Loss
I've been thinking a lot about adoption today, about loss and grief. All along, I've known that something terrible will have to happen in a family in order for Petunia and me to become parents, and that's a painful thought. Here we are, all excited to become parents and thrilled at the thought of bringing Hester home, and here are Hester's birth parents, being told by DSS that they're not allowed to parent their child. Most importantly, here's Hester him/herself, ripped away from his/her family and sent to live with strangers. Loving, kindly strangers to be sure, but strangers nonetheless. It tempers my excitement to think of all the things Hester will have gone through to come to us.
Sometimes I wish we had the money to adopt through a private agency. I like that birth parents have the right to choose adoptive parents for their child--it seems a much better option than social workers getting together to rip a child away from one family and give her/him to another family. At our MAPP class on Tuesday, one of the facilitators said that many kids adopted through DSS feel as though they've been kidnapped from their birth families. That's a thought that breaks my heart.
At least it sounds like we'll have able to have an open adoption. Ninety percent of MA DSS adoptions have some degree of openness, so that's some comfort. I want Hester to know her/his family, if it's at all possible. Although Hester's birth family won't have chosen to make an adoption plan, at least they will know that Hester is still one of them, even as s/he is one of us. And even more importantly, Hester will know this, too.
Sometimes I wish we had the money to adopt through a private agency. I like that birth parents have the right to choose adoptive parents for their child--it seems a much better option than social workers getting together to rip a child away from one family and give her/him to another family. At our MAPP class on Tuesday, one of the facilitators said that many kids adopted through DSS feel as though they've been kidnapped from their birth families. That's a thought that breaks my heart.
At least it sounds like we'll have able to have an open adoption. Ninety percent of MA DSS adoptions have some degree of openness, so that's some comfort. I want Hester to know her/his family, if it's at all possible. Although Hester's birth family won't have chosen to make an adoption plan, at least they will know that Hester is still one of them, even as s/he is one of us. And even more importantly, Hester will know this, too.
posted by Clementine at 2:27 PM
2 Comments:
Yeah, I think this is one of the hardest things about it. Unfortunately, even with private adoption this is still true, even though the circumstances are very different - it's "voluntary," but I always think about the way our society has failed someone over and over and over in order for someone to feel like they have to relinquish their baby to get their life back on track. It really, really sucks.
I hear you. The thing that strikes me about private domestic adoption is that the birth parents get to pick the adoptive parents. I wish that could be true for us, too.
Post a Comment
<< Home