How I Lost Austin

I was NEVER pressured to place my baby, it was all my choice. I thought about every one of my 3 choices very carefully and I decided adoption was best. I did not abandon her and Im a little insulted you would say that I love my baby and I gave her what she deserves. Contrary to what you believe a baby needs more than love.

You did abandon her. You told her that you didn't want her in your life. You told her that she was a mistake, an error. That's what adoption says to children, "Oops, shouldn't have gotten pregnant with you!"

You can't get around it saying that. You can't get around the fact that your baby girl cried out in the night for YOU, and YOU never came.

You NEVER came to her, as she laid screaming for you.

Babies do need more than love, but they don't need much more than that.

What babies do NOT need, is to search for their mother, and find only a stranger.

If someone had DIED and made it so that your daughter had lost her parents, you would understand that she needed to grieve, that she had LOST SOMETHING of tremendous value.

But because you gave her away, you think she'll magically not miss you, not experience loss.

Wake up, your infant daughter didn't know why you weren't there, only that you weren't. She only knew that her whole world for 9 months was GONE.

come on people its a baby, yes I believe maybe for a few days she was scared and crying for me, the adoptive parents even told me that. I do not believe that after 5 weeks she is still missing me, I see it in the way she cries for her adoptive mom, not me anymore. You dont know my situation, it was not safe for her to live with me, It was not that I dd not want her in my life, trust me I would like nothing more but it was simply NOT SAFE for her and she deserves to be safe

She'll always retain that sense of loss. Read "The Primal Wound." She'll always feel it, but never understand it. That's your "gift" to her, my "gift" to my son, and the "gift" that adoptees have to grow up with. I've spent years now in talks with even the "happy" ones, and I know far too well that they DO feel the loss their whole lives. Some face it and understand, some don't.

As far as safe with you, you'd have done better for you both if you'd changed your life, not ditched her.

It's not only the Christian Right that supports adoption, a wealthy couple can become poor, and a woman can even choose to let another single woman adopt her baby!
I am sorry this was so painful for you. But from what I've heard from people who've been through it, I believe adoption can be the right decision IF the woman makes this choice HERSELF without pressure from others.

I'm sorry, Josie, but from all my research, I've found that there are almost no circumstances in which the mother actually CHOOSES HERSELF to give up the child.

There is always coercion involved, from what I've seen. Start really asking these "happy" mothers WHY they gave up their child, and you'll find socially coercive factors at minimum. Like "I'm too poor," or "I'm too young," or "I have things I want to do with my life and a child won't let that happen."

Coercive lies of society.

i am a 27 years old and adopted - and i think about her everyday - but still i cannot find her- and all i want to know is why

You're right. Our tremendous love for our children is exploited. We're told that IF we love our child, we'll give them up.

We're told how deficient we are, and how our child deserves 'better.'

But the fact is, we love our children enough to face the agony of giving them up.

Adopters will NEVER love our children as much as we do. We love them enough to make an ultimate sacrifice, the adopters cannot love them enough to do that.

Our love will always be greater-- and exploiting it must stop.

It's amazing how few people understand how common this is.

They idealize adoption and adopters. But the fact is, they don't research the REAL feelings of adoptees, nor of mothers who've lost their children.

They don't research because they don't want to KNOW the truth. They WANT to believe the fairy tell lies of adoption.

But many of us have experienced being a distant second best just because we're adoptees.

You're not alone. It happens more than people are willing to admit.