Who Decides for Me and My Child?
Dept. of Inhuman Services? by LJS In 1983, we started the Kentucky special needs adoption process. We made it clear that we would adopt only if we could find a family willing to have as open an adoption as the state would allow, including pictures, letters, phone calls and eventual meeting. We pushed the last two ideas on our Social Worker who told us that she doubted if there were any birth parents who would want this - and that it would surely add a couple of years to The Wait.
We said,
Fine, we'll wait.
Possibly not what she was expecting to hear, but that's the way we felt. We had a biological child and were able to have more, but we simply wanted to adopt a special needs child.
We waited three years (the average wait was 6-12 months) and were selected by [birthmother]
because we wanted an open adoption. Our agreement was that we would start with a regular exchange of letters and photos through the Social Worker as intermediary.
The first year, I wrote every week and sent pictures. Then, the Social Worker told us that [birthmother]
needed to get on with her life
so we should only write twice a year.
I cut back to every two months, and she passed them along even though we weren't following instructions.
At the end of the second year, she said,
Two per year or else!
This went on for eight years, and then we stopped getting any letters.
When I called the Social Worker, she said
Nope, haven't heard a word.
Two years went by, three years, four years, more. I called every 2-3 months. The Social Worker told us [birthmother] had gotten married, and perhaps her husband didn't want her to write.
So I wrote to the file for two more years, and finally called her again to learn if she had any more news. She said,
Stop writing to the file! I can't forward them, so stop!
This was the first time she had been kind of "grouchy" and it made me suspicious. I could not believe that my son's birthmom had changed so much - that she wouldn't want to know him, or know about him. So I set out to find her.
After 18 months of detective work, I located her sister-in-law, and what did I find? [Birthmother] had been calling the Social Worker
every month for years BEGGING for news of her child. The Social Worker told her she never heard from us, and to
just wait until he was 18.
I am so angry at this lady for deciding on her own that we didn't have the brains to know what we wanted for our child! She broke every promise she made, and with
no good reason! She almost succeeded in turning us against each other by telling us that the other one had ended the relationship when, in fact, it was
she who made
our decisions! What gave her the right to decide to sever these ties? It was only her "job" -
it was our lives! She has caused us to lose so many years that can never be retrieved.
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Comments
This is horrible. This social worker needs to get a life. Going back on what she told both the birth parent and the adoptive parents should have serious consequences. She is dealing with two families here! I am sure that she felt it was "in the best interests of the child," but she probably just does not have a clue. This whole article just has me extremely keyed up. The damage that she has done will never be completely healed. I hope that this birthmother and adoptive family has managed to rebuild some sort of relationship if that is what they wanted.
Posted by: jmrodg at 11/29/2005 01:40 PM
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