Adoption option?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

I'm new to L&D nursing. We have some very young "mom's", some as young as 13 and 14. I've noticed that no one ever mentions adoption. ALL of them are keeping their babies. The grandmothers are younger than me! I have to say that the hardest patients for me are these young teenage mom's - it breaks my heart. I have 2 daughters ages 16 and 17, and they have both told me that there is more stigma at their schools if a girl says she's giving up her baby for adoption than if she keeps it. They even have daycare at the schools in an attempt to keep these girls in school, but most drop out...When did adoption become such a bad thing, and why? The only adoptions I have seen are the involuntary ones - babies taken from crack moms (and it's usually the 6 or 7th time!) Do you see this across the country? Or is is just Oregon?

Specializes in ER, Peds, Charge RN.

In March of 2000, I gave birth to a baby girl. I was 16, and yes, Medicaid payed for it. I never once considered adoption, because it was my child, and I loved her from the beginning. I graduated high school early, I went to college (with no help from my parents) and got a degree. My daughter has always been well-cared for. She has never lacked a mother.

I don't appreciate being judged as a welfare-mom, a bad mother, or selfish just because I had my daughter at a young age. I worked two jobs, and I'm still paying off loans from school. There are those of us who do it, and it's a shame to lump us all together into one big group of irresponsible, unwed mothers.

There is a problem with the welfare system, but it is not to be blamed on young mothers.... or african-americans, or illlegal immigrants. Lumping a group together and blaming them for a problem is irresponsible at best.

I still get the looks, and the comments... especially around parent-teacher conferences. The funny thing is, my daughter is more well-adjusted and intelligent than many of the children from two-parent homes.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
I have to disagree with the universality implied in your post. ''These kids'' are choosing multiple paths, just as their classmates who weren't teen moms are doing. Many finish high school with the help of their parents, school based day care centers, or yes, horrors, public assistance. Seeing as none of them have actually lived the ''rest of their lives'' yet, I don't know how it is possible to proclaim that they'll be on welfare forever... especially given the restrictions on lifetime aid.

I'm glad that you are seeing that, but here where I live it's not happening.

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Specializes in PICU.

i am adopted and thank my birthmother for her strenght in the situation she was in. i was born in 1984 and adoption seemed even rarer then. my father is an attorney and while working in his office during the summers i saw so many girls with whoom i wanted to have the adoption talk. i feel that in many communites adoption is seen as abandoment, which it is NOT @ ALL. i feel there need to be a great push for adoption education.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I distinctly remember a teen mom doing her algebra homework during labor, between contractions. She was determined she would not only graduate high school, but already had her sights set on a state university and graduating there. If anyone could "make it" this young lady would. I often wonder how she is today. She was amazing and yes, I believe there are teen moms who work twice as hard to "make it" by virtue of the odds against them. So the universality mercyteapot speaks of, we need to be careful of!

There have been some very unfit older moms in my care, as well. People who had several kids in state's custody and would never regain it back. But nor would they discuss volunteeering to adopt out the child they were having currently, nope. Not exactly Ozzie and Harriet conception of parents!

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I have always believed that a huge percentage of unwed teenage pregnancies are "planned" for any number of reasons. And of course, many older women, even married ones, get pregnant for these reasons too.

1. Somebody to love

2. To get away from parents

3. To trap a guy

4. Attention and gifts

5. Various types of state aid

etc. etc. etc.

Someone addressed the "I want to have my children when I'm young enough to enjoy them" thing, although not in those exact words. EVERY woman I have ever known who did that ended up divorced (not amicably, either), penniless, usually battered, and the list goes on. You want to have your kids when you're OLD enough to enjoy them!

As for school-based day care, I remember a man who taught at a high school in my old town that had on-site child care. It was free for students, who had priority, but staff could use it too although they had to pay for it. He had been opposed to the center going in, because he thought it would encourage girls to get pregnant, but he changed his mind very quickly because most of those girls (and some boys) would not have been able to stay in school were it not for this center.

BTW, the center was not paid for by the school district; they only supplied the space. It was staffed and funded by the YWCA.

As for the hospital where I work, it seems that most of the adopted babies are born to college-age women who didn't know they were pregnant (or were in huge denial) until very close to their due date. Whatever the situation, I would much rather hear about a baby being placed for adoption than being left in a trash can to die. Everyone at the hospital is given training about what to do if we find an abandoned baby; it's basically "Take the baby to the ER and they will deal with it further."

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I think you may be misquoting me- I have heard from young moms that they "want to get their children out of the way while they are young".

I found this attitude interesting. There was no question that they were having kids- regardless if they were prepared to care for them or were intending to "pass the baby up" (to the grandma).

I like chatting up the young mom to see what their thinking is like. They always surprise me!

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Specializes in Acute Dialysis.

I am not an OB nurse but I have a little bit different perspective. My cousin started having children in her teen years. She kept the first baby for about 6 months then gave it up for adoption to another family member. When she gave it up it was very spur of them moment and as retaliation against her mother. The next 3 children she kept for a number of years. She pretty much stated most of the sterotypical reasons for keeping the babies; someone to love me, they're mine, he'll stay with me then, more state money etc. Unfortunantly she and the children went through most of the sterotypical scenerios also. Extreme poverty, drug useage, abuse(physical and sexual) ect. When the remaining 3 children were 11, 5 and 3 she again decided in the middle of the night to give the kids up. That is where I came in. My aunt, her mother, called and asked me to take the youngest temporarily. Six months later the 5 yr old came to join us. That was 14 yrs ago. My daughter was the 5 almost 6 yr old when she came to live with me. She remembered/s very well life with her uterus donor; my cousin. I assumed she saw adoption as a positive thing. Until they were older teens the only thing I would say about my cousin was that she made some mistakes in life like not finishing school thus not able to get a good job. But that she loved both of them very much and she showed that love by giving them to me when she couldn't take care of them any longer. My DD always talked of being happy to live with me and finally having enough to eat. I always assumed that should DD experience an unplanned teen pregnancy she would see adoption as a possibility and a positive thing. We were talking one day about one of her friends and I asked about adoption. The answer was an automatic and emphatic NO. That just wasn't done. She couldn't articulate a reason why it was so wrong just that it was very wrong to even consider. Much to my pro-life horror DD thought it would be better/easier to have an abortion then to give the baby up for adoption. Her rationale at the time was with an early abortion you "wouldn't get to know it or anything". It made me wonder where I screwed up as an adoptive mother. DD was horrified when I mention that her mother could have had an abortion instead for any one of the of them. That was totally unacceptable. It became a very confusing conversation. DD knew first hand the hell she had been through the first 5 yrs of her life (near starvation, sexual abuse, physical abuse etc), loved her life and her brothers and knew that all were much better after adoption; however, adoption is not socially acceptable. We never did come to any conclusions. Like the OP I too wonder when adoption became a dirty word or a social disgrace.

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km5vr6 - my 17 y.o. daughter and I recently had the same discussion. There a quite a few girls in her school who are pregnant.

She mentioned the same theory - abortion is better than adoption. Her father and I are both pro-life (as are her older brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles) and have talked about that with all our kids. Obviously she is mirroring the group she "lives" with at school. And she has to come to her own conclusions as she grows into an adult - but that doesn't mean I won't have conversation with her in this regard.

steph

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Specializes in Acute Dialysis.

Steph

I realized my DD was reflecting the herd thinking. I didn't realize at the time that it was the opinion of society that adoption was not an option. It almost seems a double or triple standard now exist. It is OK to place your child for adoption if you live in another country but not if you live in the same type of conditions here. It is considered nobel to adopt a child from overseas but selfish to adopt a child locally unless that child is severly handicapped. What happened to just wanting more for you self and your child then you can currently give and finding someone else able and willing to give to that child? In the fight for the "right to chose" why was the choice of adoption eliminated? My DD is now married and expecting her first child. (I turned 45 and found out I was to be a grandmother at the same time. Can we say MIDLIFE CRISIS?) It would be an interesting subject to revisit and see if her perspective has changed.

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Steph

I realized my DD was reflecting the herd thinking. I didn't realize at the time that it was the opinion of society that adoption was not an option. It almost seems a double or triple standard now exist. It is OK to place your child for adoption if you live in another country but not if you live in the same type of conditions here. It is considered nobel to adopt a child from overseas but selfish to adopt a child locally unless that child is severly handicapped. What happened to just wanting more for you self and your child then you can currently give and finding someone else able and willing to give to that child? In the fight for the "right to chose" why was the choice of adoption eliminated? My DD is now married and expecting her first child. (I turned 45 and found out I was to be a grandmother at the same time. Can we say MIDLIFE CRISIS?) It would be an interesting subject to revisit and see if her perspective has changed.

My oldest son will be 24 in March, #2 will be 22 in January and my dd is 17 and then I had a child at 43 and he is 5. ;)

I could theoretically be a grandma but neither son is interested in marriage - just got #1 graduated from college. Hopefully my dd won't get pregnant. :uhoh3:

It does seem that adoption got lost in the last 30 years . . . .

Congrats on becoming a grandma!:balloons:

steph

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I have a friend who used to be a foster care caseworker, and she said the main reason there are so many children in FC is because the kinds of women who in past generations would have adopted out their babies are now keeping them. This is not to say that just because a woman is young, single, and/or poor that she should give her baby up, no way.

And a huge percentage of "the girls who went away", were they to become pregnant now, would have been coerced, even forced, to have an abortion even if she didn't want to do that.

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it was once felt that if a girl gave a child up for adooption she could then go on with her life

some could but some felt like they were forced into this decision [and some were]

couples do not feel like they should marry just because of an unplanned pregnancy..i know in our family they had a shower and sent out birth announcements and they both love the baby but i am of an age to believe that they should make a committment to each other and to the baby my opinion is of no consequence but i never mentioned adoption because i know that they had never even considered and my dgs face when he holds his son is beautiful

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