Abnormal Adoption Process

Open adoption is a funny thing. Where’s the rule book? How are supposed to know what is right and what is wrong when it comes to setting boundaries? After all, the person on your left will tell you that you should have no boundaries—that you should feel comfortable letting your child’s birth parents into every facet of your life. And the person to your right will tell you you’re damaging the well-being of your child’s development if you let the birth parents receive anything more than a random photograph in the mail every few years. So, what’s right? Where’s the rule book? The answer: There is no rule book, and only you can truly know what’s right for your own home. That sounds all… [more]

At the end of a long hard day of work, after the little people in our house have new diapers on and are sleeping soundly in their beds, my wife and I like to relax to a little bit of television. I like to watch my sports and my nerdy science documentaries while she prefers to watch 16 and Pregnant or other reality shows. We usually compromise on something we both like, which often ends up being an action drama of some sort. A funny thing happens within our little human brains as we watch the same type of show over and over again- we start to think that what we’re seeing is “normal”. In reality, if television shows reflected normal everyday life, would we watch? I mean, how entertaining are… [more]

I received an email from a reader recently, a birthmother who was frustrated with trying to build a relationship with her now grown child. She mentioned feeling that the adoptive mother was being overprotective and that this was somehow slowing down the process. She asked what she could do to keep things moving towards a more open relationship with her children. I think my answer surprised her. I told her to be grateful for the overprotective mother. In this particular case, the children had been in the social system a couple of years before being placed with the adoptive family. How lucky for those children to now be in the care of someone who is willing to defend them, protect them, and advocate… [more]

“I’m going to vote for him because he reaches across the aisle,” some people say. I hate politics. I hate it but I can’t help but follow it. Following politics is one of those chores that I do because it’s my civic duty, it’s what I think everyone should do, it’s yada yada yada. I ask myself, “What would it be like if politicians really had the public’s best interest in mind?” I mean, I think they want to do the right thing, but when push comes to shove their first priority seems to protect their career and their second is to protect their self interest groups. Instead, the laws and regulations that get passed all depend on what party is in charge-… [more]

Ok, one of the stories going around the web for the last week or so, is concerning a Minnesota couple who has decided to use what the articles term as “billboards” to get the word out that they are interested in adopting a baby. Tom and Claire Halverson, after waiting for over three years to locate a newborn available for adoption, decided to post 3feet by 4feet homemade signs ( billboards?) along the route they travel to the craft fairs where they peddle their beautiful artwork. Some have recently questioned how ethical such an approach might be. In his own comment on the situation, Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, shared his concerns about how ethics might come into… [more]

Continued from Part Two The transracial couple I knew of did everything to prepare for the possibility of adopting and very quickly, so what went wrong? Well suddenly after the birth of the baby they were told that the mother had changed her mind about placement and would be parenting. They were disappointed, but that happens and they understood. It was only later when speaking to the mutual friend (the one who was going to be the foster parent during the TPR) and I learned the baby simply went to another foster placement in another part of the state because the agency had matched the birthmother with a white family (she had requested black or transracial). Turns out the white family was signed… [more]

Continued form Part One The referral director was cold in tone when she explained that the birth mother had selected another family. How could that be? It was odd that the referral director called us at precisely the time that the potential birthmom had agreed to call me, or was it? Honestly we had many irons in the fire to locate a situation so we put this aside and forged forward and with good results. We located our second daughter’s birth family two weeks later and thirty days after that match we welcomed our baby girl home. Once our baby was home I called the referral service director to cancel and announce our daughters arrival. Her reaction was very unexpected and set the wheels… [more]

You can hear a lot lately in the world of adoption about women, many not even expectant mothers at all, posing as potential birthparents in order to scam hopeful adoptive couples. You might even have heard about adoptive couples who scam young women posing as prepared and screened when they are in fact not approved for adoption and want to conduct matters under the radar of proper adoption laws. How much however have you heard about adoption agencies and other seeming “professionals” becoming the actual scam artists? While there do not appear to be many people collecting information about how this occurs and what those who have been taken advantage of (both birthparents and adoptive parents) can do about it, I can… [more]

I wish I had a perky post ready for today, but that just is not the way my life is currently going. My four year old has been pushing me near the brink today and right now I feel very, very alone. A few months back we finally, after almost two years of struggling, took her to a therapist and Reactive Attachment Disorder was brought up. I had always felt that children who suffered from this were mainly those who had lived deprived of early attention in an overseas orphanage, or even severely abused children in our own foster care system. Never did it occur to me that a baby who I was in the delivery room to greet into this world would… [more]

Is that even possible? I know we spend a ton of time reminding people (and rightly so) that most birthparents really DO care about the child they placed, even when they cannot bring themselves to visit or stay in contact. This “staying away” comes out of the pain and renewal of their grief every time they have to again leave a visit, and without their child. This is something most adoptive parents truly have understanding and empathy for. Everyday I talk to someone who sends letters and pictures out into the world knowing that no one is stepping forward to receive them, but they continue because they understand that the absence is because of pain, and not lack of caring. As… [more]