At church each Mother’s Day, Eileen McQuade used to watch forlornly as flowers were handed out to women surrounded by their children. In 1966, as an 18-year-old college freshman, she gave up her firstborn for adoption.
Like McQuade, many birth mothers can’t shake their anguish when Mother’s Day rolls around, so they have taken on the Saturday before the holiday as their own — Birth Mother’s Day.
The day was established by a group of Seattle birth mothers in 1990 and has grown over the years to include candle lightings, poetry readings and other events across the country.
“The old myth about adoption was that birth mothers would go and have their children and forget it ever happened and the adoptees wouldn’t care where they came from,” said McQuade, 62, who was reunited with her daughter 12 years ago. “We know that it doesn’t really happen that way.”
