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Post by Rita on Nov 13, 2005 22:06:57 GMT -5
Anybody else have adopted kids or looking to adopt? I adopted my son (now 19) at birth.
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Post by mary on Nov 14, 2005 11:36:54 GMT -5
I was adopted....does that count!
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Post by Rita on Nov 14, 2005 13:27:08 GMT -5
Sure it counts - if you want to talk about it! What's your story?
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Post by shirllg on Nov 15, 2005 9:34:04 GMT -5
I have two kids, adopted at birth, a daughter almost 22 and a son almost 19.... Shirley
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Post by Rita on Nov 15, 2005 9:59:45 GMT -5
Am on the run this am, will share later!
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Post by Rita on Nov 15, 2005 11:12:24 GMT -5
Huh? How can there be another Rita?
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Post by pookie on Nov 15, 2005 11:17:00 GMT -5
LOL Rita! I thought you were so much in a hurry that you forgot to log in!
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Post by mary on Nov 15, 2005 22:18:12 GMT -5
Hi all, It was me and I did forget to sign in! I was in that much of a rush....it just defaulted to Rita! Promise to share in the next day or two
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Post by sarpon on Nov 27, 2005 12:34:50 GMT -5
Our younger two children are adopted. When our oldest daughter was seven months old I had an ectopic pregnancy and ended up losing a fallopian tube. A couple of years later I had another one which was treated medically, but then, when she was about 4 1/2, I had a third and lost the other tube. I had no interest in out-of-body pregnancy intervention.
We decided to become foster parents with the idea of adopting, because we didn't want to adopt an infant. We didn't want a big age gap. And besides, having worked in the area of private adoptions, I'd seen enough fall through to not want to take that risk. And, we knew there were so many, many older children who needed families. Foster-to-adopt seemed to be the right fit for us.
We had a few placements that were not successful for the long term. Then, in February, 1999, we got a call on a Saturday night to take an emergency placement of a sister and brother, ages 5 years and 18 months, "just for the weekend." Our daughter was 7 1/2 at the time. It turned out the 18 month old was 2 1/2 -- his father didn't know how old he was. And these two children were two of four siblings, and the four of them and another eight half siblings (mom had four from other relationships, dad had four from other relationships, then they had four together).
The boy arrived with pneumonia, which hid his undiagnosed chronic asthma. The girl had the flu, and lice. We spent the first few days at the hospital, clinics, and doctors' offices. "Just for the weekend" turned into "a couple of weeks" until DCF could find a place to reunite the four whole siblings. Then, details of some of what had happened to the kids began to emerge, and reuniting them began to seem less of a good idea.
Anyway, long and complicated story short, it took a couple of years before DCF decided that reunification with the parents wasn't going to happen, and then a couple more before termination of parental rights.
Then, a DCF worker who ended up with one of the other boys in a non-relative placement made a false report about us because she decided she wanted to get our kids placed in her home (against all the recommendations of the psychologists who had been involved in the case) and the kids were removed from our home, and, thankfully, placed with our best friends, so that we could continue to be the ones who were really raising them. It took five months to get them back, and another seven months after that before our adoption was finalized.
But hey, what family doesn't hit a little bump in the road from fraud by a government agent? She wasn't involved directly in our case, but she used her position as an employee with the department to get into the DCF records and tell our children things that no child should know about their biological parents, and sexually explicit things about abuse suffered by their brothers -- this is an adult woman revealing things to a 10 year old girl because she decided that our daughter "needed to know the truth." And even though she had lied about us, because we were foster parents rather than parents, the children had to be removed from our home. In most circumstances, that would have been the end of the story. DCF investigates, finds the charges "unfounded," the kids go elsewhere, and everyone goes on with their lives. Most people just let the foster children go rather than make a stink about it. But we already become their parents, no matter what the paperwork said, and we wanted our kids back. They had to re-write their play book for us.
Sorry. Writing about this is bringing it all up again. Anyway, it's all over and done. It's been almost two years now since the adoption was final, and I'm sure that someday I'll forgive the crazy lunatic. And somehow, I don't think we'll be featured on "Adoption Stories."
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Post by pookie on Nov 27, 2005 12:47:49 GMT -5
OMG. I hope that woman lost her job. Your family must be so strong! How old are the kids now?
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Post by mary on Nov 27, 2005 14:27:35 GMT -5
Sarpon, More power to you!
I would also be a classic example of not all adoptions are "TV" perfect. I always watch in amazement of all the happy reunions. I suppose that is all the public wants to see. How delusional! Life isn't always about happy endings, but about learning.
I was adopted at 6weeks of age. My adoptive parents have since passed away. That is not my story.
About 24 years ago, after I had my second child, a friend came along who was my age and also adopted. She had a burning desire to find her mother and had read all the books, belonged to the search groups and even had a lawyer to help, with no luck so far.
Sooo..... she decided I should find my mother! I really wasn't interested, I never had any burning desire to find my 'blood'. But after weeks of persistence, I caved and told her she had 1 afternoon to find them or quit bugging me.
Well, damned if she didn't. She found an uncle nearby who when he say me did a double take (I undoubtedly look like my mother). He and his wife swore that his sister would never give a baby away......
Well, to make a long story short, I ended up calling my mother ( out of state) and she to this day denies my very existence.
Do I know for sure she is my mother, yes, another long story , but I have the documents.
Any regrets? No, Finding her was never my goal anyway. I feel sorry for her, I am 52 now and she has had to lied for many years and for the last 24 everyone has had an inkling!
Where any regret lies is that I have and older and younger brother who know knowing of my existence, I feel they have the right to know.
Will I contact them, No, my intentions were never to interfere in their lives. I have always believed that if it is meant to be it will happen.
Mary
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Post by sarpon on Nov 27, 2005 17:35:23 GMT -5
Pookie, our kids are now 14 1/2, 12 1/2 and 9. And I wouldn't say the experience made us stronger. It caused incredible, almost unbearable pain -- the children were taken the weekend before Christmas three years ago. We let them go to her house for a sleepover with their brother on the Friday that school let out for winter break, and while she had them with her she filed the false report, thinking that because she had them at her house they would be placed with her. My husband raised holy hell and pointed out that there were psychological reports saying the kids weren't supposed to ever be alone together unsupervised so how could they be allowed to live together. Fortunately, I'd been a guardian ad litem, and as a lawyer, I have a great reputation and many friends in the system, and everyone who knows us knew from the beginning the charges were bullshit, but they had to follow protocol.
From Dec. 20th to Dec 30th the kids were in foster care, two different homes, somehow most of the clothes and Christmas presents we packed up to send to them managed to get "lost" along the way. It took those ten days for the court system to authorize our friends to take the kids as a non-relative placement -- lightning speed over the holidays with everyone making a super human effort on our behalf.
It then took until February for us to get approved for unsupervised visitation so we could take them to school in the morning, bring them home in the evening and just take the to our friends' house to sleep. They finally came home in May. Our middle daughter, who was then 9, went back to wetting the bed every single night and had to wear pullups. Our son, who has ADHD and is very hard to handle, couldn't understand why we had allowed this to happen and wouldn't believe that it would not happen again -- and why should he? He had almost stopped his bedwetting (he was 6 at the time) but it came back full force -- he would wet through the pullups. The strain it put on our marriage was fierce. I can't say we've recovered from it yet.
No, she didn't lose her job. This is Florida. She worked in another district, across county lines. The report was purportedly "anonymous" even though we all knew where it came from. There was no proof that she'd gotten into confidential files and given information to the kids -- other than the fact that the kids said she had, and they knew things that that couldn't have known any other way. Basically, she was adopting a child that DCF had been unable to otherwise find a home for, one of their brothers who had been in multiple other placements, and he'd been kicked out of each one for his bizarre behavior. They didn't want to rock the boat. She's in Atlanta now, and I just hope she stays far, far away.
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Post by sarpon on Nov 27, 2005 17:54:45 GMT -5
Mary, I can understand how you feel, and I admire you for not letting yourself be defined by other people's issues.
I can sort of identify with having kin who don't know about you. My father's father went to Panama in 1942, when my Dad was 12, to work there "temporarily," and he never came back. My grandmother eventually divorced him. After he died, my father found out that his father had a second family. A few years ago, after my grandmother had passed way, I made friends with someone living in Panama and asked him if he could make contact with these relatives. It turned out there was also a third family. I gave the information to my father, and he talked about it with my aunt, his sister, but she didn't want to contact them and my father deferred to her. So, for years, silence.
But it turns out the Panama relatives did know about them, and a couple of years ago they got in touch with my aunt and father. They've exchanged some letters, pictures, a phone call or two. They can't really be "family" because that takes more than sharing some DNA but there is a connection.
The one thing they all wanted to ask each other was "What did 'he' (their father) tell you about me? What was he like when he was with you?" The funny thing to me is, he kept a part of himself walled off from all of them.
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Post by katelight on Nov 27, 2005 18:28:17 GMT -5
What amazing life journeys you have all lead. I'm blessed that you could share them here. You are right Sarpon. Sharing DNA does not define family. My best friend's daughter had a baby at 17, and decided that placing him in an adoptive family would be the best gift that she could give him. She and the adoptive family decided to have an open adoption, in that there would be visits, pictures, and that Cam would always know who his birth mother is and why she made the decisions she did. He is now 16 months old and they all have a wonderful relationship. My friend and her daughter miss the time of raising Cam but are thankful everyday that God brought this non-traditional family together.
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Post by Rita on Nov 27, 2005 19:32:02 GMT -5
My SIL is a social worker who does home studies for adopion placements. There are so many stories like yours - not exactly the same, but more than you think. You're right about DNA and family. It always burns me when you read a story about some celebrity and it mentions their adopted children. They are their children, why do they have to qualify it?
My story is a good one. My son's birth mother was a nanny working for my brother when she got pregnant. When DB realized she was going to have the baby and place it for adoption, he called me right away. We had been trying to have a baby for several years unsuccessfully.
My ex and I lived in Texas at the time and all my family were in NY. My mom took this girl under her wing, let her stay in the apt in their basement, paid for all her doctor visits and drove her there for all the appts. When the baby was born, she called me in the middle of the night with the news "IT'S A BOY!!" (Talk about role reversal LOL!)
That was 19 years ago. I've raised him as a single mom since he was 3. My ex isn't really in the picture as any kind of dad unfortunately. I'm so lucky to have him in my life!
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