GARDEN GROVE : Adoption Congress Hears Mother’s Tale

Martha Smith and her daughter, Cindy, live 2,000 miles apart but they talk almost every day and manage to visit each other almost every month.

The women have much to talk about--25 years worth of conversation, in fact. That’s how long they were separated before they found out where the other lived.

“For the years on her birthday or at Christmas, I wondered what she was doing or how she was feeling,” said Martha Smith, a Costa Mesa resident. “I knew I had to find her so I could at least see her face and tell her how sorry I was I didn’t get a chance to watch her grow up.”

Smith on Thursday recounted her agonizing nine-year search for the daughter she gave up for adoption 27 years ago. She told her story at the 13th annual international conference of the American Adoption Congress, which drew 400 participants to the Hyatt Regency Alicante.

“Many young women are wrongly told that when they face an unwanted pregnancy that if they give (the baby) up for adoption, they are doing the best thing and that it won’t haunt them later because it is the so-called right thing,” said Smith, who was 16 when Cindy, who now lives in Illinois, was born. “It isn’t that simple. You never forget because you always know something that is a part (of you) is out there.”

Workshops at the four-day conference, which runs through Sunday, include “The Grief of the Birth Mother,” which deals with the pain mothers feel when separated from a child, and their rights in keeping involved with their children’s lives.

Panelists at the opening general session Thursday suggested that adoption should be phased out of the American legal system and replaced with legal guardianship as a means of easing trauma between birth parents and their children.

“Our current traditional adoption practice legally terminates birth parents’ rights,” said Reuben Pannor, a psychotherapist with the Vista Del Mar Child Care Services. “This process permits the loss of all genealogical and historical connections of the child with his birth family. Every human being has the innate right to know and be a part of his natural heritage.”

Pannor added that adopted children should experience secure nurturing and rearing with their adoptive parents while retaining their natural birth relationships. Legal guardianship would allow the adoptive parents to be in charge of a minor without terminating the rights of the natural parent, he said. Annette Baran, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist, argued that out-of-home placement should be the last consideration in an unwanted pregnancy.

“We have three challenges, and our first is to actively support national programs for education and the prevention of unplanned pregnancies, particularly among teens,” Baran said. “Next is when an unplanned pregnancy does occur, is to give visible support to family preservation and work to help the baby either stay with the birth parents or other relatives, no matter how distant they are. Placement with non-relatives should be the last resort when no other possible alternatives are available.” Martha Smith agrees that birth parents should play some role in their child’s lives

“Even if you aren’t able to care for the child, there should be a way to have a part in their lives,” said Smith, who has no other children. “There are so many reasons people give their children up and it isn’t always because they don’t care. I missed out on my child’s childhood. I don’t want other women to go through the same thing.”