Always Renee

THIS

Infertility: Adopting Versus Embracing Childfree

You're water, not blood

Enough.

Adopters, here is the truth.

Adopting won't cure your infertility. I can't stop anyone from buying babies, unfortunately, but I can promise everyone who does that it won't fill that bottomless empty hole in them.

Raising someone else's child may be mothering, but it doesn't make you a mother. One is a verb. You can achieve the verb. Anyone can. The other is a title, and the only way you'll ever earn that title is to give birth. And that's just a plain fact. Deep inside, you know it as well as I do, and that's why you behave so wretchedly and so rudely and so hatefully and so defensively when you find yourself dealing with adult adoptees who stray from the standard happy-sappy adoption fairy tale. You see your future, and it scares you and shames you to your core.

The babies you buy won't ever look like you or sound like you or think like you or act like you. They won't have your talents or characteristics. It's unlikely they'll share your passions and interests. Because they are not YOURS. They are not OF you. You didn't make them or grow them or give birth to them. They don't share your DNA, your blood, your genetic makeup. As time goes by, these things will become increasingly apparent, and they will cause you pain and frustration. You'll feel cheated. And you know who'll suffer the brunt of that? Your children--even though NONE of it is their fault.

You can deny it all at the top of your lungs. It makes no difference. Another woman's child is not yours. It never will be.

Adoption claims to be about finding families for babies. It is not. If it were, there would be no children in foster care and private infant adoption would not exist. Adoption is about finding babies for selfish, self-superior, unhealthy, emotionally-stunted adults who can't accept or cope with disappointment and who feel entitled to children even though the universe has clearly said, "NO."

Would you like to play a game?

I love this post: Adoption Apples to Apples.

Adoption is such a beautiful, precious gift!

My adoptive father finally died this past February. Last Wednesday, I learned that the old man's life insurance policy--which, according to his will, was to be shared among his heirs (two adopted children, one natural born child)--had actually been made out to pay only his natural born son. He went to the effort of having the policy worded just that way. His only natural born son.

I had long ago put an agreement in place to have any bequest bypass me and go to my son--I've never wanted anything from those people. So my son was the one affected by this news. Their twisted message was a real blow for him. It left him reeling. Especially since my adopters' natural born son is a useless waste of air who's held one job in all of his 43 years--and was fired from that within months of his hire date for molesting a six year old girl. They supported him his entire life--before and after the molestation charges.

What should have been my son's share of the life insurance payout amounts to less than $5K. It would cost me considerably more to contest it. But I was sorely tempted. My adopters' natural born son is utterly dependent on his inheritance (which includes the dinky life insurance payout and also a house/property, some mineral rights, and cash from an IRA). It might have been fun to freeze all assets and watch him starve on the street while a bunch of lawyers battled it all out for the next couple of years.

Instead, knowing it wouldn't be worth it and that nothing can change the past, I let it go and asked my son to do the same.

He spent his Thanksgiving hanging out with his animals, drinking beer, feeding a bonfire in his backyard with everything that had ever belonged to his adoptive grandparents.

Another sad anniversary

Last year, after searching unsuccessfully for information about my first mother for 32 years, I finally petitioned the Texas court that finalized my adoption, asking them to unseal my records. My petition was successful.

From the information in my files, I learned quite a bit of information about my first year of life. (I also learned that everything my adoptive parents ever told me was a lie, but I digress.)

On this day in 1961, I was moved from foster care. Today, I went to live with my adoptive family; the only family I would know for the next 50 years.

What should I do today?

Maybe go to the pound and play with some puppies?

Things no adoption agency employee will ever tell you

If you're considering placing your baby for adoption, please read this booklet:  click here to download