Tuesday 11/27/2007 0:01:11am Name: Cassi E-Mail: CasLWard@aol.com Homepage Title: Homepage URL: Referred By: Just Surfed In Location: Comments: It's taken me almost 20 years to even start searching for support for birthmothers. In 1987 when I gave up my son I was given pamphlets and books to read but never directed to any support group of other women going through the emotional chaos I was facing. I was 16 and young and confused and I had this fairy tale image of my child having a great life with a mother and father and large family and all the "normal" things I couldn't offer him as a single, teenage mother. My parents were very supportive of me and would have helped me raise my child and yet I fell into that trap of teenage girls don't make good mothers and to give my son the best life possible I have to give him up for adoption. It was the hardest, most painful thing I've ever done in my life and the loss and hurt and guilt never goes away. PLEASE if you are considering giving your child up for adoption talk to as many birthmothers as you can. Learn from their stories, listen to what they went through and are still going through and know that the "fairy tale" you might be envisioning for your child doesn't always come true. In my case, I married the father of the son I gave up for adoption. We've had three children since who have a large family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Last year, we reunited with the son we gave up for adoption and the guilt and pain I've lived with for so long became stronger and has turned into a self-hate for the decision I made. My son has been through three divorces and never truly had a male role model in his life. His adoptive father walked away from him when he was only three and hasn't had anything to do with him. He had a stepfather who was abusive and his adoptive mother has had alcohol problems in the past to the extent that when my son was younger his grandparents took him away from his mother for a few years because of the problems. I am so angry with her and with myself!!!! My son deserved much better than that. Was supposed to ahve so much more than I could have offered him. That was the belief others told me and I ran through my head over and over again when I chose to put him up for adoption. And now I see my son and know I failed him. I gave his brothers and his sister the life he should have had too. I chose for him to have to grow up that way and it rips at my heart every day. SO PLEASE, PLEASE, find others who have been there that you can talk to. Not the counselors or reps for adoption agencies who always have the "happy" stories to tell. Find real birth mothers and talk to them. Get their stories and always know adoption can never be changed. You don't get a redo. I never allowed myself to listen to the doubts and second thoughts I struggled with when I was pregnant with my son. I listened to everyone else telling me what a good thing I was doing. I thought about the adoptive mom who would be heartbroken if I changed my mind after promising her a baby. And I believed, foolishly, in the sugar coated version of a happy, healthy childhood for my son.

Tuesday 07/04/2006 9:49:43pm Name: Kathy Ghazal E-Mail: kaatwmn2@aol.com Homepage Title: Homepage URL: Referred By: Just Surfed In Location: Comments: In 1983 I called DHS to tell them I had Diabetis and wanted my Child to know and her Adoptive parents to know. She would have been 10 years old at the time. I was called back by the Head person in DHS and asked if I was sitting down. I was told my child was dead and she died by something heavy falling on her. I spent years trying to find out if she was really deceased and what happened to her. I went into depression. I then found CUB and was able to get the help I needed to find my daughter's gravesight. Her adoptive father supposedly fell on her and fractured her skull. This man was very high up in the Navy--I was threatened when I was trying to find out about her. My daughter was born January 11, 1973 in Oklahoma. I live with about 3 miles from where she was killed in her adoptive grandmother's home--never knowing for many years this. My Mom is now moving into an assisted living center less than a mile from where my daughter was the night she was fatally injured. It is so weird after all these years. I have a 19 year old son which I love very much--but Birthparents just really never are normal again I think. I spoiled my son in some ways and in other ways I have been way too protective. He is getting ready to go off to college now and my Mom has terminal cancer. I will have no family around now. I wish so much I could have been a stronger person and not listened to people and kept my daughter. I was absolutely made to feel I was not a fit person to raise my daughter. I did well in life--but the loss of my daughter and then finding out she was killed--just shadowed my entire life. There was never quite the happiness in life that I once had before I lost her to adoption. If I can encourage anyone to hold their family together and be strong and raise your child. Your situation won't always be a teenage Mom. My Mother kicked me out of the house--she went through years of guilt about this--my son has even asked her why she didn't help me raise his sister--as he was the only child I ever had after her. Well just thought I would share my story. I am about to lose my Mom and I guess this has brought back the loss of my daughter now. I will have no family but my son now and I have to let him go on with his life.

Monday 04/10/2006 1:22:21am Name: NOCIRC E-Mail: Homepage Title: Homepage URL: http://www.nocirc.org/publish/pamphlet3.html Referred By: Just Surfed In Location: Comments: DON'T MUTILATE YOUR PRECIOUS BABY! SAY NO TO INFANT CIRCUMCISION!

Sunday 03/05/2006 0:31:17am Name: E-Mail: Homepage Title: Homepage URL: Referred By: Search Engine Location: Comments:

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