Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect - "Gayby" is Born!

[Peas n carrots]

I'm actually what's known as an LDA (I did an AMA ages ago) which means late discovery adoptee. In other words, I grew up not being told I was adopted. I found out as an adult. Let me just say that secrecy in adoption (& surrogacy) does not stop the issues from happening. If anything, it causes even more damage. If nothing else, Daniel should know about the girls (& vice versa) as he grows up. While many adoptees have issues with their bio mothers (and from the reading I've done many of the now adult surrogate "kids" do too), they often enjoy great, healing relationships with one or more siblings

Honestly is the best policy, as well as allowing the child to make their own decisions on where they stand with their relationships with the bio family (with the exception if the child could be physically harmed by the bio family).

There is also the fact you can't ignore the biological realities that exist with 2 dads. The issue isn't the parents are gay, but that there is a 3rd party involved that has a connection to the child and that 3rd party is part of the reason the child is on this earth as much as part of who they are.

This is just a situation where the parents - both bio and adoptive - can't be fucking selfish. Personally, I think if one chooses to be a surrogate and the parents/adoptive parents choose to go this route everyone needs to be open to having a relationship with the child and with each other. Secrecy and dishonestly should have no place in the triad.

[ViolaSebastian]

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

Yes, she's still in Iceland. Today (11/16) she posted a photograph of a husky with the hashtag #iceland. So it looks as though she's still there.

[martian]

Did the girls meet the baby? I guess that I don't expect that they were present for the birth like they were for Elijah's, but what was their experience of this event? Anybody know?

The girls "staying with friends" is so nonspecific.

[Artemis]

How can the girls possibly be staying with 'friends'? Whoever's friends they are, they won't be people the girls know, love and trust, because they have established a relationship with them will they?

[thoughtful]

How can the girls possibly be staying with 'friends'? Whoever's friends they are, they won't be people the girls know, love and trust, because they have established a relationship with them will they?

Of course not -- Lauren just expects them to see it all as sparkling.

Maybe they are staying with some of these folks, for whom Ben has taken pictures:

http://www.theweirdgirlsproject.com/

Agust's Facebook says he's in West Point, Virginia, which is right near Richmond -- could they have taken the baby to meet Ben's family already?

https://www.facebook.com/1485303375/pos ... lhc.recent

[lilith]

How can the girls possibly be staying with 'friends'? Whoever's friends they are, they won't be people the girls know, love and trust, because they have established a relationship with them will they?

It's probably safe to assume that some of the GoldStar's friends have googled/met Lauren and are as appalled by all this as we are. Hopefully some of them have taken the girls under their wing. They've been in Iceland for what, 8 weeks? That's a long established relationship to those kids, they are rarely round the same people for that long.

[ViolaSebastian]

If they have, they're totally nuts. Taking a one-week old on an intercontinental plane ride sounds like pure torture, as well as unhealthy for the baby.

[Idolatry]

If they have, they're totally nuts. Taking a one-week old on an intercontinental plane ride sounds like pure torture, as well as unhealthy for the baby.

I don't even know how you could get the baby a passport that fast.

[thoughtful]

There's nothing about travel on Sæþór Benjamín's Facebook. I guess it's possible Agust went to the area alone, for business or some other reason.

[flubber]

Of course not -- Lauren just expects them to see it all as sparkling.

Maybe they are staying with some of these folks, for whom Ben has taken pictures:

http://www.theweirdgirlsproject.com/

Agust's Facebook says he's in West Point, Virginia, which is right near Richmond -- could they have taken the baby to meet Ben's family already?

https://www.facebook.com/1485303375/pos ... lhc.recent

I think it would be very unusual. I don't think airlines are all that keen to fly newborns.

Maybe it was pre-booked and he was going to be back before the baby came, but the baby came early.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

I get the impression from Tsu that she isn't staying with the gold stars but with their friends (who of course she calls her friends and girlfriends). Which makes sense, they would want time to bond, and it wouldn't be healthy for Lauren or the girls to bond with the baby.

She needs to get from Brisbane to Tassie in time for whatever festival it is she wants to go to, so I am guessing as soon as she's up to flying they'll be off.

[thoughtful]

I think it would be very unusual. I don't think airlines are all that keen to fly newborns.

Maybe it was pre-booked and he was going to be back before the baby came, but he came back early.

It just went up on Facebook today -- 2 hours ago, according to the link above. Here's a screen shot:

Can one pre-post things on Facebook (I don't really use it)? Could it be something he'd scheduled to go up on Facebook, then forgot to take down? If not, it looks like he posted it today.

[VGL]

does the post mean that he traveled today? could it just mean that he has traveled there at some point in the past and he is updating his timeline to show his travels?

[ladyaudley]

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

Just came here to post about the darkness tweet. Seems like the PPD is already creeping in... :/

[happy atheist]

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

Taking the baby to the US would be a pretty good way to keep it away from Lauren. There's little chance she can afford the flight to chase them down if she starts feeling like she wants to make a claim on Daniel.

[So Many Lies]

She's not doing well.

[Mama Mia]

To take this view, you have to completely ignore the biological reality that for the baby, whoever gestates him/her is their mother, in every way that matters. Honestly, for infant adoption and surrogacy to even remotely be considered acceptable, you have to ignore everything we've learned in the last 50+ years about fetus' and newborns and their connections to their mother. Babies separated from their mothers undergo a kind of PTSD and a complete re-wiring of their brains to cause their stress reactions to change.

Adoptees (and I suspect children of surrogates, although as far as I'm aware there aren't any studies since the first generation are just becoming adults) are 4 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, far more likely to be addicts, far more likely to be in psychiatric treatment, even more likely to be murderers. Being separated from your mother is a trauma on a MASSIVE scale for a baby. Are there some who are outwardly seemingly unaffected? Of course, but even they start realising that they are affected when they get together with a group of fellow adoptees or "children" of surrogacy and discover that what they thought were just personality quirks or a problem with them is actually something they all share.

We know it's harmful to take puppies and kittens from their mothers, but we completely ignore/like to pretend that human babies aren't also affected by it when it's convenient for adults. IMO, and the opinion of many of the now adults who were adopted or created through surrogacy, both are about fulfilling adult desires at the expense of children. Surrogacy should be banned and adoption should be limited to situations where there truly is no other choice (none of this adopters fighting fathers for their own children bs) and even then, the practice of falsifying birth certificates needs to stop. Children have a right to know who they come from if they want to. Birth certificates should contain factual information about whose egg and sperm the child was created from. And if we aren't banning surrogacy, those certificates should have whose egg, whose sperm and whose uterus.

.

This is all very interesting, but I think that it might be more complicated than just the separation of the infant from the mother, or being adopted.

I think with issues like higher rates of addiction and suicide and other emotional/mental health issues, we also have to look at the role of genetics. Bi-polar disorder, depression and addictions are tend to run in families. Just like any other health issue. So you need to try to separate out what is the impact of the adoption ( or surrogacy) itself - and what is due to what the person is already predisposed to. And then you have to throw in the specific cultural context of the time.

Were teen girls whose babies were swept away from them during the 50's more likely to get pregnant out of wedlock because they were more impulsive? Or were struggling more at home? Or more likely to get pregnant from a one night stand, with a boy who wasn't sticking around? Would similar girls have just had an early wedding and kept the baby?

Nowdays, when putting a baby up for adoption is, by far, the least common option for an unplanned pregnancy --- what are the traits of pregnant women who do decide to relinquish the baby? Are they more likely to have mental health issues, or be addicts/ alcoholics?

And, I believe, most adoptions are now from foster are, and have been for a few decades. So those are children whose lives have already had quite a bit of disruption - and parents who weren't functioning well.

I don't think it's even remotely possible to sort out all the various elements that lead to an individual persons path -- but wanted to point out that it is likely more complicated than a strictly biological separation from the mother.

[nataraja]

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

Just came here to post about the darkness tweet. Seems like the PPD is already creeping in... :/

What tweet are you talking about? I have been to her twitter and the only tweet I found was a link to Ben's and facebook post about the baby and her claim that she only felt gratitude, happiness and relief. In her social networks account she doesn't seem to show any sign of being depressed.

[Annasopinion]

does the post mean that he traveled today? could it just mean that he has traveled there at some point in the past and he is updating his timeline to show his travels?

I don't know if you can get a passport so quickly for a newborn, especially given that both PARENTS must sign the passport application and the birth certificate must identify the birth mother even if the fact that babies are born to women is being conveniently airbrushed out of this story.

[Annasopinion]

does the post mean that he traveled today? could it just mean that he has traveled there at some point in the past and he is updating his timeline to show his travels?

It would be a good idea for them to get away from Lauren and her DDs, until she leaves Iceland at least. That way they won't have to worry about her spending too much time hanging around their new family. I'm not surprised to hear that she is staying elsewhere, away from Daniel. She probably doesn't want to bond with him.

[Mango]

Wasn't she not due for another two and a half weeks or so? Maybe he had pre-planned stuff that he still had to go do? But wasn't he also the half of the couple who was less into the whole gayby thing anyway?

[church_of_dog]

What tweet are you talking about? I have been to her twitter and the only tweet I found was a link to Ben's and facebook post about the baby and her claim that she only felt gratitude, happiness and relief. In her social networks account she doesn't seem to show any sign of being depressed.

On her blog she links to two twitter accounts, one for her personally and one for Sparkling Adventures.

[nataraja]

On her blog she links to two twitter accounts, one for her personally and one for Sparkling Adventures.

Oh, now I saw it. Thank you.

I know that everyone is different but if I were in her position I would probably be depressed too and I wouldn't call it PPD just reasoned sadness:

Imagine you just had been gone through birth, pushed a new little human being into the world, handed it to a couple who had really grown to your heart during the last year. And then said couple takes said baby, storms with it off into the sunset and you are left with basically nothing. Do you know what I mean?

[thoughtful]

Wasn't she not due for another two and a half weeks or so? Maybe he had pre-planned stuff that he still had to go do? But wasn't he also the half of the couple who was less into the whole gayby thing anyway?

It could be he had plans to go anyway, and was hoping it would be before the baby was born (seems like it was cutting things close though).

I'm mostly intrigued because that is the area (in fact, I dug a bit more, and it's the exact town) where Ben's parents live.

I hope it's a sign of good relations between Agust and Ben's family. Ben's father is a pastor for Crosswalk Community Church:

crosswalk.cc/

ETA: the head pastor there, Mark Morrow, seems to come down on the "homosexuality is a sin" side -- this is a letter he wrote to the local school superintendent about the 2009 Day of Silence:

pastorsforfamilyvalues.shutterfly.com/dayofsilence

[happy atheist]

Oh, now I saw it. Thank you.

I know that everyone is different but if I were in her position I would probably be depressed too and I wouldn't call it PPD just reasoned sadness:

Imagine you just had been gone through birth, pushed a new little human being into the world, handed it to a couple who had really grown to your heart during the last year. And then said couple takes said baby, storms with it off into the sunset and you are left with basically nothing. Do you know what I mean?

She has suffered from crippling PPD after her pervious births. Search sparklingadventures.com for "Black Dog" which is what she calls it.

[DaffyDill]

I was really, really hoping that she would be self aware enough to find proper help if she felt the PPD coming back, if not for her own sake, then for the sake of those poor, gorgeous little girls. :pray: ....then I remembered I was thinking about Lauren, and all hope faded :cry: