---“To blame others for your decision to PLACE your child
for adoption, not GIVE UP, is such a lack of accountability and responsibility.
Own your decisions, the pain, the tears, the heartache, the worry, the unknown,
the lifelong journey and the beauty that follows the ashes. I don't speak for
everyone, I speak of my own journey. I speak of walking arm in arm with other
birthmoms, adoptive moms and adoptees as we walk through the fear that has
separated us for decades. I speak of raising birthmoms from a place of shame to
a place of honor where they can hold their heads high and be proud of their
decision to choose life. I speak of helping birthmoms realize their value in
the three strand cord.
There was no "coercion", "brain
washing". I did things my way, despite how much more difficult it made my
choice, it was how I decided, on my terms, my way. I placed Colin in the best
possible situation for his life, not mine. Choosing life is a blessing and I
stand by that choice. At such a young age we are not ready to be parents and
moms when we don't even know who we are or where we are going in life. Our
children deserve better and I'm so blessed I found the Kaepernicks and Colin
has the life he does. And I will continue to honor, support, love and walk with
as many birthmoms as I can and do all I can to help change the stereotypes and
stigmas of birthmoms.”---
Ironic, isn’t it, on my post “Heidi Russo . . . You Don’t Speak For Me” Heidi, herself, leaves a response that in her very first sentence
has her attempting to speak for me, instructing me to use the coercive language
of the adoption industry . . . something I absolutely refuse to do.
Except, Dear Heidi, what you fail to realize in your claim
that I have a lack of accountability and responsibility, is that I do just that
when I say and believe I gave up my son.
Because that is exactly what I did and I take full
accountability and responsibility for it.
I gave him away. I took from him
the family he had every right to. I
denied him his own mother who he knew by the beat of my heart, sound of my
voice, through the months I carried him, nurtured him inside my own body. I refuse to use the placating term “placed”
to try and make myself feel better for what I did. Because, regardless of what happened to me,
of the coercion and manipulation I went through, for my son, his reality is and
always will be that I gave him away. I placed
him in the arms of a woman who was a complete stranger to him at that time,
turned my back on him and walked away.
And don’t even try lecturing me about owning the pain, the
tears, the heartache. I own that every
day of my life. From the minute I wake
up in the morning to the moment I go to bed, I own . . . I live with . . . the
pain and heartache of what I did to my son the very minute I walked out of that
hospital nursery, left the responsibility with others to raise him when I
should have been the one to do so. He
deserved his mother. Was worthy of being
fought for with everything I had.
Perhaps it’s time for you to take your own advice,
Heidi. You speak of accountability and
responsibility but I can’t help but wonder what, if any, have you taken, not
only for your own experience but for the damage your voice will do in
manipulating even more vulnerable mothers to give up their children.
If you feel better in using the adoption industry term of
placing your son. If you truly believe
you were not coerced or manipulated. That
you are happy you did so and have no regrets.
Then that is your experience and the last thing I will do is argue with
you over it.
But you have accountability too. You need to admit, so it is clear to all the
vulnerable, pregnant moms and First Mothers you claim you want to help, that you
truly wanted to give up, place, surrender, relinquish . . . whatever term you
want to use . . . your son for adoption.
That no amount of support or help would have changed your mind. That it wouldn’t have mattered if you were
given true, unbiased counseling because you truly believe it is best for young
and/or struggling mothers to give their children up to what you view as someone
“better” than them.
And the minute you chose to use your son’s celebrity status
to your advantage you had a responsibility to learn all sides of adoption
before allowing your voice to be used to encourage even more unnecessary
separations of an innocent child from their mother, father, entire family.
I believe it’s irresponsible, and as I said in my previous
post, cowardly, not to take the time to research about the coercion and
manipulation that is involved in NCFA’s training for Options Counseling – the very
counseling vulnerable, pregnant mothers face from their school counselors,
nurses, crisis pregnancy workers to the adoption agencies themselves. Not to look into and take into account the
multi-billion dollar profits made through a mostly unregulated industry.
To me, a good mother, would also make sure, as she’s using
her son’s well-known popularity, that she speaks loud and constantly about the
denial of equal rights he, and millions of other adoptees, face. I’d make sure everyone was aware of the fact
that adoptees are the only citizens in our country denied access to their
original birth certificate for no other reason than they were adopted. I’d be sure I used my privilege as one
granted the right to my own personal information to do all I could to guarantee
my own child was given the same as I had.
And I would damn sure do everything I could to insure that
every vulnerable, pregnant mother, First Mother and Adoptive Mother was made
aware of the fact that their children, in most every state but a select few,
will be part of the group of citizens denied their equal rights the minute the
adoption papers are signed.
You see, your voice will be used, just as the voices of
others who repeated the same adoption industry script before you were used against
me and many, MANY, other vulnerable, pregnant mothers to make us feel as if we
were in the wrong for even considering keeping and raising our children.
That is part of what the industry uses, includes in their
training for Options Counseling – the importance of using voices like yours as a
tool against any resistance a vulnerable, pregnant mother might have about
giving her baby up for adoption.
And yet, perhaps, you are so confident and sure about what
you claim was fully your choice to place your son for adoption that you really
just don’t give a damn about how your voice will be used against other pregnant
mothers. About the reality of coercion
and manipulation that exists in adoption counseling. The lack of true, unbiased counseling for
vulnerable women facing a crisis situation, leaving them feeling as if they
have no choice but to give up their child because those claiming to support
them care only about getting their unborn baby, not about truly helping them
through the crisis they are facing.
Or maybe it is that you so desperately need to hold on to
the pedestal you are standing on that you are willing to sacrifice others so
that you can continue to believe that you deserve honor and praise for placing
your son in the arms of strangers. Or
that you truly need that constant praise, pat on the back, congratulating you
for realizing that you were not good enough for your own child. For believing he was nothing more than a gift
to be given to a more deserving couple.
Regardless of your reasons why, I will never agree with
you. Perhaps it is important to you to
get out the message that we don’t deserve our children, that they should be
given away to someone better. To work
hard to build up the honor and sainthood of any mother who has lost, placed,
given up, relinquished –or even have ripped from her arms – her child, her own
flesh and blood.
But, unlike you, I don’t believe children should just be
given up to what others might view as someone “better.” I don’t believe our babies are gifts. And I sure as heck don’t believe adoption
should ever be a first choice in any situation.
I believe and fight for protection for vulnerable, pregnant
mothers and their unborn children. I
support family preservation above all else.
And I stand side by side with other First Moms, Adoptees and Adoptive
parents in the uphill struggle of restoring Adoptee’s equal rights.
Unlike you, I will never accept what was done to me and my innocent
child. I will never sit by, or even
worse, encourage others to go through the same coercion. The pain.
The heartache. I don’t believe
giving up our children is ever something a mother should celebrate. We should mourn the terrible loss. Feel it deep in our hearts, our souls. Wish with all we had that they were still in
our arms and never made to lose so much of themselves.
Perhaps you will find a full, successful life in promoting
more adoptions. In letting mothers know
they aren’t worthy of their children but can be praised and honored as long as
they give them up to someone more deserving.
But, just remember this as you are moving forward, happy you
placed your son for adoption, encouraging others to do the same, while still
sitting on the sidelines without being allowed any part of your son’s life . .
.
That script you are repeating, word for word, from the adoption
industry - - the research and study that went into producing it was meant to
make vulnerable, pregnant mothers feel good, obligated, selfless to give up
their babies.
But when it comes to our children, the many adoptees created
by such a script, there are many who will tell you that hearing such a repeat
coming from their own mothers mouth doesn’t help. But instead causes even more pain and loss to
be told their own mother was happy to give them up. Grateful she didn’t raise them. Expects to be honored for the sacrifice SHE
made without ever giving a thought to the horrible sacrifices made by the child
she gave up for adoption.
I know, for my own son, who I have back in my life in every
way possible, the best thing I could have ever done for him was break free from
the hold of the counseling I received from those wanting me to give up my child
and truly, finally, face the feelings, the pain, the heartache, the tears, that
I held back, denied and ignored for so long.
Finding the strength to be honest with myself. To break free from any twisted expectation
that I should be praised and/or honored for giving away my own child, blessed
me with the ability to be honest with my son as well. To know and understand, the harder I worked
to take accountability and responsibility for what happened all those years
ago, the better I was to be there for my oldest son.
For every step you make in installing the message into
vulnerable, pregnant mothers that they are too young, not good enough for their
own child. For every time you claim you
are fighting to free them of stereotypes and stigmas while actively speaking
out to keep them under some of the very worst, the most damaging, I will be on
the other side.
I will be the voice fighting for mothers and their unborn
children. I will be the one believing in
them, fighting for them and doing all I can to support them so that they don’t
lose their son or daughter but are instead spared an unnecessary separation. While you go after their self-esteem, weaken
the worth of their importance in their child’s life . . . the very worth of
their own child within his or her own family . . . I will do all I can to
protect them from you. From the destruction
I believe you encourage.
We are too different for you to ever speak for me or ever
even think you have the right to instruct me to use the coercive language
created by the adoption industry. I know
who I am, I know where I stand and I know what I fight for.
And, thankfully, it’s the complete opposite of you!
Cassi,
ReplyDeleteYou're freaking awesome. I'm right behind you. I own my pain, too. I know the things that I did wrong, but I also know what THEY did wrong. The adoptaraptors LIED to me. The doctor DRUGGED me to try to get my baby, and the lawyers came into my room the day after I gave birth to COERCE me into signing papers.
So often, we mothers take on more blame and shame than we deserve. Of course we made wrong decisions. We've been blaming ourselves since the day it happened, thinking, what could we have done different?
But, what we absolutely should NOT do, is take on the RESPONSIBILITY of what OTHERS did TO US.
Blessed Be.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I thought perhaps she was working through her pain and not thinking clearly after her failed reunion with her son. I thought maybe she was trading in her self respect to become more palatable to Colin's adopive parents so that she may be allowed the chance to be in his life.
ReplyDeleteI was wrong about most of it but not her trading in her self respect. She cleverly uses the "choose life" buzz speak insinuating that birthmothers must of course considered abortion, and not raising our children. The adoption industry loves this. We are not women who needed support to raise our children, because that might make prospective adopted parents feel guilty. No -we were women whose babies barely made it out alive and needed to be saved from us -their mothers. So much for Heidi trying to remove the stigma of being a birthmother. She perpetuates the stigma with her own words.
I wonder how Heidi's ten year old son is dealing with his mother's attention seeking behavior? This can't be good for him.
Cassi, this is awesome. I have wrestled with this for my whole life. I am 68. It is a good thing for the coercive industry lingo, the slut-shaming realities and the lies which we were forced to endure to stay in the public eye. I only wish that people would listen. Too many prefer the fairy tale to the reality. Others can't own their own pain, as you pointed out. Heidi Russo reads to me like a woman in the deepest of denials. Sad.
ReplyDeleteWell said, I feel quite justified now in having defended that poor Colin, for not wanting to see that woman, my goodness, is she hired by an adoption agency or is she just slow? She is way too old to play the happy birthmommy, really. If adoption is that great, and means life, why did she keep her second son? Why isn't that one dead yet?
ReplyDeleteI'm an adoptee. If I had a choice to have my real mother be like Cassi or Heidi, I WOULD PICK CASSI. I will always pick NO ABORTION AND NO ADOPTION as the correct "plan" also no matter what hard hearted and soft headed fools like Russo have to say. So take that lady!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to read more, but your red background/white writing is almost painful...
ReplyDeleteHeidi Russo's superior tone is a bit much, isn't it?
DeleteAnd that previous business about "gave up" versus "adoption plan?"
Please. Does a drowning man swim for the life preserver (if he can) or does he "make a plan" to swim to the life preserver?
She buys into the religious mumbo-jumbo about giving up a child and that makes it all right. I suppose if that works for her, okay, fine, but it doesn't for me, or you either, and a lot of others. Keep up the good work, Sister.
"At such a young age we are not ready to be parents and moms when we don't even know who we are or where we are going in life."
ReplyDeleteAnd who the heck is she to deem who "is or is not ready" to be a "parent"? That is the same coercive language so many use who are trying to finagle an infant away from it's mother. "You are not ready." "You are not old enough, married enough or rich enough."
Hogwash. A child wants his/ her mother, not all the trappings their replacement parents can purchase. Nature decides when we are ready. Many do not feel "ready" leading up to or even right after having a child but it comes in time. As a mother of another child who was not lost to a fraudulent open adoption after their first born sibling was, this I know. I am good mother and would have been to my first born as well.
No, Heidi Russo, you don't speak for any young vulnerable woman, so please stop trying to. Don't cause any more unnecessary family separations because of your brainwashed ramblings, please. I beg of you.
How can one even begin to argue for respect for the decision when they made when they can't (1) see the difference between themselves and other mothers who surrendered to adoption or (2) avoid being threatened by the nuance and differences in another person's story. If Heidi really feels she made the right choice, why does she feel so motivated for other first mother she encounters to repeat and reflect her story back to her? Why the drive for that validation? If you're content with your choices, it shouldn't matter how others frame their own.
ReplyDelete