All's Fair In Adoption?

It would seem, according to this CNN story, that breaking the law of any country is okie-dokie if the perpetrator is a pair of adopters who "dreamed of becoming parents." In a country (Egypt) where adoption is not legal, our "heroes" falsified documents in order to procure children for their "parenting needs."

As the story comes out, the attorneys for these people are going for the sympathy vote by waxing eloquently about their overwhelming need for a child. The bitch of it is that no one respects the laws of the country involved, just as no one respects the culture of the country of a child's birth or the person who brought a child into the world. No...all the sympathy is with the heroic, saintly adopters who suffer from infertility. The suffering of the mothers, grief and pain, and the suffering of the children who are not allowed their own, true heritage, take a back seat to the problems of the infertile and the adopters seeking social canonization. In 1962, if I had been told that I had to either lose my children to adoption(which is what I was told to do) or be infertile and never give birth, I think I would have chosen the latter.

What is wrong with this picture? Have we, the American public, fallen so fast and hard for the industry hype that we only validate the pain of the adopters while negating the deeper pain of the mothers of adoption loss and their children, shorn of their civil right to their own identities?

What about the case of the couple who abducted and raised a young man after the mother and father changed their minds about surrender? Not only did the kidnappers (and make no mistake...that is what they are) get all the sympathy, but even the abductee involved was supportive of the criminals that raised him. No one spared a thought for the parents that had searched for their son for years. I still do a slow burn over the injustice of that one.

So now falsifying birth certificates in Egypt and breaking the laws of that nation is being excused as a means to a "noble" end. How noble is adoption which is really all about the selfish needs of the adults that adopt and the money made by the industry? No one who really knows the score pretends, any longer, that it is all about the children, except the industry spin doctors and the adopters, themselves. There is no compassion for the mothers who have been made to represent the "sins of Eve" to the prudish and hard-nosed among us. And the children are seen as ungrateful if they, as adults, insist on their civil rights.

When did our world become so off-kilter that there is no compassion for mothers who lose their children and children deprived of their mothers? Why is that sacred bond no longer honored for what it is? Natural family preservation seems to only be for those that follow obscure and judgmental rules that have nothing to do with loving thy neighbor. Churches have long tried to keep their hands in the social engineering pot, doing all they can do to see that children are raised by "the right kind" of people, ie., those who follow the tenets of the church.

Somewhere in this land of myth and legend, there has to be someone who cringes at the thought of punishing an unmarried and/or financially disadvantaged mother by taking her child. Diogenes needs to lend us his lantern, but, rather than searching for an honest man, we need to search for what we have lost...balanced values and true compassion.

It's out there. I know it is.

Separation Anxiety Is The Pits!!

We've only had him since December 13. He sheds, he wakes me up at 5:00AM for walkies and he loves to bark at anything and everything. He also owns our hearts, totally.

Today, I had to leave him at the vet. Rocky's unfortunate dietary quirks (snatching old garbage and worse if we don't get to him in time) has given him a case of pancreatitis. He will be receiving shots and IV fluids for three days and will be on meds and a special diet for the next three weeks.

As I watched the tech walk away with him, I found myself shaking and fighting back the tears, even though I know he is going to be OK. It just reminded me, too much, of how I felt when I had to say goodbye to my two oldest children. Of course, I know he is just a dog, but he is a member of the family and most dearly loved. If it is shaking me up this much to leave my dog at the animal hospital, how did I ever manage to make it without my babies?

I remember going totally numb after the second loss. I didn't want to feel anything. I was a zombie, emotionally. For years, I would become a screaming bitch every April and June. I would hide it, as best I could, from my raised children, but it was only denial, self-anesthetizing with excess food, pot and fantasy that allowed me to live any semblance of a normal life.

Someone on one of the groups said that every social worker should be a mother of adoption loss as part of the required experience for the job. Boy, would that turn things around! Every mother who has lost a child to adoption, unless she is cold to the bone, who insists she did the "right thing" and "has no regrets" is lying to herself. That lie will consume her, from the inside out. It will haunt her, even if she can't recognize the specter for what it is.

Adoptees are not the only ones who suffer from abandonment issues and separation anxiety. We moms have it, as well. Especially the separation anxiety. They say I will have him back in three days. I wish it had worked that way with my babies.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life goes on, YEAH!

This is the very first picture I received of my newest great-grandson, Sean. He is now a healthy 4-month old. He is the grandson of my reunited daughter, my firstborn.

Sean comes into the world with his heritage intact. His genetic relatives are alive and kicking. Those of the adoptive variety are deceased or scattered. I and I, alone, have the honor of being his paternal great- grandmother.

Sean's big brother and his cousins know that Grandma was raised by other people, but that I am, in my oldest great-grandson's words, their REAL great-grandma. I am the one that sends Christmas and birthday gifts and receives the pictures and relates the stories about the cute things they say and do. There is no confusion or misunderstandings about why they have full lips, straight hair or big feet.

I hope you will forgive me a bit of a "so there!" attitude on this one. All the attempts, by the industry, the social workers playing God, and the adopters trying to live a fantasy, to wipe out the natural heritage of my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren has come to naught. Their socially engineered "solution" to my problem and that of my daughter's adopters has faded like a fog in the sun. Yes, we have the scars from that weird transplant surgery called adoption, but they are not crippling us for life and have not hidden the truth from the world. I am here, alive, available and honest about it all.

My reunited son also has the full story. I was noting, during a recent phone call, that he has a mannerism very much like one of my mother's and my raised daughter's. His reply was that you could "take the boy out of the Kinneys, but you couldn't take the Kinney out of the boy." I think that is a testament to the fact that the entire idea of secret, closed, coerced adoptions under the auspices of an intolerant society, has failed, completely.

Those trying to protect this struggling, sick dinosaur by filing suit to try to keep records closed, by closing off so-called "open" adoptions and raising the non-existent specter of (natural)Parents' right to privacy are spitting in the wind. Whether it happens in my lifetime or down the road, the beast is dying of internal rot. Adoption agencies are dropping like flies and all the corruption and child-theft is coming to light in the world at large. Mothers of adoption loss from the closed, secret era are making noises that repute the right of the nay-sayers to speak for them.

It was while organizing my photos and lingering over those of my great-grandchildren, the ones the industry would have prevented me ever knowing, that it came to me that every word we type or speak is being read or heard by someone. I can get discouraged at times, but I stood back and took a look and realized that what they are hearing are the first tremors of the earthquake to come. The industry and those that benefit from it are hearing the rumblings and feeling uneasy. I love to watch the adult adoptees, our children, rattle the chains of the status quo.

The dinosaurs were eradicated. The saber-tooth cat and the mammoth are no more. But life goes on. It will go on long after I am gone. And the best thing is that ALL my descendants will know from which branch of the Tree of Life they grew.

To those who shamed, punished, coerced us and tried to silence us; Ain't this a kick in the head?