Adopting a Snowflake

[greekdee]

Honeychile and Pinkyphimu...you are both right on, thank you. Yes, there needs to be honesty and yes, there is a fairy tale ideal that some people get caught up in.

As for honesty: the woman who helped us facilitate the U.S. side of our international adoption got into that type of work because of being lied to when she and her husband adopted. They adopted a beautiful 7-month-old girl from Russia. They were told she had been born just a little premature, but was perfectly healthy. Got her back home to Atlanta only to learn that she had severe cerebral palsy. They were, of course, heartbroken that their little girl was so ill. They were also in no way prepared to cope financially and almost went completely under due to the massive medical bills that continue even today, over a decade later. Their financial condition has improved, but during the first five years, they were pretty close to living on a cardboard box under a bridge. Would they have adopted had they known the baby was so ill? I don't know, but can say that honesty in such cases would not stop everyone from adopting. While we were in the Ukraine, we met a family from Maine who were on their third adoption of a child with special needs -- a little boy about 3 years who was missing part of a leg and part of an arm. Adopting special needs children was where their hearts were led, and they were emotionally, physically and financially up for the challenges. Honesty is so key in making sure children are placed with the best families for their needs.

As for the fairy tale: my oldest son has a friend whose older brother was adopted from Russia at age 9 years. The family was so excited about bringing this boy into the family...couldn't wait to take this kid who had been dealt a bad hand and make up for his past. Pour on the love, give him every opportunity, make his wildest dreams come true. Their hearts were so very much in the right place, but their heads were in the clouds...as the mother finally admits now. Sad fact: not all adoptive children are sweet, sad, motherless angels who just need love. This kid was a cold, unappreciative, selfish, narcissistic, MEAN little shit who put that family through grief after grief. Did they love him? Yes. Get him therapy? Oh yes, lots of it. Last spring, he turned 18 and pretty much said, "kiss off -- I'm going back to Russia." And he did, as though the past 9 years never happened. He is living over there with a cousin, I believe. His family here in America is
shell shocked.

Okay, you guys need to clue me in -- I'm not getting what is so disturbing about the word "condition." I hear that all the time, in the schools, at the pediatrician, pretty much everywhere and applicable to everyone. When one of my son's dislocated his elbow during football practice, the first thing the ER doc said when he came in with X-rays was, "let's talk about your son's condition." One of my friends was just told by her son's high school counselor that he is in pretty good condition for getting accepted to UGA. I have always heard it as a word that merely references the state of someone or something. No more, no less.

Granted, I have not been on adoption-related websites in quite a long time. Is "condition" used in a negative way on them?

[carnation]

Originally Posted by greekdee

Granted, I have not been on adoption-related websites in quite a long time. Is "condition" used in a negative way on them?

No, pretty much same as always.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by greekdee

Okay, you guys need to clue me in -- I'm not getting what is so disturbing about the word "condition." I hear that all the time, in the schools, at the pediatrician, pretty much everywhere and applicable to everyone.

Granted, I have not been on adoption-related websites in quite a long time. Is "condition" used in a negative way on them?

I'm not quite sure what the hullabaloo is either, unless people are just piling on someone.

With adoption, you have to be completely honest. Some people are not equipped (financially, emotionally, tempermentally, what-have-you) to have anything other than a drug-free infant of their same race. For some people, having an older child or one of a different race is a loud indicator to the rest of the world that they're unable to have a child.

One of my former co-workers and his partner are going through the foster care system to adopt. They're looking for kids of any age or race--his partner is a social worker and is familiar with resources available to them, and they're not exactly fooling anyone by having a kid of the same race. The funny thing is, they're getting nothing but requests to have them take in babies!

The family I grew up next door to adopted a daughter a long time before we moved in. She was 5 and had grown up in a brothel in England. They had the resources to take care of her, but back in the 60s there wasn't much education or support for children who had seen the things she had, much less for the families who adopted them. She ended up having terrible behavioral problems, along with a drug addiction in her early teens, and it almost ripped their family apart. For the sake of their three older children they ended up having her live with her grandparents in a much smaller town. Fortunately, she was able to thrive there. Horror stories like that are becoming much more rare because agencies are being more open and parents are much more educated, but not everyone has the time or patience to see something like that out. Today, people are much more open about what an adoptee's pre-adoption life may have been like so people can make an educated decision.

Originally Posted by honeychile

Fast-forward to sixth grade. Sister & Husband were called in to talk to the school psychologist. Daughter was high functioning, but would never be able to live alone. You see, before she was adopted, Daughter had never had anything to eat other than cold milk and orange juice. She had never been out of a crib. So, while she was healthy physically, the deprivation of much needed nutrition didn't allow her brain to function properly.

That actually sounds pretty tame for a Ceacescu-era baby. Remember, a lot of families brought babies and toddlers home who never quite started thriving and then learned that they had been given HIV through tainted needles (it was believed that giving blood transfusions to babies would make them look more "robust" to potential adoptive parents). Of course, anti-retrovirals weren't as developed as they were now, so the children more often than not died terrible deaths at a young age.

A few weeks ago, New York Magazine had an article about women having babies into their late 40s and 50s. Most of the women, obviously, had gone through IVF with donor eggs. I don't remember if any of them used snowflakes, though.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

I'm not quite sure what the hullabaloo is either, unless people are just piling on someone.

And which people are those?

This is not one of those topics where piling on someone is fun. Sure, the tone of some of these posts could have been better (including a couple of carnation's posts) but that does not mean the point of discussion is unfounded.

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

With adoption, you have to be completely honest. Some people are not equipped (financially, emotionally, tempermentally, what-have-you) to have anything other than a drug-free infant of their same race. For some people, having an older child or one of a different race is a loud indicator to the rest of the world that they're unable to have a child.

Adoption is not the only place in life where complete honesty is important. Adoption is also not the only place in life where people respond to commonly used terminology in a negative manner. For example, "special needs" is used in the adoption world and outside of the adoption world for a range of conditions. (http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/ent...eds/339/1.html)

Depending on where you are and who you are talking to, some people (including adopted parents, social workers, and community leaders) have an issue with categorizing some of these children in that manner. That doesn't mean people do not understand why that categorization and terminology is used. It means that people are challenging the implications and what is embedded in such use. People are also bringing attention to potential outcomes, including the process of labeling children as having "special needs" or "having certain conditions."

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Fortunately, she was able to thrive there. Horror stories like that are becoming much more rare because agencies are being more open and parents are much more educated, but not everyone has the time or patience to see something like that out. Today, people are much more open about what an adoptee's pre-adoption life may have been like so people can make an educated decision.

True.

Adoption is MUCH more open now than it used to be.

Everyone I know who has successfully adopted domestically has some sort of relationship with the birth mom. There's no awkward "you're adopted!!!!" horror story moment because kids are raised knowing birth mom and adopted mom.

The level of openness is typically agreed upon by both parties. One friend has regular email contact with birth mom, sends pics, and has a visit once a month or so. Another actually has developed a friendship with birth mom (who was on drugs when her daughter was adopted, but ended up getting clean, going to school, getting married and having more children.) So they get together fairly regularly.

That type of interaction would have NEVER happened when say, my mom was a teen. They had the stories of girls getting pregnant and "going away" for 9 months. Then coming back after having given up their babies for adoption. No one ever talked about it. They never got to see their kids (until years later when they were adults.) It was all very hush hush and adoptive parents wouldnt dream of speaking to the birth mom. They got the bare minimum of info about the parents because everything was so discreet.

[AOIIalum]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

That type of interaction would have NEVER happened when say, my mom was a teen. They had the stories of girls getting pregnant and "going away" for 9 months. Then coming back after having given up their babies for adoption. No one ever talked about it. They never got to see their kids (until years later when they were adults.) It was all very hush hush and adoptive parents wouldnt dream of speaking to the birth mom. They got the bare minimum of info about the parents because everything was so discreet.

Well said Violet. I was adopted and it was and is still closed (my choice). I've always known it and it's as much of a part of me as my brown eyes. My parents went through the norm back in those days for adopting, which included the home studies, religious agency studies, applications and years of waiting time for a "healthy white infant". My parents brought me home two months after I was born. Is it easy to adopt, then or now? Of course not, just as it's not easy to give birth or to raise a child regardless of how they joined your family.