[Scarlet Moon 13]

Originally Posted by BrandyHagz

In an attempt to create a more positive environment for all of our members, I have been advocating for change within the site regarding the use of the term ‘Birthmother’ when discussing or addressing a pregnant woman who is considering an adoption plan.

One of the people I have been speaking with came back with the following statement, which is why I wanted to bring the statement to you:

If you can call a pregnant women a mother before the act of giving birth, it certainly stands to reason that you could call a pregnant woman considering adoption a birthmother before giving birth, so why the split hairs?

So, if we can call a pregnant woman a mother before giving birth, why do we have an issue with calling a birthmother a birthmother before she has terminated her rights?

This isn’t my opinion on things – again, this was presented to me when the discussion was opened up by someone who is not a part of our business, but by someone who does work in the industry and genuinely wanted to know what my answer was to that question.

This topic isn’t a debate – I’d rather not see this thread turn nasty, but rather give me ammunition for a discussion that will be forth coming in the weeks ahead.

At this point, I have expressed the opinion that all change comes with opposition – that in the end, someone will rally against it for the sole purpose of ‘this is how it’s always been’. At this point, I have had some favorable feedback on my request – but I would like additional information that I can take to the meetings regarding this topic.

My plan is to copy and print out your comments – as members of the adoption community (not just our community, but the adoption community at large) and take them with me to our meetings so that the people I work for and work with can see that this isn’t just a one woman campaign for change, it’s a campaign led for and supported by those who are members of the triad.

Again, I ask you not to turn this into a debate…simply state your opinions and move on – if you’d like to debate the pro’s and con’s of adoption terminology or the use of coercive language in adoption, please create another thread to do it in.

Thanks so much!

a pregant woman is an expectant mother..
a mother to be.
Whether that is going to be the outcome or not.

a birth mother is a woman young or old who has "given" away a baby to "adoption".

to a perspective adoptive parents, she may be a perspective birthmother..

but until the day she signs the final papers and her baby is gone from her life, she is just an expectant mother.

The entire time I was pregnant, he was MY baby, it didn't matter that I wasn't going to be allowed to keep him. While he was in my body, he was mine. He in no way belonged to any other mother until she took him home from the hospital.

I personally beleive that telling someone thinking about adoption or calling them a birth mother before the adoption is just another means or coercion. Another way of making her feel less able.

A way to convince her before the baby is born that the baby in her body is no longer hers..

I understand that some women really don't want their babies, for the few who feel that way it won't matter. I fully understand not being old enough, not being in a postion to raise your baby and having to give the baby up to adoption. I know what it is like to between a rock and hard place with no where to go.

But I see "no reason to take away the little time the perspective mother has, as the mother of her own child", by calling her a birthmother before the birth of the baby.

For those few times that she deicides at the last minute to keep her child, she needs to know she is still the mother of the child. Not the birthmother.

my opinion..