Writing My Wrongs

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” – Adolf Hitler

My Magical Waiver is known to most as the Waiver of Confidentiality ("WOC").

The WOC  is a document that mothers like myself are told to sign and  file with the state or private agency that handled our child's adoption and is holding our adoption records. This document releases information to someone looking for us (ie. an adoptive parent, sibling, child, etc.) It releases information to them, even if we can't get theirs. At least, that is the general concept.  Many, myself included, question the value of these waivers and how they are used against mothers during the surrender process.

In 1986, while I sat in my hospital bed, clad in a hospital johnny coat, minutes away from signing my single,  Final and Irrevocable Surrender for Adoption document, my caseworker Colleen told me about the Magical Waiver.

She told me that by signing and filing it, I was guaranteed that my daughter would be given my information when she came looking for me.

Read the hope in that statement?

Colleen did not state "if" she stated "when". And thus my fantasy began to plant deep roots. I welcomed the Magical Waiver. I would sign the Magical Waiver. I would sign hundreds of copies if need be. For to me, at that time, it was the final hopeful promise to me that my daughter and I would be together again.

She would find me.

She would want to know me.

She would look for me, care about me, think about me.

The Magical Waiver confirmed it.

It was the Holy Grail.

I remember being so happy and glad to receive the Waiver. It felt like gold to me. Something precious. It was pure virginal hope etched on tree pulp. The print  cast a heavenly glow.

Caseworker also told me that prospective adopters were going to tell her she was adopted and somehow I inferred this meant they were going to tell her about me, they were going to support her finding me.

My trust and naivete ran deep. 

Yes! Of course! I told Caseworker I would accept this Magical Waiver. Of course I would file it. Of course my daughter could have any and all information she wanted about me. When might that be? Now? Five years from now? How long do I have to wait before the Waiver works its magic?

It never occurred to me that if the adoption as promised (semi-open for her life) was going to be honored, there would be no need for a waiver. They would know who I am and how to reach me. (This now painfully obvious but then overlooked fact did not become clear to me until AFTER the promises of the semi-open adoption were proven to be false. THEN I started to connect the dumb dots in my head and the resulting picture was not attractive.)

The Magical Waiver was crap. Garbage. Useless. They were feeding me candy to get a baby. It was a bogus kicker to the deal. Yet another lie told to me.

My daughter did not try to find me. The adoption was never semi-open and while she was eventually told she was adopted, her adoptive parents were not at all open to my existence, at least not by that time. As I have said many times, unknown to me, I carried an expiration date. I was only valued and respected by the agency and the adoptive parents for nine months and three days. Once I had signed that single, not notarized, questionably legal, Surrender document (witnessed and signed by myself, my mother and the caseworker), I expired.

Unknown to me, the Waiver of Confidentially had an even shorter shelf life. It expired the instant it was presented to me.

It would take me years to figure that out.

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to speak to a former employee of the Kurtz agencies. The individual in question had contacted me via email and was hesitant to put anything in writing. Individual asked if we could speak on the phone.

We did.

I am still sickened by the conversation.

The individual told me stories of expectant mothers held captive by social workers in social workers home. Individual told me of Judy, an expectant mother from Wisconsin, who escaped from social workers home by climbing out a bathroom window. Individual told me of prospective adopters whose application consisted of a resume and a bank statement. Individual told me of social workers who refused to allow expectant mothers access to a phone to call boyfriends or parents. I was told of their record keeping system and of blue vanilla folders filled with letters written by mothers to their children (that were destroyed or left to rot in files).

One might have visions of BSE and think the individual worked for Kurtz during BSE.

They did not. They worked for Kurtz in Chicago in the early 90s. I dare anyone to suggestion BSE like practices stopped in 1979. Go ahead. Feel free. I will then produce any number of agency employees or victims who exercised BSE like (or worse) practices in 1986 when I surrendered my daughter due to threats of lawsuit.

I mulled the conversation over last night and had difficulty sleeping. The conversation, while insightful to my ehbabes.com efforts, triggered many memories of my own stay in the maternity home and my own thoughts of climbing out windows.

I used to sit in my room in Gehring Hall on cold January Chicago days and plan how I could climb out the window of a third floor and get away from the place.

I would sit on the old single (and very uncomfortable bed), hold my hand on my bulging stomach and talk to my daughter. I would ask her for her thoughts on how we should and could escape. I would fantasize about her and I living together, watching her grow, seeing her long pigtails bounce in the breeze as she ran towards me.

It is so crazy to think about now. To visualize that 5 month pregnant 18 yo me, one thousand miles from anyone I knew, debating how to climb out a window so she could raise her own child.

My biggest barrier (which was quite by agency design) was where I was located. Where could I go? Who would I call? I was one thousand miles from my boyfriend, from my parents. How would I get out the window? Walk away in the snow and find a phone or get a cab? Who would come and get me? How would escaping bode for me and my unborn child? Would I be apprehended and then deemed even more unfit to raise my own child?

Crying.

Must stop writing.

But Judy in Wisconsin, congrats to you and your child on your escape from the Kurtz social wreckers. I wish I had possessed your strength a few years earlier.

He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done – Leonardo Da Vinci

Midwest Adoption Center (IL) has confirmed for me and many members of my ehbabes.com support group that Easter House Adoption Agency (the heart of the Kurtz network of agencies) has indeed been shut down.

Amidst rumors of federal raids, revoked licenses, the confirmation came to us a few days ago via a natural grandmother who had only recent learned of the long history of unethical adoption practices utilized by Easter House. Upon receiving her email, many of my ehfamily members contacted Midwest Adoption and spoke with Leticia. Leticia confirmed it was true. Easter House has been closed down.

I should be happy. These are the horrible souls that threatened me with lawsuits, had my parents sign a promissory note and sold my daughter. These are the people that have sedated mothers, strapped them to beds in restraints, given them police escorts out of the hospitals and away from their new born children.  These are the evil doers that took oodles of money from desperate infertile prospective adopters and told them their money was going to help the mothers get on their feet. (The money went into the Easter House coffers). These are the sickos that had non English speaking or reading mothers sign documents in English that gave them custody of her child and told her verbally in Spanish she could come get her child when she was back on her feet. These are the crafty people behind GoldenLink Foundation, the organization that offered mothers TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS upon surrendering her child to one of their approved (cough, Kurtz) agencies. (But that is not baby trafficking, right? Pffft).  These are the people that had birth mother showings whereby they had prospective adoptive couples visit the maternity homes to stare at expectant mothers like they would an animal in a zoo cage  or a car on a used car parking lot. Only instead of admiring the wild beast or the color of the paint job, they were attempting to determine the quality of the child that expectant mother might produce. "oooh, I like THAT MODEL!".

Barf. Gag me with a spoon and make me write bad checks.

I should be happy, right?

I am ambivalent.

My fear is that this will become a game of whack-a-mole. Seymour Kurtz, MaryAnn Milajlovic, Cecelia Green, and their cohorts have survived congressional hearings, numerous lawsuits, and more state licensing battles than most can count. (Read babybrokerwatch.com for details)

I fear they will pick themselves up by their crap covered boot straps and go to another state, pick a new fancy uber cutesy new adoption name, and start the process of raping mothers of their babies again. 

Call me pessimistic.  Something just still eats at my soul where these people are concerned.

Lets also not forget that as far as we know, Birth Hope Adoption Agency, (another one of the Kurtz beast legs) is still in operation.  We are also aware they have jumped the pond and have been marketing their fine baby selling services to hungry prospective adopters in Europe.  (And second thought, who do you hold accountable? Those that are creating the demand – adoptive parents – or those that are meeting the demand with a regular supply of babies?)

For those interested in finding out more, contact Leticia at the Midwest Adoption Service. Rumor has it she will send you a form and add your name to a database.  Midwest, by their own account, is overwhelmed with calls and questions regarding Easter House. They have yet to set up a process and understand what, when and how they can possibly provide service to those searching for their family members. 

I personally wrote Midwest and offered to help them and advised them to refer people to my site ehbabes.com for assistance. Due to closed records, archaic IL adoption laws, I am fairly confident Midwest will not be able to do much for those that call them. (Although, since they are the IL CI, I am sure they can offer to take some money from callers and begin a lengthy search for natural parents to give adopted adults what they should never have to ask for let alone pay for – their family history and medical information.  Before I begin ranting about my thoughts in CI programs, I will stop here).

I strongly hope that Midwest will be decent enough to say we cannot help you but you might try looking up ehbabes.com.

Parties interested in finding out more should contact Leticia at 1-847-298-9096 extension 29 or contact the CI service for more detail.

Confidential Intermediary Service of Illinois
3158 South River Road
Suite 120
Des Plaines, Illinois 60018

via the web at http://www.ci-illinois.org/

I really want to belt out a few lyrics of ding dong the witch is dead but something inside me tells me the witch is just flying off to another state to scoop up more babies from bloody wombs and stick a "for sale" sign on their downy soft bellies.

"How many child relinquishments have resulted from something other than a conscious, voluntary decision? The answer is deeply disturbing. For by delving extensively into the matter, it is possible to compile a sustantial body of evidence identifying the troubling influence traditionally exerted upon child relinquishments by such forces as punishment, coercion, shamings, biased counseling, legal disenfranchisement of parents from their offspring, and numerous other forms of manipulations and pressure. As the available data is assembled, one very unpleasant conclusion eventually stands out: that the reigning myth of American adoption has been that of the voluntary relinquishment of children by their [natural] parents for placement in new families." p.41-42 Adoption in America: Coming of Age, Hal Aigner (Paradigm Press,1992) Larkspur, California

Must have been her line.  I wonder how many children she got for sale by using that line. Did the agency provide it during sales training or did she come up on it on her own?

No really. I do wonder that. I also wonder if she received a commission from the agency.

One of the many moms that has come out of the Kurtz agency closet lately wrote me and informed me of the following via email:

"After my daughter was born, I rethought my decision and I really wanted to keep her. I was informed by my caseworker from Easter House, Colleen, that if I decided to keep [name removed for privacy] my parents and I would be responsible for my stay at Crittenden Home and all medical expenses amounting to thousands of dollars !!"

See a trend here?

This mom had the same caseworker as I did, did what I did (attempted to keep her child) and was threatened with the bills and likely a lawsuit.

This. Makes. Me. Ill.

Correction, it makes me rage.

Oddly, simultaneously, I find it comforting.

As recently as a few weeks ago I wanted to hear from this caseworker. I wanted to know what she thought. I CARED about what she thought. I wanted some kind of proof that she was good and cared about me. I wanted to believe she was good. I wanted proof that my warm feelings toward her weren't misguided. I cared about her. (barf)

I don't care anymore.

Now that I have seen her work at play with another mom, I realize, finally, she was not a nice person. She did not care about me.

How did she live with herself? How many babies did she take from unwilling mothers so she could hand them over to her employer to sell to the highest bidding prospective adoptive parent? Do you think she told the agency or the adoptive parents that the mothers really did not want to give up their children but she strong armed them into it?

It is no wonder she doesn't answer me.

She has an awful lot to answer to and clearly avoidance is better.

I don't blame her.

If I did what she did, I would hide to.

(Speechless) – Suz

Nice to know Barbie is able to feel better about losing her own child by adopting one from China, no?

"Emotions are often thought to infringe on our rationality and better judgment. While listening to our instincts and responding to our passions can work in favor of our interests, they are also easily exploited by for influence professionals because emotions affect us so deeply, instantaneously, and indelibly." – The Science of Social Influence – Anthony Pratkanis

A highly educated (as in PhD) first mom friend of mine was recently asked by her childs adoptive mother how it was that such a highly educated woman could have been pressured into surrendering her child. 

I will be candid.

I find this to be a dumb ass question. 

Besides the fact that the PhD came years after the loss of her child to the adoption industry, ones intellectual prowess has no correlation (in my opinion) to being able to fight the forces that work against a young expectant mother. 

Knowing the pythagoream theorem is of very little value when you are sent away, isolated, lied to and manipulated at sixteen years old. If anything, being a smart girl makes your child more in demand and the pressures exerted upon you even greater.  Society has lead many to believe that girls with "potential" should abandon their babies where girls without that same potential are better off keeping.  (Also known as smart white girls dont qualify for social welfare but dumb minorities do, right? WRONG!)

Please dont ask such questions. 

Suggesting that an intellectual woman would not surrender her child perpetuates the myth that only stupid, idiot, crack whores abandon their children to strangers.  Furthermore, it is, to me, another futile attempt to justify separating mother and child. It suggests that since a woman was intelligent she somehow gladly or willingly abandoned her child.  It suggests she knew what she was doing and might have actually had control over the situation. (I wonder why those moms that were drugged and strapped to beds did not pull out their best MacGyver move and get themselves out of that situation?)

The American Adoption industry is an equal opportunity family destroyer.

It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, intellect, national or ethnic origin, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other seemingly irrelevant criteria.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” – Sir Walter Scott

Yet another Easter House adoptee has surfaced in the State of New Jersey.

The poor girl thought I was psychic when I guessed the state she was adopted into. For reasons I have yet to determine, Kurtz had a baby pipeline running from IL to NJ during the 1980s.  I envision a laundry shoot where Kurtz agency social wreckers regularly fed infants into one end of the chute and adoptive parents pulled them out the other side, dusted them off, wrapped them up, renamed them, and settled them into a nice cozy colonial in The Garden State.

The number of Kurtz, particularly Easter House, adoptees into NJ is staggering to me. So much so, that I once had a war room established in my old home. I took sticky notes and thread and tried to connect all the deliveries. There has to be a connection. Did the adoptive parents use the same fertility center? Same lawyer? Did Kurtz or Milajlovic have a summer home on the Jersey shore where they entertained infertile couples as a sales and marketing strategy?

I started to make some progress and then I had to pack up and move. I don’t have the space in my new place to set up this war room, but perhaps I can purchase some data modeling software. I am confident there is some connection. My curious self just needs to know. It actually keeps me up at night. I feel like there is something really important there I need to find. I cannot explain. I am just driven.

The latest adoptee is yet another gem. She is a year younger than my daughter and is just now beginning to inquire about her birthparents, the agency she was purchased from and what this means to her as an individual. Again, I am honored to know her. She makes me smile. Her maturity, her strength, her honesty is encouraging. She is shocked to discover the details of the agency she was adopted from and struggling with the idea that her mother might have been one of those that were drugged or coerced. I am sure she will be fine. She is a pretty cool chiquita.

In separate Kurtz news, a friend who recently found her child was told by the adoptive parents that the final cost (to the aparents) for her child was close to 100K. This was not quite twenty years ago. The original purchase price was quoted as twenty-five thousand dollars. By the time the transaction was finalized, the adoptive parents expenses were close to one hundred thousand dollars. This child was born and surrendered in Maryland, transported by the agency to Arkansas to conduct the adoption (and take advantage of Arkansas law) and eventually ended up in NY. This surprised the mother but did not surprise me. Kurtz regularly transported babies across state lines to take advantage of more conservative or restrictive jurisdictions. They also crossed agencies. Mothers who surrendered their children to Birth Hope in Nevada or Arizona learned upon reunion their children were taken to Georgia to be cared for by Friends of Children and then later adopted into New York.

Kurtz may have woven a tight web but day by day, mother by mother, child by child, we are unraveling it.

“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?” – Ayn Rand

A friend sent me an article regarding Ohio legislators considering expenses paid to expectant mothers. Apparently several agencies and prospective adopters are complaining about their inability to properly coerce, ahem, I mean, support the expectant mothers.

Ohio legislators must be smoking something. If they aren’t, perhaps they are being wooed by the likes of Seymour Kurtz and his associates.  Maybe someone in the Ohio government is having a hard time adopting.

The idea of adoptive parents or attorneys  providing funds to expectant mothers before, during or after birth is to me highly unethical. It creates a coercive and intimidating situation.

It is not support money. It is insurance. Money used to guarantee the expectant mother surrenders. Money used to intimidate her and remind her of what she doesn’t have and those lovely adopters do. Money used to prove how worthy prospective adopters are of her child and she is not. Money used to keep her on a lower rung and those lovely adopters on a higher rung. Money used to buy the baby before it is even born. It is a security deposit. 

Oh, sure, individuals will hide behind gooey altruistic statements that suggest they are just helping some poor mother. More often than not, they are helping themselves. For when that mother they helped decides to keep her child, do they congratulate her and wish her well? No. They scream fraud and scamming and raise holy hell that they did not get the baby. They never cared about the mother. They only cared about the baby she would give birth to. The baby they could then take, rename and whisk away to the burbs to act "as if born to".

There should be no funds at all.

By no means am I suggesting an expectant mother in need of assistance should be forgotten.  I am not. I am however suggesting those funds should come from someone other than those that stand to profit off of a possible adoption transaction.  State welfare, an individual organization, a friend, a family member, someone with NO vested interest in the child being born should help that mother.

Not the salivating agencies, attorneys and adoptive parents.

Frankly, I am quite surprised the problems inherent in providing money to expectant mothers is lost on some folks.

Money creates a situation where mothers can be coerced and intimidated. I know, I was one of them. Prior to being sent from my family home in CT to the lovely State of IL, my mother signed a document obligating her to pay the agency back for any services rendered to me prior to surrender. My mother insists the document said $200.  Funny how that number changed once the agency got me away from my parents, into a maternity home, and under their control.  Even though I was required to work in the home and pay for my rent there, they claimed my rent was subsidized by them. They further said that the lunches the caseworker paid for when she met with me were considered advanced funds.  Some might consider the caseworker visits and such a cost of doing business. Not so for Easter House. There was a return on investment expected.  And lets not forget those regular doctor appts at St. Josephs Hospital. Someone had to pay. 

I paid with my child.

When I, weeks before birth, told my caseworker that I wanted to keep my daughter she not so gently reminded me of the promissory note my parents signed and informed me if I attempted to keep my child I, and my parents, would be sued. She further reminded me that I had caused my parents enough trouble, hadn’t I?

It was made clear to me that due to the monies advanced to me in the form of support and housing, I was morally and legally obligated to surrender my child – against my will – to the agency. Lacking any legal counsel, being isolated with my only contact being with the agency that stood to profit from the sale of my child, I surrendered.

I wonder if my daughters adoptive parents knew how their dreams came true?

Money creates a situation for agencies and adoptive parents to be scammed. Again, Easter House in IL was known for providing monies, paying for rent and groceries for expectant mothers.  Not surprisingly, scammers got wind of this took advantage of EH. While I don’t shed a tear for the likes of EH, the situation can and does happen over and over gain.  Agencies and adoptive parents that provide funds are just asking for it.

An adoptive family I know in NY purchased their child from a Kurtz agency. The infant was born in AZ, surrendered to one Kurtz agency and adopted through a second Kurtz agency in GA and then placed with the family in NY.  The State of NY stalled the finalization of the adoption due the unusually high fees that were being charged to the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents did not question it. They would have paid anything to get a baby.  Furthermore, they were told the high fees went to the mothers care.

I know the mother in this example. The mother never received a cent from the agency.  The high fees went to line the agency pockets. The adoptive mother is still angry about this and her child is now an adult.

Money creates pricing structures. How do you decide what to advance? Do black moms get more or less money?  What do you pay for? What do you not pay for? What if the mother keeps her child? Does she have to refund the monies provided to her?  And since she was probably considering adoption  due to poverty, how exactly is she supposed to do that? And if she then runs or refuses to pay, do you then file lawsuit against her and dig up her past and her poverty and claim she is unfit so you can get that baby for sale?

What amount is given? Does it vary by state? By situation (how poor is the mother REALLY?) Perhaps it depends on what color her child will be. It is widely documented that white children fetch more on the open market.  Do white expectant mothers get more money since their "product" can likely be sold for more money?

No.

No monies. No buying and selling babies.

Organizations, individuals, families should help expectant mothers. I have done it three times myself and two children remain with their mothers and one was surrendered to a kinship adoption.

And I would do it again in a heart beat.

Do you want to adopt a child or extort one?

"The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should
be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds." – Abraham Lincoln

Last year when  I attended the Ethics Conference sponsored by Evan B. Donaldson and Ethica I was struck by many topics that were discussed. I cried often. In several sessions I tried to comment but routinely found myself choked up.  People expected this, no one chided me, but still I felt a bit ridiculous.  At a few panel sessions, I even made the moderator cry. 

In reflecting on the conference the other night, I remembered the single event that hit me, a mother who lost her child to the American Adoption Industry, the most.

Days before the conference, news broke loose about the heinous adoption practices that were taking place in Guatemala.  Kidnapping babies, prostituting teenage girls to make babies, all so the infertile wealthy Americans could buy them. There is much to the story and the practices that lead to the situation. Google Guatemala adoption and you will find oodles of information.

The conference organizers were concerned about the session and there was talk of added security, riots and more. Angry prospective adopters were expected to show, lawyers, legislators, agency personnel, and government bodies.

The emotional energy was palpable.

I did not attend the session and I regret it. I was scheduled to be elsewhere and remembering thinking "what could I possibly add to a discussion of Guatemala adoptions?"

I was sadly mistaken.

I learned after the session that several mothers in attendance (Mirah, Claud and others) did attend the session. They spoke up at one point and said they were there on behalf of the Guatemalan mothers who could not speak for their children. They were there as a show of support to those mothers and teenage girls in Guatemala who had been lied to, deceived, or prostituted so their children could be placed on the adoption open market. They were there to show solidarity for all mothers the world round. They were there to give a face to the absent, faceless Guatemalan mothers. Mothers that could be easily disregarded since they were not present.

The action still makes me cry.

With Guatemala and Vietnam and other countries shutting down (if even temporarily) adoptions, I cannot help but wonder what will happen to those babies?   Don’t get me wrong. I am glad, as in stupid silly glad, that these matters are getting the long over due attention. But while official focus on the corruption, the lawyers, the agencies, the American buyers, is anyone looking to fortify the orphanages, homes, countries, mothers that are currently holding those children? Is anyone thinking ahead on how to care for those children?

Is anyone working on the flip-side of this coin to help those mothers, those agencies and families that will, hopefully, end up being able to keep their babies where they rightfully belong  – in their own country and with their own people?

To use a woefully poor analogy, we seem to be getting the fox out of the hen house. But who is fortifying the hen house while we keep the fox at bay?

My greatest fear is that while the officials get bogged down in red tape and investigations, something horrible happens to a child or number of children, and the officials and religious zealots take the easy way out of their investigation and just end up back where we started – that is, believing selling  children to foreign buyers is easier than addressing the root cause. They will put their own ego preservation above family preservation.

What can we do for those countries? For those mothers? For those babies in those "stalled" adoptions? 

I feel so limited being so far away and with language and knowledge barriers. I can help in the States but in the other countries?

What can I do?