Finally, this barbaric practice can end!!!!

I am thrilled to read ghetto's story of an adoption with a very happy ending! Fantastic. You are one lucky person. And so are your parents!

Don't we wish that your story was always the outcome for all adoptions. I worry about some of the really bad stories we hear. I'm sure they are in the minority - most people who adopt really want a child and really love the child they adopt.

faith: your next to last sentence made me think about a story I posted a while back about a lovely gal I met in Virginia when I was a legislative aide. She was an attorney and fresh out of college. There was an ERA debate at the capital one day and we talked about it over lunch. She was even more rabid than I about women's right to choose. You see, she had become pregnant from a date rape. At the time, abortion was illegal.

She could have tried for a backstreet abortion somewhere, but among other things (like the illegality of it) she was too scared. She realized she had no alternative but to have the baby and put it up for adoption. Then she planned to finish school, carve out a worthwhile career, meet a wonderful man and live happily ever after. Except it didn't play out that way.

During her pregnancy, she learned that she had the kind of skin that makes stretch marks - big red, ugly stretch marks. On her belly, her sides and her breasts. She did give her baby up for adoption. She was so tormented by the rape, she just couldn't find it in herself to have warm motherly feelings about the being that was living inside her. The pregnancy was the result of a horrible nightmarish event committed against her by a horrible man. But she was so physically scarred, there was no chance of her marrying someone and falling in love and keeping the whole hellish memory of the rape and the 9 months of pregnancy and the 36 hours of difficult labor and delivery, a secret so that she wouldn't be judged or discriminated against. Her stretch marks would always be there to tell her story. Anyone she might consider marrying would have to be told.

She was suffering from serious depression and having to be treated for it. Her story was one of the reasons that I came to believe that it is a woman's right to choose. No one can make that decision for another human. It is way too complicated and no one else's business but the mother, and possibly the father (except in cases like hers) and her doctor.

Mark: I haven't made many comments about your posts at this thread, but I do so appreciate them. You sound like a very intelligent and humane individual.

My brother is a doctor. He was told in medical school that prior to the advent of modern medicine, and this would include the availability of antibiotics (pharmaceuticals which were developed in the 1940s and only started to be available for general medical use in the early 1950s, I believe), more women died in childbirth or of childbirth complications than men died in wars. This certainly indicates that up until the advent of the 20th century pregnancy and childbirth certainly was risky business for many women and that these women did indeed die. That many women are unable to have vaginal births and must have Caesarians would back this up. Figure that you are going to have to have a Caesarian birth without the back-up of modern technology, eh! The baby might survive but you won't. You will either bleed out or develop an unstoppable infection or both.

Absolutely. I also just read that up until the advent of these medicines, because so many women died in childbirth the average life expectancy was only in the 30s, which is where it had been for all of human history. Only after childbirth was made safe did overall life expectancy start to rise to modern standards.

There seems to be a very high incidence of very early miscarriages in my DDs age group. They think that it is because of the very accurate early pregnancy tests that are available these days. We had early miscarriages too, but didn't know it. We just thought we were having an extremely heavy uncomfortable period. That certainly happened to me once. I had no idea until my doc told me and recommended a D&C.

Mark: I haven't made many comments about your posts at this thread, but I do so appreciate them. You sound like a very intelligent and humane individual.

Thanks, BJean, for your kind thoughts. This thread has brought out some thoughtful comments all around.

Cumbaya... :sing:

Cumbaya... :sing:

I spent enough time hiding behind trees watching Boy Scouts to know that it's spelled "Kumbaya."

Wheetsin was a little confused about which thread this is. :embarassed:

What does Kumbaya actually mean? I always been curious and, yes, this is a serious question.

What does Kumbaya actually mean? I always been curious and, yes, this is a serious question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbaya

Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry. If you don't have time to look, it means "intolerant religious conservatives and homophobes will fail to impose their legislative agenda on the virtuous and morally superior liberals."

I'm so glad I hit refresh before I posted what I cut and pasted from Wiki.

Kumbaya is Come By Here.

Thanx from Green.

Green: Up in Oklahoma, Kumbaya does mean "come by here" and it is the name of a church camp song that we warbled around the campfire when I was in my pre-teen years. It was an effort by the couselors to keep us from telling scary ghost stories and thinking up kissing games.

However I don't know where Mark grew up, but I am pretty sure that his camp counselors were a more intelligent bunch than the ones I was stuck with.

Green: Up in Oklahoma, Kumbaya does mean "come by here" and it is the name of a church camp song that we warbled around the campfire when I was in my pre-teen years. It was an effort by the couselors to keep us from telling scary ghost stories and thinking up kissing games.

However I don't know where Mark grew up, but I am pretty sure that his camp counselors were a more intelligent bunch than the ones I was stuck with.

LOL The thing is that I remember warbling the Kumbaya song when I was just a teenager, too, and although I was kinda swept up in the moment in the way teenagers are I never, ever really got it. I didn't know where this song came from and I had no understanding of its significance other than it appeared to be favoured by hippies, nuns and other anti-warriors. I just knew that although the lyrics were insanely repetitive and didn't really seem to make a point it was one of the good songs. I actually didn't like it all that much at the time.

(And ohmigawd I can't believe that I am wandering down this path!!! I think that I am having an acidless flashback right now!):faint:

Ugh! I vividly remember those Kumbaya circles, some bearded guy strumming on an acoustic guitar, and the rest of us, bearded guys and long-haired grrls, soulfully whining the words to Kumbaya.:phanvan Those were the days when I had to mask my natural cynicism. Urgh!:cry

Green: Up in Oklahoma, Kumbaya does mean "come by here" and it is the name of a church camp song that we warbled around the campfire when I was in my pre-teen years. It was an effort by the couselors to keep us from telling scary ghost stories and thinking up kissing games.

However I don't know where Mark grew up, but I am pretty sure that his camp counselors were a more intelligent bunch than the ones I was stuck with.

Actually, I grew up in Southern California. My camp counsellor's name was Hugh Jass. He taught us that "Kumbaya" meant "First one's free, I'll teach you how." We sat around the campfire also. The game we played was to see how many of us could inhale the same bong hit. This was during the sixties, before any negative consequences were associated with the exchange of bodily fluids.

Mark sounds like your camp counselor was not smarter than mine but much HIPPER! Interesting that you grew up in So. Cal. My son lives there. His friendly next door neighbor, Mike Hunt, has a cousin named Hugh Jass. Small world, eh?