Kerry's blog

The more I read about the ten Baptists, waiting for word in Haiti, the more I think about Scott and Karen Banks.  The Banks thought they too were providing better lives for poor children.   In fact, they chose to make it their business to take poor children, from poor parents, and sell those Samoan children to those willing (and able) to pay the tens of thousands of dollars necessary to obtain a so-called orphaned child.

Let's think about this for a few minutes, folks.... people are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to take a child, from the poor, but few are willing to go out and work with and empower the poor so they don't have to send their children away, in the first place.  But that's another soap-box rant, isn't it?

In this latest case, the Baptist group knew that "what they were doing was wrong."   And yet one pastor claims they would do it again.

The mind set is:  "We're providing a better life".   

"Providing a better life",  through international adoption.   <Thinking back, and laughing at the sickness involved in some cases>  I'm reminded of the story of Lauryn Galindo, and how her "humanitarian efforts" hurt so many, (including herself), in the end. 

I try not to do it... I try not to look, knowing how it will trigger me.

I try not to read about infertile women looking for babies, but I did it today, because I'm a masochist, and it seems like today is a good day for pain.

Today's find involves yet another infertile blogger, advising others how to find a baby.  Yes, Virginia, there are many like you, wanting to know oh-so-desperately, "what needs to happen so a baby can be delivered, ASAP?"

First thing first, desperate infertile couples are told they must find a good lawyer... you know, one who knows how to make sure said "legally adopted" baby will never have to be returned to any first-family members... because the law is The Law.

Next on the list of things to do is, prepare for a home study.  Key word:  prepare.

Just last night, I proudly announced to my family, "You know what?  I'm not taking Motrin like I used to!"

While my kids had no idea what I was talking about, I really thought my observation was significant, and in turn, I felt really proud of myself.

As stupid luck would have it, I noticed something very curious in my news-feed.  It seems many are spreading the word that researchers from the American Headache Society's Women's Issues Section Research Consortium found that incidence of childhood maltreatment, especially emotional abuse and neglect, are prevalent in migraine patients.   While a part of me wants to go on the attack, hoping people don't read this news and use it as an excuse to remove children from pathological parents, ASAP.... a bigger part of me wants to share a part of my own personal history, and how life became one big chronic headache for me.

Throughout my childhood, my Amother was always complaining of stomach pains and headaches.  She had a difficult childhood.  Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother didn't seem to be the sharpest crayon in the box.  It was decided somehow, for her own good, it would be best if she lived at her grandmother's house for a few years.  I never knew her grandmother, but according to my Amother, she was the best, most loving caring woman in the world.

Still, my Amother was a miserable moody/sickly woman, always needing time in bed.... always recovering from something.

WOW.

Don't know how many read this little blurb, found in Christianity Today.com.... but it seems Orphans on Deck was written to help recruit new business:

"If every Christian church in America produced one adopting family for an older child, we could wipe out the list of 'waiting children,'" said Ekstrom, who spent 25 years as president of the Christian Family Care Agency in Arizona. "And if God's people were responding to this need, the issue of adopting by gay people wouldn't be an issue. All the children would have homes." 

For those interested, John VanValkenburg, spokesperson for the largest adoption agency in the world, Bethany Christian Services, was mentioned in the article, reminding readers BOTH political parties have supported a federal tax credit for families who adopt— making adoption that much more attractive to those still sitting around doing nothing as them damn gays keep wanting to start their own damn families. 

Nice job bridging opposing political sides so all good Christian folk can reach a higher understanding, isn't it?

She was special, she was chosen, she was given a gift, and that gift was supposed to be wanted, cherished, kept and adored.  

The gift was a man's love/desire. 

She lost the gift... or was the gift taken away? 

She was special, she was chosen, she was given a gift, and that gift was supposed to be wanted, cherished, kept and adored. 

The gift was an unexpected pregnancy. 

Today I read a blog written by an Adoptive Mother, who claims it took six months to write a piece about mothering a newly adopted child from Ethiopia.

We got out of the hospital on Mother's Day and I realized I felt totally disconnected from my other kids from not having spent much time with them at all in the last month, and also from this baby whom I had been spending all my time with, but who I really didn't know b/c all that time was spent with doctors and medicines and hospitals. Well, NOW I was ready for that joyous family of 6 thing. But again, it didn't happen. Instead, I began to get to know our newest little lady and guess what? She was NOT fun at all!! She screamed all. the. time. LOUDLY. And a LOT. As in ALWAYS. The only thing that would even come close to getting her to stop was to hold her, all the time, and no, not in a carrier. It was exhausting. And I wanted her to stop, a LOT. Not to mention that her screaming would then set my 2 year old into a wailing, inconsolable crying fit of her own and we spent many a day with 2 very loudly wailing children next to me on the floor while I silently wept, amongst great Mt. Everest's of laundry and heaps of dirty dishes and tumbleweeds of dog fur on unvacuumed floors, and asked God why He had called us to THIS? Was this what we had prayed for, hoped for, wanted, anticipated so eagerly for the last year? Is this what all of our friends and family had been so excited about? Had we misunderstood what God asked us to do and this was the consequences? I felt like I couldn't function normally in any way and it felt like my family was all coming unglued. And the biggest panic I had was that I COULD NOT GET OUT OF IT. I debated giving AGCI (our agency) a call and asking "What is your return policy?"

[From:  Talk is Sheep:  International Adoption:  Behind the Blogs ]

I'm an adult adoptee mother to four... my last two were "surprise" twins -- a  biologic "gift" (reminder?) given to me from the birth mother I was never allowed to know. My first-born was perfect, although she never liked to sleep or ride in the car; she liked to cry, so she could be near me. On me, at my breast.  My second-born had colic and grew to become a modern-living-version of Bamm-Bamm, (from the cartoon, The Flintstones), complete with swinging bat, and voracious appetite for anything physical.  No child has bruised, or exhausted, me more. My twins were born very healthy... 6.7 lbs and 7.2 lbs.  [Yes, I was H-U-G-E].  However, the pregnancy was very difficult, and after birth, one had developed GERD, and another developed symptoms making it necessary to test for Cystic Fibrosis, and both (quickly) developed asthma. [Not knowing what sort of family (medical) history you have can be very upsetting, especially when you are watching your infant turn gray then blue, from not being able to breathe.  Correction, it is terrifying. Thinking your baby is not going to live changes many things.]  When my twins were four months old, and thriving, I finally thought everything would be OK.  Chaotic, but OK.  Sept 11, a GORGEOUS September day, I sent my two older ones to school. I sat, on my usual spot in the family room, and started to nurse my twin babies, as I watched two planes plow into the twin towers.  Hub-man was immediately called to work ground-zero -- he works for the NJ State Police.  For those who care, feel free to read more about me and my mothering experience that first year with unexpected hardship, and how that taught me I had to learn how to cope with stress, or else it will be the cause of death.  [See:  Length of stay ]

Why do I mention all of this?

Because this... stress, crisis, unwanted crap happening... is PARENTING, and it's nothing like the movies, sit-coms, or commercials make it, no matter how <ahem> realistic media tries to spoon feed it to Prozac-ed people.

An article found in UK's Mailonline features the story of a family broken and separated by social workers because the parents have many obese children.  According to media reports, immediately after birth, the newest addition to the "very large" family was taken away by a social worker, and that newborn infant was put in foster care.  Perhaps we are to presume the placement was a preventative measure, and the removal of the parent's older children was in the name of "a child's best interest".

Before she became pregnant, the mother, 40, who cannot be named for legal reasons, weighed 23st.

At that time one of her children, a toddler, weighed 4st, her 13-year-old son weighed 16st and an 11-year-old weighing 12st.

On Monday afternoon, the mother gave birth to a girl by Caesarean section.

And 28 hours later, social workers arrived at the maternity ward to take the baby into care, after serving child protection papers on the patents.

Yesterday morning, a meeting of the Children’s Panel of Dundee Council decided the three youngsters still living at home should also go into care.

They are expected to be removed from the family home before the end of the week.

Yesterday the mother pleaded: ‘I just want my wee girl home. She’s only a day old.’

The 18st father, 54, who was at the Children’s Panel hearing, said: ‘The panel members wouldn’t listen to me.

‘They would only listen to the social workers. They were accusing me and my wife of physical and emotional abuse and physical neglect – and we deny all that.

[From:  Newborn baby of 23st mother and her SIX siblings taken into care 'over obesity fears' October 22, 2009 ]

According to a different article, written in 2007, several children in the past have been taken into care because of obesity.

Meanwhile, across the pond... a similar situational case took place this past summer, in the United States.  According to media reports, a South Carolina mother lost her obese son to social services/foster care.  This case had Newsweek reporters raising the question, is child obesity reason enough to be charged with criminal neglect/child abuse?

Gray followed nutritional guidelines set for her son by the state Department of Social Services, Varner says, but Alexander apparently got other food on his own while not under his mother's supervision.

The boy has been placed in foster care, and Varner says he hasn't been allowed to speak to him.

[From:  S.C. case looks on child obesity as child abuse.  But is it?, July 23, 2009 ]

Times sure have changed....

Ten years ago, when I first started to post my litany of complaints about abuse in adoptive families, it felt as if all AP's were unified (and ready to attack) on all adoption forum fronts.  Not a negative word about an AP could be said/written by an angry adoptee, without a pack of AP's offering their outraged 2-cent opinions.  In other words, the more I was banned repeatedly because I kept writing about the many ways AP's can be messed-up in the head, the more I thought adoption, as a practice, was (and continues to be) REALLY F-ed up.

The blogging-world sure seems to allow more honest,  uncensored truth.  <WHEW!>  This truth in blogging is giving me an odd feeling -- hope.

Today's find comes from an Amother's blog, Adoptiontalk.  Kudos must go for the AP who finally sees just how crazy life can be for the adoptee "chosen" by/for a well-to-do family with some serious identity issues:

The speaker was a proud father. To illustrate his comments about a piece of art that celebrated the wonders of modern medicine (and which he had just donated to a local hospital), he told a story about his adopted Asian daughter. He described her as a beautiful, happy child in whom he took much delight. Her life, he told the audience, had been improved dramatically by the miracle of modern medicine. When she joined her new Caucasian family, her eyes, like those of many people of Asian descent, lacked a fold in the upper eyelid, and that lack was problematic—in his view—because it made her eyes small and sleepy and caused them to shut completely when she smiled. A plastic surgeon himself, he knew she did not need to endure this hardship, so he arranged for her to have surgery to reshape her eyes. The procedure, he explained, was minimally invasive and maximally effective. His beautiful daughter now has big round eyes that stay open and shine even when she smiles.

[From:  Eyes Wide Open:  Surgery to Westernize the Eyes of an Asian Child ]

I remember when I first wanted to tell my closest friend about what was going on at home, with my Afamily.

I remember wanting so badly to tell someone the truth.

I remember hurting and hating so much, and wanting to get rid of the bile that became a constant in my mouth and throat.

I remember wanting so much to be free of the burden inside of me.

But I couldn't.

A series of comments have been made in a very busy thread following the article, Lid lifts on the anguish of China's stolen generation.  As more members of foster/adoption community have added their personal experiences and opinions, the various issues behind angry adoptees became noted.

the label "angry adoptee" is easily pushed on each adoptee that speaks out about the negative sides of adoption, as if that anger somehow invalidates the issues being forwarded. I see that as part of some sort of kill-the-messenger-syndrome.

[From:  Angry Adoptees ]

As one who has often been criticized, shunned and even attacked by fellow adoptees and AP's alike, I have found those attacks to be insulting and hurtful, but never discouraging enough to make stop, quit and say, "F-it, I'm done!"   [But oh how I have cried and stormed.... as those very close to me know!]  The more I was attacked and criticized, the more I knew people needed more proof to see just how some adoptions give no reason at all for celebration.  The Masha Case alone illustrates just how much gets ignored and dismissed and just how an adoptee has every right to be royally pissed, not just "angry".   However, Masha is not alone.  She never has been.  For generations foul-play has been taking place behind closed-doors, just so an adoption can be made in the name of saving a child's life (from abuse or abortion.)

So, why are some adoptees so angry?

In some cases, that anger stems from the legal issues associated with Closed Era adoptions.  Marley Greiner, best known for her efforts through Bastard Nation, has become a house-hold name for those pushing for adoption reform (Open Records) in the United States.