A story from an Adoptee, courtesy of AnonymousUs.org:
Out of the farmland, black and peaty
Among the cows, and rough grass-tufts.
A woman left her home to find
A different life in a new land.
In the city where nobody knew her
Free, alone and unrestrained,
Catherine, daughter of Edward found
Her place in tiny bedsit comfort.
Making few friends for she found peace
In metropolitan solitude.
She stayed inside her room and read
Stories of life as it might be
A husband, children, dog and home
That dream of nowhere else to go.Tall and dark, he entered her room.
The dream was made real, inside her growing
But No! This landing was not safe,
Too many footsteps, other rooms.
The child inside her belly fed
And willed its own growth, struggling.
Ignoring it she went about
Her business, working, existing,
Eating for both, resentful-feeling
Growing, growing, ever feeding
It sucked dry her dreams and choices
Leaving only the withering toil.Large in belly, hidden under clothes
The shame was real and nobody saw
Though maybe manners played their part.
Her body denied it, ever growing
Refusing to accept her choice that evening
Her will rose up, to own her life.
Still, as she grew she felt the judgement
The guilt and shame swelled within
She ached to get it over and done
The child’s father tried to assist
She hated him for causing this harm
Denied him any place at all
In her life or that of his child
He could not know the shame he caused
She would not change her life for thisThe time came near and still she hid
From family and those she knew.
She worked until the week before
The aching in her belly burgeoned
With her denial, unwelcome guest,
Until she could no more deny
The life, the will, emerging soon.
For six weeks she kept her child
In convent walls , a harsh reminder
Of the shame. She signed the papers.
Gave him away. Free from consequence
of that choice, she returned to life
As though he never had existed.
Categories: Childhood, Motherhood, My Daddy's Name is Donor, The Future of Parenthood
Rip my heart out of my chest. You see these are the dark sad things people think of – that was not written by anyone’s mother. That was written by someone who thinks they don’t matter to their mother. Ugh. Hope she made up for that by now.
It would be an interesting exercise to re-write this from a child of a “traditional surrogate” perspective.
Ouch
“Free from consequence”? That sounds uncomfortably like the old myth that if you took a baby away from an unmarried young mother right after the birth, she’d forget all about it and go on with her life.
““Free from consequence”? That sounds uncomfortably like the old myth that if you took a baby away from an unmarried young mother right after the birth, she’d forget all about it and go on with her life.”
You’d think so, right? How does that fit with “gamete donation” and “surrogacy”?
Is anyone here arguing that gamete donors and surrogates never have regrets or wonder about their children?
Well, I’m not arguing that fact but I do argue that the practice of and the misleading words of “gamete donors” and “surrogates” as well as the institution of the practice is simply wrong. And why I support marriage.
Neither of which is actually the topic of the post.
It segues by matter of discussion
Adoption, “donor conception”, “surrogacy” and marriage are all intimately connected.
Armchair psychologist that I am – I think what happens when people raising adopted people or donor offspring get told how raising the child is what makes a person a parent and how much they were wanted and all the effort the people raising them went through it really highlights the fact that one or both of their bio parents were seemingly not interested in making that effort for them. As painful as I think it is for an adopted person to learn they were taken from their parents against their parents will – I think they love it. From everything I’ve been witness to knowing the parents were willing to raise them means everything. Every adopted person I ever reunited with a family says to their parent within the first day that they wondered if their parents thought of them on their birthday and when they say yes the kid falls to pieces as if the most important sentence in the world were just spoken. As if it were the first words they’d ever heard in their life as if they’d just been born or released or something. They thought of them on their birthday. They matter. Oh man does that stuff make me just bawl for days. Its addictive.