Lori joins us to share her experience as a Freshman in college finding out she was 22 weeks pregnant and ultimately choosing adoption for her daughter.
Lori's experience was driven by the grief and shame of "unwed motherhood" that dominated culturally during the time she experienced her unplanned pregnancy. She was offered only a closed relationship with her daughter as that was the norm at the time. For many years, her pregnancy and adoption choice were kept a secret. In this episode, Lori talks about years of feeling deep shame and unworthiness of relationship with her daughter.
She is now a social worker and an adoption professional who coordinates retreats for birth mothers because of her own experience having her life changed by her first Birth Mom retreat experience nearly 22 years after placement.
Lori says: "I went to a retreat and for the first time in all of those years I felt completely comfortable, completely safe, talking about my adoption without having to filter my words to protect the feelings of other people, because I knew that everybody else in that room when I started talking about it they were going to understand because they were like me."
"The world expects great moms to analyze the needs of their children, figure out the best plan for meeting their needs and execute that plan. And that’s what I did. So if other women did that through parenting their children and making good parenting decisions and they were great moms…then I was a great mom too because I had done the same thing just on a different path."
In this episode we discuss:
Disenfranchised grief in adoption
Post Placement Support for birth parents
The power dynamic between Birth Moms and Adoptive Moms
Find more from ALA www.absoluteloveadoptions.com
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