Hypocrisy we harbor toward birth mothers

“I just don't understand how a woman could ever give up her child.”

I've had this thought before, and I've heard it verbalized by others. It's a pretty common consensus, especially among Christian mothers. And I understand the mentality. For women who have carried a child in their womb, felt the kicks, seen the nose on the sonogram, held their baby after laboring for hours.....to them it seems unfathomable that a fellow woman could then “give up her baby.”

For us who have gone through infertility issues, it seems even worse. Why would someone forsake the very thing we are so desperate to have for ourselves?

There is a definite stigma associated with birth mothers. Our culture sees adoptive parents as heroes and birth mothers as non-feeling miscreants who are taking the easy way out by giving up their baby.

This stigma causes many women to hide their pregnancies and adoptions- they know other women will look at them and cluck to themselves, “I just don't understand how a woman could ever give up her child.”

We feel this way toward birth mothers, but in the same breath we curse abortion and look down upon struggling single mothers. 

About five years ago, Mississippi got in a heated debate over Proposition 8 which if I remember correctly had to do with the law reading that life begins at conception, which would outlaw abortion completely in the state.

The wording in Proposition 8 was fairly flawed and did not end up passing, but that's not why I bring it up. There was tremendous support for it because people felt so strongly about abortion and wanted to stand up for the lives of the unborn.

I hate abortion. I too want to stand up for the lives of the unborn.

But I also want to stand in the gap for the BORN. Mississippi has one of the highest birth rates for single mothers in America. There are hundreds of Mississippi children stuffed in very few approved foster homes and even more on the state-sponsored adoption list. Most will “graduate out” without ever having a permanent family and home.

I just find it a little unsettling that the amount of people that feel so passionately over Prop 8 and the atrocity of Planned Parenthood doesn't match the amount of people with approved home studies, which you must have to foster or adopt.

We judge women negatively who have had abortions. We judge women negatively who “give up their babies.” We judge women negatively who choose to parent their children but need government assistance to do so. Obviously, it would be dandy if every pregnant woman was married with a loving spouse, had the financial resources to raise and educate a child in a stable home environment, and had a strong support system of family and friends. But that is not the world we live in.

Women who find themselves pregnant but aren't ready to be a mom (or who don't feel like they can handle another child) are in a lose-lose situation. If they choose life and not abortion, they then have two choices: parent the baby or go through with an adoption. Both options are incredibly hard! And our society judges them either way.

Judgment shows up everywhere, even on legal documents. In Tennessee, a birth mother choosing adoption for her baby must sign her name in a sentence that uses the word “abandonment.” She has to sign a form that basically says she is abandoning her newborn baby. That is really harsh verbiage to use, and it's just one more way we stigmatize birth mothers.

I know everyone reading this has deeply rooted feelings about abortion, adoption, orphans, etc, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or make someone feel wrong or try to herald my opinion in a self-righteous way. But I would like to see people's perspectives toward birth mothers shift a little.

“I just don't understand how a woman could ever give up her child.”

I will never forget the moment in the hospital when it came time for us to leave the hospital with AB. Her birth mother was in absolute agony even though she never wavered over her decision for us to raise her daughter. It was, without a doubt, the most anguishing 20 minutes of my life, watching that brave young girl go through the emotions of “giving up her child.” I'm boo-hooing just thinking about it right now. 

But she didn't see it as giving up her child, she saw it as giving me and Caleb to her child. She didn't see adoption as the easy way out; rather, she saw it as the most self-less gift she could give her baby. 

She did not give her baby to us. She gave us to her baby. 

We never saw it as her “giving up her child.” We're so thankful she chose life and us for AB. She is the hero in AB's story, not us.

***There are some incredible things happening behind the scenes with this blog! Several families from all over the country have agreed to share their adoption stories. People who were adopted as children are writing about what it was like for them growing up. Birth mothers will be sharing from their perspective as well! So hopefully this very opinionated post didn't turn anybody off :)

The feedback from the last post was overwhelming. I am still so surprised anyone is reading this blog, let alone 3,000 people and from several different countries. I think it just goes to show that people are truly interested in adoption and want to learn more about it and what they can do. I have many more less-opinionated posts planned that are more application-based, so stay with me, haha!