Don't know where else to post this; I want to have a baby for my friend - Page 5

[BroodyWoodsgal]

Originally Posted by lauren 

It is perhaps a valid question about an older child; perhaps you could gift them with one of your older children?
 

^At first glance, a truly wicked, stinging thing to say....but if you really examine the thought, I think it's what a lot of us (well, at lease me!) were trying to say.

OP, look at one of your existing two children. Now imagine giving one of them away as a gift, to a friend who is unable to conceive on her own. Couldn't do it, could you?  Now, imagine that it is going to be any different to make a baby with your husband and give that baby away....it's not going to be any different to you...and because this baby is staying "in your circle", it may take a while....days, weeks+ for it to sink in, but I think it's going to.

The baby you make with your spouse would not be "genetic material" to you, in the end, any more than you would call one of your existing children your "genetic material". Seriously. Look at your daughter and say the words "There is my genetic material playing on the floor, what's so wrong with giving her away!" - she's not yours because you have had the chance to know her....she's yours because she has belonged to you since the first time you heard her little heart beat, isn't that right?

My fear is that you would trick yourself into believing this would get easier and easier to "get over" with time....so you would ignore the screaming voice inside of you and give the baby to your friend even thought it was really tearing you up inside to do so. Can you imagine watching your baby growing up as your friends child? That is the stuff of nightmares, right there. I can't imagine.

[pumpkingirl71]

Here is the thing that bothers me.  I could imagine watching my biological child growing up as my friend's child.  That was before I adopted.  Now that I am an adoptive parent, I know that emotions run crazy on all sides of the triad.  For me, it isn't about the "giving away."  I am not sure if I think that is ethical, but not all adopted children feel the sense of loss others are concerned about.  What concerns me it that intentionally bringing a child the world for this purpose is creating an emotional mine field for two families.

Maybe I am adding nothing new to the discussion.  Maybe emotions run hot because of the genetic link, I don't know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BroodyWoodsgal 

^At first glance, a truly wicked, stinging thing to say....but if you really examine the thought, I think it's what a lot of us (well, at lease me!) were trying to say.

. Can you imagine watching your baby growing up as your friends child? That is the stuff of nightmares, right there. I can't imagine.

[Mom31]

I was going to link a blog post but think I will pm it directly with the OP.    If you are interested in reading it the Title is

Things I wish I had known when I was considering adoption....

and is written by a birthmother.  You can PM me for the link.

2.  I wish I'd known that the child will probably not be grateful to have been relinquished. Most adoptees report feeling abandoned by their first mothers. While they may be glad to have been adopted, they are most definitely not happy to have been relinquished. (In other words, they see their adoption as two separate events: being given up and being taken in. The second is warm and fuzzy, while the first is full of hurt.) It's very hard to know that the most painful choice you make for your child might not even be appreciated by them. There are no guarantees that your child will love you for what you've done. Can you live with that? Don't fall into the "martyr" mindset that you are doing something beautiful and noble for your child - you might be disappointed if the eventual adult doesn't see it that way.

This is an excerpt.  This also starts to answer your question Smithie.

[tiffani]

I think this is a really nice thought that you've had, but if you haven't had any experience with adoption, you might not be aware of how painful it can be for everyone involved.  I hope that you take all of these words to heart, and do a lot more research on the feelings of adult adoptees -- adoption ethics also come into play here, beyond just figuring out the logistics of the thing... There are certain romantic notions we are fed about adoption, but one has to look deeper, to what each situation really means.  This situation, like others have mentioned, can sound very loving and giving and "normal" in this era of surrogacy and IVF and egg and sperm donation, etc, but it's very true, that creating a person to give as a gift just isn't ok on any level.  It's a lovely thought, but listen to the pain that adults who have been separated from their birth mothers have to deal with -- just because not every adoptee feels the pain consciously, doesn't mean that it isn't in there somewhere, or that you should roll the dice with how this person you're considering creating might someday feel about it....

There are so many ways you can support your friend in their quest to add to their family -- she's lucky to have a friend like you. hugs.

[tiffani]

didn't mean to imply that all adoptees are walking around in pain, or are unaware of their own pain -- some adoptees seem to have no issues whatsoever with their family circumstance, and certainly how we walk our children through it makes a huge difference, but the odds of the child, in this case, having painful feelings about all of this is pretty high, in my educated opinion....   just wanting to clarify so the conversation doesn't veer off the rails because of my statement, lol...

[Hoopin' Mama]

n/m

[LessTraveledBy]

There is also a huge difference between "I knew I could not raise you, so because I loved you, I chose to find you a family who could" and "I loved my friend so much that I purposefully created you to gift to her." The first can be all about the baby, the second cannot.

[BroodyWoodsgal]

Originally Posted by LessTraveledBy 

There is also a huge difference between "I knew I could not raise you, so because I loved you, I chose to find you a family who could" and "I loved my friend so much that I purposefully created you to gift to her." The first can be all about the baby, the second cannot.

SO vitally important to consider! I was just coming here to say this...but you said it in far fewer words than I would have used, hahahahah.

OP in a "typical" adoption situation, there is a birth mother who finds out she is having a baby and for whatever set of reasons, sometimes complicated and sometimes simple, she cannot in good conscience keep the baby because she feels deeply that her situation is shitty and cannot be made good for a child.

Looking a 17, 18+ year old in his/her puzzled face as they say "why??" is probably a bit easier when you can say "I was alone, I had nobody. I had no money, I was barely making ends meet. I knew you would have such a hard, hard life with me...I was just in a different place then and would have been such a terrible mother. Then there were these lovely people, they longed for a baby of their own and they were so nice. I met with them and I knew they would have the money to feed you good food and that the woman would be able to stay home with you and give you all her time and love and that she would be patient with you and would bake cookies and be such a good mom...I felt like I had to give you a shot at a better life than the one I had waiting for you if I kept you. I loved you then, I loved you when I met you face to face...and I love you now. I will always carry a sadness in me for having given you to another woman to raise...but I did it because I truly thought it was best for you"  - That's pretty fucking compelling. A kid in his/her late teens can grasp this...even if it doesn't heal their hurt or really satisfy their sense of wondering how their life may have been different...at least they can see the sense in "I didn't make you on purpose, you were a surprise...I wasn't ready, MY BABY DESERVED BETTER THAN I COULD GIVE.

But consider this situation. So, you are going to get pregnant. Everyone in your life is going to know what's going on....both sets of grandparents, all the aunts and uncles and cousins....your kids are going to have to know, because, um, wow what a mind-job that would be, if you didn't tell them and then just didn't have a baby at the end of your pregnancy.....so, from the get go, EVERYONE in this kids life is in cahoots...has formed a FORCED (by you) conspiracy to keep this information from your/your friends baby, in order to wait for the "right time" to reveal this information.....

But when is the "right time"?? Not that YOU would get to decide that. Not your kid, after all, right? You reveal this too soon and you will turn this kids life on it's end...TOTALLY mess the kid up in his/her path to discovering his/her identity and place in the world. But...if you wait to long....then it's "Wait, are you fucking serious....ALL THIS TIME Auntie Lazuri was my real mother? EVERYONE around me has known this about me and never said anything and just let me believe this lie?"  So then the kid is looking at you with that puzzled look, saying "why??" and what comes out of your mouth??

Not some super compelling story of "my baby was too beautiful and too precious to me to be raised in my situation...so I found better, because you deserved better" - no, this kid doesn't get that. This kid gets "Yeah, we had a couple of babies already, but your mom only had one and couldn't have more on her own and didn't have the money really to adopt...so your birth father and I, Uncle Lazuri, agreed to make you for them because we knew that they would be great parents, had everything they needed to care for you and would love you so much".

Kid: "But didn't you love me?"

You: "Well yes of course and we were so sad to give you away....but we did, even though we didn't have to, because while we did love you, we loved our friends too, so much....so we were able to turn off our love for you just enough to make it bearable to give you away...not for a better life, but to give my friend a better life."

^This last part is obviously not what you would actually say, but I don't think there is anything you COULD say that wouldn't end up sounding exactly like that.

I think if I had been told this kind of thing as a teenager, I would have been really pissed off.

I think that even as much as I'm concerned about how this would effect you and your husband....now that I'm thinking of how this could truly effect the baby, I'm pretty sure this is a terrible, terrible idea. Not to mention that it's kind of selfish to drag the rest of your family into this. Your parents are grandparents, but have to act like their not and are forced to hide this and their deep love for the child? Your children are aware of some weird, murky situation involving this baby....but what? How many times, with you hugely pregnant in the grocery store or wherever, would some stranger say to your kid "Oooo, you're going to be a big sister soon, huh!?? How EXCITING!" - how do you handle that with young kids?

I think this is a recipe for disaster. I think you handle this in an open, truthful way and you hurt people and drag your extended family into a hurtful situation...or you handle this with lies and deceit (Oh, I'm just acting as a surrogate for her) and you kick that can down the road....you make it hurtful and terrible later on, instead of now and all along.

[Smithie]

It is perhaps a valid question about an older child; perhaps you could gift them with one of your older children?

This is a compelling point if your ideology tells you that it's shared genes that create the parent/child bond, rather than the experiences of living together in a parent/child relationship. If you don't think that shared genes are a vital element in the parent/child relationship, then it's pretty much just hostile nonsense. 

But Lazuri, pumpkingirl does raise a very important issue. Since you and your friend live close together, an adoption plan would drag both extended families into the decision on some level. You may be fine adopting out a baby. She may be fine with an open adoption where she sees the birthparents a lot. But if either of your husbands, any of your parents, or any of the kids turns out at some point to have a major problem with it (and that's a lot of potential actors to take the starring role in the Who-Is-Baby's-Mama-Drama!), both of your families could be negatively affected. 

[Super~Single~Mama]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

It is perhaps a valid question about an older child; perhaps you could gift them with one of your older children? This is a compelling point if your ideology tells you that it's shared genes that create the parent/child bond, rather than the experiences of living together in a parent/child relationship. If you don't think that shared genes are a vital element in the parent/child relationship, then it's pretty much just hostile nonsense.

It's really not 'just hostile nonsense' Smithie. Adopted children, even if they are placed at minutes old, have a history with their first family. Yes genetics do play a role, much as you'd like to deny it. A child conceived using donor eggs/sperm might wonder about their biological relations as well - but would hopefully be told about the donor material in a sensitive way. Adopted children are different - they were born to another family, and relinquished (for an infinite number of reasons). Parental bonds are most certainly formed between the adoptee and the adoptive parents - but it's not possible to just pretend the child's first family just simply doesn't exist. Even the most amazing parental relationship with adoptive patents does not erase their past, or their first family. You can't change a persons history.

[Tigerchild]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

It is perhaps a valid question about an older child; perhaps you could gift them with one of your older children?

This is a compelling point if your ideology tells you that it's shared genes that create the parent/child bond, rather than the experiences of living together in a parent/child relationship. If you don't think that shared genes are a vital element in the parent/child relationship, then it's pretty much just hostile nonsense.

Unfortunately for your viewpoint, what the parents think (birth or adoptive) doesn't mean the adoptee will feel the same way.  Nor does it guarantee that anyone's feelings and/or "ideology" won't shift over time with life events.  Boxing people in, and demanding that they decide between either or, and thinking that it's just all a matter of ideology?  Now *that* is hostile nonsense.

[Smithie]

I wasn't saying that the viewpoint that sharing genes creates a parent/child bond in the absence of any other connection is nonsense. Or hostile. But Lazurii doesn't subscribe to that viewpoint, and this constant stream of "but it's YOUR baby! YOUR baby! Because DNA! You could grow a baby in your womb and be a surrogate, that's fine, but giving away a baby you share genes with is like giving away your five-year-old!" is disrespectful. It is both hostile and nonsensical to make an argument to a person that is based on an ideological premise you don't they don't accept. 

Several people, including Tigerchild just now, and pumpkingirl earlier, have made much more useful points - what Lazurii feels now many change, and what her extended family and the extended adoptive family and the adopted child and all of the biokids involved feel may not match the way she feels. The situation she's proposing to facilitate would be emotionally complex in all likelihood. I don't think that's a sufficient reason for a child not to be born, but that's just my opinion. 

[Mom31]

Smithie...  please read this.

http://vsn.org/trauma.html

There is a lot of information available to help you better understand the needs of your children- if you seek it out and choose to educate yourself so you can best support them.

Here are some stats.

• In a study of American adolescents, the Search Institute found that 72 percent of adopted adolescents wanted to know why they were adopted, 65 percent wanted to meet their birth parents, and 94 percent wanted to know which birth parent they looked like. (American Adoption Congress, 1996)
• The psychological literature has established that the desire of 60 to 90 percent of adoptees wanting to obtain identifying information regarding their biological parents is a normative aspect of being adopted. (American Adoption Congress, 1996)
•  

What are the Attitudes of Triad Members Towards Searching?

• Sachdev's 1991 study found that a substantial majority of birth mothers (85.5%) and adoptees (81.1%) supported access by adult adoptees to identifying information about their birth parents. (CWLA, 1998)

[Smithie]

There is a lot of information available to help you better understand the needs of your children- if you seek it out and choose to educate yourself so you can best support them.

Christians say the same kind of thing when they give me their literature. "If only you really wanted what was best for your children, if only you chose to educate yourself, you'd believe as I do!" 

The hell of it is, right now you're not saying anything I disagree with. Of course children want to know why they were adopted. Of course they want to know what their birth parents looked like (and which one they take after). Of course many want to meet their birth parents (I think that number will rise higher than 65% in the next generation). OF COURSE most adult adoptees think they should have the right to access their birthparents' information! OF COURSE most birthparents would welcome a change to see how the kid turned out, and maybe build a relationship with them!

What that shows is that information about their biological origins (or endpoints) is incredibly compelling to most people. You want to know your birthparents. You want to know your birthchildren. Why do you think I don't recognize this? Simply because I distinguish it from the relationships created through decades of lived experience? 

Unless I've misread you, you object strongly to the idea of Lazurii conceiving a child that she intends to be adopted. Even though the plan she has in mind is the most open adoption imaginable, you think that the child would be somehow injured by being raised in an adoptive family. That's where we part ways on the issue. 

[lauren]

So I wish to just offer a few words. I wrote my suggestion on day 6 of having three children at the same time with chicken pox. So I do apologize if the words were poorly chosen and if I, especially as a moderator, was not entirely supportive. I guess I am human too (especially under these conditions!)

I will say, though, that I do hold a belief system that is borne of many, many years of life experience, and many, many relationships with members of all sides of the triad. That belief system is that a baby begins the bonding process in utero. S/he learns the sounds of the mother's body, her voice, her taste, the way she moves her body, the rhythms. The baby's nervous system is built in utero; the "wiring" occurs in synch with the mom and in response to her chemical and physiological environment. At birth, the baby is very familiar with mama and finds her quite consonant with life up until that moment.  There is already attachment, begun when the baby was able to experience sensations. All the studies on brain development and brain chemistry show that there is already a register of "shock" to the system when that familiar equilibrium is disturbed after birth, through separation from the mother or other major stressors.

And sometimes it is necessary that a baby be separated and experience this. In some situations it is not. But it is a disturbance. It is not necessarily any less of a disturbance than it would be for an older child who has had more years with the family. One never knows which babies and children will experience things in which way.

Some babies & children are incredibly resilient. Some aren't very resilient at all. There is no test to see which type of baby you have on hand.
 

[Smithie]

I agree that separation from the women who bore you is a shock to the system of an infant. I think that a baby gestated by a surrogate has the same potential to experience that shock as a baby who is gestated by their genetic mother. But the same thing that an older child experiences? Not on your life. You can call both separations a loss, and address both losses with respect, without equating an infant given out of loving hands into loving hands shortly after its birth with a neglected five-year-old dragged off by the cops as his mother screams and cries for him. I know which kid I'd rather be. 

Edited to add: And I'd rather be either of them than never exist at all. 

[lauren]

It's alright if we (many of us) disagree on this point. There are many in the field that believe many different views.
 

[Tigerchild]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

Edited to add: And I'd rather be either of them than never exist at all. 

Are you saying that every fertile woman should feel guilty over every period she has because of the loss of the existence of the child that might have been conceived?  I find that point of view terrifying in its implications (and yes, I know there are people out there that feel it).

[pumpkingirl71]

 I read Smittie's words as regards to an already existing pregnancy. 

Originally Posted by Tigerchild 

Are you saying that every fertile woman should feel guilty over every period she has because of the loss of the existence of the child that might have been conceived?  I find that point of view terrifying in its implications (and yes, I know there are people out there that feel it).

[Smithie]

Huh? No, of course not. Nobody is obliged to make babies, ever, for any reason. 

It's the "it's not fair to bring a child into the world in these circumstances!" rhetoric that bothers me. That seems like a more appropriate position to take when the parents have too many mouths to feed already and no help is forthcoming, when the fetus has been determined to carry a dread disease that will make its life short and painful, etc. etc. There are situations where it does seem unfair to me to begin a life that will be full of suffering. But adoption doesn't fall into that category.