Babies For Sale!

I stumbled across this blog in some of my groups. An adoptee and myself originally left comments about this particular entry. None of which were good. It's baby selling at it's most despicable. If they're not selling babies, then why the different prices based off of race and/or possible disabilities?

Here is the entry:

The following are our most current situations available to our clients:
1.) *NEW* Caucasian/African-American Boy, 2/10/09, UT, $23K + potential medical expenses, *BM used marijuana during pregnancy and wants open adoption with poss visits
2.) *NEW* African-America/Hispanic Girl, 2/28/09, Maryland, $20K, Alcohol exp during pregnancy
3.) *NEW* Caucasian/Hispanic Unk Gender, $35K, May
4.) Caucasian Unk Gender, $37K, June
5.) Caucasian/African-American Boy, $30-35K, Apr
6.) Caucasian/African-American Boy, $30-35K, June
7.) African-American Boy, 2/23/09, $20K, GA
8.) African-American Girl, 3/10/09, $20K, AL
9.) African-American Boy, 3/13/09, $20K, GA
10.) African-American Boy, 3/25/09, $24, UT
11.) African-American Girl, 4/11/09, $24K, UT

Sick to your stomach yet? "Christian Adoptions" or some other nonsense! What the holy hell is "christian" about selling babies to the highest bidder? The person who posted this is a "consultant".

To all those who want to adopt. Adopt from foster care. If you think that foster kids come with all sorts of "baggage", then don't adopt at all. And if you find yourself paying twenty five, thirty five thousand dollars, don't fool yourself into thinking it's all "adoption expenses" or even "birth mother expenses". A lot of women get on medicaid now and cover their own stuff. You're buying a baby. End of discussion.

My Darkness

It's remained coiled within me for many years, only daring to show its head when times were rough and all seemed lost. It's a part of me I can never escape and personally, I don't want it to ever go away.

Much like how a TV viewer can watch events on the television and have no emotional connection to what plays out before them, it allows me to watch everyone around me with a detached nature. I can watch them from afar, never involving myself beyond emotionless words of comfort.

If only they knew what lurked behind my vacant eyes.

I am not the person I used to be. Perhaps I have never been the person I was trying to be. Whatever I am and whatever it is I have finally become, I am certain that if anyone truly knew of what went thru my head, I would probably be locked away.

There's a comfort in this strange and frightening world I created so many years ago. It has become just as much a part of me as I am a part of it. Away from those around me, away from everything that causes me pain. In my world, everything is as it should be. I am numb and unfeeling to those around me and that is fine. When my marriage was falling apart and forces beyond my control wanted my daughter, it brought me solace. It enabled me to finally view everything around me in a different light. It allowed me to finally realize that I felt nothing towards my husband and face the realization that I was capable of lethal harm to anyone who dared to try and take my child.

Here it is, now two years since the last time I felt my world's seductive pull. I can feel it lurking in my mind, interrupting my thoughts with images of things that have not happened. Flashes of faces that only I know. Sometimes I can channel it into a short story, something no one will ever see. I've dealt with my share of people who have told me that my stories were stupid, disturbing, etc. I haven't shown anyone my stress induced writings for years. It would only solidify the conclusion that something was and is very wrong with me.

Hurt

I hurt today.

I've been hurting for many months. I got a letter from Zoe's adopters about a month after her birthday. Started off good. Lots of neat tidbits about her development. But by page 2, it went on a different tangent.

"Her only siblings will be any further children we adopt..."
WTF? How dare they sit there and tell me that Michelle and her are not sisters. They ARE sisters, regardless of whatever delusion they are under.

"No more gifts, it will confuse her..."
And how exactly is it going to be confusing? I know many first moms and adoptive parents who have excellent relationships with one another....they even get to visit one another! And my sending her gifts would be confusing?

"We appreciate the situation with you and Michelle..."
Appreciate the situation? Nice try, really. But they don't know squat. They didn't have the little one excited about being a big sissy. They didn't laugh as big sissy put her head on their swollen tummy so baby sissy could kick her in the head. They didn't have to see the look on her face when she was told that baby sissy was going to live with a different mommy and daddy. They didn't have to hold her as she screamed and cried about how we needed to go and get her sissy back. Appreciate, huh?

I've been wondering how to respond that that letter. I want them to know that I do not share their views in regards to my girls. They will always be sisters, regardless of what the legalities say. They are not biological strangers. They are not just two random kids. They are sisters!

That letter was patronizing and condescending.

They do not plan to even tell her about me or her sister until she is 18. I plan to beat them to it. I managed to get their address and I got their last name. On her 18th birthday, she will get a letter in the mail without a return address. It will be letters from me and her big sister, telling her who we are and how much we miss her and love her and how we never forgot her or stopped loving her. It will include pictures of us and her first family. Regardless of what they want to believe, the truth will come out.

The Pressure and Corruption Behind Most Adoptions

Someone very close to me is grieving. She is not grieving the death of someone, she is grieving the loss of someone. Over a year ago, she surrendered her baby daughter under the pressure of her parents and the law firm that handled the adoption. She was still in the hospital, recovering from her baby's birth when her family and the lawyers pressured her into signing the papers. A mere two days later, she called the lawyer pleading for the return of her daughter only to be told that it was a done deal and she needed to get over it.

How the hell can a woman give consent the day of the birth? How is it that after two lousy days, she is denied her child? Her state adoption laws side with the lawyers and adoptive parents. Once you sign, it's done.

Laws need to be changed. There should be no such thing as irrevokable consent once your signature is on those papers. Instead of allowing states to create their own revokation period (or deny a revokation period) there should be a national minimum. No state should have it less than 30 days.

I don't want to hear about how adoptive parents bond with the babies. My friend was denied her child after 2 days. No way in hell the adopters bonded with that baby. They bonded with the idea of a baby. For those who disagree with me and say that we need to move on and forget.....for those adopters out there who are frowning and shaking their heads in disbelief at my words.....I don't care if the law is on your side. Morally, to deny a first mom her infant mere days after giving birth is repulsive. And I have absolutely NO RESPECT for any adopter or legal firm that fights the first parents when they attempt to revoke the adoption. You can always adopt another baby. We lose our children forever.

I hope that when my friend's daughter comes of age and discovers that the people who raised her refused to give her back after a mere 48 hours that she cuts them out of her life as the greedy and entitled baby stealers that they are.

This Is Me

I am a first mom. I am 29 (30 in Sept!), and I have a four and a half year old daughter I am raising, and a one year old daughter whom I relinquished at birth June of last year. Over the course of this year, there have been many emotions. Not too sure where my feelings stand too much anymore. When I had first relinquished, I had made a thoroughly educated decision and understood the legalities of it. Even when I had left the hospital empty handed, I thought I was ok with it.

It's been a year and I don't think I am all that ok with it anymore.

I had strongly felt that I was not emotionally prepared to handle an infant again. My parents supported whatever decision I would make, but my dad would throw in the occasional remark "How do you plan to handle two kids when you can barely handle one?" Yes, my older daughter was and is still a handful. Yes, I have and still do lose my patience with her.

But I still miss my baby.

Perhaps this is for the best because there is still a lot going on in my life that would not be good for a baby to be in the middle of. My older daughter craves my attention so badly that she acts out to get whatever attention she can get. I work weird, sometimes long hours. My older daughter and I are lucky if we can spend even a few hours together. What awaited my baby was daycare for ten, eleven hours a day (or my grandmother while the older daughter went into daycare). I know that situations are temporary, but what is the definition of temporary? Few months? A year? Would it have been fair for my children to hardly have a mother for the next several years? These are the thoughts that events that made me think adoption might be best.
As a pregnancy, she was unwanted. A final blow to a collapsing marriage. Abortion only out of the question because of lack of access. I was a tad past the first trimester by the time I could have access to a clinic, but I was too far long by my own code of ethics. And by the time, I saw the first ultrasound, I did want her, but I was terrified about the prospect of an infant again. And then came my dad's comment "how can you handle two.....".

Looking back, I want to kick myself for being so scared.

The situation has not improved much. Still living with parents. Dad still grumpy (I cannot imagine what it would have been like with a baby crying thru the night when he had to get up at 4 am to go to work). But I have realized that I was emotionally ready and would have been all along, it was my situation entirely. It was the pseudo support from my family. They were telling me they would support whatever I do, but I also knew them well enough that the situation would have gotten much worse had my baby stayed with me. I made too much for help from public assistance and yet not enough to support 3 people, two of which would be growing. Medical is not a problem, but I did not qualify for food stamps and couldn't even qualify for moving assistance to get into my own place. I work my tail off, pay my parents half my income in rent(at their request), supply my own groceries, buy clothes for my growing daughter who wears thru jeans like nobody's business(and has gone thru three pairs of shoes in the past six months)....and am basically flat broke. I wouldn't have stood a chance trying to support two children.

Maybe I am still trying to justify it.

In spite of knowing that my whole situation would not have been a healthy environment to add a baby to, I miss her terribly. I want nothing more than to hold her. To have had her grow besides me and not various moments in her life captured on film. She has a big sister who so desperately wanted a baby sister. She was so excited about being a big sissy! The look on her face when I explained what was going to happen to sissy. I will never forget that look. It was pure anquish.

I'm rambling.

In the beginning, I was ok with it. Now, after reflecting on everything, I have determined that as much as I want her, she is better where she is.

And it hurts like hell to say that.

Adoption Corruption in the Guise of "Protecting Children"

As much as people want to deny it happening, people are legally kidnapping our children. Disguised as social workers, claiming to be from children's services, they scoop up your children and your entire world gets turned upside down thru the pits of hell. Your children are told you are abusive, neglectful, unfit....if they refute the allegations, they are then heavily medicated so not to disrupt the pre-concieved notion that you did something wrong and must now pay by losing your child permanently. Sometimes the kidnappers can convince the child of phantom abuse. Often times, they come to their own conclusions based off your economic class. You're poor, so you must not be a good parent.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are legit cases of abuse out there. I know that some caseworkers care about the children and want to make a difference. But too many are blinded by the bad parents, the ones who probably should never have reproduced in the first place.....doesn't matter if there is no evidence to back up their claims...someone reported you....you're guilty in their eyes.

I'm certainly not a republican, but I don't want to say I'm a democrat either. A democrat caused this mess. A democrat gave state agencies the go ahead to take children from families for no reason whatsoever. The safe families act in the mid-nineties. Thank you Mr. Clinton....you fucked up so many lives! Too many children were aging out of foster care, unable to find permanent homes. Why not have the federal government give states monetary bonuses if they can get permanent homes for these children? The disaster in the making. Children wrongfully taken, parents made to jump thru impossible hoops only to be told that since their child has been in care for so long that they will lose their parental rights by pure default. The state wants you to fail. Even if you succeed, they will lie in their reports and keep pushing until you fail.

What I find odd is that only a few small media outlets have broadcasted this corruption. Some state agencies even tried to get court orders barring the media from showing the stories....something to hide? Nobody wants to believe that CPS can take a child unjustly and then warp everything to their own ends so you lose not only your child, but even your reputation....to have your child gone from you and then to be on a list of registered child abusers???? No charges are ever brought against the parents accused of abuse....the state simply takes their children and tells them to move on with their lives (but don't ever have more kids, because we'll take them too).

All to make more money. To line someone's pockets. Childrens Protective Services has officially gone down the shit pipe. They are no longer looking out for the well being of America's children....they are looking at which child they can take and make a profit out of. Why let the private adoption industry have all the dough? They need some of their own and what better way to get it than to take children from innocent parents and then adopt them out.

The Beginning of My End

When the pregnancy test came back positive, I think I was still in some form of denial. No, this couldn't be.....there is no way this is happening..... But the truth was there is two bold lines of the home test. Almost three weeks after my period should have started.....three years after the birth of my daughter, M, I was pregnant again.

When I told my husband, he didn't believe me. He was something of a mystery. His childhood was not a good one, suffering physical abuse at the hands of his parents who had made it all too clear to him that he was an accident and mistake. Instead of moving pass it and trying to better his life, he spent his adult years dwelling on it and using it as a way to gain sympathy from others. It was his excuse to act like a jerk to both me and our daughter thru the bulk of our 5 yr marriage. But here he was, staring at the home test, his face hard to read. After a moment, he sighed and said matter of factly: "It's not mine."

Through out our entire marriage, he had always accused me of cheating on him. And now, pregnant with our second child, he felt this was proof that I had cheated and that the new arrival could not be his. A lot of this was based off the fact that it took three years for me to actually get pregnant again. I was annoyed with him in those moments, angry that he was so quick to assume indiscretion based off his own insecurities.

Two and a half months later, fed up with him and his treatment of both me and our three year old daughter, I packed what I could and caught a plane back to our homestate. I needed family support, not ridicule and accusations from someone who cannot even accept responsibility of his own actions. I returned to my family after being away from them for over a year.

Doctor appointments, ultrasounds, and a three year old child who was acting out from the upheaval of her short life were wearing on me. I had wanted an abortion. And even though my husband was adament that the pregnancy was no work of his, he refused to help me pay for the abortion. By the time I had access to anything, I was too far along for my own code of ethics to accept aborting. So, here I was, pregnant with a child I felt I was not ready for and at first, did not even want.

My parents, though supportive, threw in comments through-out my pregnancy. "You can't even handle one....how the hell are you going to handle two?" was my dad's remark whenever my older daughter became too much of a handful. Sometimes I think that because of these comments, I began to consider adoption. Maybe my dad was right. My older daughter WAS a handful. How the hell did I plan to raise them both when one took almost all my energy and patience?

I was almost seven and a half months pregnant when I decided I wanted to look into adoption. I had been researching it for a few months, investigating state laws and what few rights I had. Part of me screamed against this, but the logical part of me said this was best....after all, if one was such a handful, how could I possible deal with two? I contacted a lawyer who specialized in adoption and made arrangements to speak with her. Margaret seemed nice. She spoke of the legal aspect of it all. She then said one thing that almost made me run: "These papers you are signing are legally binding, you cannot change your mind once they are signed...." I looked right at her and said in a hard voice: "Don't f*** with me, Margaret. That's a load of BS and you know it....pre-birth contracts are NOT legally binding." I think she was a bit stunned that I had legal knowledge. I smiled rather cynically at her: "Don't treat me like some stupid, scared teenage girl....I know my rights and what is legally binding and what is not....don't play me." We got off to such a great start!

My next visit was to view the binder of "parents" and review their "Dear Birthmother" letters. Gag me, please! Birthmother???? I didn't like the term. Even saying it outloud felt gross. Birthmother...hmmmm.....my only purpose is to give birth, eh? As far as I was concerned, I was a First Mom, or even a Natural mother. And at that time, I was an expectant mom. So, here I was going over pictures and letters. I was very specific in what I was looking for when it came to the prospective adoptive couples: no children of their own (not even adopted), close to my age (I was 28 then, and I wanted them to be no older than mid-thirties). After going through the binder for about a hour, I had picked two couples. First couple I interviewed were eliminated within five minutes based off their answer to my one question: Have you ever considered adopting from foster care? Their answer had been No. Their reasons: they did not want to deal with the baggage a foster child can bring with them. Ok, cool, you can go now and wait for another one to pick you. You're so not going to be it.....

Enter B and J. They were in their mid-thirties, unable to have children because of a medical problem that J had when she was a child. They had considered adopting through foster care and had started the process, but had also stretched out to private adoption as well. I clicked with them right away. J was an artist and writer and B did stuff with computers...both worked from home. We shared a lot of common interests, hell, we could have practically been friends if not for income and age seperation. We went out to lunch and spoke of our families and friends. They did ask about the father of my children, in which I simply replied: "All he cares about is child support....he was served the papers a week ago and aside from sending me nasty emails, he has not even attempted to fight this." Margaret asked if they were the ones and I said give me a week to think. I knew that they were the ones, but I wanted some time to really think before I jumped onto a solid decision.

I called them personally to let them know that they were the ones.

The first week of June was tough for me. I was only three weeks from a scheduled cesaerian and the pregnancy had taken its toll on me both physically and emotionally. My older daughter and I spoke into my expanded tummy, to the baby girl who we had wanted to call Alicya. Alicya was rambunctious. Whenever her big sister tried to put her head on my tummy to listen, Alicya would kick her in the head. M was excited about being a big sissy. Even though I had tried to explain what was going to happen to our baby, she refused to accept it and continued to talk about all the things she was going to teach her baby sissy.

I can still remember the look of anguish on M's face when I explained that sissy would not be coming home with us. My own pain, I can deal with.....but I had no idea as to how to deal with M's pain, let alone how to ease it.

Two days before she was born, I was giving M a bath. I had picked her up out of the tub and felt something pull across my stomach. The pain started from there. It came and went. I dealt with it as I went to work and came home. On Saturday, June 9th, 2007, I was ripped out of a deep sleep by intense and almost screaming pain. I ignored it and got ready for work. To this day, I do not know why I ignored the fact that I was in full blown labor. I worked at a call-center at this time and went to work like nothing was wrong. I gritted my teeth through calls when the pain ripped through my body....I would have stayed through my entire shift had it not been for my cubicle neighbor who noticed that I was in pain. She asked how often the pain came and went in which I replied: "Every five minutes or so....I'm not keeping track..." Yeah, I will admit it....I was a moron.

Within five minutes of that conversation, I was flying down Interstate 5 at about a solid 70 MPH, rushing to the hospital. I was admitted around 7:30 in the morning and by 10:45 AM, I was being prepped for an emergency cesaerian. She was 7 pounds, 7 ounces with a head full of dark hair. Between the drugs given and my own terror of the experience, I lay there as they cleaned her. I could hear her crying, screaming to the world about her displeasure of being ripped from her warm and safe environment...............

Hard to believe it has been almost a year. Hard to believe how much she has grown when I look at the pictures B and J send me. She ended up with dark hair and dark blue eyes, contrasting her big sister's blond hair and green eyes. And even though there are some obvious differences in their appearance, she almost could pass as M's twin, their faces look that much alike.

For a while, I was content with my decision. I was not pressured, coerced or forced into it. Some part of me feels that my parents' comments pushed me in that direction, but at the same time, I will not place the blame with someone else. I did not have to do it. They didn't force it.

She is forever in my heart, my Alicya. Hopefully one day when we meet again, she will forgive me for trying to think of her. Forgive me for taking away her sister, her grandmother, her uncle, even her father....I hope that she will harbor no ill will towards me, her mother, the one who did not know what to do and had almost terminated her out of desperation. I miss her. I love her. Both her big sister and I are forever changed by my actions. All three of us are forever changed. I cannot change it back, as much as I want to sometimes. I must live with my decision and hope that my children will forgive me.