The underwater placement of the adult figure can symbolize many things to an open
adoption birthparent: the shame and scorn heaped on birthparents by an uncomprehending society; the perception of
uninformed outsiders that a "good" birthparent fades away, never to be heard from again; and the fact that, no matter how
open an adoption is, we are still not in our children's lives in the way that we would wish to be. Finally, the sacrificial
part of adoption is shown in this picture, wherein the birthparent undergoes deep and lasting pain in hopes, not always realized, of
bettering the life of the child.