Loving for the Greater Good?

In reading from my blog roll today, I came across some posts by Cassi and Myst regarding the school of thought that it is a greater form of love to relinquish a child than to parent them.  Their posts were sparked by a quote from another site that read, "If I loved my child any less, I'd still have him with me."  Needless to say, from the perspective of a woman who has relinquished, this is going to dig up some memories and emotions. 

As I read through their posts, I found myself identifying with a lot of the same feelings, but I had a little different spin on it, as well.  I thought I'd bring the discussion here and see if anyone wants to jump in.  I welcome all points of view.  I only ask that everyone be courteous and respectful of viewpoints that differ from their own.  So, no name calling, profanity or general nastiness; although, spirited, intelligent discussion is encouraged! :)  I am not really challenged to think outside of my own viewpoint if I am just called a "hater" (I left my hip hop dictionary back in middle school) or bitter and angry. (See previous post.) As an aside, I'd like to add that it confounds me that I could offer my heart up in sincerity and still be labeled a "hater" by another person who shares my faith, but I'm more interested in moving on to productive dialogue.

So back to the subject at hand, in thinking about what these other women who have lost children had to say, it occured to me that we haven't touched on the fact that as expectant moms, we were given incorrect pictures of the people waiting to adopt our children.  I am gonna come at this one from the perspective of having relinquished through a Christian adoption agency.  I know that is not the experience of everybody out there, so I'd like to hear other's experiences as well.

I was most definitely encouraged to relinquish for the following reasons: 1) I was unmarried, and my daughter's father, although 11 years older, was about at my same emotional maturity level that I was at 17.  2) I had not yet gone to college, and it was going to be a big financial strain on me to provide for my daughter. She would have to go to daycare all day while I worked my tail off.  3) I was told I did not have the wisdom and discernment at my age to parent a child. 4) I was told that it would be extremely difficult for me to find a decent husband if I was a single mom.  Nobody would want to take on all my "baggage".  Go ahead and swallow the vomit that just came up into your mouth, and then read on. :)

So there you have it.  And I guess at face value, some of those ARE important issues to explore when you are facing parenthood.  Parenthood is not playing house.  But what those issues are not are automatic reasons to give your child away to someone else.  Did I need to find some solutions to my current situation?  Oh yeah.  Babies DO need financial provision.  They DO need to be nurtured spiritually and emotionally on top of meeting their physical needs.  But the point I am getting to is that, at the time, I was told that giving my child to a waiting family was going to secure all of these things for her.  Afterall, Bethany screens all of their adoptive parents and puts them through such a rigorous application process and homestudy, right?  Well, it certainly is a sea of paperwork and questions that adoptive parents have to wade through if you go through an agency.  I will definitely give you that.  But you know what I have found in the last 5 or 6 years that I have been developing relationships with adoptive parents?  They are not superhuman.  They are just normal, everyday people who want to be parents.  Some of them have a lot of money.  Some don't.  Some are married.  Some are single or divorced.  Some are educated and some are not.  Some are discerning and some just got off the banana boat.  Some are very knowledgeable about their faith, and some haven't cracked open their Bible in months or years or ever.  I am not saying this to be critical, I am saying this to put it out there in the open that couples who are waiting to adopt are just everyday, real, fallible people like anyone else.  Many are phenomenal people, and many are real jerks.  The fact that they have completed adoption paperwork and created a scrapbook or a YouTube video does not make them any wiser, or richer or loving. They are just human beings.  At the core, they are just the same as parents who relinquish.

Before I go any further, I want to say that my intent is not to harm any of my friends who might be reading who are mothers through adoption.  I am actually very thankful to have made friends with women and men who can offer me a glimpse into the world of an adoptive parent.  It has helped me to understand more of my own situation, and that has brought some relief to me as I have grieved my closed adoption.  You have let me into your lives and been honest with me about the not-so-lovely parts of adoption from your perspective, and even though that can be painful for me, it opens my mind up to experiences outside my own.  But I am about to open up another can, and I wanted to warn anyone reading that what follows might be hard to read at first...

It pains me to no end that I was deemed not good enough to parent my daughter for the reasons mentioned above, when agencies will turn around and allow single parent adoption, give loans and grants to people who cannot afford to adopt, allow people who are going through bankruptcy to adopt, allow people with no education and minimum wage jobs to adopt, allow people to adopt and then stick their children in daycare all day, and so on and so forth.  I have seen so many people come to discussion forums with all their worries because of bankruptcy, divorce, criminal records, trying to hurry up and find a church to attend for a while so that they can get a pastoral reference letter - then leave the church, and so on and so forth.  So, why is it that I wasn't good enough for their approval and help? Why is it that someone else could be in a similar circumstance to me at the time I relinquished my own daughter, but they are somehow "better" than me?  In some twisted way, I must love to my own harm for the sake of my daughter, so that she can have the opportunity to go to this dream family.  So I was told.

I believed this stuff.  I cried and cried at how torn I was.  I LOVE my firstborn.  I have loved her from the moment I knew of her existence.  Knowing her due date and being told that adoption was the best way I could show love to her was like knowing the day that someone was going to die.  You live in a perpetual state of nausea all the time (and it's not pregnancy-induced.)  I dreamed of leaving the hospital with her and just running away and making a life for myself.  But then I would be this awful, selfish, immature outcast.  And afterall, I would ruin her, right?  She deserved so much more than me.  She deserved the BEST.  Let me tell you, when I had that lighbulb moment and realized the facade of the rich, superhuman, all-wise, perfect adoptive family, I didn't know how I would live through it.  The grief that engulfed me was so crushing that I could hardly function.  When I went to my agency to discuss this discovery and emotional turmoil, they didn't know what to do with me.  Because they still didn't get it.  Even though they realize that waiting families are just normal people, there is still somehow this gigantic disconnect there about why they are not BETTER, just DIFFERENT from parents who relinquish.

I'm not trying to criticize anybody who finds themselves in any of the above-mentioned life circumstances.  Life happens and people lose jobs, find themselves in financial hardship, go through divorce (sometimes when they have no choice).  And of course there is the whole working mom and daycare vs. stay-at-home-mom discussion which I have no desire to wade into. People make the choices they deem best for their own families.  But I think you get the point I am trying to make, though.  Why was it more loving of me to consider giving my daughter to another mother who might put her in daycare when that is what I was facing? Why would it have been more loving of me to give her to a family who also didn't have much financially?  Why was it stressed to me that I was cheating my daughter out of having a father when the agency approves single parents?  I have seen marriages fall apart within a year or two after finalizing.  Do they have to give back their adopted children? I've never heard of it.  Of course not.  That is unimaginable.  Better yet, do people with bio children who go through hardships have an expectation put on them to just relinquish their kids because they are going through a rough time?  Um, nope.

So you see what I'm getting at.  Where is this truth in loving for the greater good?  Why was it more loving of me to give away my child rather than parent when I could have been placing her into similar circumstances to my own?  For the record, I'm not going to give specifics of my daughter's aparents' situation.  But I am thankful to say that they are a stable, solid, and I believe, discerning family.  My pain over their closing the adoption does not reflect on my confidence in their ability to parent my daughter well.  But I believe that my daughter's parents are by far NOT the norm from what I have seen over and over and over again among couples waiting to adopt.

Sometimes, I dislike how things have turned into a bit of an "I told you so" when it comes to how my life played out after relinquishment.  I have a very blessed life.  I had a fabulous job with a lot of respect, perks and privleges up until I made the decision to be a stay at home mom.  I have a rock solid husband who loves me, is a wonderful dad, and a hard-working provider for our family.  I have two precious daughters who I get to be with every day.  They bring so much joy into my life.  But I have actually had people CALL ME ON THE PHONE (3 different people, in fact) and ask me to talk to someone they know and convince them to relinquish their unborn child because it worked out so well for me.  I am not kidding around.  People misinterpret the blessings in my life to mean that they are BECAUSE I "made the right choice".  It hurts my chest a little to type that out.  It actually makes me need to breathe in and out deeply to release some of the strain of it.  I think it is really sad that I am still being told that adoption results in a fairy tale.  That anything good in my life cannot be because of resolve, back-breaking work, and determination, nevermind the grace and mercy of God, but it all has to be about that pivotal point in my life when I gave away my child.  Well, it was a pivotal point, alright.  It was the day that part of me died and went away forever.  It was the day that something so inconceivably awful happened that I have spent every day for the last 15 years trying to live life in spite of it.  Sorting through many, many layers of thought and realizing that what I once was told - that I was loving to my own harm for the life of another... that I was submitting to God and obediently giving my daughter something better - those were all just human words and ideas. 

I do know that there are women out there who cannot mother their children.  I know of the situations of people I love and respect, and their children's first moms have made and continue to make choices that bring about pain and difficulty in their lives and the lives of their relinquished children.  I'm not condoning a child being in an unhealthy or harmful environment.  Unfortunately, sometimes it really is necessary for children to be separated from their biological families.  But that is not really what we are talking about here.  We have been talking all along about convincing someone who loves their child that the BEST way they can love them is by giving them away.  And let me tell you... the kind of mother who falls victim to this line of thinking is the kind of mother who would move heaven and earth to provide physically, emotionally, and spiritually for her child if only encouraged and supported.  When will we begin offering the same support and understanding to biological mothers that we offer to people who long to adopt a child?  Why is it so wonderful to hold fundraising banquets and concerts with the intention of raising money for people who cannot afford to adopt?  I have more thoughts on all of that, but I have written enough.  I'll let it marinate and give myself a bit of a breather. :)

I encourage you to open up your heart to realities outside your own.  Adoption counseling is STILL going on in the manner I described in my situation.  In fact, I have been doing a little digging into some of Bethany's resources that they make available to "crisis pregnancy counselors", expectant parents, and waiting couples.  You will definitely want to know how they are currently marketing adoption, and how they are continuing to present an inaccurate at best and deceptive at worst picture about relinquishment.  But I digress...  Thanks for reading.