Dissolving an adoption is a serious decision. Most states consider a parent’s choice to dissolve an adoption as child abandonment. Child abandonment is considered child abuse; therefore, your name will go on the state Child Protective Service Registry as an offender. Having your name on a state CPS registry as an offender means that you cannot work with children anywhere that requires a CPS clearance. Some examples of things you may no longer be able to do are Boy or Girl Scout Leader, Daycare provider, Little League coach, adopt, or provide foster care. The state usually considers the fact that you adopted a challenging child with severe behaviors as irrelevant. Adoption is serious business. Once you adopt a child, any child no matter how damaged, it is as if you gave birth to that child.

I understand your feelings of frustration because I have parented many challenging children over the years. I know it isn’t fair, especially when you did not cause your child’s problems. However, this is the way it usually is. Some people have had success with another option, but it is a long and difficult road. Of course, you are already familiar with that path, or you wouldn’t be hear, right. 

During 15 years of fostering children for the state of Michigan, we have helped to parent nearly 100 children. We adopted a daughter who came to us as an almost four year old who is now 15, who has FASD. When she came to us, her diagnosis was cognitively impaired also known as mild mental retardation. Like so many hopeful adoptive parents, we thought it didn’t matter. We thought that with our love and every special service available she could overcome her FAS. In some ways, she has. Today she has an average IQ in the low 90s, and test in the average range for achievement when tests are given verbally. However, life still is not easy for her, or for those of us who live with her. She frequently misunderstands written words making schoolwork a struggle despite an average IQ. She also struggles with writing understandable sentences frequently leaving out words and using incorrect forms of verbs and nouns. This also makes schoolwork a struggle for her. We have tried numerous countermeasures over the years; however, she rarely complies with them even when they really help her succeed. It is not my intent to make fun of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome by this blog. However, sharing experiences helps us keep parenting our FASD children in perspective. Maintaining a lighthearted attitude towards the countless mistakes makes life better for the entire family. 

I avoided saying, “I love you,” to the first few foster children that came to stay with us, until I felt love. I felt like a phony saying it if I didn’t mean it. I thought that being older children they would see through the lie. However, every child needs to hear “I love you.” Especially those who may have either never heard it said, or heard it in words, but the actions said something different. In hindsight, I don’t think the teenagers would have seen through it.

Later, when I read the definition of the word, love, I realized that I could have said it all along without lying. The Encarta Dictionary has several definitions for love. A few of the definitions do not involve a warm fuzzy feeling. Instead, they involve the act of caring for another person and meeting that person’s needs. By that definition, you love every child that spends time in your home, not matter how short the time. So, tell new children that you love them.

Find something special you can do one-on-one with each child you foster or adopt. There are children who never seem to get enough attention. You could spend the entire day, everyday, with just that one child and she would not seem to be satisfied. However, consistently giving each child some special time helps you get to know each other, and helps the bonding process. You do not need to spend a lot of money or do something extravagant to make a lasting impression. You may only be able to do something special with each child once a week, but try to be consistent.

We are coming to the end of another week, so lets take a look at some of the things that have been going on this week in the world of adoption, shall we? A peek into the foster care system reveals bad news, as usual these days. As I am sure some of you have already guessed, the foster care system has taken a few blows as our economy continues to go into the crapper. More families cannot afford to feed their children, or pay for their homes, stress levels over financial woes are at all time highs, and patience levels at an all time low; which all leads to an influx of children into the system, and a shortage of foster homes. Then there are the budget woes, but we’ve beat that horse enough.

We move on to Wisconsin where a woman who allegedly scammed four different couples by offering them each the chance to adopt her ‘pretend’ unborn child, plead not guilty to the 16 counts of wire fraud charged against her. Exactly how that is actual news I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure that if she thought there was anything to feel guilty over in scamming multiple families out not only out of their money but their dreams for a family as well, she uh, wouldn’t have done it… DUH!

Interestingly enough, in Texas a woman out on supervised release, supervised release, for committing an adoption scam, was sentenced to 6.5 years for committing, yep, you guessed it ANOTHER adoption scam. Belinda Ramirez admitted to scamming a couple out of a whopping $800 by offering them the baby that she was pretending to be carrying. We’ll see if we can catch up with her in 6 years to see if they were worth the $800 she spent on them…

Are you experiencing setbacks or difficulties in your adoption journey? Have you shared your problems with your adoption friends, agencies, or caseworkers? First, sharing your problems can lighten your personal load, even if your friends can just listen and offer encouragement and support. When you share with friends who have also experienced adoption, they usually share similar stories, because they have been there. Realizing that others have shared your journey can make you less anxious about the process. In addition, an experienced adoption friend might realize that you have a real problem. Also, you never know, who might be in a position to help you, even when you don’t expect it.

Over the past two years of blogging about adoption, I have made quite a few adoption friends. We maintain internet friendships, although we have never met in person. A friend I made from the other adoption site where I blogged and I have been corresponding about her adoption journey. She has been pursuing a homestudy for the entire time I have known her. The homestudy has never been completed, although she thought she was matched with an older sibling group.

As I shared on Trauma Tuesday in my post Relationship Between Anger and Anxiety & Depression, traumatized adopted children who repress their anger often struggle with anxiety, depression, or both. While some anxiety and depression can have a biological cause, adopted children who suffered from trauma, such as abuse or neglect, are very likely to be repressing their anger, which can cause or exacerbate issues with anxiety or depression.

If you are parenting a traumatized adopted child who rarely or never expresses anger, then your child needs you to teach him or her how to do it. Children who grow up in unsafe homes do not learn how to express their anger safely, so they need you to provide them with the tools for doing this.

Dear Adoption Maharishi,

 

“I have a sister that I’ve never met before, she is older than me by a few years. She was adopted and the adopted family moved out of town and never got back in contact with my mother. We have been hoping she would find us but we really would like to find her. I don’t know whether or not her foster parents even told her that she was adopted.

 

Concerned Sister ,Crystal

Faith wrote a blog in February about Christian Perspective of Adoption in the Bible. I really enjoyed how she gave the adoption details of Jesus’ family tree, which of course, included some adoptions of non-Jews. As Faith pointed out, these gentile women were esteemed by God, to be worthy of belonging to the family tree of Jesus. This is where Faith found Biblical support for pursuing a private adoption. She didn’t feel that the commands to look after orphans and widows applied to her circumstances of private adoption. I understand her reasoning and I am sure that many have identified with her words. May I point out that there was a time in history, when infants and children who could not be parented by their birth parents were placed in orphanages unless someone came forward to parent them.

 

Here is a quote from Faith’s blog.

 

I think that Jesus' lineage captures what adoption is all about. It did not matter where these women were born. What matters is that they became part of the family. Not only were they part of the family, but they were important enough to be two of the very few women mentioned in Jesus' lineage, which is saying something in a culture that did not value women.

 

Recently I received an email from a friend I met in Guatemala in 2006. At the time we were both visiting the adorable baby girls that we would be fortunate enough to bring home forever a few months later. In 2007 she was interested in starting another adoption from Guatemala but decided against it due to the imminent changes. Now this friend is planning an adoption from foster care. I can think of no one better equipped to do this. My friend and her husband are kind, gentle people who love children and look forward to adding yet another child to their one child family.

I came across an article on foster adoption today and thought you’d be interested in hearing some statistics: