{"id":167,"date":"2005-04-05T17:24:02","date_gmt":"2005-04-06T00:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/x.jimanddoni.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2005-04-18T15:27:15","modified_gmt":"2005-04-18T22:27:15","slug":"loving-amanda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"Love Letters to a Birthmom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you count yourself as one who will lovingly and with courage stand up in defense of the “least of these”? If so, I am going to give you an opportunity to “stand up”. <\/p>\n

When I was training to be a crisis pregnancy counselor, one principle took root in my heart. I was taught that if you love preborns and want to help them, then you must love mommies as well. In my experience, I often see people talk about the horrors of abortion and the beauty of adoption but than they turn around and lobby intense critisism at birth mothers. This is heart breaking to me.<\/p>\n

This week, Amanda posted a comment on my “Lil Bit Country…” posting. Within her comment she said “…I tell my friends all the time about what happened in my case and they do not see the good in it, but I do. I know that Jim and Doni were the right ones to raise Ty,… <\/em>“. <\/p>\n

I don’t think people realize how much social pressure birthmothers have to confront. Our culture is very anti-adoption. Birthmothers are often victims to some of the cruelest comments imaginable. Why is this? Imagine it….the family that gets the entire BLESSING of baby is praised…the family that sacrifices out of love is scorned. That is absolutely tragic irony!<\/p>\n

Jamie (an adoptee) and Amanda (Ty’s birthmom) have both talked to me about the hurtful things that have been said to them. Jamie has been told that adopted children were babies that no one wanted and they should have just been aborted. Jamie was told by a teacher this year that “adoption is wrong” (yes she is Pro Choice). Amanda has been told that she should have aborted Ty. She has been told that Ty was “her problem” and that she “passed her problem” onto someone else. (You can imagine what I think about THAT!) She has continually had to defend herself in regards to “how she could have given her baby away”. When I hear these things, they make me ache inside. How I wish that I could stand in front of these girls and let people know that before they open their mouth, they will have to get through me first and I am quite a force to be reckoned with on this subject.<\/p>\n

I can’t protect them from this though. The world is cruel and I am not surprised that those that should be honored are beaten down. There is one little thing that I can do though. My circle of precious family and friends are ready willing and anxious to stand behind Amanda and other women who have made a courageous choice for adoption. I know that many of them would be willing to take a stand against these abuses and rally with support. If we as a culture do not stand up and defend life and love, we must own the consequences for our apathy. When we rally in love behind women who are faced with such a heart wrenching decision, we are contributing to building a new culture that embraces life. <\/p>\n

Friends? Hear me calling to you? If you feel moved to write your own little note of affirmation to Amanda, please post your comment to Amanda on this posting. If you are a family member or friend who realizes the blessing of Ty in your own life, take a moment to let her know how her love has blessed us all. While we cannot take away the hurtful things said, we can reach out with love across the miles to honor someone who made a life altering choice out of love for someone else. Thank you for loving “our” Amanda and all the other birthmothers who frequent this site. They need our love, support, admiration, and affirmation. Will you help me love them?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dear Amanda,<\/p>\n

I know that reading these postings is hard some days and that you only “pop in” once in awhile…but since you’ve been making your presence known this week LOL…I thought I would write a little note to you:)<\/p>\n

Someday I would love it if you would write out YOUR story for me to post. I think it is awesome for people to get to hear both of our hearts on this subject. I know it would be a very emotional story and difficult to write…especially now while you are grieving. There is so much beauty in it though. As much as we hate for you to suffer, we know that a person can’t make a sacrifice so huge without suffering. Great love and great sacrifice always go hand in hand. My parents always taught us that love is doing the best for someone else IRREGARDLESS of the cost to yourself. I think your example of love is one of the most profound most people would ever witness. You might just change the world more than you think:).<\/p>\n

In reading your comments on the “Lil Bit Country…” posting (and from talking to your mom), I realize that you have had to deal with tremendous pressure and hurtful comments from other people lately. The protector in me wants to go find these people and give them a good shaking! For fear of my temper getting the best of me, I’ll just leave it at that for the moment (but believe me I have a TON of things to say on THIS subject).<\/p>\n

HOWEVER, there is a little something I can do to counter the hurtful things that have been said in regards to adoption. There are many people that read these postings who understand adoption and the sacrfice involved. I think THEY would love to have the opportunity to write a note to a birthmom detailing what they think of her incredible gift. These are the people who DO know what they are talking about and they are reaching across the miles to hug you even now. I also have great hope in this. Someday when Ty is old enough to understand this, I am convinced that he will have the ability to counter every hurtful thing ever said…when he looks in your eyes and say’s “Thank You”.<\/p>\n

I love you,<\/p>\n

Doni<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you count yourself as one who will lovingly and with courage stand up in defense of the “least of these”? If so, I am going to give you an opportunity to “stand up”. When I was training to be a crisis pregnancy counselor, one principle took root in my heart. I was taught that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mamas-diaries"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}