The Birth Moms Shop

Welcome to Birth Mom Missions, glad to see you here!

Who are we? Birth Mother’s of Adopted Children

What is a birth mother? Birth moms are a group of common women who do an uncommon thing… We are mother’s who placed their child with love into another family’s arm’s.

What is Birth Mom Missions? We are a non-profit organization formed by birth mother’s to support other birth mother’s, before and after the adoption process.

Birth Mom Missions will impact society through several different initiatives and programs, which fall under the three main components: adoption practices, birth mother support, and the re-establishing the sanctity of life. The impact Birth Mom Missions can make is not limited to any particuar group or individual. We are excited to see where this mission takes us and how we can most help in society. AS birth mother’s we just want to share our experience in hopes of helping others in the future. We want to remind society of how strong women are and what is possible when women come together in support of each other. Mary & Elizabeth set a great example. To us this is true freminism! Believing women and letting them know about ALL their options during a pregnancy, is the way to respect their rights.

1. Support & Advice for Women pre-and post adoption. Sometimes people surrounding adoption can unintentionally cause a birth parent to feel guilty or shameful. Unfortunately, guilt and shame seem to be an ever-evolving presence in the life of a parent who has placed a child for adoption. While no two birth parents are going to experience guilt in the same way throughout their entire journeys, birth parents should find comfort in knowing that some other birth parent, somewhere on this Earth, has felt something similar. While our experiences are unique, the issue is not. You are never alone. Some of the services we provide: Local & nationwide supportive groups, online live meetings, prayer groups, newsletter, forums, a 1-800 phone support line (maintained by only birth mother’s, who have been through it before,) worksheets and packets for before and after adoption to help answer some MUCH ASKED questions that NEED ANSWERS TO. Help for birth mom’s with update letters or when contacting the parents for the first time. (Many questions you might not think of, with all you have going on,) women praying for you, and so much more!

2. Birth Mom’s for Life: We advocate adoption as an REAL option and go to schools and other locations to spread the word about what an honor it is to be able to give the gift of life! And much more. Each day, 3,300 women wake up in America believing abortion is the only realistic solution to an unplanned pregnancy. We hope to change this. Although it may be hard at sometimes to be a birht mother, we believe it is much harder to sufer an abortion. Some things, like a life, are never easily forgotten. Find our blog .here

3. Adoption Advocacy & Reform- We want to spread how wonderful adoption can be, but we see some much needed things are changed. Adoption reform is very important to us. We were able to see a ot from our perspective. We seek to make sure every adoptee knows they are loved and missed everyday.

Was it really was started by birth mother’s? Yes, by two actually, who began the mission when they became aware of the great need for support of birth mother’s. These two young women “roomed” together in an adoption agengy dorm, during their final 3 months of pregnancy. They experienced the good and the bad together and together they becoming birth mothers’ of adoption,. They realized how important their friendship was.

They soon found out that birth mother’s are joined together for life by their experiences. The love and respect among such a small group of women, is something society usually misses out on. Watching a birth mother hand over her child to her adoptive parents for the very lest time…is a moment I wish everyone could see. It is the most beautiful bittersweet moment, and shows the real power of love…two sets of parents coming together all because of their love for this one child! Christians can take even more from it, because of how it portrays in some small way how we are adopted as God’s children. The experience is worth more than words can describe.

We stress the birth mother aspect because we feel it is what makes us unique and allows us to “tell it like it is” to women just like ourselves. We missed out on an older birth mom mentor, but we want to provide help to women in the future that become pregnant and choose life. It is best to find a birth mother that has experienced relinquishment within the past few years, because adoption has changed so drastically recently.

Why are we needed?

Every year approximately 1.3 million single women become unexpectedly pregnant. Sadly, less than two percent choose the loving option of adoption, while two million couples eagerly wait to adopt children.

1) Reality of birth mother knowledge today: Existing information about how deeply the birth mother has been affected by the relinquishment of her child will help society become more aware about how to deal with adoption in the future. Since the literature falls short of providing suggestions for services for birth mothers who want to heal, the next step is to raise the consciousness among the community and create services for her recovery.

Many different groups of people fear birth parent grief for many reasons. The old adage goes that people fear what they don’t know. So, we would like to shed a little light on why birth parent grief isn’t meant to be scary to adoptive parents, adoptees or the general public.

Still the truth remains that birth parents have parted with a huge piece of themselves. Even the most independent woman will tell you that having a child changes a woman’s view of herself. Placing that child is akin to letting go of a piece of yourself.

It is difficult to grieve the loss of a child to adoption when the rest of the world views it as a good thing. The wording often offered up to birth parents searching for some answers comes out something like, “Well, it’s for the best.” Of course, birth parents can then internalize that well-intentioned placating sentence and start to wonder what is fundamentally wrong with them that their child is better off elsewhere. (See Guilt & Shame for more)

The problem w/ post-adoption support:

It was obvious most birth mother’s were not processing the grief correctly, So many, too many, fall into drugs or some other destructive practice to numb the pain. Usually this is then used as more of a way to setereotype the way birth mother’s must be.

Changes:

As a result of the stay at a adoption dorm, they saw much of the background events going on during an adoption too. So we have a few insights for adoption reform….a main one being, birth mother’s should have a separate case worker and counselor, because both roles are too conflicting to receive unbiased support. Preferably birth mom’s should be counseled by other birth mom’s. Every girl just wanted to talk to someone who had been through it before. It relieves so much anxiety for the birth mom. And any unanswered questions tend to just result in a birth mother not following through for fear of the unknown, at the last minute. (And provided legal representation, as the other side is)

Who usually becomes a birth mother, do they have anything in common?

Most birth mother’s were a result of an unplanned or crisis pregnancy. This doesn’t mean we loved our babies any less. (In fact, some would say it as the opposite) but it means that we are most likely not prepared to provide adequate care. These babies then become the most at risk for being aborted in today’s society. Every 1 out of 4 children won’t make it. This is why birth mom’s missions is crucial to the pro-life movement!

At Birth Mom Missions, we think life is always the best CHOICE for everyone! We’ve seen friends have abortions and friends raise children, but we never saw a birth mother’s life that close up…until we become one. Now we have tackled every situation the pro-abortion industry can come up with as a reason to have an abortion. One of the two founding birth mother’s was raped, suppressed it, and then was shocked to find herself pregnant. She now says,

More details on Birth Mom Missions:

Birthmothers works together with churches, faith-based agencies and social services providers to build a web of resources for pregnant women.

Each of the Birth Mother’s on our growing staff, have unique experiences. We have dealt with crisis pregnancies, serious health concerns third trimester ( pre-e ), adoption legal mishaps, and much more. We have seen and experienced a lot and want to just share our observations. We know what women are capable of when a life depends solely on them to survive. Birth mother’s are strong women, determined to give life and finish the good work that was begun inside them. It may have been unplanned, but we want them here more than anything! (Contrary to beliefs, since “gave away”)

A mother becomes a mother, when she realizes there is another little person who solely depends on her to survive….and she therefore is intent on not letting them down. A mother becomes a birth mother, when she looks her precious child in the eyes and realizes it’s her duty to take care of them and provide the best, no matter what society may think of her. Even her child might not understand right away, but one day when they become a parent they will. Mom’s don’t stop being mom’s when a child leaves for college, or a child passes on before them…so why would a birth mom stop being a mom after adoption day.

Books on “grieving a pet” are plentiful – yet there are almost no books on grieving the loss of one’s son, daughter or grandchild to adoption. Few counselors (or case workers) in North America are knowledgeable of the intense delayed suffering “disenfranchised grief” a mother may experience even long after losing her child to adoption. This makes it difficult to find a good counselor. In addition, counselors may have attended workshops and training in which some attendees have been told that mothers who have problems following the loss of their child to adoption are “few in number and mentally ill”.

Are birth mom’s really mom’s though?

“What makes a mother? Is it the child birth? Is it the bearing and nourishing and sustaining him for the first nine months of his life? Is it the raising of him, spending his growing years with him? When do women become mothers? Does some thing [sic] magical happen during or after childbirth?

Is this the forging, the test by fire, or do mothers become themselves under the gentle pedagogy of the tiny teachers who make them feel too much too soon? Are we the mothers when we begin to care, to wonder, when we realize we are moved by a child we can’t even see? When does motherhood begin, when does it end – or does it have beginning and end? Is it time bound?” (Connolly, 1987, as quoted in Arthur & Jacobs, 1999, p. 21) more on this subject here

Some facts:

How many babies are adopted?

4% of non-marital births are placed for adoption. In the U.S. this is about 50,000 non-related adoptions a year compared to 1,500,000 babies aborted. (This year it is 2%)

Why do so few mothers place their babies?

In society, customs change. Right now it is the “in” thing to keep your baby. Part of the reason for this has been the overemphasis on women’s “rights” (as in abortion) over the baby’s rights, and the concept of the mother’s “ownership,” which the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision taught our nation. Add to this the above insidious influence, the almost condemnation of, and the “poor mouthing” of adoption by many sex educators, Planned Parenthood people, social workers and others.

How many couples are waiting?

“There are about two million couples waiting. Furthermore, each of these couples would want two or three, if available. Many will take hard-to-place children with special needs. Bachrach et al., On the Path to Adoption”

Our partners include (but are not limited to) pregnancy care centers (CPCs), adoption agencies, radio stations, private adoption attorneys, counselors, medical professionals, housing and transportation resources, cross-cultural and government services.