A journey of restoration

Giving a child up for adoption is a complex process.

It's a sacrifice birth mothers endure so adoptive parents may experience the joy of having a family. It's a priceless gift that many times comes with an emotional cost.

"It's been said that our deepest wound is our greatest strength, and that certainly has been true for me," Deidre Ashmore said Tuesday. "My deepest wound was surrendering my child for adoption."

Ashmore was only 19 when she gave birth to a son in 1970. She made that very difficult choice of giving him up knowing it was the best decision.

"We were left without a child," Ashmore said. "Birth mothers refer to it as 'the hole in our hearts' that's left."

For many young women, they didn't have a choice. They were sent away to homes for unwed mothers and told never to talk about the children they carried and were forced to give away.

Diane Husebye was one of those girls. She was only 15 when she gave birth to her son in 1965.

"My folks said, 'You'll never come home until you're rid of this baby,'" said Husebye, of Coeur d'Alene. "It's so different from now because they had laws then that (adoptions) were closed, there was a lot of shaming and you weren't to talk about it."

Ashmore and Husebye both searched for their sons and eventually found them, giving their journeys much-needed closure as well as new opportunities to meet the babies they parted with so long ago.

But many birth moms never get that chance, and others have not been given the opportunity to talk about their experiences.

"They're all different," Ashmore said. "I've heard some stories that didn't work out so well, and then I've heard stories that do. It's the whole gamut of relationships, whatever the extenuating circumstances are."

Mothers who have experienced surrendering a child for adoption are invited to soothe their emotional wounds in the Birth Mothers Healing Circle, taking place at 1 p.m. May 12 in the Coeur d'Alene Public Library.

"It's a gift of life, a sacred thing," Ashmore said. "I want to create a safe space, a space where women can share their stories, where we can honor our sacrifice and our gift to the adoptive parents... to be able to share our stories with one another and have empathy for one another, and compassion. Each story will be different but there's still the common experience."

Although Ashmore recently retired from her reverend position at Unity Spiritual Center of North Idaho, where she met and befriended Husebye, she said the Healing Circle is not a religious event, simply a place where women of all beliefs and backgrounds can go to share their stories and heal from their past.

"I'm eager about the opportunity to gather in our common experience, but also to see if there's any interest in gathering occasionally for support or a need to continue," Ashmore said. "There might be some trepidation and fear. It might require strength or courage for someone to want to speak.

"It's an experimental thing to see where it leads, and it's pretty deep work of self-forgiveness."

The library is located at 702 E. Front Ave., Coeur d'Alene.

Info: birthmothershc@gmail.com or www.birthmothershealingcircle.org