Hi Dennis--I've been in the adoption community for 20 years and very few women who have relinquished are OK with the term "birthmother." The more preferred terms are "first mother" or "natural mother". I like "original mother" because it conveys something significant and is not so loaded. I am happy to be my child's second mother. 

Adoption struggles to be presented as the complex story of loss that it actually is (even if a child gains a new family) and has been flattened by silly words like "win-win" or the idea that it is a perfect antidote to abortion. Russell's piece was good because she allowed that complexity in.