Birthmothers : Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories Book

Truly chilling, this 1993 book is hard to find but a worthy, overlooked precursor to The Girls Who Went Away. When a recent acclaimed/popular movie seems to promote one of the most detestable myths about adoption--that women give their babies away and "forget" and "move on," works like this are necessary. It's different from Fessler's book in that it doesn't only include women from the closed adoption/"baby scoop era" of the 1940s-70s, but open adoption of the 1970s-80s. The latter have overall had much better experiences, but face uncertain legal situations as well as pain over relinquishment.

A lot of this is quite depressing--troubled relationships with their families and the birthfathers, getting sent away (in the older stories), the trauma of relinquishment, unresolved pain that lasted for years, the difficult of searching for their children, and in a few extreme cases, terrible post-reunion stories. But there are stories of support and healing, too, and some wonderful reunion stories. It can be repetitive, and I'm not necessarily keen on labelling "syndromes" (the last chapter is "The Birthmother Syndrome"), but overall this is a well-crafted look at women who have been marginalized by society (the media, the law, the adoption industry, and I would add, though the author doesn't, mainstream feminism). The book definitely makes a case for more openness in adoption.

If you're curious, the author is not exactly a member of the adoption triad (and I'm glad she points out there are many people involved besides just the adoptee and the adoptive and birthparents)--she's stepmother to the child her husband adopted with his first wife.