Closest We've Ever Been

[lamamax3]

After two and a half years of waiting, we have now been chosen by an expectant mother to adopt her baby.  I refuse to use the term "matched" because our agency avoids the language, and it seems to me that it implies more than the reality of the situation.  We have no way of knowing if this woman will go through with placing her baby once she delivers, so we won't count the baby as ours until after everything is signed.  Can you tell how guarded I am about the whole thing?  It's unavoidable to get excited and emotionally invested, but I'm trying to keep it to a minimum :)

She is due this month, so we'll know one way or the other in the next several weeks! 

(Please don't think I'm ignoring the emom's obvious distress and struggle because I am not.  Frankly, I can't change things for her.  All I can do is offer her child a loving home and promise an open adoption.  I don't want to share details, but I understand her reasons for wanting to place.)

[WifeMomChiro]

Congrats on being chosen.  I look forward to hearing about your journey.

[Belia]

  My fingers are crossed for you and your family!

[tumblewieds]

Crossing fingers! Hope it works out for you!

[Smithie]

Fingers crossed over here as well!

[excitedtobeamom]

I am hoping for the best for you and the baby!  We having been waiting 6 months and just recently were being considered for an already born baby.  We didn't get picked but it was so hard to stay calm in those 24 hours.  I really feel that it is God's will and that the right baby is chosen for your family but oh how you wish and hope for this to be the one!  Best wishes and this emotional rollercoaster of a journey!

[lamamax3]

Well, this might have been the closest we will ever get.  Mom had Baby this weekend and thinks she's going to parent.  All of her reasons for pursuing adoption (better life for her four other kids, better life for this child, etc.) went out the window because Baby resembled one of the other kids.  I'm sure that wasn't the real reason, but it's the one she gave.  She kept asking the SW if moms sometimes "try" and then decide to place.  Since adoption puts hopeful adoptive parents in a desperate, powerless position, I can't say we won't be waiting if she changes her mind down the road.  I won't count on it. 

I'm sure I sound horribly bitter.  Since we began our adoption farce, two and a half years ago, we discovered that my sister (who abandoned her first son with our parents after she broke up with his father) needed to declare bankruptcy and was a drug addict, who had been stealing narcotics from work (nurse).  Since then, she went to rehab, stole prescriptions from her new job, lost her license, stole prescriptions from a friend AND got pregnant on purpose to keep her boyfriend from leaving.  She was facing federal charges, so she finally made things legal, and my parents adopted my first nephew.  I went to her first doctors appointment for baby #2 on the very day that our last "match" gave birth to a baby she kept.  At this point, nephew #2 is nine months old.  She got sent away for rehab again, this time for a month.  Guess who had to watch the baby?  Guess who watches the baby several times a week while she does rehab  and community service? 

If I sound judgmental towards certain women, it is because I live it.  Having a baby you didn't plan isn't a tragedy.  Having one you cannot care for is.  It has nothing to do with income level or education.  My sister came from an upper-middle class family and has a college degree. 

As a women with no infertility issues (that I know of), I feel so stupid for putting myself, my husband, and my children through such a pointless endeavor.  If I was into looking for signs, I would guess there are enough NO's out there to end this.

[Smithie]

I am also adopting when I have the option of getting pg again (AFAIK), and I feel pretty stupid about it a lot of the time. Over a year after we started the process, and the social workers haven't even completed the darn homestudy yet! (We are doing foster-to-adopt.)

You are obviously having a rough day, and you're entitled to that. But if it's getting to the point where you are consistently bitter about your sister and emoms who don't choose to place with you, then maybe you are not on the right path here. And if you don't want to care for your nephew, DON'T. Addicts use everybody around them without conscience or mercy, and if it's getting to be too much for you, you have the right and the obligation to remove yourself from the situation. 

[Belia]

Oh, mama.  I am so, so sorry.  What an incredible disappointment.  I don't blame you for being pissed.  Not one little bit.

[lauren]

You sound so very discouraged. :(   I hope tomorrow brings a fresh perspective. It is hard.

[pumpkingirl71]

Originally Posted by lamamax3 

If I sound judgmental towards certain women, it is because I live it.  Having a baby you didn't plan isn't a tragedy.  Having one you cannot care for is.  It has nothing to do with income level or education.  My sister came from an upper-middle class family and has a college degree. 

As a women with no infertility issues (that I know of), I feel so stupid for putting myself, my husband, and my children through such a pointless endeavor.  If I was into looking for signs, I would guess there are enough NO's out there to end this.

As the mom of a child who faced neglect while with her birth family, I understand your anger and frustration.  And I am so sorry you are in such a bad place, but I am honestly confused.  You are trying to adopt through a private domestic adoption.  I guess maybe this post is confusing because you are having souch a tough time.  It is just really hard to compare private domestic adoption to abuse or neglect situations.
 

[lamamax3]

As the mom of a child who faced neglect while with her birth family, I understand your anger and frustration.  And I am so sorry you are in such a bad place, but I am honestly confused.  You are trying to adopt through a private domestic adoption.  I guess maybe this post is confusing because you are having souch a tough time.  It is just really hard to compare private domestic adoption to abuse or neglect situations.
 

I work with at-risk families, teaching them parenting skills to allow them to keep their children.  I also work with the kids who have been traumatized by their home situations.  The overwhelming theme of these families (and my sister and a cousin) is that children belong to their biological parents, and that is good enough a reason to treat them however the parents see fit.  Just because a woman spends months working with a private agency (ours is a non-profit, charitable organization) and being supported (emotionally and monetarily) by that agency, does not mean she is a fit parent herself.  Our social worker says that she often discovers years after mothers choose not to place, that those same children are removed from the home for neglect or abuse.  For whatever reasons, those moms chose to parent and couldn't do it, so I see a big connection between private domestic adoption and abuse/neglect situations.  At least in the city we are working in, the majority of expectant women working with the agency aren't high school or college girls who want to work towards a better life, while making sure their babies have a loving family.  They are coming from a scarier life.  I know that isn't true of all domestic adoption. 

No one owes me a baby to adopt.  The aggravation with terrible parents is in many ways, it's own topic.  They just seem to overlap in my life a lot recently.

As for not watching my nephew; I don't know what to do about that.  If I don't, my parents will.  My dad is too old to do that on a regular basis.  It's like, I can't get them to stop enabling, so I end up joining them!

[Smithie]

"...I see a big connection between private domestic adoption and abuse/neglect situations." 

Well, yeah. I don't think that's really debatable. Adoption is an avenue that attracts a lot of women who are in desperate straits, for a million different reasons. If one imagines an abuse/neglect/endangerment continuum, obviously placing a newborn for private infant domestic adoption is at one end and TPR pursuant to beating the heck out of your toddler is on the other end - but it all exists in the same universe of "I birthed this child, but I may not be able to raise him safely and healthily and the extreme step of separating mother and child has become an option." 

Given your job plus family stuff plus adoption stuff, no wonder you are so ticked off and burned out right now!

No idea what to do about your nephew, except to sympathize. It sounds like your sister is already in the system, so theoretically there should be an objective third party looking out for your nephew's welfare. How's that going? 

[tiffani]

I'm so sorry you've been on such a rough journey... the easy path to adoption is a rarity.  We decided to adopt when our older kids were 4 and 6, and brought our little ones home when our big kids were 9 and 11, so I know all about the long and winding road!!  The only thing that will guarantee you an adoption is persistence, but it sounds like you're wondering if the path you've chosen is maybe not the one that's right for your family? It's very hard to know where your child is until you find them.

[lamamax3]

Amazingly, even though my sister is in the legal system, there has never been anyone checking up on the status of her children.  Maybe because she has wealthy parents and extended family to help, they don't want to use resources?  I can't figure it out.  My parents are in such denial, that when I mention her being an unfit parent, they turn on me.  I think she's really trying this time, but she only has a chance of success with all of the free help she gets.

If I ever had the time (or inclination) to work on a PhD in social work or anthropology, my thesis would have to do with what I think is a direct progress from the feminist movement, the sexual revolution, etc to the devaluation of motherhood in our society.  I'm totally for women's rights and loosening of moral judgment based on Judeo-Christian belief systems.  Sadly, it has opened the floodgates for women to believe that they have the right to create children and treat them however they want because society will no longer judge them for being single mothers.  The detachment of women from their own children (even happily married, "traditional" life types) as they struggle to be exactly like men, rather than both mothers and successful professionals is related to it all as well.

My husband is still reeling because he had a good feeling this time around.  Poor man will believe anything a beautiful woman tells him.  He wants to give her until the end of this week before we talk about where to go from here.  We might just give up on this pointless path and try and adopt from the state.  There are so many variables to that, and I think our criteria would be so specific as to severely limit our possible matches.  It's childish, but I resent having to take 21 hours of classes because the program I teach is often used to teach foster parents.  You would think that would count towards my requirements!

[lamamax3]

Just wanted to throw in this link to an article titled Sociopathic Parenting to back up my thoughts.

[christophersmom]

Originally Posted by lamamax3 
 It's childish, but I resent having to take 21 hours of classes because the program I teach is often used to teach foster parents.  You would think that would count towards my requirements!

In the whole adoption world, you have to jump through hoops even if you don't agree with them. My friend had to take CPR as part of her agency requirements despite being certified to teach CPR. Pretty bass ackwards if you ask me, but it was their requirement.
 

[lamamax3]

I know.  My husband is so cool and level-headed about the whole thing.  He just says that we'll do whatever they make us do :)