For those of you who regret giving your child up for adoption...?

Lori A

I'm not sure I understand the question but I'll take a crack at it.

My adult daughter realizes that adoption gave her a more stable life than if she had stayed with me. Would she have been able to do that had she stayed with me? NO she wouldn't have had the adoption to compare it to.

As far as a regret, I regreted her being away from me. I regret all the time we missed. I regret the pain it caused both of us.

I don't regret having her. I don't regret that she got loving parents who took good care of her. I don't regret that we have found each other again.

My daughter would choose her life again and no that does not bother me. I understand it, I understood it when I chose that life for her. Mostly I don't mind because it's over. I don't have to live that any more.

I hope I answered the question.

magic pointe shoes

Okay, you tell me.

I regret getting pregnant when I did, but I do not regret my son.

I regret not telling my family sooner that I was pregnant.

I regret not rising to the challenge of turning everything around to raise my son.

I regret my family failing me.

I regret not being informed of what the emotional consequences were to both me and to my son.

I regret not fully exploring all the resources out there to help me keep my son.

I regret not fully exploring all the family profiles out there if I was going to continue exploring an adoption plan instead of just picking the first couple I came across.

I regret agreeing to an induced childbirth experience.

I regret not breastfeeding while he was mine.

I regret not taking one single picture with my son.

I regret almost the entire hospital stay.

I do not regret my son. I do not regret his life and how he is experiencing it even though it is not with me.

ps - lol at the phrase "adult child"

cats3to2

My adult son that I lost to adoption might choose to be adopted, not that I would ask such a question. But, that's because he doesn't know how wonderful it would have been for him if he could have stayed with me. I had no other options or choices. To this day I rack my brain thinking how could I have kept him? And I know he would have been better off with his own mother and not a substitute mother. So it's all about the well being of the child, and adoptive families are not to be presumed to be better for the child than their own family would have been.

Felicita1

I think that I would have to question the word "regret," which implies an act that one wishes that one had done, or not done, and usually implies something one did wrong (criminal, hurtful, insulting, stupid, etc.)

As in:

- "I regret that robbed that bank, it was wrong of me."
- "I regret that I said that mean thing to her to her, it was wrong of me."
- "I regret that I got drunk that night and smashed my car up."
- And, following this up: "I regret that I gave away my baby."

So the word "regret" presumes that a mother had a freely-made, non-coerced, and fully-informed choice to surrender her baby. It assumes that all mothers (not just some, or most) made this choice, to give away an unwanted/unloved baby, and now look back and realize they made a 'bad decision.' Thus, regret.

But as many studies have shown so far, and so many mothers have reported over and over, that they felt they had no choice -- or that the option of keeping their baby was not a viable option (example: severe poverty, homelessless, etc.) -- the term "regret" is not applicable. Most times we felt we had no other option or choice.

A decision is not one if there is coercion involved. If a mother has not been given the resources she needs to keep her baby, if she is convinced by others that she would be unfit and/or unable to "give her baby enough," if threats are made that she has to pay unforeseen expenses to agencies/lawyers if she wants to keep her baby (expenses excused if she surrenders), or if her parents throw her out of their house in shame -- then there is no freely-made non-coerced "choice."

I cannot regret something I had no choice in, that was done "to" me rather than "by" me. I wish it had not have happened.

As for your question, all our lives changed with losing a child to adoption. What we are today, our children cannot compare with what we could have been if they had not been taken from us.

My son wished he had never been stolen for adoption. So, for me, that made the experience all the worse, that there was nothing that made the damage to me "worth it" for him. And ANY mother would give anything, her whole life, for her child's happiness and wellbeing.

So, I think that another question might be: "Would the surrender of your child be worth it for you if he/she was happy he/she was adopted" "had a positive adoption experience" or "had a better experience that he/she would have had if he/she was raised by you?"

Antiqued Hope

I think its more of a personal regret. its not whether or not the child wants to be adopted or not. there are some stories where the mother and child get along great and other times when they're at each others throats. i think that its more so the idea that the person places in their head about how good or bad it is. = hmm...i don't know if that helped. its kinda scattered and confusing. i hope you get what i'm trying to say.

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