People who blog really put themselves out there, don't they! It's astonishing to me how individuals all over the world are putting their private thoughts out there for all to see. I'm also grateful for it...otherwise I don't think I'd actually "get" concepts that we sometimes discuss on this site. It kind of makes me think of calculus class. I didn't "get" anything in calculus until one day in biology we were talking about the exponential growth of fruit flies and then - bam! - I got that one little math concept that I hadn't gotten when my cute math tutor had showed me over and over again how to do it. Now, Cal II was a completely different story, cute math tutor or no.

One example of this is the Adoption Search Blog, where Jan talks a lot about coercion in adoption. Honestly, and it's not because I'm resisting discussion of this, I sometimes don't really get what she's talking about. I mean, I think - okay, back in the day that was the case...but now we're all educated! People have the best intentions at heart! We make our own choices, right?

Ok. Call me Pollyanna. Call me a person who's never walked a mile in those shoes. Call me an adoptive parent with fingers firmly in ears. LALALALALALA.

Or maybe call me in need of more personal, concrete examples to get the point home.

Here's one example. There's a blog called "Dancing with MagicPointe Shoes" which is written by a birthmother. She's written a really eloquent post about why she didn't give her son a name...and in the process showed me how coercion isn't only something prospective adoptive parents or agencies or coordinators or family does to the birth mother, but is also something a woman can do to herself. She made the decision to place her baby for adoption and apparently did not allow herself to change her mind or to consider other possibilities:

The coping skills I used when I was pregnant with Bj were because I was white knuckling the side of the boat really trying to hold on with all my might. Here I was in such a dumb position of being pregnant and as the time bomb of my uterus was nearing completion, the just plainly obvious knowledge was that my body contained the trigger to the monsoon.

Lack of self-knowledge, or maybe self-respect, or maybe self-confidence, or maybe simply allowing oneself to change one's mind are all possible culprits in this idea of "self-coercion." Basically, it's the talk we give ourselves to rationalize our behavior.

Hmm. I feel like I'm not explaining this very well, but when I was reading this blog entry I "got" it. There are some points in our lives where we need to try with all our mights to be present and open to the moment. I would think that being pregnant and uncertain about what you wanted to do is one of them.