Our little girl went home at 10 AM yesterday. It was a hard day, but not a sad one. Her parents are AMAZING. We intentionally chose parents very much like ourselves- her dad, especially, reminds me so much of my boyfriend, it's uncanny. Her mom said that if adoptive parents chose birthparents, and not the other way around, they would have chosen us to bring their child into the world. They've been waiting 7 YEARS (!) for a baby, and it was incredible to see them as a family for the first time.

I became even more grateful that we were able to choose these wonderful parents after attending our agency's support group. The agency provides services not only to birth parents who have placed with them, but also to any birth parents or adopted persons who placed/were placed into closed adoptions in the past and are seeking information. One woman told me last night she had recently joined the group because she was contacted by her 50 year old twins and met them for the first time last month. For 50 years she had kept the adoption secret from her family and friends. I couldn't even identify- it seemed like we had such profoundly different experiences. When she met her daughters, they brought her a photo album of themselves growing up. She said that all she could think was, "Thank God they were placed together and had a good family!". She had so much pain and anguish for decades over whether they were safe, happy, and loved. I'll never suffer that doubt.

Moreover, she expressed that she probably could have parented her girls. She was forced to give them up because she was unmarried and they were BIRACIAL. One of her twins shared a copy of her original birth certificate, which incorrectly listed her father as "white". Our daughter's adoptive parents are biracial, so that really struck me. I cannot imagine her agony, and I can't even remotely relate to the world she lived in.

It's not as though I don't expect this experience to affect the rest of my life, but it's really shocking to see how damaging these past adoptions were for everyone involved. Another woman, who placed her daughter 38 years ago, shared that her daughter's adoptive mom was troubled that they (the birth mom and her daughter) now had a relationship, and was hurt that her daughter invited her birth mom to her wedding. My daughter's mom hugged me and told me she will make sure that her child knows how much I love her and what a loving sacrifice I made. She and her husband want us, as birth parents, to be extended family and want to celebrate our role in their child's life. The contrast was certainly not lost on me.

I have the utmost respect for everyone here, but my heart aches for those who placed their children at a time when adoption was shrouded in such great secrecy and shame. I'm so, so sorry.