appeal to natural mothers who relinquished children in non-kinship adoptions during the decades from the 1940s through the 1990s:

Prof. Elizabeth Samuels, from the University of Baltimore School of
Law, has issued this appeal to birth mothers who relinquished children
in non-kinship adoptions during the decades from the 1940s through the
1990s:

“I am collecting surrender documents that women signed during
the period frob m the 1940s through the 1990s in adoptions in which
the birth and adoptive parents did not know one another [meaning it was non-kinship]. So far women
have generously shared with almost 70 documents from 25 different
states. I am planning to write about the language and the legal import
of the language that was used in these documents with respect to the
rights and obligations of birth mothers. While it would be impossible
to define or collect a ‘representative sample’ of documents, I believe
a paper about the documents can help advance our understanding, and
correct some misunderstandings, about the nature of the legal
agreements into which mothers typically entered. If you have such a
document and are willing to share it — and have not yet shared it with
me — please send a copy, or any questions about the project, or both,
to: Prof. Elizabeth Samuels University of Baltimore School of Law 1420
North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201-5779"

Adopting back my daughter

I wanted to share my experience of adopting back my adult daughter. We wanted to annul her original adoption, but it seems that is not allowed for some reason...something else that needs to be looked at in reform. At any rate, we did the next best thing we could and adopted her back and though my daughter and husband were thrilled to have him involved and listed as her father (he is not her natural father), I also found it oppressive that you HAVE to include your husband, that he HAS to be listed on (yet another) amended birth certificate as being her natural father. So many delicate little intricacies in this mess we call adoption that must be looked at and changed.
Once all was said and done, we were just glad to have survived it...all so happy to be a family again...to have my daughter "home".

One day I'll write about the nightmare experience of trying to obtain my daughter's 1st amended BC (immediately after we adopted her back), but for now, this is the story that was ever so kindly posted at adoptingback.com.

http://adoptingback.com/adopting-back/adopting-back-my-daughter/

Mother's Day Letter Writing Campaign!

I am not the creator of this campaign but stand by it every year. Each year as Mother's Day approaches, we write letters to the First Lady (regardless who she is or what administration she stands under). Tell your story, share your thoughts on reform from restoring OBCs to human rights issues to total adoption reform. Whatever you think might help...please do it!

And please let me note the obvious...no one need be as long winded as me...such verbosity is one of my problems...ugh.

My far_too_long letter to the First Lady

Please bear with me...

This blog has been the epitome of the work in progress, as am I:)

I've decided it is best to post a synopsis of my story rather than the whole thing in such enormous detail. Not only will it make my life easier, but perhaps more people will understand what I am trying to say, without having to read through a hundred pages of blog posts. I hope to have this "synopsis" up by week's end.

From there I will dedicate this blog to adoption news stories, activism, promoting fellow first families and adoptees. I'm sure there will be news and opinions about abuse and poverty, social services dysfunctions and such since I see it all not just as important, but completely inter-related in our world today.

 I think I will start with some (badly written) poetry I scribbled down in the years after losing my daughter. Perhaps it will be a good enough introduction to what is only one average every day woman's story.

Let it be known that "average every day woman" is nothing like we pretend it is. My daughter (K) was adopted in October of 1991 after I spent every moment since learning I was pregnant in December of 1990 till she was 4 months old trying to keep her with me, trying desperately to be the mother I knew I was and wanted to be. I began to get a clue about all the excuses the adoptive parents made to our "completely open" adoption agreement by 1995, when K was 4 years old. they'd shut me out by age 2...it just took me a while to melt down about it and even then, while in depression and writing this "poetry" in my journal...I still wasn't able to acknowledge it was about K, but it was.

This is bare bones a woman grieving and coming out of the fog so very painfully slowly.
___________

the beautiful hardwood floors rot beneath
 clinging to a waste-filled toilet
with tear-smeared smiles
 where neglected beauty dies and gives way under a trusting foot
 vile humanity covers the other in her desperation to hang on without fear of the stench
 in the presence of anguished hope
in a terror of trust when the floors fall through
 crack,
slip,
plaster
and wood...
creaking pipes and her too
     laughing all the way down
being sure to savor the thrill of the fall
covered in piss
 smeared with shit
 and a smile so sincerely placed across her lips.
 ~SKim 1996
____________________________________

 Within the Death Rattle you came -
        Posthumous
through a nebulous and Strident Scream of Obeisance 
Defining Debauchery-
      Ambrosial Persuasion
sending me into The Trance
Provocative Reverie
     Delicate and Profound
in Baneful Compliance I am Overcome
And sent back into the Vapid Death Rattle.
~SKim 1997
______________________________________

...In the blatant lifelessness of some Emancipated Death
free of flaw, blemish, defect or Stain-
She Simply Loves
~SKim 1997
_________________________________________

with great celerity of haste
i summoned my chattels
chased away the dew of my cheeks
took communion with the warrior's song
and found a kaleidoscopic view
of the core of me missing you
~SKim 1997
___________________________________________

An Aboriginal Reverberation Strikes the Current of Enlightenment—
A Profuse Resplendence of Time.
~SKim 1998
______________________________________________

A Phantom Rain Seems to impede my Reverent Meandering— 
Faithful, Dewy-Eyed Wandering
Where I refrain from Desultory Steps And
Fade into a Malevolent Bovine Sky.
~SKim 1998
____________________________________________

Autumn’s Hour Passed
Gasping Out Languorous Loneliness
In Far Away Fumblings
Of Your Silent, Sleeping
Winter Memories
~SKim 1999
___________________________________________

where did childhood sleep?
         so solemn and smooth-
 trapped in the recognition-
                      unsure of hope
 Not Sin.
~SKim 1999
______________________________________________

THESE EAGER HANDS
    FOUND WITHIN THE DAY-
 POIGNANT LIES AWAITING REVERIE-
               OF THIS SOULFUL MEMORY
~SKim 1999
_______________________________________________

they say i galloped valiantly through a passage of error
a ghostly chasm of shadow and shade
       a phantom in twilight with no beginning -
    to timidly Glean and Gather the Godless
who gawked at this gnarled Forgotten Heathen

bloodstained and murderous assassin
heralding cruel and crippling Hate for the Harlot -
       the Whore, the Grassroots - the Middle America
     Haggard and Hollow-eyed, I am whiskey-voiced Glutton of Carnage and Shame

the crestfallen gypsy
screaming Hosanna in search of Manna through a throaty gurgle –
           there’s voluble silence where it seems the Assassin is my Beacon
   The Damnable Guide
~SKim 2000
_________________________________________________

ROSES BLOOM TO A TIMELY TUNE
                            ROLLING ME OVER IN MY TOMB
~SKim 2001
____________________________________________________
she pulled the pin from her hair and tossed it to the sink
where it tumbled to the floor too fast, with a dizzying clink

echoing the days and hours in its grasp
all the love and weary long lashed eyes
        every hello and every goodbye
 ~SKim 2005