Birthmother's Day Ceremony
Adoption Network Cleveland has held a Birthmother’s Day Ceremony annually on the day before Mother’s Day since 1993. The ceremony honors and recognizes all women whose children were placed for adoption. Birthmothers lead the ceremony and share poetry, music and other readings. Other members of the adoption constellation also participate. The event is open to the public. Many family and friends of birthmothers as well as adoptive families attend. Following the ceremony there is a reception and social hour.
This year's ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at Center for Family and Children's Mandel Community Room at 2:00 pm.
Jenna Hatfield of Cambridge, Ohio wrote about traveling to Cleveland and attending her first Birthmother’s Day Ceremony in her blog …
Today was about our loss. It was a communal recognition of our loss. It was the sisterhood of birthmothers standing together and proclaiming that we are not less than. We have lost. We grieve. We are sad. We are not silent anymore. We love our children. We never forget. That community, as we stood together reciting the Statement of Purpose, was something that I needed. Again, I didn’t know I needed it. But I did.
I have always had a community online. I have always celebrated that community. But to have someone hold me — someone who fully understands the loss and the grief and the guilt and everything else — as I cried… that was something beyond special.*