Thought on birth mothers

I've seen some interesting posts in blogsphere about birth mothers. I think my brain has run the gamut of thoughts on birth mothers. When I first started the process I discovered the anti-adoption sites. I was heartbroken. I even second guessed our decision to adopt. I wondered if I was doing this for the right reasons. Could I be a good mother to an adoptive child? I feared birth mothers. I read their sites, their blogs, their anger, their hatred, their pain and I was terrified. I wanted nothing to do with a child's birth mother. Open adoption?? Never! Then I was talking to a client on the phone. He's an adoptive father. Not only does he have an open adoption but it's waaaayyyy open. He's been on vacation with both of his children's birth families! The birth parents are amazing people. Wow. Maybe I was wrong. Then I researched pro-adoption sites by birth parents. There aren't many but they are out there. At this point we have chosen to adopt from Guatemala. I learned that there are some families that have open adoptions from Guatemala. I was fascinated. When you adopt from Guatemala, one of the steps the birth mother must take is an interview in Family Court. Her "story" is recorded and that is one of the documents you receive... Your birth mother's story. Why she chose to make an adoption plan. Marc and I discussed this document at length and decided that the first person to learn Dylan's birth mother's story after us should be Dylan. Please respect this and don't ask - we are not sharing her story. The only thing I will say is that I respect this woman more than words can say. She is an amazing woman. One day, after we received Dylan's DNA results (which we also receive a photograph of Dylan's birth mother holding him) I was mentioning to an idiot coworker how beautiful she is. He said something along the lines of.. Hey - you could hire her as a housekeeper (or something like that). I completely wigged out on this asshat. I basically told him that he's so low he's not worthy to wipe her ass. I told him that if he ever said anything like that again, he'd be hanging out the nearest window by his toenails (much to the delight of his staff). After this happened I was struck by the fierce feelings of protectiveness of this woman who I've never met. I do understand the feelings of fear and intimidating adoptive moms feel of birth mothers. I think it's a process we, as adoptive mothers go through. We are trying to find our place in the world. Are we mothers? Are we real? Are we imagined? Is it us against them? Is it a big happy world where everyone gets along? I pray, in the end, that we (adoptive Moms) realize that we all have our strengths & weaknesses and that all we want.. all of us, is to make the right decisions for our children so that they can grow into happy, well adjusted people. Yes, there are birth mothers out there who have major issue with adoption (many are justified). There are adoptee's who are anti-adoption - they too are justified. I think as adoptive parents we have a resposibility to educate ourselves to the issues these people have. Maybe through this education and undertanding, we can prevent these issues in the future.