Adoption stories that didn't work out

[Anonymous]

My family has been through the ringer with failed IVF after failed IVF. We've finally thrown in the towel and are going to adopt. We are leaning toward international adoption because the children are already in orphanages, and we won't be risking a birth mother who changes her mind. The thing is we just really need something to work. So tired and emotionally done with the failures.

Are we naive? Researching online, it seems like international is our least risky option. We would at least pay little until we get a referral. Would appreciate hearing stories of people who have been there/done that. Or if you gave up on international adoption, could you share why.

[Anonymous]

I single and mid-40's, therefore, I was banned from adopting pretty much all countries. The very day my adoption clearance was FINALLY completed, Russia (my only hope) banned USA from adoptions. Luckily, my paperwork/clearance transferred over to domestic adoption! I got SOOOO lucky, and was chosen by a birth mom w/in 6 months. My healthy newborn daughter recently turned 2 years old. I wish you the same success I had. It really is a crap-shoot. You won't know until you try. I am sorry for your struggles. Good luck in moving forward! Best wishes...

[Anonymous]

Hi OP--

Five years ago we were in your shoes. 2 failed IUIs, 3 failed IVFs, 1 IVF resulting in pregnancy and then miscarriage.
We adopted older children via international adoption---largely because of the same reasons you cited---we were emotionally done with failure and did not want to risk the heartbreak of a birth mother changing her mind. Ours has been a difficult, but rewarding experience. While it is possible to adopt an infant through international adoption, it is increasingly rare. Therefore you have all the attachment challenges of bonding with an older child. The flip side is that with older children you can have a better idea of whether the child is going to have challenges due to prenatal exposures, particularly to alcohol. If you are caucasian, international adoption often means transracial adoption, and you need to consider what that will be like. On the whole, I think that the trade off is that international adoption gives you more certainty in becoming a parent but greater challenges with respect to attachment, trauma and prenatal exposures, while domestic adoption gives you more information regarding the health and background of the child, plus the benefit of infant bonding, but greater risks of birthparent vacillation.

There is a lot of available education and training available to you in order for you all to decide whether international adoption is right for you. There is a very useful website called www.adoptionlearningpartners.org which we used for the adoption training courses which are required by most agencies. Best of luck to you on your journey, and my sympathies on your heartbreak. Infertility is very, very hard.

[Anonymous]

Not telling you our bad experiences as its worth doing it once (I would not do it again after what we went through) and our child was so worth it all. We choose domestic as I wanted a newborn. There are no right and wrongs about adoption.

[Anonymous]

Look at adopting from the Marshall Islands - it's an infant adoption program and it will require maintaining contact with the biological family. It is considered an international adoption.

There is also the China special needs program.

[Anonymous]

We adopted domestically and though we live in MD, we adopted out west. I wanted a buffer zone between us and the bio parents, plus many states out west have very short waiting and revocation periods. Kansas, Utah, Texas, there are others that aren't coming to mind. Our birthmom signed papers 12 hours after birth and could not change her mind. It was done. We spent 10 days out there and came home.

I know very little about international but know that it can take quite a long time, is considerably more expensive, you often have to take multiple trips there before even coming home with a child and are at the absolute mercy of more than one government. Obviously, you have to make the best decision for you and your spouse.

We also did IVF for years and it never worked, and I know how hard it is and how you can feel it is never going to work. I didn't think I could stomach all the hurdles with international. Domestic was almost more than I could take. If you stick with it, one day, it will work out. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

There are many kids adopted internationally who do have living parents or other relatives--they may not be able to legally get their kids back after an adoption, but it certainly affects the ethics of the situation and could impact the way the child attaches to you. Two bloggers with internationally adopted children who maintain relations with birth parents: http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2015/09/honoring-j-r-i-on-september-seven.html from Haiti and http://scoopingitup.blogspot.com/p/considering-ethiopian-international-or.html from Ethiopia

Similarly, if you adopt from a state like Utah, you're right that the birth mother may not be able to change her mind, but you also run the risk that the birth father was never notified and would have happily raised his child. You get a kid, sure, but how is that kid going to feel down the road?

I know it's hard to wait. I am waiting to adopt right now, myself. But being able to look my future child in the eye when he or she is grown and say I did things as ethically as I knew how, and was not afraid of his or her birth family, is more important to me than getting a kid asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are many kids adopted internationally who do have living parents or other relatives--they may not be able to legally get their kids back after an adoption, but it certainly affects the ethics of the situation and could impact the way the child attaches to you. Two bloggers with internationally adopted children who maintain relations with birth parents: http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2015/09/honoring-j-r-i-on-september-seven.html from Haiti and http://scoopingitup.blogspot.com/p/considering-ethiopian-international-or.html from Ethiopia

Similarly, if you adopt from a state like Utah, you're right that the birth mother may not be able to change her mind, but you also run the risk that the birth father was never notified and would have happily raised his child. You get a kid, sure, but how is that kid going to feel down the road?

I know it's hard to wait. I am waiting to adopt right now, myself. But being able to look my future child in the eye when he or she is grown and say I did things as ethically as I knew how, and was not afraid of his or her birth family, is more important to me than getting a kid asap.

+100000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are many kids adopted internationally who do have living parents or other relatives--they may not be able to legally get their kids back after an adoption, but it certainly affects the ethics of the situation and could impact the way the child attaches to you. Two bloggers with internationally adopted children who maintain relations with birth parents: http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2015/09/honoring-j-r-i-on-september-seven.html from Haiti and http://scoopingitup.blogspot.com/p/considering-ethiopian-international-or.html from Ethiopia

Similarly, if you adopt from a state like Utah, you're right that the birth mother may not be able to change her mind, but you also run the risk that the birth father was never notified and would have happily raised his child. You get a kid, sure, but how is that kid going to feel down the road?

I know it's hard to wait. I am waiting to adopt right now, myself. But being able to look my future child in the eye when he or she is grown and say I did things as ethically as I knew how, and was not afraid of his or her birth family, is more important to me than getting a kid asap.

Thanks. PP, what country are you adopting from, may I ask? And how or what do you do to ensure all is above-board and ethical?

[Anonymous]

We are adopting from foster care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are adopting from foster care.

Thanks for your reply. I hope your wait comes to an end soon!

[Anonymous]

Op, you sound exhausted and rightly so. Take a breather. Live a few months without pursuing a child. Let yourself grieve the bio child you tried for. Allow yourself to grieve. Only then should you move forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are many kids adopted internationally who do have living parents or other relatives--they may not be able to legally get their kids back after an adoption, but it certainly affects the ethics of the situation and could impact the way the child attaches to you. Two bloggers with internationally adopted children who maintain relations with birth parents: http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2015/09/honoring-j-r-i-on-september-seven.html from Haiti and http://scoopingitup.blogspot.com/p/considering-ethiopian-international-or.html from Ethiopia

Similarly, if you adopt from a state like Utah, you're right that the birth mother may not be able to change her mind, but you also run the risk that the birth father was never notified and would have happily raised his child. You get a kid, sure, but how is that kid going to feel down the road?

I know it's hard to wait. I am waiting to adopt right now, myself. But being able to look my future child in the eye when he or she is grown and say I did things as ethically as I knew how, and was not afraid of his or her birth family, is more important to me than getting a kid asap.

You insider it a GOOD thing that mothers in some western states have no legal recourse if they change their minds about surrendering their infants a day after birth? You think a mother - potentially a teen mom, potentially traumatized, surely in an emotional and hormonal tsunami to say nothing of pan killers and labor recovery, should have no right to change her mind about a contract signed to forever sever her ties to her child? Even here in Virginia, we give anyone the legal right to review and terminate any legal contract within 72 hors of signing. It is disgusting to me that you see it as beneficial that birth women are so preyed upon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are many kids adopted internationally who do have living parents or other relatives--they may not be able to legally get their kids back after an adoption, but it certainly affects the ethics of the situation and could impact the way the child attaches to you. Two bloggers with internationally adopted children who maintain relations with birth parents: http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2015/09/honoring-j-r-i-on-september-seven.html from Haiti and http://scoopingitup.blogspot.com/p/considering-ethiopian-international-or.html from Ethiopia

Similarly, if you adopt from a state like Utah, you're right that the birth mother may not be able to change her mind, but you also run the risk that the birth father was never notified and would have happily raised his child. You get a kid, sure, but how is that kid going to feel down the road?

I know it's hard to wait. I am waiting to adopt right now, myself. But being able to look my future child in the eye when he or she is grown and say I did things as ethically as I knew how, and was not afraid of his or her birth family, is more important to me than getting a kid asap.

You insider it a GOOD thing that mothers in some western states have no legal recourse if they change their minds about surrendering their infants a day after birth? You think a mother - potentially a teen mom, potentially traumatized, surely in an emotional and hormonal tsunami to say nothing of pan killers and labor recovery, should have no right to change her mind about a contract signed to forever sever her ties to her child? Even here in Virginia, we give anyone the legal right to review and terminate any legal contract within 72 hors of signing. It is disgusting to me that you see it as beneficial that birth women are so preyed upon.

pP here...so so sorry, I hit reply to the wrong post! This was meant to be in reply to the mom by adoption who was touting the benefits of some states like Utah severely restricting the ability for birth parents to change their minds.

[Anonymous]

You cannot ensure an international adoption is ethical. At all. Even if you investigate it with an third party person beforehand. In Uganda, Colombia, DRC, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Vietnam, Liberia, Ukraine, Haiti, India: I know personally and through internet/blog friends that kids from all these countries have lies in their paperwork that parents only find out after they get home and things don't add up. The adoption industry profits from preying on poor families who need temporary relief and place kids in care centers while they are in between work, need access to water and health care, loving families who need help. Orphanages then sell the children to adoption agencies, who tell parents they are "saving children." Parents think they've done humanity a good deed, they got their awesome multi racial Christmas card, everyone weeps at the beauty, but it's built all on the destruction of a family, who wonders where their kids are and if they will ever see them again.

The agencies preach the lie to the families (first and adoptive families) "the kids are better off!" to justify it. These are the people making the money. Their job is to convince birth parents to not take kids back, that they are incapable of doing so, and their job is to make adoptive families feel like heroes. This is what they sell. And we want to parent so badly we buy it hook, line, sinker.

I am a parent whose children had paperwork full of lies. And more than six of our close adoptive family friends children ALL had lies in their paperwork. We all have open adoptions and communicate with family, and some of those family members were claimed as "dead" on the papers. We all pay thousands each year to stay in touch and paid thousands to investigate. Lots of folks are totally happy with their international adoption. But I think those people are the ones who take the kid they feel entitled to because they want a "no strings attached" pretend first family doesn't exist experience. They want a kid. They think the child will not remember or care about the devastating loss. So they don't question, investigate. They just move on.

I learned my lesson the hard way. Kids care. They miss their families. They will do their homework when they are old enough. They will find out they came from real people, real families, often very in tact families.

I know it's hard to face but there is no country, no adoption agency that is safe. Anyone who says that hasn't investigated their adoption or read adoption forums about parents going back and meeting the "dead" family members, and adult adoptees who feel totally betrayed by the lies their story was built on. Anyone who says "we had a good experience" doesn't realize that adoption agency workers are all nice. That has NOTHING to do with how much adoption undermines family preservation efforts in poor countries.

And if you think "I will fix that, I will adopt an infant so they don't remember! I will avoid all this conflict and plug my ears and close my eyes!" We adopted an infant too. Her anxiety, loss, trauma, her experience growing up and not having birth family, birth culture, birth country affects her every day.

International adoption, and I say this as a hypocrite, is based on kids losing their families often orchestrated by the folks who profit from it. And the kids, who are supposedly now "better off" are not a big fan of this fact when they get older. Especially if their parents are unwilling to move to an area where their child isn't a minority in classes, at parks and on sports teams.

Take it from someone in the trenches. It is not a great time. I would highly recommend running away from all international adoption. The rabbit hole is so deep. And don't let anyone convince you that it "is different in this country!" Anyone who says that is selling something. Even if it is their attempt to hold on to their peace of mind.

I would only ever recommend foster adoption. And yes, the kids are often traumatized by their neglect and loss. But so are kids from international adoption. So are sometimes kids from infant domestic adoption. We, as adoptive parents, need to stop pretending that the connection between birth mother and father and child is negligible and not essential to our child's sense of self. If we were parents, and our kids were put in another family to be raised away from us, could we even get up in the morning? Can we bear the idea of that kind of severing?

It's not small things. And many of these kids are not orphans. We learned the hard way.