Catelynn and Tyler--still grieving over the loss of their daughter

Catelynn and Tyler talk to Carly on her birthday

When Catelynn and Tyler relinquished their newborn daughter Carly to Brandon and Teresa Davis on the reality show 16 and Pregnant, Catelynn said as she left the hospital, “I’m at peace with my decision.”

That peace was short-lived. As they are preparing for Carly’s second birthday, presented on Teen Mom, Catelynn tells Dawn, their counselor at Bethany Christian Services, “I’m definitely more at peace than I was a year ago [on Carly’s first birthday].” Tyler blurts out the hard truth, “Adoption is a constantly coping process. I don’t know when you fully cope with it” Catelynn adds “I think it goes on for your whole life.”

CARLY'S SECOND BIRTHDAY: A BITTERSWEET DAY

Catelynn and Tyler give Dawn a birthday gift for Carly--a large, sandy colored bear which says “Happy Birthday” when a string is pulled--to mail to her. Tyler and Catelyn have a semi-open adoption; they can send and receive letters pictures and gifts through Bethany and see their daughter once a year. They were not told Brandon and Teresa's last names or where they lived,  although--perhaps because of the show-- they have learned this information. Adoptive father Brandon Davis is a financial planner with an on-line web page.  In fact they have no guarantee that Brandon and Teresa will maintain even this limited contact, although the parties' celebrity status makes it unlikely that Brandon and Teresa would cut off the relationship. Other Bethany birth mothers aren't so lucky. One Bethany worker revealed that approximately 80 percent of the "open" adoptions that they facilitate close within a couple of years. 

Dawn tells Catelynn and Tyler that Brandon and Teresa have invited them to join them and Carly when they will be in New York City later that month. The day after leaving Carly's present with Dawn to mail, 

Teresa and Brandon with Carly

Tyler and Catelynn celebrate Carly’s birthday with a pre-arranged two-minute phone call. Teresa tells them Carly will have a party with Elmo cupcakes. Carly thanks them for the bear. Then Catelynn and Tyler sit on the floor of the home they share before an elaborately decorated cake in scripted with "Happy Birthday Carly." A candle shaped as the number “two” stands in the middle. They have a sad ceremony, lighting the candle, sharing their wishes for Carly, and blowing out the candle. As the scene fades, they kiss. (According to Teen Mom News, they repeated this ceremony for Carly's third birthday in a segment yet to be aired.)

STILL DELUDED ABOUT THE REALITY OF ADOPTION
In spite of their relentless grief, Catelynn and Tyler remain true believers in the power of adoption to transform lives for the better. They tell each other reassuringly that without adoption, Tyler would be stuck in a low paying job and would not be attending college and Catelynn would not have finished high school and looking forward to college. (Both are now attending Baker College in Michigan.) Catelynn and Tyler seem unaware that other teen parents featured on Teen Mom kept their babies while finishing high school and are on their way to college or careers.

To Tyler and Catelynn, though, the real benefit of adoption is what it will do for Carly. As they stare at their absent daughter’s cake, Catelynn says her wish for Carly is for her “to grow up to be healthy, strong and to know we loved her and that is the only reason we did what we did.” Tyler’s wish is more expansive: “My wish for her is that she knows the life we chose for her was the one she deserved and for her to always know we loved her.”

Jane

Their naive belief that only by giving Carly to strangers could they give her the life she deserves in heart-rendering. Many children have been born in far worse circumstances and thrived. Tyler and Catelynn, who have been together since the seventh grade and are planning to marry next year, are the kind of stable couple a child deserves. They come across as a responsible and mature couple who would make excellent parents. True, their families are not ideal. Their parents had divorced, and Tyler’s father was abusive to his second wife, Catelynn’s mother. He violated a restraining order and spent 90 days in jail. Both Tyler and Catelynn show they learned from their early experiences and would not repeat their parents' mistakes.  

Ironically all Catelynn and Tyler know about Brandon and Teresa-- or at least would know if it weren't for the show—the couple on whom they’ve pinned all their hopes for Carly--is what Brandon and Teresa have chosen to share. While they appear to have ample resources, and to be a “Leave it to Beaver” family, there may be negatives which Catelynn and Tyler will learn about only when Carly confides in them years later. Or it may be just that Carly never quite fits in the family. There's no one-size-fits-all in adoption.   

DOUBT CREEPS IN
After their visit with Carly in New York City, doubts begin to creep in. Carly asks Tyler “Do you think you would have made the same decision knowing what we know now and what we feel? Sniffling with tears running down his face, Tyler answer “yeah.” Catelynn says “It’s not like I regret my decision but I could have been a real good mom.” Tyler nods, “I wish she called me ‘daddy.’” Still Catelynn says she wants to be an adoption counselor. Sponsored by Bethany, she visits high schools and talks about the "positives" of adoption. She and Tyler have a Bethany-sponsored website directing viewers to the Bethany adoption site. Brandon and Teresa recently adopted a baby boy, and Catelynn was in the delivery room, helping the birth mother.   

BETHANY-RUN SUPPORT GROUP: AN OXYMORON 

Dawn, the adoption counselor, takes Catelynn to Bethany's birth-mother support group. An adoption agency running a birth-mother support group is like Smirnoff running an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. As group members tell of giving up their babies, Jennifer, an adoption social worker who surrendered her son 20 years earlier, cautions them to use correct adoption language, “None of you gave up your babies; you all made adoption plans; you placed your babies, empowering, positive language ladies, right?” The sorrowful women shout “Yes.” (They would probably faint dead away if they even heard the phrases: first mother or natural mother.)

A pregnant woman planning to give up her baby says she is anxious, afraid of “how everything is going to go.” Catelynn tells her that giving up her baby was hard and the most helpful therapy is meeting other birth mothers. The others agree. None question the wisdom of adoption, nor urge the pregnant woman to reconsider surrender. The mothers seem to view adoption as those with incurable diseases view their condition, something that happened or will happen that they have to live with. 

UNAWARE OF THE EFFECT OF ADOPTION ON THE ADOPTED
What Catelynn and Tyler don’t talk about, probably because Dawn didn’t tell them, is the effect that adoption has on adoptees, that children don’t cleave seamlessly to their adoptive parents as if born to them. Individuals who are adopted suffer a great loss. "The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you—and it can’t, and shouldn’t, because something is missing” wrote adoptee Jeanette Winterson in her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

Carly looks like both her parents--her natural parents--sharing Tyler’s mouth and nose and Catelynn’s forehead. What neither parent questions is how Carly will feel living with people who look nothing like her when she is old enough to see and understand that. Tyler and Catelynn don’t ask how Carly will feel when they have other children. And how will Carly feel when she finds that her parents were paid to be promoters of adoption and the agency that facilitated her own adoption?

LEARNING THE TRUTH
The day will come that Catelynn and Tyler will learn that their struggle has been in vain; that their loses—and Carly’s—outweighed any gains. Meanwhile Bethany will use them to lure more mothers into the adoption trap, ignoramuses like Drs. Drew, Phil, and Laura and Jessica Arons of the Center for American Progress will tout the benefits of the adoption option, while thousands of trusting teens will lose their babies.

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Teen Mom News
Examiner.com

From FMF:                                                                          

How adoption agencies 'turn' vulnerable women into spokespeople for relinquishing
Inconsolable grief

The longterm impact of giving up a child

Catelynn and Tyler's adoption will stay open; for other first mothers, not so much
(Pro) Adoption Special: Dr. Drew encourages teen moms to give up their babies

Why Be Normal When You Could Be Jeanette Winterson?

This is a raw and raucous memoir from a brilliant British writer, adopted at birth into the home of a religious fanatic. Winterson managed to escape and eventually finds her natural mother. A fabulous read. Lorraine's review above.