Being pregnant, even in the best of circumstances, is scary. There are so many things that could go wrong. You love this little person you haven’t even yet met, and you are terrified that you’ll get it all wrong and screw them up forever. Toss in poverty, stress, and being overwhelmed, and you have a recipe for adoption coercion.
Yes, it’s true, I’m the one that reached out to the adoption agency. Having read an ad in the back of a magazine that promised all my worries for my unborn child would be swept away by choosing adoption, I decided to explore this option. The rest is history, if you read this blog. They get you on the hook with promises of happy-ever-after storybook endings for your baby. They show you sad stories of infertile people whose hearts you would be breaking if you decide to keep a baby that, well, you really don’t deserve to keep, being you’re poor and all. I mean, look at all these hopeful adoptive parents can give your baby that you can’t. Trips to Disney World, a college education, a beautiful house with a huge backyard. Doting older brothers, and even a family dog. Your baby will never need to wear secondhand clothes to school or not get the best birthdays and Christmases ever.
I digress. Same old song and dance. And if you ask any birthmom, who voluntarily relinquished parental rights to their child at birth to be put up for adoption, why they did what they did, almost all will tell you one thing: “To give them a better life than I could provide.”
Somehow our western culture has embraced this myth that losing your entire family at birth, by being voluntarily given away (no matter how sincere and loving the reasoning), can be made up for with nice houses, vacations, and material things. This, they tell you, equates a better life. What’s that? Oh, and having two parents you say? Adoptive parents get divorced at the same rate as non-adoptive parents. There’s a 50% chance your child will be parented from a family of divorce.
Hang tight because this one is about to get personal. For as long as I’ve had this blog, I’ve always remained somewhat anonymous. The reasons behind this were pretty simple. At first it was because I feared that if my child’s adoptive parents happened to find my writing then what little contact I had left would be taken away and I would never know what happened to her. Second, I didn’t want my daughter to be exposed as an adoptee and have parts of her story, as told by me, associated to her personally.
So please understand, this next part is written with permission and encouragement from my daughter, the one I relinquished, foolishly & regrettably.
Meet Robert Andrew Ross, or as most people call him, Andy Ross.
Andy is one of my daughter’s adopters. I don’t want to use the term “adoptive father” because that gives him a title he doesn’t deserve. Fathers don’t abuse their daughters.
Andy was great on paper when he and his wife were courting me to be my unborn baby’s adoptive parents. Great job (although they wouldn’t say what that job was, just that he owned his own business), perfect teeth, charming personality. To my 21-year-old self he seemed to be the perfect father – something we wanted desperately for our child.
“You are warped. Alright? You’re fucking warped. And if you think that’s reality, go do some fucking heroin and O.D. Dumb fuck. You’re a dumb fuck is what you are.” -Andy Ross, as said to my daughter at age 15.
She recorded it. Once my daughter had contact with me via social media and began to reveal details of her life and her abuse, I advised her to start recording the things that were happening because no one believed her. After receiving a letter today from Andy that basically said, “now that you’re 21 my court ordered obligations to you are over and oh, by the way, I specifically called you out in my will not to inherit anything,” she made the following TikTok video using the audio I had saved from that loving conversation he had with her 6 years prior:
@ungratefuladoptee on TikTok
This is the “better life” that my child received. It only begins to scratch the surface. We won’t even talk about how she was sent away for 2 years to a group home in Montana called Gateway Freedom Ranch where she suffered more abuse.
Ross Valve Manufacturing is a pretty big company. Andy essentially inherited this business from his father. However, I’m not sure how interested I would be in purchasing products from someone who talks to his child the way that Andy talked to mine.
I am glad that my child is finding her voice. I am glad she is able to expose the people who purchased her (likely as a gift to the adoptive mother for the many affairs he was having) and find some kind of small satisfaction in telling her story to whoever will listen. It doesn’t even begin to make up for what she’s gone through.
Expectant parents considering adoption beware. They will tell you anything to get your baby. But once they do, not only have you relinquished your right to parent, but you have also relinquished your right to protect. The only way to 100% make sure your baby grows up happy and safe, is for you to do it yourself. Poverty doesn’t equate unhappiness. Stuff is just stuff. What your baby needs is you.
If you are in need of assistance to keep your baby and were considering adoption, please reach out to me at musingsofabirthmom@gmail.com.
You can also visit http://www.savingoursistersadoption.org and click GET HELP to begin an intake process with Saving Our Sisters (not affiliated with this blog).
Musings of a Birthmom: The Honest Ramblings of a First Mother 