Continued from part Four

We took this beautiful baby girl we named Danika home. There was a bittersweet feeling to that long awaited moment, knowing what had happened with L to bring this all about. We know we were not responsible for some of the things that put her in a place to make an adoption plan, but still it is easy to feel responsible when you have the child. We had all promised to stay in contact, but early on she wrote to say that she would no longer be able to do so. We learned that the man she was seeing and later married did not want her to visit with any of the children. We were not happy about that, but we respected her choice and we always wait with an open door if she decides to resume visits.

The rest of our daughter’s adoption went without incident. We had to publish to an unknown birthfather. No one came forward. We also had to seek termination on the rights of L’s new husband, so the process took longer. Usually this is only done when a mother is actually married at the time she delivers, but we had questioned if he might be the father. He did not wish to confirm or deny, or to participate on any level, so the judge chose to terminate him as well on grounds of abandonment. The terminations of all the parental rights took place at the final hearing when our daughter was 11 months old. During that time and after we kept in touch with Danika’s birth grandparents and siblings. We still are able to see them, though not as often because they are all busy teenagers now.

What would we do differently? A lot of things if we had the knowledge or the ability at the time.
We would have liked to have met L sooner in the process, get to know her better, especially since we do not get to see her now. We would have asked her about more counseling (she had a bit), about having her own attorney, more about who the potential father was. Some of these things really bother me. I now in hind sight see that they could be questioned if you are thinking ethics. That is one of the bad things about doing an independent adoption if you never have before, you make mistakes.

As with any experience, you live it and you learn. The biggest thing I learned from this first adoption process is that I wanted more for other potential birthparents and adopting families. I hope by sharing others can benefit from the mistakes we may have made.