TITLE: Adoptees Who Are Also 1st/Birth Mothers

DESCRIPTION

ADOPTEES and MOTHER'S DAY. For many adoptees Mother's day has always been a day focused on our adoptive mothers or women who have played an important role in our up bringing but not our birth/first mothers. In this powerful discussion we will be discussing the meaning of Mother's Day with 3 adoptees panelists who have also placed a baby for adoption.

• How did you celebrated Mother's Day growing up?

• Did you think about your birth/first mother on Mother's Day growing up?

• What would it have meant to you if you had been given space, as a child, to also celebrate your first/birth mother?

• How did placing your child for adoption affected your ideas what Mother's Day meant for you?

PANELISTS

Jeannie Gorie is an international Colombian adoptee. Adopted at age 17 months old to an Irish Catholic family who had adopted her adoptive brother a year prior, who is also adopted from Bogotá Colombia. When she was 22yrs old she became pregnant and at the time very alone and placed her son in an open adoption here in Seattle. Since then she has had a strong relationship with both her son and his extended family.

Laura Batt was adopted domestically as an infant. She has been in reunion with her biological mother since she was 19 y/o, shortly after making an adoption plan for her eldest son. Her son, now 22 y/o, was entrusted to a family in a semi-open infant adoption. They reunited when he was 16 y/o and now have regular contact. Laura is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has worked as a professional in adoption, as a medical social worker, and as a therapist in community mental health. She is parenting her 12yo and 1.5yo sons. Laura is actively involved in supporting open record laws in the state of Oregon.

Tamera Slack was adopted domestically as an infant in 1965. In her adopted family, she was the youngest child of three, with two older brothers, one adopted, one biological. At age 18, she became pregnant and under extreme pressure from her adopted parents and their church community, her son was relinquished to yet another closed adoption. 25 years later she found her lost boy as well as her own birth mother and was reunited with her three younger half sisters. Tamera is now passionate about ethical adoption practices, that are informed and focused on supporting and protecting birth mothers, birth families and adoptees.

Brooke Haynes is a domestic adoptee in her early 40’s. She has two children: A daughter whom she had at age 15 and a son at age 36. She put her first child up for adoption and is raising her second child in an untraditional arrangement with his father. Being on both sides of adoption, including having a biological child, she experienced many dynamics and loves sharing her story with others and supporting those who are navigating through their own journeys.