June 30, 2009
June 29, 2009
Might be good for adults...not for children
Surrogacy might be good for adults - but not children
Sat, Jun 27, 2009
No legislation applies to surrogate motherhood in Ireland – the only
regulation is by Medical Council guidelines, writes BREDA O'BRIEN .
SARAH JESSICA Parker, star of Sex and the City , is in the news
because she and her husband commissioned a surrogate mother who gave
birth this week to twins. Surrogacy is not exactly a modern
phenomenon. It is even found in the Book of Genesis, when another
Sarah, frustrated by her inability to have children, instructed her
husband Abraham to have sex with her slave girl, Hagar. A son, Ishmael
was born.
However, the account in Genesis is more of a cautionary tale than a
ringing endorsement of complicated conceptions. When biblical Sarah
miraculously gave birth to Isaac, she demanded that Hagar and Ishmael
be cast out into the desert. Happily, Hagar and her son survived.
Things have become much more complex since biblical times.
Unsurprisingly, the Abrahamic method of conception fails to find
favour with wives. Modern-day surrogacy relies heavily on IVF.
There has been a lot of speculation as to whether Sarah Jessica Parker
and Matthew Broderick used a donor egg, or their own embryos from
previous IVF cycles. If the twins did not result from their own
embryos, it is extremely unlikely that they used the surrogate’s own
eggs. The infamous Baby M case in the 1980s concerned a surrogate who
had used her own eggs and who refused to hand over her baby to the
commissioning parents. After two years, the birth mother lost custody,
but retained visitation rights. Since then, American couples have been
very wary of using a surrogate’s own eggs.
If a couple uses a donor egg, or donor egg and donor sperm, the child
has an even more complex set of parents. Children conceived by
anonymous donation often suffer genetic bewilderment, deliberately cut
off from family history, and from other siblings and family members.
There are now numerous websites and organisations, mostly set up by
children conceived through anonymous donation, campaigning against the
practice on the grounds that it is deeply unjust to children.
When we see how important it was for survivors of industrial schools
to locate siblings, or the anger of Maori children taken away and
raised by white people, it should give us pause about the wisdom of
ignoring the importance of genetic kinship.
Due to a court case taken by a woman called Joanna Rose in the 1990s,
herself conceived by donor insemination, it is now illegal to donate
sperm anonymously in Britain, and all children conceived since then
are entitled to basic information. However, anonymous donation is
legal in many US states. Surrogacy and gamete donation have become
thriving industries there.
Officially, surrogates are only to receive expenses, but in reality,
it can cost $20,000 to $100,000 (€14,200-€71,000) by the time you pay
for eggs, sperm, surrogate, agency, and medical and legal costs. Like
it or not, there is an aspect of “buying a baby”.
As Prof Margaret Little of Georgetown University has said: “You are
selling use of the body, and historically, when that has happened, it
has not been good for women.”
In her book Everything Conceivable , Lisa Mundy quotes Gail Taylor,
who manages Growing Generations, a Los Angeles agency facilitating gay
men in finding surrogates and egg donors. Egg donors, Taylor says,
should be selected on looks, brains, youth, health and psychological
soundness. Surrogates should be selected on how well they gestate
babies and how well they work with others.
Perhaps that is why Europeans and Americans are flocking to India,
where use of a woman’s womb comes cheap.
When the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR) was
appointed by the Government to make recommendations on the Irish
situation, only one member objected to surrogacy, stating that the
risks of exploitation and commodification outweighed any possible
benefits.
There is absolutely no Irish legislation in this area, and the only
regulation is by Medical Council guidelines. Most European countries
(including Ireland) and US states declare that surrogacy contracts are
unenforceable, particularly since a woman post-partum is considered to
be exceptionally vulnerable. Indeed, a 2008 Newsweek magazine feature
reported that some surrogates are left desolate by having to give up
the child. It is also extremely confusing for the surrogate’s own
children, if she has any. Astonishingly, CAHR recommended legalising
surrogacy, and automatically recognising the commissioning couple as
parents.
Only a heartless person could fail to understand the longing for a
child. No doubt many women who carry a child for someone else do so
for the highest motives. However, being conceived in this way can be
utterly confusing for children, although the full implications may not
hit them until they become adults and have children of their own.
Carrying a child for nine months is just about the greatest act of
intimacy possible between human beings. Children conceived through
surrogacy often wonder how someone could bear to part with a child.
Surrogacy, especially involving donation of eggs and sperm, is designed
to create a child to fill an adult need for children.
Recently, an Irish radio show ran an appeal for a woman to act as a
surrogate for an Irish couple. (The item was sparked by seeing the
couple’s advertisement for a surrogate in this newspaper.) Although
well-meaning, the radio show risked landing all involved in an
emotional and legal minefield. Although it has not been contested, it
is most likely that an Irish court would consider the birth mother as
the legal mother of the child. The only way to become the legal
parents would be through adoption – an arduous process.
Any child, no matter what the means of conception, should be
cherished. One can only wish the Parker-Broderick twins long life and
happiness. And indeed, hope that the late Michael Jackson’s children,
one of whom was born through a surrogate and the others almost
certainly through donor sperm, will find stability and peace. However,
if and when Irish legislators tackle assisted human reproduction, if
they are genuinely concerned with children’s rights, the only option
will be to ban surrogacy and anonymous donation.
© 2009 The Irish Times
June 28, 2009
Splish Splash
There are SO many things swimming around in my head this summer that I would love to write about here, but I have been busier than usual with running back and forth between my Mom and son's needs, appointments, therapy, hospitalizations, and milestones. I'm so thankful I'm still standing. Sometimes (when I stop long enough to think about things I still need to do) it totally overwhelmes me. One thing I can be thankful for is actually finding out that little statement "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" is TRUE! When I look back over the last several years, even though I sometimes get extremely discouraged, I can see HOW MUCH STRONGER I've become. This is the first summer (since my son's premature birth) that I have actually FELT strong enough to enjoy. Thank you, Jesus!
One amazing thing that happened this week is getting to go swimming (for the first time in my life) with my family of birth. It sounds so simple, but PROFOUND to think I actually got to enjoy a whole afternoon of swimming and PLAYING with my brothers, neice and nephew, father, and son ~ in the same pool! It was fun, and I so pray it is only the beginning of more fun times to come this summer. It was wonderful to witness my father throwing my son up in the air and catching him in the water, to see their smiles and giggles and connection. The connection that was lost for so many years and yet restored. Overwhelming.
I wish I could dunk my brothers! Just think, the first time we siblings swim and we are all adults with children ourselves. And the most wonderful part of it all is my son got to play with his cousins (his age)! I so want him to grow up KNOWING his family. By both (my) adoption and birth. Just seeing how SIMILAR we all are in personality, looks, bodies, faces, voices, likes, dislikes, quirks ~ it is amazing and wonderful to FINALLY have that continuity of life to replace the void.
It took 19 years to get here (since first reuniting in 1990), but HEY, we got here!
POOL PARTY! Yay! It's about time.
June 26, 2009
Death in Birth
DEATH IN BIRTH
Fragile Tanzanian Orphans Get Help After Mothers Die
By DENISE GRADY
Published: June 24, 2009
BEREGA, Tanzania — The Berega Orphanage, a cluster of neat stucco
cottages in this village of red dirt roads and maize plots, is a far
cry from what the name suggests. The 20 infants and toddlers here are
not put up for adoption, nor kept on indefinitely without hope of ever
living with a family.
More than half a million women a year die during pregnancy and in
childbirth, largely from problems that can be treated or prevented.
This is the third of three articles on efforts to lower the death rate
in one African country, Tanzania.
Multimedia
At the Berega Orphanage, girls care for younger children until they
can go live with relatives.
Most of their mothers died giving birth or soon after — something
that, in poor countries, leaves newborns at great risk of dying, too.
The children are here just temporarily, to get a start in life so they
can return to their villages and their extended families when they are
2 or 3 years old, well past the fragile days of infancy and big enough
to digest cow’s milk and eat regular food.
And, in an innovative program designed to meet the infants’ emotional
as well as physical needs, many have teenage girls from their extended
families living with them at the orphanage.
Africa is full of at least 50 million orphans, the legacy of AIDS and
other diseases, war and high rates of death in pregnancy and
childbirth. With the numbers increasing every day, Africans are
struggling to care for them, often in ways that differ strikingly from
the traditional concept of an orphanage in the developed world.
Programs like the one in Berega are “the way to go” in Africa, said
Dr. Peter Ngatia, the director of capacity building for Amref, the
African Medical and Research Foundation, a nonprofit group based in
Nairobi, Kenya.
He said similar programs for AIDS orphans had worked well in Uganda,
looking after the children until age 5 and then sending them back to
their families or volunteers in their communities.
“In less wealthy nations, people are being very creative,” said
Kathryn Whetten, an expert on orphan care from Duke University. She
had not seen the orphanage in Berega or encountered others like it.
But that did not surprise her. Little is known about orphan care in
Africa, she said, because little research has been done. On a recent
trip to Moshi, a Tanzanian city of about 150,000, she said, local
officials knew of three orphanages. She and her colleagues found 25
there, most with 10 to 25 children each.
The Berega Orphanage is of that size, one small, apparently successful
attempt to cope with the aftermath of more than a quarter-million
deaths of women each year in pregnancy or childbirth in Africa.
They die from bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, prolonged
labor and botched abortions — problems that can be treated or
prevented with basic obstetrical care. But in Tanzania, which has
neither the worst nor best medical care in Africa, but is similar to
many poor countries, everything is in short supply: doctors, nurses,
drugs, equipment, ambulances and paved roads. By the time many women
get to the 120-bed hospital here, it is too late to save them.
Their babies may be saved, but their survival hangs in the balance.
Often, the father or other remaining relatives cannot take care of
newborns. Without breast milk, infants here are in real trouble.
Formula and baby food are not widely available, and cow’s milk is a
poor substitute. Malnutrition and infection are constant threats. An
orphanage can provide basic needs, but to thrive, babies need
dedicated caregivers, and their extended families may live in distant
villages.
The orphanage here, started in 1965 by United German Mission Aid, an
evangelical Christian mission, began recruiting relatives to move in
about five years ago. Ute Klatt, a German missionary and nurse who has
been director of the orphanage for 10 years, said she learned about
the practice from another orphanage in Tanzania. Now many of the
children at the orphanage are cared for by a teenage girl from the
extended family — a binti, in Swahili — often a sister, cousin or
aunt, who lives with them and learns how to take care of them.
The young women come to love the children, and will look after them
when they leave the orphanage, Ms. Klatt said. In addition, the
bintis, some of whom have never been to school, gain some education.
Ms. Klatt provides schoolbooks, she said, and the young women study
and teach one another in the evenings. Many arrive illiterate and
leave knowing how to read. She also teaches them the basics about
health, and they learn sewing and batik, and share the cooking in an
outdoor kitchen.
“Before we had this system, the families weren’t visiting, and it was
hard to reintegrate the children,” Ms. Klatt said. “There were
attachment disorders.”
With the bintis, Ms. Klatt said, life becomes less institutional and
the children grow up more normally, as they might at home.
On a recent visit to Berega, the children seemed to be thriving.
Dressed in shorts, T-shirts and sandals, they looked well fed and were
bursting with energy as they chased one another around the patio and
competed for attention from Ms. Klatt, whom they called Mama Ute. Shy
at first with visitors, they were soon competing for laps to sit in
and hands to hold.
Ms. Klatt said the infants were fed formula, and the older children
ate food grown or raised nearby: bananas, mangoes, cereal made from
maize, chicken, goat, and tomatoes, greens and other vegetables. They
attend nursery school at a nearby church.
Late one afternoon on the patio, 10 bintis gathered with the children,
and shyly told what had happened to their families. They spoke in
Swahili, and Ms. Klatt translated.
One young woman, Lea, looked after her 2-year-old cousin Simoni, whose
mother gave birth to twins and died on a bus on the way to the
hospital. She had been in labor for “only a few days,” Lea said, and
did not know she was carrying twins. It was her first pregnancy.
Simoni’s twin died a few days after birth.
Another binti, named Happy, took care of twin cousins, Jacobo and
Johanna, whose mother, Paulina, died after giving birth at home.
Before that, two of Paulina’s other children had died, one at 5
months, one at 9 months. Others told similar stories, of mothers dying
at home or in cars on the way to the hospital.
Ms. Klatt said it had been her dream since childhood to work as a
missionary in Africa, though she had never imagined running an
orphanage. She said one of her greatest rewards was when older
children who had been in her care came back to visit, and were
obviously healthy and happy, living with their families back in their
home villages.
June 18, 2009
Misguided Madonna
Misguided Madonna's just helping the baby traffickers
By ANNA FEUCHTWANG
18th June 2009
So Madonna is to acquire a second Malawian 'orphan' after all. A
previous court ruling that had refused the singer permission, it
seems, has now been swept aside.
We're told that Madonna's commitment to helping the disadvantaged
children of this poor African country finally helped her case. Soon
four-year-old Mercy James will swap a life of abject poverty for one
of spectacular wealth and unimaginable luxury.
'I'm ecstatic,' said the singer on hearing the news.
I wish I could share her unqualified delight. But sadly I don't. In
fact, I have huge misgivings about this high-profile international
adoption by one of the world's richest - and by implication most
powerful - celebrities.
Mercy may have gained the ultimate Material Girl as her new mum, but I
fear she might have lost far more.
The equation, on the surface, seems a simple one: motherless infant
consigned to life of Third World deprivation
gains passionately committed and stupendously rich celebrity mum. A
fairy tale ending? We can but hope.
Yet my 20 years' experience of working with children in poverty, not
just in Africa but throughout the world, has taught me that there are
more viable and beneficial - although far less glamorous - ways of
helping such children to thrive.
There are one million orphans in Malawi and most have lost parents to
HIV and Aids. However, many have supportive extended families -
grandparents, aunts and uncles, even elder siblings - to whom they
are linked by kinship and the inalienable bond of familial love.
One such child is Mercy. Her mother died of a haemorrhage a month
after giving birth. But she has a grandmother who loves her and was,
indeed, caring for her.
It may well be the case that like many others, she entrusted Mercy to
the temporary care of an orphanage when times got particularly tough.
It is common practice in Malawi to use such institutions as respite
care during family crises.
But they send their children away as a last resort, secure in the
knowledge that they will return when circumstances improve. They have
no thought that they will be whisked away to the other side of the
world.
Yet this is what happened to Mercy. She will join Madonna's own
children Lourdes, 12, and Rocco, eight, and her adopted Malawian son
David, who was also consigned temporarily to an orphanage in similar
circumstances to Mercy when he was given his charismatic new mum.
I have no wish to vilify Madonna. Indeed, I have huge sympathy with
her desire to help the orphans of Malawi. However, I think she is
misguided. I believe international adoption should be used only as a
last resort. It is not a sustainable solution.
But the real reason I oppose her illconceived actions is simple:
children prosper best within their own families and communities,
however poor they are. Research and years of experience has taught us
this.
And it has been the quiet work of my charity, EveryChild, to help
families stay together. We advise on parenting skills. We try to
nurture in relatives charged with caring for their families the self-
belief in their capacity to be good parents.
Grinding poverty does not deprive them of the right to raise their
children. Madonna seems to be making a simple yet pernicious equation:
'If you are poor, you cannot look after your kids.'
As a mum myself - of two strapping teenage boys - I know nothing
would ever have induced me to relinquish them. Why should African
families be any less committed to their kids' care?
I can give you an instance of one Malawian granny's unwavering
devotion to her grandchildren. Costas Bota had four sons who have died
of HIV and Aids during the past five years. In the midst of this
dreadful loss, she took solace from the fact that she could care for
her 13 grandchildren.
She was not expecting, at the age of 60, to be entrusted with their
upbringing, but it was a duty she took on with joy.
We were able to help Costas: she attended parenting classes which
helped to buoy her confidence. We bought seeds and tools for her older
grandchildren, so they could produce a crop from which to live. The
young ones were given help to get to school.
And when I asked Costas if she would have wanted to send her
grandchildren to an orphanage, her reply was emphatic. She could not
bear the thought of them being brought up by strangers.
I do not wish to decry Madonna's efforts, but she should have spoken
to those of us who have worked for years within these stricken
communities. Instead, she set up her own charity to help children in
Malawian orphanages.
And controversial as the idea might seem, I believe the country needs
fewer institutions, not more. There is much evidence to show that
children in care are more likely to fall prey to dangerous sexual
practices than those brought up in their own families.
I have known chilling instances in Eastern Europe of children who have
been spirited from orphanages and sold, not only for adoption, but
also into forced labour or prostitution.
Madonna's victory in the Malawian court may further endanger the
vulnerable children she purports, so vociferously, to want to help.
Consider the legal system that has endorsed the U-turn in the
country's adoption policy. And I have no doubt that corrupt adoption
agencies and child traffickers, newly alerted to the ease with which
Malawian laws can be circumvented, are even now planning to target the
country.
We are also witnessing the rise of a distressing new phenomenon dubbed
the Madonna Effect, in which destitute mothers abandon their babies in
the hope that they will be adopted by wealthy foreign mothers.
It is a tragic corollary of Madonna's personal triumph that such
abuses are now flourishing.
It is one of the abiding cliche that money can't buy happiness. I saw
this when I met an extraordinary Malawian boy called Felix. He lived
with his family and worked long hours herding cattle.
He cherished the few hours allocated for his schooling. Yet when I
asked what he did when he wasn't working, his eyes lit up and he
produced an ingenious little car he had built out of scraps of wire.
This wonderful model gave this tenyearold more pleasure than the most
extravagant toy money could have bought.
Madonna could have helped a million children like Felix in a multitude
of unassuming ways. It might not have elicited headlines. But she
could have given them the inestimably precious gifts of hope,
stability - and a future among the families that love them.
Anna Feutchtwang is chief executive of the charity EveryChild. To
donate or for more information, visit www.everychild.org.uk
June 16, 2009
"Adoption Scandal Has Prompted Only Minor Changes"
Focus on Children: Defendants in the case likely to get probation.
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune
02/14/2009
A federal indictment accusing a Wellsville agency and its workers of
tricking parents in Samoa into giving up their children marked a rare
prosecution in the international adoption industry.
But the use of trickery, coercion or kidnapping in foreign countries
to place children with American families is far from unusual,
according to advocates with watchdog groups who say the Focus on
Children case bolsters their calls for reform.
"There's no real consequences now," David Smolin, a law professor in
Alabama and the parent of internationally adopted children, said of
agencies and adoption facilitators accused of wrongdoing.
To stem abuses, Smolin and others are pushing for national adoption
laws to replace a patchwork of state laws; limiting the amount of
money involved in the adoption of foreign children to prevent human
trafficking; and making U.S. agencies responsible for the actions of
their overseas contractors. They also want more prosecutions and
harsher punishment for offenders.
Kimberly Kennedy, a board member of Parents for Ethical Adoption
Reform (PEAR), is urging U.S. District Judge David Sam to impose
significant sentences when defendants in the FOC case are sentenced
later this month. Under plea deals, the U.S. Attorney's Office is
recommending probation.
"What this agency did in Samoa will have long lasting effects for
families and children," Kennedy, the California parent of
internationally adopted children,
wrote to the judge.
A 2007 federal indictment accused the defendants of coercing and
tricking parents in Samoa into placing their children for adoption,
then falsely claiming that the children were orphans. Five defendants
have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts.
Barbara McArtney, an attorney in Grand Island, N.Y., who runs an
accredited adoption agency and serves on PEAR's board, said
prosecutions of U.S. adoption agencies are rare.
One of the few prosecutions similar to FOC's was the case of Lauryn
Galindo, who was accused of falsifying immigration documents to make
it appear that Cambodian children placed for adoption through her
agency were abandoned.
In fact, prosecutors alleged, some of the children were bought from
their parents for small amounts of money and Galindo, in turn, charged
adoptive parents in the United States large fees. She pleaded guilty
to several charges, including visa fraud and money laundering, and was
sentenced in 2004 to 18 months in prison.
Many nations, including the United States, have signed on to the Hague
Convention on International Adoptions, an agreement among the
participants to follow certain procedures. However, enforcement can be
difficult and some countries, such as Samoa, are not parties to the
agreement.
"No one is watching on a federal level," said Joni Fixel, a Michigan
lawyer who has represented prospective adoptive parents in lawsuits
against adoption agencies. "We need another department in the
Department of Homeland Security to make sure these types of cases
don't happen. We don't want to become a haven for children being
illegally adopted."
In addition, American adoption agencies are regulated by states. PEAR
board member David Kruchkow said if a problem arises with an
international adoption, states generally say they have no authority
over the case.
That, in turn, leads to federal prosecutions for misdemeanor visa
violations, said Kruchkow, a Florida high-school science teacher.
Kruchkow said he and his wife were victimized when they adopted a
little girl from Mexico, a Hague Convention country, in the late
1990s. They later learned that a Mexican lawyer and two consultants in
New York, where the Kruchkows lived at the time, had forged their
daughter's paperwork.
Both McArtney and Smolin believe capping fees connected to adoptions
could curb many problems. The amount paid to facilitators and lawyers
overseas for identifying children for adoption and completing their
country's paperwork can be multiple times the average annual income of
the country, according to Smolin, who teaches at Samford University in
Birmingham, Ala., and has written extensively about international
adoption.
Smolin also proposes making American agencies legally responsible for
the actions of their foreign partners, saying many U.S. placement
agencies have a "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil" attitude toward how
adoptees are obtained overseas.
Federal prosecutors charged two Samoan citizens who helped Focus on
Children locate children for adoption -- Tagaloa Ieti and Julie
Tuiletufuga -- but the government has so far been unable to extradite
them.
The criminal case against FOC doesn't address the status of the Samoan
children who were placed for adoption. However, Tom DiFilipo,
president and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children's
Services, an association of adoption and child advocacy groups in
Alexandria, Va., said because the children are U.S. citizens, it is
very unlikely they would be sent back to Samoa.
But they may be back in contact with their birth families. The plea
agreements require the defendants to pay into a fund to facilitate
communication between both sets of parents.
Smolin likes the idea. He and his wife, Desiree, adopted two
adolescent girls from India whose birth mother, they later learned,
had been told her children would be temporarily placed in a boarding
school. Instead, the girls were placed for adoption.
When the couple learned what had happened, they began searching for
the birth mother and finally found her six years after the adoption.
Their daughters, by then young women, have visited her but travel
required to keep in touch has been costly, Smolin said.
"If they get the (FOC) trust fund together, the children ought to go
back a few weeks every year," he said.
Focus on Children: Defendants in the case likely to get probation.
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune
02/14/2009
A federal indictment accusing a Wellsville agency and its workers of
tricking parents in Samoa into giving up their children marked a rare
prosecution in the international adoption industry.
But the use of trickery, coercion or kidnapping in foreign countries
to place children with American families is far from unusual,
according to advocates with watchdog groups who say the Focus on
Children case bolsters their calls for reform.
"There's no real consequences now," David Smolin, a law professor in
Alabama and the parent of internationally adopted children, said of
agencies and adoption facilitators accused of wrongdoing.
To stem abuses, Smolin and others are pushing for national adoption
laws to replace a patchwork of state laws; limiting the amount of
money involved in the adoption of foreign children to prevent human
trafficking; and making U.S. agencies responsible for the actions of
their overseas contractors. They also want more prosecutions and
harsher punishment for offenders.
Kimberly Kennedy, a board member of Parents for Ethical Adoption
Reform (PEAR), is urging U.S. District Judge David Sam to impose
significant sentences when defendants in the FOC case are sentenced
later this month. Under plea deals, the U.S. Attorney's Office is
recommending probation.
"What this agency did in Samoa will have long lasting effects for
families and children," Kennedy, the California parent of
internationally adopted children,
wrote to the judge.
A 2007 federal indictment accused the defendants of coercing and
tricking parents in Samoa into placing their children for adoption,
then falsely claiming that the children were orphans. Five defendants
have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts.
Barbara McArtney, an attorney in Grand Island, N.Y., who runs an
accredited adoption agency and serves on PEAR's board, said
prosecutions of U.S. adoption agencies are rare.
One of the few prosecutions similar to FOC's was the case of Lauryn
Galindo, who was accused of falsifying immigration documents to make
it appear that Cambodian children placed for adoption through her
agency were abandoned.
In fact, prosecutors alleged, some of the children were bought from
their parents for small amounts of money and Galindo, in turn, charged
adoptive parents in the United States large fees. She pleaded guilty
to several charges, including visa fraud and money laundering, and was
sentenced in 2004 to 18 months in prison.
Many nations, including the United States, have signed on to the Hague
Convention on International Adoptions, an agreement among the
participants to follow certain procedures. However, enforcement can be
difficult and some countries, such as Samoa, are not parties to the
agreement.
"No one is watching on a federal level," said Joni Fixel, a Michigan
lawyer who has represented prospective adoptive parents in lawsuits
against adoption agencies. "We need another department in the
Department of Homeland Security to make sure these types of cases
don't happen. We don't want to become a haven for children being
illegally adopted."
In addition, American adoption agencies are regulated by states. PEAR
board member David Kruchkow said if a problem arises with an
international adoption, states generally say they have no authority
over the case.
That, in turn, leads to federal prosecutions for misdemeanor visa
violations, said Kruchkow, a Florida high-school science teacher.
Kruchkow said he and his wife were victimized when they adopted a
little girl from Mexico, a Hague Convention country, in the late
1990s. They later learned that a Mexican lawyer and two consultants in
New York, where the Kruchkows lived at the time, had forged their
daughter's paperwork.
Both McArtney and Smolin believe capping fees connected to adoptions
could curb many problems. The amount paid to facilitators and lawyers
overseas for identifying children for adoption and completing their
country's paperwork can be multiple times the average annual income of
the country, according to Smolin, who teaches at Samford University in
Birmingham, Ala., and has written extensively about international
adoption.
Smolin also proposes making American agencies legally responsible for
the actions of their foreign partners, saying many U.S. placement
agencies have a "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil" attitude toward how
adoptees are obtained overseas.
Federal prosecutors charged two Samoan citizens who helped Focus on
Children locate children for adoption -- Tagaloa Ieti and Julie
Tuiletufuga -- but the government has so far been unable to extradite
them.
The criminal case against FOC doesn't address the status of the Samoan
children who were placed for adoption. However, Tom DiFilipo,
president and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children's
Services, an association of adoption and child advocacy groups in
Alexandria, Va., said because the children are U.S. citizens, it is
very unlikely they would be sent back to Samoa.
But they may be back in contact with their birth families. The plea
agreements require the defendants to pay into a fund to facilitate
communication between both sets of parents.
Smolin likes the idea. He and his wife, Desiree, adopted two
adolescent girls from India whose birth mother, they later learned,
had been told her children would be temporarily placed in a boarding
school. Instead, the girls were placed for adoption.
When the couple learned what had happened, they began searching for
the birth mother and finally found her six years after the adoption.
Their daughters, by then young women, have visited her but travel
required to keep in touch has been costly, Smolin said.
"If they get the (FOC) trust fund together, the children ought to go
back a few weeks every year," he said.
Man's 2 Moms
Man's 2 moms are fast friends
Heart-warming adoption tale
By MICHELE MANDEL
14th June 2009
Adoptive mother Gen Copps sits at her seniors' home with her good
friend, birth mother Susan Vertanen. (Ernest Doroszuk/Sun Media)
On his birthday every year, Patrick Copps' mother would ask him to say
a prayer for the woman who gave him life.
"I'm positive, Pat," Gen Copps would say, "that your birth mother
thinks of you, especially on your birthday. You should never forget
that."
He never did. After many years of searching, with his mom's blessing,
he eventually found his birth mom, Susan Virtanen, in Toronto, learned
the details of his history and forged a warm relationship with her.
It is a lovely tale, but the TV producer in London, Ont. admits it is
hardly unique.
"The real story here," says Copps, who turns 46 next week, "is the
close bond my birth mother and mother have developed over the past 10
years."
But first, we have to start at the beginning, back to 1963, when good
Irish Catholic 16-year-olds were not supposed to get pregnant. A Grade
10 student at Riverdale Collegiate, Virtanen was shipped off quietly
to a home for unwed mothers, Rosalie Hall, near Scarborough General
Hospital.
"They actually had a tunnel that ran from the home to the hospital so
no one would see you," recalls Virtanen, now 63.
She delivered her healthy son on June 20 and named him Gregory. The
social workers from the Catholic Children's Aid insisted she give him
up for adoption and though it was a difficult decision that took her
three long months to make, she knew in her heart they were right. She
was too young, she had no husband, she had too many things she still
wanted to do.
Now just 17, she wanted him to have the kind of life she couldn t
provide.
"I never regretted it, I never felt I'd made a mistake," Virtanen
insists. She just wanted to know he was okay.
When he was a year old, she called the CCAS to ask if he d been
adopted. They assured her that he was doing well with his new family
out west. She would find out 35 years later, that he'd in fact been
adopted by a family who lived at Church and Wellesley and attended the
same Catholic church where she had grown up.
Years passed. "I just went on with my life," she recalls. She
travelled Europe, just as she'd always wanted, had a successful 20-
year career as a buyer for The Bay, married and later divorced. She
never did have any more children.
Virtanen would often think about the baby she gave up, wondering if
he'd found the better life she had yearned for him.
"I'd always said to myself that I'd never try and find him. I didn t
want to interrupt his life. But I also made a decision that if he
wanted to contact me, I d be all right with that."
Copps, who was a reporter at the time in Brandon, Man., located
Virtanen after a long search and wrote her in 1997, thanking her for
wonderful parents and a happy life. Would she be willing to meet?
Of course she was. What Virtanen never expected was that she was not
only welcoming a special young man into her life, but that his
gracious mother would become a close, dear friend as well.
"I wanted her to know that I wasn't barging in here with 'I'm the
mother' because I'm not. The mother is the one who raises you and she
deserves all the credit," Virtanen says, recalling her nervousness
before their first meeting.
She needn't have worried. "She just opened her arms and hugged me."
They knew many of the same people from Our Lady of Lourdes parish and
both their families had roots in Mt. St. Patrick in the Ottawa Valley.
Rather than being threatened by the arrival of her son's birth mother,
Gen Copps was eternally grateful to Virtanen for bringing Pat into the
world.
Their shared pride and adoration for the strapping father of two was
only the beginning of their unique friendship.
"I love her very much. Aside from the fact that she's my son's mother,
I think I would love her anyway," Virtanen says of the widow 23 years
her senior.
By this time, Virtanen was working at the Toronto Sun and would often
visit her new friend at her apartment on nearby Princess St., even
going over on her lunch hour to wash her hair.
"She took it upon herself to help mom with her medication, take her to
doctor's appointments, but most of all spend time with her and go for
walks," their son says.
"My mother once told me how much she loved Susan. Susan has told me
the same thing about mom."
He says she was one of the first to realize that his mom was becoming
forgetful. Almost 87, Copps' mother now suffers from dementia and
lives in a seniors' home where Virtanen visits often.
Sometimes she recognizes her, more often she does not. She misses
their friendship, she says. She misses their special bond.
A year before her illness was so severe that she needed long-term
care, she suddenly gave Virtanen her son's wedding album.
"You should have this now," she told her. "You should keep it." It was
almost a passing of the mother's baton.
"For her to give it to me is pretty special, it meant a lot," Virtanen
recalls softly.
She must have known that one day she wouldn't be able to remember. And
that long after she was gone, she could trust Virtanen would be there
to look out for their boy.
June 11, 2009
"Gotcha!"
© Photographer: Armand | Agency: Dreamstime.com
Word Spy announces a new (ridiculously insensitive) "holiday" called "Gotcha Day"...
n. The anniversary of the day on which a child was adopted. Also: gotcha day.
Example Citations:
They reach out empty arms. Children from another land move into them, and people who waited months or even years for these moments think, "Gotcha!"
That memory inspires many of these parents to informally celebrate "Gotcha Day" — the anniversary of their child's arrival, celebrated much like a second birthday.
But this year, Chicago's Spectrum Press, declared Sept. 15 as the first annual international Gotcha Day celebrating all adoptions, overseas and domestic.
—Sandra Pesmen, "'Gotcha' for good," Chicago Sun-Times, August 29, 2005
*"Gotcha" describes exactly what adoption entails, unfortunately. It implies a possessive "taking" without regard to the life-long effects experienced by that which is "gotten". Adoptees should not be forced to "celebrate" the day they legally lost their original identity, place and family. It is like "celebrating" a funeral, with no respect or regard for normal feelings of grief or loss. It forces adoptees to further disassociate and deny any congruence of emotion, thought, or identity at the expense of a "celebration" for what others have gained. Not a humane idea in the least, in fact, it is abuse. Even adults adopted as children are viewed as perpetual children in the eyes of society and the law, with their right to obtain their original birth certificate withheld indefinately, for them and their children after them. Until adoptee's "best interests" are TRULY upheld in this fiasco called "adoption", I will continue to speak out against such insensitive practices as this.
The BIG 7
© Photographer: Bertoldwerkmann | Agency: Dreamstime.com
Adoption is a lifelong, intergenerational process that unites the triad of birth families, adoptees, and adoptive families forever. Adoption, especially of adolescents, can lead to both great joy and tremendous pain. Recognizing the core issues in adoption is one intervention that can assist triad members and professionals working in adoption better to understand each other and the residual effects of the adoption experience.
Adoption triggers seven lifelong or core issues for all triad members, regardless of the circumstances of the adoption or the characteristics of the participants:
1. Loss
2. Rejection
3. Guilt and Shame
4. Grief
5. Identity
6. Intimacy
7. Mastery/control
(Silverstein and Kaplan 1982).
Clearly, the specific experiences of triad members vary, but there is a commonality of affective experiences which persists throughout the individual's or family's life cycle development. The recognition of these similarities permits dialogue among triad members and allows those professionals with whom they interface to intervene in proactive as well as curative ways.
The presence of these issues does not indicate, however, that either the individual or the institution of adoption is pathological or pseudopathological. Rather, these are expected issues that evolve logically out of the nature of adoption. Before the recent advent of open and cooperative practices, adoption- had been practiced as a win/lose or adversarial process. In such an approach, birth families lose their child in order for the adoptive family to gain a child. The adoptee was transposed from one family to another with time-limited and, at times, shortsighted consideration of the child's long-term needs. Indeed, the emphasis has been on the needs of the adults--on the needs of the birthfamily not to parent and on the needs of the adoptive family to parent. The ramifications of this attitude can be seen in the number of difficulties experienced by adoptees and their families over their lifetimes.
Many of the issues inherent in the adoption experience converge when the adoptee reaches adolescence. At this time three factors intersect: an acute awareness of the significance of being adopted; a drive toward emancipation; and a biopsychosocial striving toward the development of an integrated identity.
It is not our intent here to question adoption, but rather to challenge some adoption assumptions, specifically, the persistent notion that adoption is not different from other forms of parenting and the accompanying disregard for the pain and struggles inherent in adoption.
However, identifying and integrating these core issues into pre-adoption education, post-placement supervision, and all post-legalized services, including treatment, universalizes and validates triad members' experiences, decreasing their isolation and feelings of helplessness.
Loss
Adoption is created through loss; without loss there would be no adoption. Loss, then, is at the hub of the wheel. All birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees share in having experienced at least one major, life-altering loss before becoming involved in adoption. In adoption, in order to gain anything, one must first lose--a family, a child, a dream. It is these losses and the way they are accepted and, hopefully, resolved which set the tone for the lifelong process of adoption.
Adoption is a fundamental, life-altering event. It transposes people from one location in the human mosaic into totally new configuration. Adoptive parents, whether through infertility, failed pregnancy, stillbirth, or the death of a child have suffered one of life's greatest blows prior to adopting. They have lost their dream child. No matter how well resolved the loss of bearing a child appears to be, it continues to affect the adoptive family at a variety of points throughout the families love cycle (Berman and Bufferd 1986). This fact is particularly evident during the adoptee's adolescence when the issues of burgeoning sexuality and impending emancipation may rekindle the loss issue.
Birthparents lose, perhaps forever, the child to whom they are genetically connected. Subsequently, they undergo multiple losses associated with the loss of role, the loss of contact, and perhaps the loss of the other birth parent, which reshape the entire course of their lives.
Adoptees suffer their first loss at the initial separation from the birthfamily. Awareness of their adopted status is inevitable. Even if the loss is beyond conscious awareness, recognition, or vocabulary, it affects the adoptee on a very profound level. Any subsequent loss, or the perceived threat of separation, becomes more formidable for adoptees than their non-adopted peers.
The losses in adoption and the role they play in all triad members lives have largely been ignored. The grief process in adoption, so necessary for healthy functioning, is further complicated by the fact that there is no end to the losses, no closure to the loss experience. Loss in adoption is not a single occurrence. There is the initial, identifiable loss and innumerable secondary sub-losses. Loss becomes an evolving process, creating a theme of loss in both the individual's and family's development. Those losses affect all subsequent development.
Loss is always a part of triad members' lives. A loss in adoption is never totally forgotten. It remains either in conscious awareness or is pushed into the unconscious, only to be reawakened by later loss. It is crucial for triad members, their significant others, and the professional with whom they interface, to recognize these losses and the effect loss has on their lives.
Rejection
Feelings of loss are exacerbated by keen feelings of rejection. One way individuals seek to cope with a loss is to personalize it. Triad members attempt to decipher what they did or did not do that led to the loss. Triad members become sensitive to the slightest hint of rejection, causing them either to avoid situations where they might be rejected or to provoke rejection in order to validate their earlier negative self-perceptions.
Adoptees seldom are able to view their placement into adoption by the birthparents as anything other than total rejection. Adoptees even at young ages grasp the concept that to be "chosen" means first that one was "un-chosen," reinforcing adoptees' lowered self-concept. Society promulgates the idea that the "good" adoptee is the one who is not curious and accepts adoption without question. At the other extreme of the continuum is the "bad" adoptee who is constantly questioning, thereby creating feelings of rejection in the adoptive parents.
Birthparents frequently condemn themselves for being irresponsible, as does society. Adoptive parents may inadvertently create fantasies for the adoptee about the birthfamily that reinforce these feelings of rejection. For example, adoptive parents may block an adolescent adoptee's interest in searching for birthparents by stating that the birthparents may have married and had other children. The implication is clear that the birthparents would consider contact with the adoptee an unwelcome intrusion.
Adoptive parents may sense that their bodies have rejected them if they are infertile. This impression may lead the infertile couple, for example, to feel betrayed or rejected by God. When they come to adoption, the adopters, possibly unconsciously, anticipate the birthparents' rejection and criticism of their parenting. Adoptive parents struggle with issues of entitlement, wondering if perhaps they were never meant to be parents, especially to this child. The adopting family, then, may watch for the adoptee to reject them, interpreting many benign, childish actions as rejection. To avoid that ultimate rejection, some adoptive parents expel or bind adolescent adoptees prior to the accomplishment of appropriate emancipation tasks.
Guilt/Shame
The sense of deserving such rejection leads triad members to experience tremendous guilt and shame. They commonly believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with them or their deeds that caused the losses to occur. Most triad members have internalized, romantic images of the American family that remain unfulfilled because there is no positive, realistic view of the adoptive family in our society.
For many triad members, the shame of being involved in adoption per se exists passively, often without recognition. The shame of an unplanned pregnancy, or the crisis of infertility, or the shame of having been given up remains unspoken, often as an unconscious motivator.
Adoptees suggest that something about their very being caused the adoption. The self-accusation is intensified by the secrecy often present in past and present adoption practices. These factors combine to lead the adoptee to conclude that the feelings of guilt and shame are indeed valid.
Adoptive parents, when they are diagnosed as infertile, frequently believe that they must have committed a grave sin to have received such a harsh sentence. They are ashamed of themselves, of their defective bodies, of their inability to bear children.
Birthparents feel tremendous guilt and shame for having been intimate and sexual; for the very act of conception, they find themselves guilty.
Grief
Every loss in adoption must be grieved. The losses in adoption, however, are difficult to mourn in a society where adoption is seen as a problem-solving event filled with joy. There are no rituals to bury the unborn children; no rites to mark off the loss of role of caretaking parents; no ceremonies for lost dreams or unknown families. Grief washes over triad members' lives, particularly at times of subsequent loss or developmental transitions.
Triad members can be assisted at any point in the adoption experience by learning about and discussing the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kubler-Ross 1969).
Adoptees in their youth find it difficult to grieve their losses, although they are in many instances aware of them, even as young children. Youngsters removed from abusive homes are expected to feel only relief and gratitude, not loss and grief. Adults block children's expressions of pain or attempt to divert them. In addition, due to developmental unfolding of cognitive processes, adoptees do not fully appreciate the total impact of their losses into their adolescence or, for many, into adulthood. This delayed grief may lead to depression or acting out through substance abuse or aggressive behaviors.
Birthparents may undergo an initial, brief, intense period of grief at the time of the loss of the child, but are encouraged by well-meaning friends and family to move on in their lives and to believe that their child is better off. The grief, however, does not vanish, and, in fact, it has been reported that birthmothers may deny the experience for up to ten years (Campbell 1979).
Adoptive Parnets' grief over the inability to bear children is also blocked by family and friends who encourage the couple to adopt, as if children are interchangeable. The grief of the adoptive parents continues as the child grows up since the adoptee can never fully meet the fantasies and expectations of the adoptive parents.
Identity
Adoption may also threaten triad members' sense of identity. Triad members often express feelings related to confused identity and identity crises, particularly at times of unrelated loss.
Identity is defined both by what one is and what one is not. In adoption, birthparents are parents and are not. Adoptive parents who were not parents suddenly become parents. Adoptees born into one family, a family probably nameless to them now, lose an identity and then borrow one from the adopting family.
Adoption, for some, precludes a complete or integrated sense of self. Triad members may experience themselves as incomplete, deficient, or unfinished. They state that they lack feelings of well-being, integration, or solidity associated with a fully developed identity.
Adoptees lacking medical, genetic, religious, and historical information are plagued by questions such as: Who are they? Why were they born? Were they in fact merely a mistake, not meant to have been born, an accident? This lack of identity may lead adoptees, particularly in adolescent years, to seek out ways to belong in more extreme fashion than many of their non-adopted peers. Adolescent adoptees are over represented among those who join sub-cultures, run away, become pregnant, or totally reject their families.
For many couples in our society a sense of identity is tied to procreation. Adoptive parents may lose that sense of generativity, of being fled to the past and future, often created through procreation.
Adoptive parents and birthparents share a common experience of role confusion. They are handicapped by the lack of positive identity associated with being either a birthparent or adoptive parent (Kirk 1964). Neither set of parents can lay full claim to the adoptee and neither can gain distance from any problems that may arise.
Intimacy
The multiple, ongoing losses in adoption, coupled with feelings of rejection, shame, and grief as well as an incomplete sense of self, may impede the development of intimacy for triad members. One maladaptive way to avoid possible reenactment of previous losses is to avoid closeness and commitment.
Adoptive parents report that their adopted children seem to hold back a part of themselves in the relationship. Adoptive mothers indicate, for example, that even as an infant, the adoptee was "not cuddly.'' Many adoptees as teens state that they truly have never felt close to anyone. Some youngsters declare a lifetime emptiness related to a longing for the birthmother they may have never seen.
Due to these multiple losses for both adoptees and adoptive parents, there may also have been difficulties in early bonding and attachment. For children adopted at older ages, multiple disruptions in attachment and/or abuse may interfere with relationships in the new family (Fahlberg 1979 a,b).
The adoptee's intimacy issues are particularly evident in relationships with members of the opposite sex and revolve around questions about the adoptee's conception, biological and genetic concerns, and sexuality.
The adoptive parents' couple relationship may have been irreparably harmed by the intrusive nature of medical procedures and the scapegoating and blame that may have been part of the diagnosis of infertility. These residual effects may become the hallmark of the later relationship.
Birthparents may come to equate sex, intimacy, and pregnancy with pain leading them to avoid additional loss by shunning intimate relationships. Further, birthparents may question their ability to parent a child successfully. In many instances, the birthparents fear intimacy in relationships with opposite sex partners, family or subsequent children.
Mastery/Control
Adoption alters the course of one's life. This shift presents triad members with additional hurdles in their development, and may hinder growth, self-actualization, and the evolution of self-control.
Birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees are all forced to give up control. Adoption, for most, is a second choice. Birthparents did not grow up with romantic images of becoming accidentally pregnant or abusing their children and surrendering them for adoption. In contrast, the pregnancy or abuse is a crisis situation whose resolution becomes adoption. In order to solve the predicament, birthparents must surrender not only the child but also their volition, leading to feelings of victimization and powerlessness that may become themes in birthparents' lives.
Adoptees are keenly aware that they were not party to the decision that led to their adoption. They had no- control over the loss of the birthfamily or the choice of the adoptive family. The adoption proceeded with adults making life-altering choices for them. This unnatural change of course impinges on growth toward self-actualization and self-control. Adolescent adoptees, attempting to master the loss of control they have experienced in adoption, frequently engage in power struggles with adoptive parents and other authority figures. They may lack internalized self-control, leading to a lowered sense of self-responsibility. These patterns, frequently passive/aggressive in nature, may continue into adulthood.
For adoptive parents, the intricacies of the adoption process lead to feelings of helplessness. These feelings sometimes cause adoptive parents to view themselves as powerless, and perhaps entitled to be parents, leading to laxity in parenting. As an alternative response, some adoptive parents may seek to regain the lost control by becoming overprotective and controlling, leading to rigidity in the parent/adoptee relationship.
Summary
The experience of adoption, then can be one of loss, rejection, guilt/shame, grief, diminished identity, thwarted intimacy, and threats to self-control and to the accomplishment of mastery. These seven core or lifelong issues permeate the lives of triad members regardless of the circumstances of the adoption.
Identifying these core issues can assist triad members and professionals in establishing an open dialogue and alleviating some of the pain and isolation that so often characterize adoption. Triad members may need professional assistance in recognizing that they may have become trapped in the negative feelings generated by the adoption experience. Armed with this new awareness, they can choose to catapult themselves into growth and strength.
Triad members may repeatedly do and undo their adoption experiences in their minds and in their vacillating behaviors while striving toward mastery. They will benefit from identifying, exploring and ultimately accepting the role of the seven core issues in their lives.
The following tasks and questions will help triad members and professionals explore the seven core issues in adoption:
List the losses, large and small, that you have experienced in adoption.
Identify the feelings associated with these losses.
What experiences in adoption have led to feelings of rejection?
Do you ever see yourself rejecting others before they can reject you? When?
What guilt or shame do you feel about adoption?
What feelings do you experience when you talk about adoption?
Identify your behaviors at each of the five stages of the grief process. Have you accepted your losses?
How has adoption impacted your sense of who you are?
Credits: Deborah N. Silverstein, Sharon Kaplan
June 10, 2009
Post-Adoption Depression
These boys deserve so much more than I can give them
Six years after adopting two boys, Michelle Brau was still unable to
form a bond with them. Now they're in a new home. She may have
suffered a condition many still don't understand: post-adoption
depression
ADRIANA BARTON
VANCOUVER — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Tuesday, Jun. 09, 2009
The minute she laid eyes on her adopted son, a seven-month-old
Guatemalan boy, Michelle Brau knew something was wrong, she says.
Instead of joy, she felt dread. Instead of wanting to comfort the
infant, she found herself not wanting him at all.
The negative emotions blindsided her, Ms. Brau says. She and her
husband, Jim, had yearned to adopt and add to their family of four
biological kids.
"I love children," says Ms. Brau, who lives in Springville, Utah.
But she couldn't bring herself to love her healthy new son, nor a
second boy, aged 2, whom the couple adopted from Guatemala months
later.
Ms. Brau says she assumed her affection for them would grow with time.
For more than five years, however, she avoided their hugs and was more
strict with them than with her other children, she recalls.
Consumed by guilt and shame, she told no one about her inability to
bond with the adopted boys.
"I felt like a monster," she says. "I longed to be dead."
When she finally confided in her husband six months ago, he did some
research online and concluded she had post-adoption depression, a
condition being studied by researchers but not yet recognized as a
psychiatric disorder.
According to adoption professionals, post-adoption depression can
range in severity from a few weeks of the blues to a major depression
that lasts months or longer. Like postpartum depression, it may bring
intense feelings of anxiety and guilt, fantasies of running away, and
suicidal thoughts.
Ms. Brau consulted two therapists, she says, but her feelings of
desperation did not change.
So this spring - nearly six years after they adopted the Guatemalan
children - the Braus contacted an agency to find them a new adoptive
home.
"These boys deserve so much more than I can give them," Ms. Brau says,
adding that her depression has lifted since the adoption was dissolved
last month. "I feel like me again."
The Braus' case may be extreme but the potential consequences of post-
adoption depression are recognized by a growing number of adoption
professionals.
Left untreated, it can lead to the breakdown of the adoption, says
Brenda McCreight, an adoption counsellor in Nanaimo, B.C. "I've seen
it break up marriages too."
Post-adoption depression didn't have a name until 15 years ago, and it
remains a new area of research. Early studies suggest it's "as
prevalent, or more so, than postpartum depression," says Karen Foli,
who co-authored The Post-Adoption Blues with her husband John
Thompson, a child psychiatrist.
A study published last month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Affective
Disorders found the rate of depression in women after adoption was
about 15 per cent - the same rate found in women who have given birth.
Dr. Foli, a professor of nursing at Purdue University in West
Lafayette, Ind., is partway through a study to assess whether the
tools used to diagnose postpartum depression are valid to screen for
post-adoption depression. Unlike mothers with postpartum depression,
who have a biological explanation for their bleak mood, adoptive
mothers cannot attribute their depression to a sudden drop in estrogen
levels (although some researchers suggest that nurturing an adopted
child may trigger hormonal changes).
"We desperately need to understand it more," she says.
The syndrome appears to be more common in women than in men, Dr. Foli
says, since women tend to be the primary caregivers. Stress, sleep
deprivation, lack of social support and a history of depression can
put women at greater risk for post-adoption depression, according to
experts in the field.
Also, many adoptive mothers have no parenting experience, notes Sandra
Scarth, president of the Adoption Council of Canada. For a career
woman who has enjoyed years of freedom, the demands of parenting can
be a shock, especially if the child isn't attaching to her well.
"Suddenly she's home all day with a child who really doesn't like her
very much," Ms. Scarth explains.
When depression strikes, adoptive mothers are often secretive about
it. They feel pressure from family and friends to rejoice in the child
they brought home after years of waiting, often at huge expense.
Most are reluctant to seek help from social workers, fearing the child
may be taken away - an unlikely event, according to Dr. McCreight.
Nevertheless, an estimated 11 to 18 per cent of adoptions break down
for various reasons during the probationary period (usually at least
six months), according to American researchers, and about 2 per cent
of adoptive families cannot cope after the adoption is finalized. In
both cases, the child returns to child-welfare authorities and may be
readopted.
As awareness of post-adoption depression grows, some agencies are
addressing the syndrome in their pre-adoption training sessions. But
people who long for children tend to believe it won't happen to them,
says Dr. McCreight, who has adopted 12 times.
"We think we're going to be the most wonderful parents and we're going
to form a family identity with no problem - and that's not going to
happen."
The expectation of "falling in love" with a child at first sight may
be unrealistic, according to Dr. Foli, since most relationships take
time to blossom and mature.
But the guilt of not bonding with a child immediately can be
"overwhelming," says Dr. Foli, who coped with depression after she
adopted her daughter from India about 10 years ago.
For Dina Rodrigues, post-adoption guilt cut deep. She sank into
melancholy and began to feel "really run down" a month after she
brought her 11-month-old daughter, Sierra, home from China, she says.
Ms. Rodrigues had no problem caring for her daughter's physical needs,
she recalls, but she worried she wasn't connecting with her
emotionally.
"It's like you have this amazing, wonderful child and you can't really
enjoy them," says Ms. Rodrigues, who lives in a suburb of Detroit.
Her anxiety intensified when her husband, Ashok, bonded with Sierra
easily. "I just felt there was something wrong with me," she says.
Having suffered from depression earlier in life, Ms. Rodrigues says,
she recognized the signs. Five months after the adoption, she saw a
therapist and started taking antidepressants "for my daughter's sake."
When a parent gets depressed, it doesn't mean the adoption has failed,
says Dr. McCreight. "It just means that you should get help, get it
fixed and move on as a family."
Major depression requires prescription medication, she says. As well,
a post-adoption counsellor can help parents find ways to get child
care and emotional support.
After Ms. Rodrigues began treatment, her daughter fell ill with a
stomach virus and wanted to be held by her day and night. The event
marked a turning point in their relationship, Ms. Rodrigues says.
"I was able to be emotionally there for her, and I think she saw
that."
That was two years ago, she adds, and they've had a close connection
ever since.
***
Warning signs
Experts say post-adoption depression shares symptoms with postpartum
depression:
Feeling sad, tearful, irritable
Self-imposed isolation from family, friends, spouse
Anger at the adopted child, spouse or other children for no apparent
reason
Desire to leave home or have the adopted child removed
Loss of interest or pleasure in most activities
Significant changes in appetite and sex drive
Insomnia or a marked increase in sleep
Fatigue, lack of energy
Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
Thoughts of suicide
Six years after adopting two boys, Michelle Brau was still unable to
form a bond with them. Now they're in a new home. She may have
suffered a condition many still don't understand: post-adoption
depression
ADRIANA BARTON
VANCOUVER — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Tuesday, Jun. 09, 2009
The minute she laid eyes on her adopted son, a seven-month-old
Guatemalan boy, Michelle Brau knew something was wrong, she says.
Instead of joy, she felt dread. Instead of wanting to comfort the
infant, she found herself not wanting him at all.
The negative emotions blindsided her, Ms. Brau says. She and her
husband, Jim, had yearned to adopt and add to their family of four
biological kids.
"I love children," says Ms. Brau, who lives in Springville, Utah.
But she couldn't bring herself to love her healthy new son, nor a
second boy, aged 2, whom the couple adopted from Guatemala months
later.
Ms. Brau says she assumed her affection for them would grow with time.
For more than five years, however, she avoided their hugs and was more
strict with them than with her other children, she recalls.
Consumed by guilt and shame, she told no one about her inability to
bond with the adopted boys.
"I felt like a monster," she says. "I longed to be dead."
When she finally confided in her husband six months ago, he did some
research online and concluded she had post-adoption depression, a
condition being studied by researchers but not yet recognized as a
psychiatric disorder.
According to adoption professionals, post-adoption depression can
range in severity from a few weeks of the blues to a major depression
that lasts months or longer. Like postpartum depression, it may bring
intense feelings of anxiety and guilt, fantasies of running away, and
suicidal thoughts.
Ms. Brau consulted two therapists, she says, but her feelings of
desperation did not change.
So this spring - nearly six years after they adopted the Guatemalan
children - the Braus contacted an agency to find them a new adoptive
home.
"These boys deserve so much more than I can give them," Ms. Brau says,
adding that her depression has lifted since the adoption was dissolved
last month. "I feel like me again."
The Braus' case may be extreme but the potential consequences of post-
adoption depression are recognized by a growing number of adoption
professionals.
Left untreated, it can lead to the breakdown of the adoption, says
Brenda McCreight, an adoption counsellor in Nanaimo, B.C. "I've seen
it break up marriages too."
Post-adoption depression didn't have a name until 15 years ago, and it
remains a new area of research. Early studies suggest it's "as
prevalent, or more so, than postpartum depression," says Karen Foli,
who co-authored The Post-Adoption Blues with her husband John
Thompson, a child psychiatrist.
A study published last month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Affective
Disorders found the rate of depression in women after adoption was
about 15 per cent - the same rate found in women who have given birth.
Dr. Foli, a professor of nursing at Purdue University in West
Lafayette, Ind., is partway through a study to assess whether the
tools used to diagnose postpartum depression are valid to screen for
post-adoption depression. Unlike mothers with postpartum depression,
who have a biological explanation for their bleak mood, adoptive
mothers cannot attribute their depression to a sudden drop in estrogen
levels (although some researchers suggest that nurturing an adopted
child may trigger hormonal changes).
"We desperately need to understand it more," she says.
The syndrome appears to be more common in women than in men, Dr. Foli
says, since women tend to be the primary caregivers. Stress, sleep
deprivation, lack of social support and a history of depression can
put women at greater risk for post-adoption depression, according to
experts in the field.
Also, many adoptive mothers have no parenting experience, notes Sandra
Scarth, president of the Adoption Council of Canada. For a career
woman who has enjoyed years of freedom, the demands of parenting can
be a shock, especially if the child isn't attaching to her well.
"Suddenly she's home all day with a child who really doesn't like her
very much," Ms. Scarth explains.
When depression strikes, adoptive mothers are often secretive about
it. They feel pressure from family and friends to rejoice in the child
they brought home after years of waiting, often at huge expense.
Most are reluctant to seek help from social workers, fearing the child
may be taken away - an unlikely event, according to Dr. McCreight.
Nevertheless, an estimated 11 to 18 per cent of adoptions break down
for various reasons during the probationary period (usually at least
six months), according to American researchers, and about 2 per cent
of adoptive families cannot cope after the adoption is finalized. In
both cases, the child returns to child-welfare authorities and may be
readopted.
As awareness of post-adoption depression grows, some agencies are
addressing the syndrome in their pre-adoption training sessions. But
people who long for children tend to believe it won't happen to them,
says Dr. McCreight, who has adopted 12 times.
"We think we're going to be the most wonderful parents and we're going
to form a family identity with no problem - and that's not going to
happen."
The expectation of "falling in love" with a child at first sight may
be unrealistic, according to Dr. Foli, since most relationships take
time to blossom and mature.
But the guilt of not bonding with a child immediately can be
"overwhelming," says Dr. Foli, who coped with depression after she
adopted her daughter from India about 10 years ago.
For Dina Rodrigues, post-adoption guilt cut deep. She sank into
melancholy and began to feel "really run down" a month after she
brought her 11-month-old daughter, Sierra, home from China, she says.
Ms. Rodrigues had no problem caring for her daughter's physical needs,
she recalls, but she worried she wasn't connecting with her
emotionally.
"It's like you have this amazing, wonderful child and you can't really
enjoy them," says Ms. Rodrigues, who lives in a suburb of Detroit.
Her anxiety intensified when her husband, Ashok, bonded with Sierra
easily. "I just felt there was something wrong with me," she says.
Having suffered from depression earlier in life, Ms. Rodrigues says,
she recognized the signs. Five months after the adoption, she saw a
therapist and started taking antidepressants "for my daughter's sake."
When a parent gets depressed, it doesn't mean the adoption has failed,
says Dr. McCreight. "It just means that you should get help, get it
fixed and move on as a family."
Major depression requires prescription medication, she says. As well,
a post-adoption counsellor can help parents find ways to get child
care and emotional support.
After Ms. Rodrigues began treatment, her daughter fell ill with a
stomach virus and wanted to be held by her day and night. The event
marked a turning point in their relationship, Ms. Rodrigues says.
"I was able to be emotionally there for her, and I think she saw
that."
That was two years ago, she adds, and they've had a close connection
ever since.
***
Warning signs
Experts say post-adoption depression shares symptoms with postpartum
depression:
Feeling sad, tearful, irritable
Self-imposed isolation from family, friends, spouse
Anger at the adopted child, spouse or other children for no apparent
reason
Desire to leave home or have the adopted child removed
Loss of interest or pleasure in most activities
Significant changes in appetite and sex drive
Insomnia or a marked increase in sleep
Fatigue, lack of energy
Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
Thoughts of suicide
Adult Adoptees Have A Right To Know
Philip Burge
Special to Globe and Mail Update, Friday, Jun. 05
Fundamentally, as an adopted person, I believe I have a right to know
the names of my birth parents. I don't have a right to speak with them
or meet them, but I definitely have a right to know the name I was
given at birth and the names of my birth parents.
This same right has been recognized as essential by the United Nations
in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada ratified it in
1992 and it is used by provincial and federal courts to help interpret
legislation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Unfortunately, Ontario government law and regulations continue to
block adopted citizens from enjoying this right. The province's new
Adoption Information Disclosure Act will not recognize it, since it
includes a disclosure veto that will prevent some of the several
hundred thousand people affected from learning valuable information
about their adoptions and backgrounds.
The enactment of Bill 183 was intended to address the wishes of adult
adoptees and birth parents by making available for the first time a
crucial piece of information - an adoption order with no information
omitted. The vast majority of them are ecstatic that they can now
apply for these orders, which will reveal the names of the other
party. For an adult adoptee, knowing a birth parent's full name can
greatly facilitate the search for a reunion, if desired by both
parties, or for useful medical information.
We now recognize just how valuable knowing one's health and genetic
history can be in averting or treating inherited diseases. In the
past, adult adoptees waited too long for this information - at times
during the past decade, there was a seven-year waiting list for
limited help from the government-operated Adoption Disclosure
Registry. As recently as 2005, as many as 60,000 adult adoptees or
birth parents were waiting for information or for a search to begin.
It's no wonder that the registry was the subject of frequent
investigations and criticism by the Ombudsman of Ontario.
The new act is undoubtedly popular. An avalanche of Ontarians are
applying for its many new services. In mid-morning on Monday, June 1 -
the day it came into effect - a worker with Service Ontario told me
with surprise that by noon, he expected the call volume to have
surpassed the already heavy daily volume of calls, which had become
the norm in the months since the beginning of the advertising campaign
announcing the new services.
But while we can expect a plethora of happy reunion stories, a few
thousand other adoptees can expect to have their rights go
unrecognized - how disappointing, and how avoidable.
For decades, many groups representing adult adoptees and birth parents
were supportive of and advocated strongly for most of the measures
found in the new act. When the legislation was finally passed, it put
Ontario near the forefront of international law, joining the ranks of
Australia, England and Scotland, plus U.S. states such as Alabama,
Tennessee and Oregon.
Until ... it didn't. A few adoptees and birth parents banded together
and applied to the courts to have the act quashed, or at least greatly
modified.
These detractors did not accept that the easily invoked contact veto
provision, already in the act, was a sufficient deterrent to unwanted
contact. The contact veto can be invoked by an adult adoptee or birth
parent to indicate desire not to be contacted by the other party, and
included a hefty $50,000 fine for anyone found to have ignored it.
Surprisingly, the dissenters won their case. Our government did not
appeal the verdict, instead introducing significant amendments with
far-reaching negative effects.
The worst of these is the inclusion of the disclosure veto, which
hardly promotes a balance of interests. The person who applies for it
has their wish respected. The other party is left with no recourse.
Clearly, the regressive veto concept does not recognize that all
adults have a right to know their original birth names and those of
their biological parents. Ontarians craving justice on this issue
await Act 2.
Philip Burge is a social worker and an associate professor of
psychiatry at Queen's University in Kingston.
And a response to this trenchant article:
Anne Patterson
London, Ont. — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Tuesday, Jun. 09, 2009
03:40AM EDT
Thank you, Philip Burge, for being a voice of honesty in a sea of
hysteria, myths and illusions (Adult Adoptees Have A Right To Know
More - online, June 8). Ontario's new adoption law does not go far
enough. It has created a two-tier system with the disclosure veto.
Closed adoption treats those adopted like the property of the
government and the chattel of those who adopted them. It is an
archaic, secretive system long overdue for change.
The veto should be removed, and all adoptees should have access to
their own files. What right do children's aid societies have to block
access to the very people to whom the files pertain? Secrets and lies
seem to be at the very heart of adoption.
Special to Globe and Mail Update, Friday, Jun. 05
Fundamentally, as an adopted person, I believe I have a right to know
the names of my birth parents. I don't have a right to speak with them
or meet them, but I definitely have a right to know the name I was
given at birth and the names of my birth parents.
This same right has been recognized as essential by the United Nations
in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada ratified it in
1992 and it is used by provincial and federal courts to help interpret
legislation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Unfortunately, Ontario government law and regulations continue to
block adopted citizens from enjoying this right. The province's new
Adoption Information Disclosure Act will not recognize it, since it
includes a disclosure veto that will prevent some of the several
hundred thousand people affected from learning valuable information
about their adoptions and backgrounds.
The enactment of Bill 183 was intended to address the wishes of adult
adoptees and birth parents by making available for the first time a
crucial piece of information - an adoption order with no information
omitted. The vast majority of them are ecstatic that they can now
apply for these orders, which will reveal the names of the other
party. For an adult adoptee, knowing a birth parent's full name can
greatly facilitate the search for a reunion, if desired by both
parties, or for useful medical information.
We now recognize just how valuable knowing one's health and genetic
history can be in averting or treating inherited diseases. In the
past, adult adoptees waited too long for this information - at times
during the past decade, there was a seven-year waiting list for
limited help from the government-operated Adoption Disclosure
Registry. As recently as 2005, as many as 60,000 adult adoptees or
birth parents were waiting for information or for a search to begin.
It's no wonder that the registry was the subject of frequent
investigations and criticism by the Ombudsman of Ontario.
The new act is undoubtedly popular. An avalanche of Ontarians are
applying for its many new services. In mid-morning on Monday, June 1 -
the day it came into effect - a worker with Service Ontario told me
with surprise that by noon, he expected the call volume to have
surpassed the already heavy daily volume of calls, which had become
the norm in the months since the beginning of the advertising campaign
announcing the new services.
But while we can expect a plethora of happy reunion stories, a few
thousand other adoptees can expect to have their rights go
unrecognized - how disappointing, and how avoidable.
For decades, many groups representing adult adoptees and birth parents
were supportive of and advocated strongly for most of the measures
found in the new act. When the legislation was finally passed, it put
Ontario near the forefront of international law, joining the ranks of
Australia, England and Scotland, plus U.S. states such as Alabama,
Tennessee and Oregon.
Until ... it didn't. A few adoptees and birth parents banded together
and applied to the courts to have the act quashed, or at least greatly
modified.
These detractors did not accept that the easily invoked contact veto
provision, already in the act, was a sufficient deterrent to unwanted
contact. The contact veto can be invoked by an adult adoptee or birth
parent to indicate desire not to be contacted by the other party, and
included a hefty $50,000 fine for anyone found to have ignored it.
Surprisingly, the dissenters won their case. Our government did not
appeal the verdict, instead introducing significant amendments with
far-reaching negative effects.
The worst of these is the inclusion of the disclosure veto, which
hardly promotes a balance of interests. The person who applies for it
has their wish respected. The other party is left with no recourse.
Clearly, the regressive veto concept does not recognize that all
adults have a right to know their original birth names and those of
their biological parents. Ontarians craving justice on this issue
await Act 2.
Philip Burge is a social worker and an associate professor of
psychiatry at Queen's University in Kingston.
And a response to this trenchant article:
Anne Patterson
London, Ont. — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Tuesday, Jun. 09, 2009
03:40AM EDT
Thank you, Philip Burge, for being a voice of honesty in a sea of
hysteria, myths and illusions (Adult Adoptees Have A Right To Know
More - online, June 8). Ontario's new adoption law does not go far
enough. It has created a two-tier system with the disclosure veto.
Closed adoption treats those adopted like the property of the
government and the chattel of those who adopted them. It is an
archaic, secretive system long overdue for change.
The veto should be removed, and all adoptees should have access to
their own files. What right do children's aid societies have to block
access to the very people to whom the files pertain? Secrets and lies
seem to be at the very heart of adoption.
June 9, 2009
A Facebook Reunion
Man given up for adoption aged just three days reunited with family traced on Facebook... after 33 years
By Daily Mail Reporter
05th June 2009
Robert Marks has found his long-lost family after tracing his sister through Facebook
A man who was given up for adoption as a newborn baby 33 years ago has found his long-lost family after tracing his sister on Facebook.
Now he has been welcomed back into the family with open arms and is set for an emotional meeting with them.
Mr Marks's story comes just days after Avril Grube used the social networking site to find her son Gavin Paros, 27 years after he was abducted by his estranged father.
Mr Marks has spent the past 15 years desperately searching for birth mother Carol Horridge in the Manchester area before turning to Facebook.
He messaged dozens of people with the same surname in the same area before his sister Andrea Roczniak replied saying 'I think you're my brother.'
Mr Marks, from Weymouth, Dorset, broke down in tears when he then called her. He said: 'I couldn't believe it when I realised I had found them.
'I called Andrea and she started telling me how she had been looking for me for 12 years and how I had a massive family waiting to meet me.'
He said it felt completely natural to speak with his sister after so many years of not knowing her.
'After that I called my mum,' he said.
'I could hear a faint voice blubbering so I said "hello mum" and that was it we were talking and crying for the next two and a half hours.
'Since then we have talked lots and I have been re-listening to a message over and over again just to hear her voice.
'I feel like my life has started again and I have a whole new family - I couldn't be happier if I won the Lottery.'
Mr Marks said he felt that Facebook had changed his life and admits he never would have found his family had it have not been for the social networking site.
He said he has spent hours on the phone with his new family and, as well as learning about the circumstances of his adoption, learnt they had plenty in common.
Mrs Horridge already had two children when she gave birth to her third baby at the age of 19.
She felt she was not able to support him and when he was just three-days-old put him up for adoption in order to give him a better life.
He was brought up by loving adoptive parents Beverly and Dorian, and older brother Andrew.
Ironically Mr Marks, grew up with his adopted parents living just two miles from his biological family.
'Our paths could have crossed many times over the years, and we've never known about it,' he said.
When he was 18, he said he was determined to find his real mother and contacted Bury Social Services for help.
He discovered his sister Andrea had already tried to contact him, dropping off a letter two years previously to the same social services but had since moved away.
Despite desperately searching for them he was unable to trace his mother or any of his siblings.
He said: 'I always knew I was adopted and I had real issues with feeling rejected and not knowing where I belong.
'I felt depressed when I was growing up - it was like a massive void that was never filled. But I don't blame my mother for what she did, she did the right thing.
'I had a five-star childhood, it was the best anyone could hope for and I'll always be grateful to my adopted parents for that.'
In her own search to find him, his sister applied for a copy of his birth certificate just last week.
She said: 'I had been searching for my lost brother for 15 years and I couldn't believe it when I saw his message.
'I was over the moon and I couldn't stop crying when I finally spoke to him.
'It means so much to me that he wanted to find us and now he's got a huge new family to get to know.
'We're all so excited for his visit, we're counting down the days. It's been like a rollercoaster.'
Mr Marks will travel to Manchester on Monday to meet his mother Carol, 52, sister Andrea, 35,and his older brother Mark, 37.
He said: 'Today, for the first time in my life, I feel complete with no worries.
'My burden has been lifted at long last - I feel like a completely different person.'
June 7, 2009
Pregnant Women Being Trafficked for Their Babies
Pregnant women being trafficked for their babies
Updated May 25, 2009 12:48:54
First world demand to adopt very young babies is driving a new twist in people smuggling, particularly in Asia.
One of Australia's senior law officers says more and more, smugglers are trading in pregnant women - the perfect incubators - for access to their newborns. Australia's Chief Federal Magistrate John Pascoe is presenting a paper on the issue to the LawAsia conference in Singapore, which is looking at children and the law.
He says that among the measures needed to fight the insidious trade should be a new system of children's rights. To illustrate the shift in focus for the smugglers, Mr Pascoe describes a 2003 case that happened off Indonesia.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Australia's Chief Federal Magistrate John Pascoe.
JOHN PASCOE: There were eight babies in the boat. They were packed in styrofoam fish boxes, that were punctured in order to enable them to breathe and put very crudely, this is seen by traffickers as not a particularly good way of moving children because there are health consequences and it is seen as both safer for the child and safer in terms of detection for them to move the pregnant mother across the national boundary.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Do you have any idea about the extent of the problem, what sort of numbers we're talking about?
JOHN PASCOE: Sadly this is a crime which is very hidden, trafficking generally is very much a hidden crime, but there are increasing numbers of reports, there are fortunately an increasing number of arrests in this area, so we believe that it's increasing and that the numbers are probably in the thousands rather than in tens or hundreds.
LINDA MOTTRAM: So why is this growing? Is it just because the trafficking progress is evolving? The traffickers are finding new and better ways, if you like, to move the people they want to move or are there other factors there?
JOHN PASCOE: We believe that trafficking is always motivated by economics, but also there is significant demand for children for adoption apart from anything else. I believe that most newly born children end up in some sort of illegal adoption process. There's huge demand from first world countries for very young children for adoption purposes.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Well, what can be done about this? There are international conventions on the rights and protection of children but clearly that's inadequate?
JOHN PASCOE: Yes, I think we need to encourage countries throughout the Asia Pacific region to become signatories to the various conventions that protect the rights of the child. and that is not universal across the region. And I am also putting forward that I think we need to move to a system that actually gives a child rights which crystallise the moment it is born and those rights should include a right to know its nationality, to know who its parents are and generally to be properly cared for.
MOTTRAM: But, is that sort of thing going to really do anything to stop traffickers who clearly are willing to go to any lengths to make money out of humans?
PASCOE: I think where there is money, human ingenuity will often find a way to get it. But I think this is really all about making it as difficult as possible. We also need to increase border protection, so that when somebody moves across a national boundary with a child that was not on their passport, for example, when they entered the country, that questions are asked and that officials don't turn a blind eye for whatever reason that they may choose to do that.
MOTTRAM: Do you think or have any sense of whether those adopting parents in the first world with sufficient money have any idea of where these babies are coming from?
PASCOE: Broadly speaking, I think no. I think many of them are genuinely motivated by the desire to give a child a better life and I think they would be horrified if they knew, for example, that the child had been stolen as sometimes occurred or that the mother actually had no idea what was really happening to her child.
(*You can "click" on the title to this post to be directed to the original article and listen to the actual interview online).
Updated May 25, 2009 12:48:54
First world demand to adopt very young babies is driving a new twist in people smuggling, particularly in Asia.
One of Australia's senior law officers says more and more, smugglers are trading in pregnant women - the perfect incubators - for access to their newborns. Australia's Chief Federal Magistrate John Pascoe is presenting a paper on the issue to the LawAsia conference in Singapore, which is looking at children and the law.
He says that among the measures needed to fight the insidious trade should be a new system of children's rights. To illustrate the shift in focus for the smugglers, Mr Pascoe describes a 2003 case that happened off Indonesia.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Australia's Chief Federal Magistrate John Pascoe.
JOHN PASCOE: There were eight babies in the boat. They were packed in styrofoam fish boxes, that were punctured in order to enable them to breathe and put very crudely, this is seen by traffickers as not a particularly good way of moving children because there are health consequences and it is seen as both safer for the child and safer in terms of detection for them to move the pregnant mother across the national boundary.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Do you have any idea about the extent of the problem, what sort of numbers we're talking about?
JOHN PASCOE: Sadly this is a crime which is very hidden, trafficking generally is very much a hidden crime, but there are increasing numbers of reports, there are fortunately an increasing number of arrests in this area, so we believe that it's increasing and that the numbers are probably in the thousands rather than in tens or hundreds.
LINDA MOTTRAM: So why is this growing? Is it just because the trafficking progress is evolving? The traffickers are finding new and better ways, if you like, to move the people they want to move or are there other factors there?
JOHN PASCOE: We believe that trafficking is always motivated by economics, but also there is significant demand for children for adoption apart from anything else. I believe that most newly born children end up in some sort of illegal adoption process. There's huge demand from first world countries for very young children for adoption purposes.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Well, what can be done about this? There are international conventions on the rights and protection of children but clearly that's inadequate?
JOHN PASCOE: Yes, I think we need to encourage countries throughout the Asia Pacific region to become signatories to the various conventions that protect the rights of the child. and that is not universal across the region. And I am also putting forward that I think we need to move to a system that actually gives a child rights which crystallise the moment it is born and those rights should include a right to know its nationality, to know who its parents are and generally to be properly cared for.
MOTTRAM: But, is that sort of thing going to really do anything to stop traffickers who clearly are willing to go to any lengths to make money out of humans?
PASCOE: I think where there is money, human ingenuity will often find a way to get it. But I think this is really all about making it as difficult as possible. We also need to increase border protection, so that when somebody moves across a national boundary with a child that was not on their passport, for example, when they entered the country, that questions are asked and that officials don't turn a blind eye for whatever reason that they may choose to do that.
MOTTRAM: Do you think or have any sense of whether those adopting parents in the first world with sufficient money have any idea of where these babies are coming from?
PASCOE: Broadly speaking, I think no. I think many of them are genuinely motivated by the desire to give a child a better life and I think they would be horrified if they knew, for example, that the child had been stolen as sometimes occurred or that the mother actually had no idea what was really happening to her child.
(*You can "click" on the title to this post to be directed to the original article and listen to the actual interview online).
Siblings Reunite Online
After More Than 40 Years, Siblings Reunite Online
Woman's Striking Resemblance to Man's Mother Prompted Connection
By MAUREEN WHITE
May 26, 2009
Classmates.com advertises that it can help users "find high school friends, plan reunions," but for one Mobile, Ala. pastor, the Web site led to an incredible family reunion 40 years in the making with a sister he never knew.
48-year-old pastor Joseph Lett first harnessed the power of social networking to attract young people to his ministry through Myspace or track down old Navy buddies through Classmates.com.
But everything changed for Joseph when one day, he decided to do a simple search for a sister named Patricia who his mother, Lilly Bell Lett, had told him about when he was just 10 years old. He grew up with four other siblings, but knew that one was missing.
"All she was was just a name," Joseph told "Good Morning America." "No one knew what happened to her, where she was."
Meanwhile, Patricia was 2,000 miles away in Sacramento, Calif. raising her own family with six grown children, but always wondering about the life that was taken from her. Given up at birth, Patricia never knew her biological family. Her first foster mother died and another kicked her out of the house.
"I remember looking up in the sky when I was 10 and I was out in the front yard and I said to the Father, 'Could I just have a family that loves me? Could you just give me people that love me? Just take me to a home where people love me,'" she said.
Then, less than a month ago, Patricia updated her online profiles on Match.com and Myspace by adding more pictures and writing about her past in foster care.
That's when Joseph decided to do a search on Classmates.com for his long-lost sister on a whim.
"I went online and I typed in Patricia Lett under the search and her picture showed up," he said. "The picture spoke a thousand words."
Joseph immediately recognized the spitting image of his mother in Patricia's face.
He immediately sent an e-mail to the Classmates.com account, but Patricia did not respond. So then he tried to track her down on Myspace and was eventually successful.
An E-Mail Reunites Starts a Family
The e-mail he sent then was short and to the point, but it was the start of the remaking of a family.
"My name is Joseph Lett," the e-mail began. "I am the pastor at Courts of Praise Christian Center in Mobile, Alabama. I really believe we need to talk. You share some striking resemblance to family members. Please call. Thanks."
When Patricia called she told said that on her birth certificate, her mother's name was Lilly Bell Lett.
"He said 'say no more. You're our sister,'" Patricia remembered.
"She started screaming and hollering and shouting and she said Hallelujah," Joseph said.
Not long after, Patricia talked to the rest of her siblings for the first time on a conference call, which prompted daily calls for weeks until a cross-country reunion was planned.
At the emotional airport reunion Patricia screamed and thanked God as she embraced her new brother and sisters for the first time.
"This is her. This is my sister. Thank you Jesus," Joseph said before the pair walked out of the airport holding hands.
"I always said if I had a family I would just laugh and make them laugh and I would just hug on them and love them so much," Patricia said. "This is the best day I have ever experienced in my life."
(*Click on the title of this post to be directed to the ABC article and video)
Woman's Striking Resemblance to Man's Mother Prompted Connection
By MAUREEN WHITE
May 26, 2009
Classmates.com advertises that it can help users "find high school friends, plan reunions," but for one Mobile, Ala. pastor, the Web site led to an incredible family reunion 40 years in the making with a sister he never knew.
48-year-old pastor Joseph Lett first harnessed the power of social networking to attract young people to his ministry through Myspace or track down old Navy buddies through Classmates.com.
But everything changed for Joseph when one day, he decided to do a simple search for a sister named Patricia who his mother, Lilly Bell Lett, had told him about when he was just 10 years old. He grew up with four other siblings, but knew that one was missing.
"All she was was just a name," Joseph told "Good Morning America." "No one knew what happened to her, where she was."
Meanwhile, Patricia was 2,000 miles away in Sacramento, Calif. raising her own family with six grown children, but always wondering about the life that was taken from her. Given up at birth, Patricia never knew her biological family. Her first foster mother died and another kicked her out of the house.
"I remember looking up in the sky when I was 10 and I was out in the front yard and I said to the Father, 'Could I just have a family that loves me? Could you just give me people that love me? Just take me to a home where people love me,'" she said.
Then, less than a month ago, Patricia updated her online profiles on Match.com and Myspace by adding more pictures and writing about her past in foster care.
That's when Joseph decided to do a search on Classmates.com for his long-lost sister on a whim.
"I went online and I typed in Patricia Lett under the search and her picture showed up," he said. "The picture spoke a thousand words."
Joseph immediately recognized the spitting image of his mother in Patricia's face.
He immediately sent an e-mail to the Classmates.com account, but Patricia did not respond. So then he tried to track her down on Myspace and was eventually successful.
An E-Mail Reunites Starts a Family
The e-mail he sent then was short and to the point, but it was the start of the remaking of a family.
"My name is Joseph Lett," the e-mail began. "I am the pastor at Courts of Praise Christian Center in Mobile, Alabama. I really believe we need to talk. You share some striking resemblance to family members. Please call. Thanks."
When Patricia called she told said that on her birth certificate, her mother's name was Lilly Bell Lett.
"He said 'say no more. You're our sister,'" Patricia remembered.
"She started screaming and hollering and shouting and she said Hallelujah," Joseph said.
Not long after, Patricia talked to the rest of her siblings for the first time on a conference call, which prompted daily calls for weeks until a cross-country reunion was planned.
At the emotional airport reunion Patricia screamed and thanked God as she embraced her new brother and sisters for the first time.
"This is her. This is my sister. Thank you Jesus," Joseph said before the pair walked out of the airport holding hands.
"I always said if I had a family I would just laugh and make them laugh and I would just hug on them and love them so much," Patricia said. "This is the best day I have ever experienced in my life."
(*Click on the title of this post to be directed to the ABC article and video)
Dad, 26-year-old daughter get reacquainted
Just before CSUF graduation, a family reunites
Dad, 26-year-old adopted daughter get reacquainted in Fresno.
Published online on Friday, May. 22, 2009
By Chris Collins / The Fresno Bee
The phone rang.
Elizabeth Cox could tell from the caller ID that it was James Cliffe III -- a man she had never spoken to, but who shared the same name as her biological father. A father she had never met. Was this he?
With much hesitation, she answered.
Adopted at birth, Cox had only a handful of records with her parents' names and birth dates. For years, she debated whether she should try to find them. But what would she say? "Hi, I'm your daughter" -- it seemed too strange.
Instead, Cox endured the teasing and nagging that adopted children can go through -- "at least my parents wanted me," some of her peers told her.
That didn't stop the Clovis West High School graduate from living her life -- college, music, sports, art, traveling the world. She took it all in. At 17, she moved out on her own.
Independent and stubborn? She freely admits it.
But about a month ago -- as she was finishing up her classes and preparing to graduate from California State University, Fresno, so she could pursue a writing career -- Cox, 26, decided it was time. She was grateful for her adopted parents, Tim and Jodi Cox, but couldn't go through her whole life without knowing her flesh and blood.
She scoured the Internet and chased down a cell phone number for the Rev. James Cliffe III living in the Los Angeles area. There is no way my father is a reverend, she thought. But she called anyway. She got his voicemail.
"Hello, my name is Elizabeth Cox," she said. "Could you please call me back?"
About an hour and a half later, Cliffe called. Cox asked him if he knew a woman named Caroline Purra -- without mentioning that that was her mother's name.
For 15 seconds -- silence.
Then Cliffe's voice came through on the other end: "I've been looking for you for 26 years," he said.
For the next two hours, the father and daughter who had never met -- but had always wondered about each other -- talked about their lives, their pasts and their dreams. They raced to send photos of each other over Facebook.
Cliffe, 63, told Cox about the family she had never known -- including her older half-sister and older half-brother. He told her about his failed relationship with her mother. He told her that he had always loved her.
For the next month, neither had the chance to visit the other in person -- until Friday. Cox invited Cliffe to attend her graduation ceremony this weekend. He said he would be there.
As Cliffe drove from Los Angeles on Friday morning, Cox sat at a coffee shop fidgeting nervously. Her father -- her real father -- would be here soon.
"This is crazy. All those nights staying up wondering and questioning and thinking ... " she said, looking off into the distance and suddenly at a loss for words.
They agreed to meet at a restaurant near Fresno State. Cox went without any friends or family -- she wanted this to be her own thing.
Turning a corner, she came face to face with a slightly chubby, well-dressed man.
"There you are!" she said.
The father and daughter hugged. They took a look at each other. Then they hugged again.
"You're just like your sister," Cliffe said.
At the lunch table, the two swapped stories. The menus were left alone. When a waitress asked a third time if they were ready to order, Cox apologized.
"I'm sorry, I'm meeting my dad for the first time," she said, laughing.
Cliffe, it turns out, was not always a minister. He said he grew up in Illinois and moved to the Los Angeles area to sell insurance. He opened restaurants and bars and hired Purra at one of them.
They fell in love, but split up after about a year. The last time Cliffe saw Purra, she was eight months pregnant with his daughter. Neither he nor Cox had been able to find Purra.
Cliffe's life spiraled downward as he struggled with alcohol and drug addictions. He became homeless. Then, one night in October 1994, Cliffe said, he had a "spiritual experience" in which he felt compelled to get his life in order.
For the past 15 years, he said, he has been clean and sober.
Cliffe also went on to become a minister and start a $750,000-a-year program that provides housing and rehabilitation for parolees. His preaching became popular and he got his own television show, he said.
But throughout the years, Cliffe wondered about his daughter. Every once in a while, he would see someone who looked like she could be her, but never was. He checked hospital records, but found only dead ends.
When Cox called him last month, Cliffe said he kneeled down and thanked God.
Cliffe and Cox, it turns out, share more in common than their green eyes. They both are Dodgers fans, like sports, play pool and enjoy public speaking. And they aren't afraid to pursue life head-on.
"You'll find that as you get out into the world, you'll possess another quality of mine," Cliffe told his daughter. "Mind over matter: If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
By the end of lunch, Cliffe and Cox seemed to have known each other for years. They teased each other. No question was too personal. And when Cox warned her father that she tended to hold on to new friends and that he was "stuck with her now," Cliffe replied, "I don't feel stuck."
"It's not over," he said. "It's just the beginning."
The reporter can be reached at ccollins@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6412.
Ruling Opens Up Doors To Past
LITTLETON - It's something many of us may take for granted, knowing your medical history or being able to go and get a copy of your birth certificate.
But many adopted Coloradans whose adoption records are sealed don't have access to this information that could be life changing, even life-saving.
A Colorado Court of Appeals decision made in April will change this reality for thousands.
According to the decision, people whose adoptions were finalized between July 1951 and July 1967 can find out the names of their birth parents and have access to all court records and papers regarding their adoption.
Littleton's Deborah Bort is among those who will benefit from this ruling.
At 6 weeks old, Bort was adopted. During the 47 years since, she's known nothing about her birth parents.
"I have a little blurb on my records that just said that both my parents were healthy, no known anything," Bort said.
Bort has spent a lot of time trying to get more than just the handful of adoption papers her parents saved. It's more than just curiosity. She and her youngest son Cody have osteogenesis imperfecta, which is caused by an error called a mutation on a gene that affects the body's production of the collagen found in bones, and other tissues. It is not caused by too little calcium or poor nutrition. Bort wonders whether her adoption documents would reveal anything else.
"This is huge for me because now I know that I have access to my records and I can find out if there is any medical history there for me and for my children and for their children," she said.
In recent years, some of this information has been available through court-appointed third parties, but adoptees like Bort had to pay for the service.
This ruling, supporters say, makes the process a lot easier.
"We're the product of two streams of love, one from adoptive families and one from birth families. We need to know both," said Richard Uhrlaub, co-director of Adoptee in Search/Colorado's Triad Connection. "For people during that time period, it was a different age, adoptions weren't open like they are now. Some people weren't told they were adopted, some people were given records that had a birth parent name but they were lost or perhaps their adoptive parents didn't give that to them. This is very significant both in terms of family connection and in terms of recognition of adoptees as adults."
In Colorado, some have made legal arguments that adoption records should not be unsealed because that violates the privacy of the birth parents and siblings.
The courts have historically rejected those arguments. Uhrlaub said people affected by the appeals court decision can go to the county where their adoptions were finalized to get those records.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment keeps the birth certificates. A spokeswoman tells 9NEWS they're working on a specific procedure for adoptees to apply for their birth certificates.
Since 1999, adoption records in Colorado have been open. State law says adoptions that happened between 1967 and 1999 remain sealed unless the adoptee works with a court-appointed third party or gets a court order to have them opened.
Bort said she was excited to learn about her past.
"I have wanted to know for so long and it's not that I want to know who my parents are, I just want the medical history," she said.
To learn more, go to http://www.geocities.com/aisdenver/ or call the Adoptees in Search/Triad Connection Help Line at 303-232-6302.
(Copyright KUSA*TV, All Rights Reserved)
Comments from readers:
Kudos to Jeff Hannasch, the adoptee who set this in motion. If it wasn't for his tenaciousness, after being rejected by two courts, this ruling would have never taken place. Bravo, Jeff!
I'm an adoptee whose children were also born with genetic disabilities which aren't detectable by genetic testing (last time I checked only about 17% were). Although I've now found my birthfamily and have a medical history, I would have been born 3 months too late for this ruling to help me.
Hopefully this ruling will help open the doors for the other thousands of Colorado adoptees in search of their history.
Kudos Jeff, and Rich! And to Holland and Hart, for taking on the case.
(*Restoring SOME adult's right to obtain their original birth certificate and this vital information, but not others, is a travesty, based on myths perpetuated by the adoption industry of "implied" (never written in law) confidentiality and privacy issues. If a "birthmother" relinquished her child for adoption, but for some reason the child was never adopted, their birth certificate was NEVER SEALED or amended (falsified). Amended birth certificates are only created upon adoption, and "sealing" original birth certificates is done only when an adoption is finalized. These "sealed records" laws were enacted to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the adoptive family, so birthparents were not able to find or know where their baby was placed. It was NEVER INTENDED to protect the privacy/confidentiality of birthmothers, and they never agreed to it or even asked for it ~ it was enforced upon them when society gave them no choice but to surrender their babies for adoption in those days of "shameful" pregnancies out-of-wedlock. These are archaic laws which fail to protect the very "adoptee" whose best interest is supposed to be paramount. All states need to follow suit with the six U.S. states that have restored UNCONDITIONAL ADOPTEE ACCESS to their original records of birth ~ with no conditions such as "vetos" or adoptees who were only born in certain years, but not others. It is, in a sense, like Lincoln freeing only CERTAIN slaves and restoring their full-rights as American citizens, but not others. Civil rights movements have been long, hard-fought battles. I am so thankful that Martin Luther King, Jr. and others NEVER GAVE UP. They were criticized and ridiculed in their era of history, but now all of America celebrates their efforts to bring equality to ALL Americans, whatever their color. Adopted adults, and their children after them, deserve the same right as every other citizen to their own personal record of birth, identity, genealogical and medical histories. When will America WAKE UP?)
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