paying, the hospital would discharge you & leave it up to your fate. You could have lived or you could have died, but you wouldn’t have died in the hospital so the hospital wouldn’t feel any direct responsibility. They would say that you were just unlucky to be born into a family who couldn’t afford to pay the hospital to keep you alive. It was not likely that you would have found Taiwanese adoptive parents, because you were a baby girl and you came with an existing hospital bill as well as potentially more hospital bills.

*Note: My parents were never able to pay the bills at all. My sister has relayed at the time they did not have any extra money for hospital expenses, and that the incubator payments were approximately 500 yuan a day, which equals to 17 USD.

*Cultural Note: The average Taiwanese citizen in 2009 earns about 520 yuan a day, just under 15 USD. Back in 1987 they probably did not earn as much. However, even if they had paid my incubator bills, they wouldn’t have had any money left to survive. Not to mention there were other medical issues which required more money.

3.) What about an increment system? Was there any way possible that a hospital would have allowed the parents to pay a fee at regular intervals?

Answer: A for-profit private hospital usually would NOT let patients pay their bills in increments later. This hospital would have been considered very “charitable” if they had not asked your parents to pay as they went and even gave them time to raise money and was still treating you at the same time. Most hospitals would have just kicked you out right away.

As a preemie, who knows what other health issues might have come up later that would require even more treatments and hospital bills. Here’s the worst case scenario: if your parents had gone to a loan shark to pay the hospital bills, their life (& yours) would have been living hell. Loan sharks were usually associated with gangsters who charge an unbelievable amount of interest, because the most desperate people would turn to them to borrow at any cost. I have read so many times how some families were stuck with interest that was 100 times more than the amount they initially borrowed!

~

I have spoken with several people about this circumstance in e-mails. Some of the typical responses are:

1. “At least she gave you a chance at life. At least she chose to let someone else adopt you and provide what she could not.”

2. “She could have aborted you. You should be grateful she gave you the chance to live.”

3. “You could have died! Even your [adoptive] mother said so! Be thankful she consented to the contract that saved your life.”

4. “At least she loved you enough to give you a chance at life.”

I’d like to point out a few flaws in those sentiments, however well-intentioned they may seem:

I was a planned baby.

My mother had no intention of aborting me.

How can there be a choice when there are NO alternatives? Is life-or-death REALLY a choice?

There is also the occasional poster who will say something along the lines of, “Well, look at it this way. The parents either felt, or were led to believe they had no other choice. They loved and wanted the very best for their child but were denied any and all help so that they would believe adoption was their only choice.”

My question is: Why are these parents – not just mine, but I’m sure many others in second-world economies – NOT being offered help or suggestions to keep their babies? If they love and want their babies, why is it a problem to find out a way to assist them so they may keep their babies? Why isn’t anyone questioning this?

In Cedar’s original post, she wrote the line:

Twenty-five years later, the young woman opened up the envelope from the agency, containing her adoption papers. Her past was a mystery, hidden in the unknown a world away, born to people she never knew. She unfolded the letter, then read the agency worker’s careful hand-writing: “The child was born premature to a married couple. For reasons of their own they abandoned the baby…”

The agency and social worker did not write that. In fact, this particular line was written in a typed reference to the director of the Christian Salvation Services who was assisting my then prospective parents with the adoption. This line was written and signed by my adoptive father. The first time I sorted through my adoption files, that line sent a chill down my spine. I wondered, “How could someone consciously write that down while recognizing on some fundamental level that it might not necessarily have been true? Is the word adoption that blinding?”

However.

In order to legally process an adoption overseas, the child must be considered a legal orphan. If the parents are alive then the adoption cannot be completed unless the child is considered an orphan or legally abandoned under the law, otherwise it is considered as legal theft or kidnapping. The adoption cannot be processed appropriately if the parents are alive and the adoption staff are aware that the parents wish to keep their child but are unable to do so. From researching my adoption agency online and discussing the adoption system with a staff translator at St. Lucy’s Center in Taiwan, I have concluded that adoption agencies have a required policy to create a legal abandonment so that the process may be finalized. Therefore, I have every reason to believe that despite my father’s handwritten signature on the reference paper, this was merely a legal procedure required by the agency. It was not his doing, but the agency’s policy.

I have often been told that I cannot undo the past. My relinquishment and adoption were finalized years ago, regardless if it was voluntary or not. They are absolutely right; I cannot undo the past. I cannot go back in time and demand to know what people were doing – or thinking – when they organized my reference papers for adoption rather than seeking out other alternatives to assist my parents in keeping me.

My adoptive mother has relayed the following to me:

“The social worker said that your parents wanted to meet us. I thought it would be a one-on-one thing. I spoke to your dad about it and told him that if we had the chance to speak with her – if we saw her – I would place you back in her arms and tell her to keep you. Please believe me, that is exactly what I told your dad and myself.

“We entered the orphanage, but instead of having the adoptive parents meet directly with the women who were relinquishing their babies, these women must have all been in the back, in the shadows, watching as their babies were placed into the arms of the adoptive parents. If I had known who your mother was, I would have placed you back in her arms and told her to keep you. I could have never forgiven myself if I missed that opportunity. But I didn’t know and it wasn’t a one-on-one thing. I just assumed she must have been back there with the other group of women, watching us from a distance, but I just didn’t know. If I had known who she was, I would have given you back to her. Please believe me.”

I do not know if my adoptive mother would have followed through on her word. I have no doubts that becoming a parent must have been overwhelming, yet clashing with the moral obligation and knowledge that a woman who wishes to keep her child should have been able to. Yet, in the moment of truth all those years ago, I present a skeptical view to my adoptive mother’s words – as her moral judgment may have been quite understandably clouded by the exhilaration of finally becoming a parent.

It is not that I do not question her heart. I question her past ability at that time to separate the moral obligation of doing what she would have perceived to be ethical and what she consciously knew on that day or what she did not “see”, further compounded by the joy-grief collision of emotions. This is called cognitive dissonance: believing that what you are doing is morally right based on your own perspective and what you have been told – when, in any usual circumstance, you would not normally believe it to be necessarily true or morally in-line with your own values.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

I recognize my adoptive mother’s humanity. Her desire to be a parent was no different than my Taiwanese mother’s. Now that I have explored my adoptive mother’s perspective into what went on that day, let me return to my other mother and the issue of cultural obligation.

I hold steady to the belief that my mother’s relinquishment was not voluntary, even if she had been told I would have a “better life” in Canada. It has never been confirmed if she felt this way back in 1987, whether or not she believes she made a decision or if she felt trapped; however cultural obligation comes into heavy play here.

In the hypothetical situation where my adoptive mother had felt inclined enough to speak to a translator that day to give me back, I also wonder if my original mother would have “accepted” me back. Despite the fact that she [Mama] clearly cherished me, I have long suspected she may have felt the cultural obligation to allow my adoptive parents to raise me simply on the basis they paid the bill so that my life could potentially be saved as opposed to some other tragic end that no one [with the means] was willing to take responsibility for.

Perhaps she felt that if she loved me enough, she should give me up to another set of loving parents who wanted very much to adopt me and give me the better life; not only had they saved my would-be Fate from premature death, but since they took the adoption offer, my mother may have felt that she might as well give me a “better” chance at living life anyway.

To summarize: the contract was made to save my life. The adoption part of the deal was the attached “reward.” Two perceived advantages against a huge potential disadvantage.

I do not say this to claim that my mother allowed me to be adopted on the sole belief that I would have the “better life” in a first-world country. That is not the basis for my adoption. My adoption occurred because of a motorcycle collision that left extremely expensive hospital bills. If I had not been premature, my mother would have raised me.

The very fact that [relayed through my sister] my mother had no money to pay, no assistance, and was apparently not given any alternative except for adoption which she agreed, has finally made me realize that she truly had no choice in the matter. Would she have taken me back, or rejected my adoptive mother’s “offer” with upraised hands?

That is a question I have wanted to ask for a very long time, but fear that it implies she must choose between me (her surrender) or my sister (substituted role for relinquishment). It may have indicated to her that she had to hypothetically choose between the past child who may have not survived in the first place, or the future child known as my sister, subsequent “replacement” to the role I would have had. It has occurred to me many times over the course of my visit to their home that even if I had found a way to phrase such a bold question, she might have simply responded with: “I don’t know. How can I answer that?”

Understanding of cultural obligation in the past three years has led me to believe she would have been more likely to “reject” raising me due to my parents’ obligation to pay the bill and as a result, adopt me into a “better life” and economic background. Even though her heart clearly desired to keep and raise me, moral “debt” based on my adoptive parents’ background and what they were willing to pay to save my life would have encouraged her to let me go – no matter how badly she may have wanted to raise me.

Her surrender of me was a matter of life or death. I do not consider that a choice.

But what people do not realize is that this still happens today. It is happening as I type this. Adoption agencies in Taiwan are very aware that more often than not, biological parents love and wish to keep their babies but do not have the money to provide medical expenses. So I question: why aren’t there alternatives for them to keep their children? Why do the papers say “abandonment” when it is not true? Why is this issue of human rights being covered by the façade of adoption?

~

ETA:

I’ve noticed this post is getting a lot of attention – not necessarily from the comments, but from the stats.

I’d like to clarify something I wrote earlier:

Perhaps she felt that if she loved me enough, she should give me up to another set of loving parents who wanted very much to adopt me and give me the better life; not only had they saved my would-be Fate from premature death, but since they took the adoption offer, my mother may have felt that she might as well give me a “better” chance at living life anyway.

You might be wondering, “Well, if it didn’t bother your TW parents to the point where they obviously haven’t made a big deal out of it, then why do you care? If they thought it was best at the time that the situation occurred, then why would you let it bother you so much?”

Because I am the one who was adopted.

I am the one who was separated from her family, her mother tongue, her culture and her homeland.

If adoption is really promoted to be in the best interest of the child, then perhaps you should take my opinion into consideration as well. Just because people claimed to know what was best for my health does not mean that money should have had an advantage or that my parents should have had to relinquish on the basis of not being able to provide nearly $10,000 dollars’ worth of hospital bills.

I am the one who was adopted, I am the one who lost her original family through adoption – my opinion matters too.

Or, at the very least, it should.

You can contact Mei-Ling at: little.wing04@hotmail.com

It has been truly interesting to read the response to the latest blog post, “Sorry, Mrs. Smith, your baby has to be adopted”.    We thank everyone who has participated in the discussion, and everyone who has re-posted the link for others to read this story.  Your comments on this blog, on Cafemom, and on Facebook have been read*.

Later this week there will be a follow-up post to “Sorry, Mrs. Smith,” providing some of the background behind the story,  and perhaps discussing the responses. Until then, please keep spreading the link and talking about it.

One thing that I want to clarify again:   Yes,  the adoptee in this story is real.  Details were changed to protect her identity and those of her family members, both natural and adoptive.  Yes, she is indeed aware of the blog post:  I would not have posted it without her permission.   I am also deeply indebted to her for her help in the composition of this story.

* If there are other public places of discussion that I have missed, please let me know.