The same People magazine issue (October 5, 2009) that told Katherine Heigl’s joyous adoption story also featured an update on the adoption featured on MTV’s reality show, 16 and Pregnant. Four months after Catelynn Lowell and her boyfriend Tyler Baltierra placed their daughter with adoptive parents in North Carolina, they are starting their senior year of high school in Michigan–and coping with bittersweet moments haunted by memories of the baby who Catelynn says looks like both of them. The couple are at peace with their decision, however. They decided to make an adoption plan for their baby soon after they … Continue reading →

This is my third blog on the powerful book, The Girls Who Went Away: Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption During the Decades Before Roe v. Wade. One disquieting aspect of the book is a letter written to the author about a 2003 adoption. The writer was a friend of the adoptive parents, who had supported and housed the young mother during her pregnancy, then felt betrayed when she didn’t sign the papers right away. She did end up placing but the letter writer was still uneasy. She felt that the girl would have parented her baby given the right … Continue reading →

I have just written a blog reviewing Ann Fessler’s book The Girls who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade. It’s an awfully long blog for a book report. Yet I felt I couldn’t do this book justice in one blog. This blog is some personal musings of mine. I’ve just spent most of the day rereading the book for the third time. Of course I have known that birthmothers of 1945-1973 were often acceding to pressure from their parents, boyfriends, or schools, which did not welcome (and … Continue reading →

This is the continuation of a letter I imagined a birthmother might write. The last two blogs contain the first two parts. Again, this is my imagination and is not based on any birthmother that I know. The letter continues: When my friends came home they took me to the hospital. You were born in a tiny room. A doctor and nurse were there when you were born. The doctor made sure you were breathing all right, and then he took you to the nursery, where you stayed in the incubator because you were so tiny. The nurse could tell … Continue reading →

This is the continuation of a letter I imagined a birthmother might write. The last blog contains the first part. Again, this is my imagination and is not based on any birthmother that I know. The letter continues: By this time something else had happened. I began to feel you inside me. I was very scared, but also excited. It is exciting to have a human being growing inside of you. Sometimes you kicked me if you heard a loud noise. Other times it seemed like you calmed down if I spoke softly. I thought about wanting to be a … Continue reading →

The voices of birthmothers, especially those from other countries, are some of the least heard from regarding adoption. A rare exception is I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean birthmothers of Ae Ran Won. This is not a children’s book, as the editors carefully point out several times. It is intended primarily for adoptive parents, so that they will have some idea of the circumstances faced by birthparents and the thoughts and emotions they have regarding their babies and placing their babies for adoption. The idea is that adoptive parents can then be in a better … Continue reading →