*This is the fourth part of a series I am doing for my own personal journey and healing. All parts in this series will be linked back to the introductory post here: God and Adoption: The Series.
I have been a “birth” mom longer than I haven’t. For many of my birth mom years, I thought that as I had more adult life behind me, I would finally come to a place of understanding. One day, I would understand why all of the adults in my life, at the time of my teen pregnancy, refused to assist me with temporary needs in order for me to keep and parent my daughter. One day, I would understand why they used God as the reason why my daughter should be separated from me and subsequently adopted. By the end of my pregnancy, I did come to believe (after months of crisis, isolation, and grooming) that God had meant for my daughter to be adopted. I had been told by many in the Christian faith (my faith at that time) that God meant for me to be a “birth” mom. God was using me as a vessel to get my daughter to her meant-to-be family and that one day my daughter would be a testament to God’s faithfulness. Afterall, God could take any sinful situation and make it beautiful- ie. teen pregnancy and adoption.
Romans 8:28 was a favorite scripture that was used by my social circle to convince me that adoption was the faithful choice; “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Adoption was my redemption. I was called to be a birth mom. My sin of fornication would be used by God to make life beautiful for my daughter and another family who were strangers to me. If I questioned this course of mine and my daughter’s lives, I would be answered with Romans 9:20-21, “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” My “special purpose” was literally being a vessel- one of flesh, not clay. Who was I to question that? I was just a dumb teenager that sinned and got pregnant. I had no outside voices telling me otherwise.
Psychologically, I came to a place where I had to accept this narrative because accepting the truth (that I definitively had no social support system) was too existentially catastrophic for me at the time. I was terrified of being absolutely alone in the world at such a young age. I was a teenager stuck between child and adult. There were pieces of me, like a child, that still yearned and hoped for an unconditional love from my parents that had not and unfortunately would never materialize. There were pieces of me, as a young adult, that yearned to create a joyful life for my daughter and me had there been short-term assistance offered by my social circle. My parents were offering forgiveness and acceptance on the condition that my daughter, their first grandchild, be placed for adoption. I loathe now that I was still so dependent upon their approval and worldview. My greatest regret is not running away and begging anyone and everyone for help. I was paralyzed by shame. I watched the joyful life I wanted to create with my daughter be sabotaged and snuffed out at every turn. By the end of my pregnancy, I believed that it was obvious that God had forsaken me and all of the adults in my life were correct. God meant for me to be a vessel and my daughter was intended to be adopted by another family. He seemed to answer everyone’s prayers, but my own.
After the separation from my daughter and her adoption, I threw myself diligently into church life and studying scripture. My intentions were two-fold. Firstly, I had to find THE VERSE that unequivocally demonstrated that God “knits” (Psalms 139:13-16) babies in some womens’ wombs intending those babies for other women. Secondly, I believed that if I could get as close to God as these adults in my life claimed to be, that God would take away this unending, daily affliction of living life without my daughter. If I were close enough to God, I would come to accept that He created me as the vessel that provided my daughter with her intended family. Afterall, modern American Christianity says that God created and intends for adoptions to occur (see the Topics section for examples). Adoption first requires separation- a “vessel” is needed to provide a child to their God-intended families and I was struggling desperately with accepting my purpose as that vessel.
Moses was the biblical reference used by the adults in my life to prove to me that God is not only the author of adoption, but an active participant in it. Moses is the modern American Christian paragon of God’s beautiful design of adoption. After speaking with many first (birth) moms over the years, this is a common trope used in the American Christian adoption industry to convince young mothers in crisis that their babies are meant to be adopted. In fact, many male adoptees are named “Moses” in honor of their namesake.
When the story of Moses was first introduced to me as a means of persuasion, I was taken aback. For what I had learned all of those years in Sunday school, life for Moses’ “adoptive” family did not end well. I had been taught about the slavery, the plagues, and the Red Sea drowning. Egypt- Moses’ “adoptive” family- had always been a metaphor for sin. By that time in my pregnancy, I had been so worn down, that I was too fearful and discouraged to challenge this new, confusing narrative. I unenthusiastically accepted that Moses was adopted, God had engineered his adoption, and this story was the seal of approval for my daughter’s adoption.
The narrative thrust on me was that God intends young, unmarried mothers to place their babies for adoption in order to rescue them. If I chose to parent, it would be proof that I was selfish which would lead to my daughter becoming a criminal and a godless heathen. My love, was not love at all. What I believed to be maternal instincts were a manifestation of my sinfulness. I was, in fact, the worst possible choice for my daughter. She needed to be rescued from me. Modern American Christian adoption is a rescue story and modern American Christians love the idea of being the rescuers.
But in this story, if my daughter was the example of Moses and I was Jochebed- who was my daughter really being rescued from? I think American Christians like to think that the modern Moses is being rescued from the modern Jochebed. In the biblical story of Moses, it is Egypt that threatens to murder the infant Moses. It is his mother, Jochebed (with her maternal instincts), who manages to hide him from this end for 3 months. When she feels she can no longer keep him physically safe, she then places him in a reed basket, sets his course for Pharaoh’s daughter, and her daughter Miriam (Moses’ sister) speaks up to say that she knows a nurse who can take care of him (their mother- Jochebed). {Exodus 2:7} The “bad guy” in the story is not Jochebed, but Egypt. Who was Egypt in mine and my daughter’s story? I can unequivocally say- Christians.
If it weren’t so preposterous and dehumanizing to adoptees and first (birth) families- it would be rather humorous that Christians name young adoptees “Moses” as a means of celebrating modern industrial adoption. Moses, in fact, becomes the most ungrateful adoptee. His “birth” mom, Jochebed, is hired as his wet nurse and he is able to maintain a relationship with his biological family. Jochebed is hired to raise her own son for the first formative years of his life (Exodus 2:7-10). As a young man, Moses witnesses an Egyptian guard beating a Hebrew slave, “one of his own people,” and in turn kills him (Exodus 2:11-15). Moses runs away out of fear he will be punished by Pharaoh (his adoptive family). That is when he speaks with God (Exodus 3) who sends him on a mission to rescue the Hebrews, his people, from the Egyptians (his adoptive family). Moses’ biological brother, Aaron, becomes his partner in the rescue mission. In Exodus 6:13, a family record is recounted for Moses and Aaron showing that they are biological descendants of the priestly tribe of Levi. They are God’s people- as in “let my people go.” Moses then goes on to say to Pharaoh at least 7 times, “LET MY PEOPLE GO,” referring to himself and his biological relatives- the Hebrews: Exodus 5:1, Exodus 7:16, Exodus 8:1, Exodus 8:20, Exodus 9:1, Exodus 9:13, and Exodus 10:4. In Hebrews 11:24-27, it is then said that Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.”
Using the story of Moses in order to convince expectant mothers in crisis to place their babies for adoption is not only complete idiocy and proof that one lacks the ability or the concern to comprehend- it is the behavior of a fiend, a hustler, and a conman. It is best reflected in Job 24:9, “The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.”
For more about God and Adoption:
Why Newborn Adoption Isn’t Biblical
Part 2: Is Adoption A Christian Institution?
velvet bocephus 
The messages you received were the same as mine: that I was just a vessel carrying someone else’s child, that my maternal instincts were wrong etc
My teen mother experience was so similar to yours, though underpinned by the moralistic dregs of religion in the UK rather than its full flourishing.
I’m sorry this happened to you, me, our children, and all the mothers and children divided by this cruel, cruel adoption system. It is truly immoral.
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Thank you. I’m so sorry you and your child were subjected to such cruelty and perversion. I will never be able to understand wanting any infant so much that I’d seek to destroy another family and then have the audacity to call it “God’s plan.”
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