November 29, 2008

Couple Reunites Through Daughter

Separated for More Than 35 Years, Couple Reunites Through Daughter
High School Sweethearts Reconnect Through Their Adopted Daughter
By JEN PEREIRA
Oct. 17, 2008 —
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=6052809

When Ann Lansing set out to find her biological mother, she had no
idea her quest would end in reuniting two long-lost lovers.

Nearly four decades ago at a New Year's Eve party in 1967, 17-year-
old Eileen Campbell first laid eyes on 19-year-old Jack Crowley.

"He was just the cutest guy ever," Campbell told "Good Morning
America."

"He just had these twinkling eyes that did it. I was done."

Crowley felt the same way.

"We just hit it off," he said. "We were very comfortable with each
other. I was taken."

The two fell in love, but several months into their relationship,
Campbell became pregnant. The couple started making plans to marry,
but her mother said she would not allow it.

"She said it would bring humiliation on the family," Campbell
recalled. "And she said if I really loved the child, I would give her
up for adoption."

After giving birth to a baby girl, Campbell placed her for adoption
and, forced to separate from each other, the young couple moved on to
new lives. Each had other children, but the pain of the past
lingered.

"I have never forgotten," she said. "It was always there. I thought
about both of them every day."

But then, in 2003, the child she gave up came looking for her -- Ann
Lansing found her mother.

"I was married and thinking of having children," Lansing told "Good
Morning America."

"I thought 'wouldn't it be a good time to search for my parents?' And
with the advent of the Internet, it was amazingly easy."

Within a day of finding each other, Lansing and Campbell started
talking.

"You do want to know why you were given up," Lansing told "Good
Morning America."

"You do want to know why things didn't work out with your biological
family, and hearing it from her, it was a sense of completion."

Soon after, mother and daughter decided to try and track down
Campbell's long-lost love.

When they did, the fire of love that had been smoldering for years
was reignited and the widowed Crowley and the divorced Campbell fell
in love all over again. They were married this past July where their
daughter performed the ceremony.

"After the ceremony and after the kiss, I looked at her and I
said, 'We're married. We did it, baby,'" Crowley said.

Campbell said, "My life has come full circle. This is the life I was
supposed to lead. In some ways, there's some sadness to that, but
there's joy, obviously."

The miracle is not lost on Lansing.

"What was meant to be is, maybe a few years later," she said. "But
what was meant to be has become real."


Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

From Russia with Love?

From Russia With Love -- Dealing With Difficult Adoptions
Adoptive Parents Say They've Struggled to Integrate Foreign-Born
Children
By JUJU CHANG, JIM DUBREUIL and KETURAH GRAY
Nov. 28, 2008—
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6322100


After years of failed fertility treatments, Tanya and Mike Mulligan
warmed to the idea of foreign adoption after seeing an ad in the
newspaper touting a Russian program.

The couple wanted to adopt older children who wouldn't require the
late-night feedings, teething and potty training of an infant or
toddler, and in July 2004 they traveled to a remote Russian orphanage
to adopt two sisters, Margarita, then 11, and Elena, 8.

The adoption agency appeared to have found a perfect match for the
couple, right down to the blond hair that the sisters had, just like
the Mulligans.

"What we were told prior to the adoption was that they came from a
loving family," said Tanya Mulligan, a nurse in Tampa, Fla., who was
then in her early 40s.

Once in the United States, Elena quickly embraced her adopted country
and culture, watching "Finding Nemo" dozens of times to learn
English. But Margarita was a study in contrasts.

Less than a week after leaving Russia, the 11-year-old began to show
troubling behaviors, losing herself in fits of rage for hours.

Watch the story Friday on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

"She started having a meltdown and crying, and we couldn't figure out
what was going on," Tanya Mulligan said. "She was running around the
house and wailing."

Her adoptive parents didn't speak Russian and Margarita understood
very little English. She was crying, out of control and because of
the language barrier, there was little her parents could do, they
said.

Eventually, Mike Mulligan picked up a video camera and began filming
Margarita's behavior, wanting to show Margarita's therapist and other
family members how chaotic their lives at home had become.


Foreign Adoption: Family Struggles
As the Mulligans learned more about their daughters' pasts, they say
they learned the girls' upbringing was far from the description of a
loving family.

The Mulligans said the sisters' biological mother was an alcoholic
and a prostitute who left the girls and their baby brother with their
grandmother, who, they say, routinely abused them.

"Elena apparently got the brunt of it," Tanya Mulligan said. "[The
grandmother] used to take her and swing her around the room and smash
her face into the wall."

Tanya Mulligan said the girls told her about one night when their
grandmother kept hitting their baby brother with her cane until he
stopped crying. The police came the next day and the girls were sent
to the orphanage. They never saw their baby brother again and seemed
traumatized by his disappearance.

Wanting to give their daughters a new brother like the one they
missed so much, the Mulligans -- who always wanted a son -- adopted a
4-year-old Russian boy named Sasha shortly after adopting their
girls.

Margarita and the boy, whom the Mulligans renamed Slater, were
eventually diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, or RAD, a
common diagnosis for many children adopted from foreign orphanages
where they were sometimes neglected and abused. Children with RAD
have difficulty bonding with their new families and often act out.

Over time, the Mulligans said, Slater was also diagnosed with the
eating disorder pica, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, low IQ,
Tourette's syndrome and dyslexia. Today, he's a third-grader only
capable of doing kindergarten-level work.

"One of these diagnoses on their own would be a lot for a parent to
handle," Tanya Mulligan said.

Tanya and Mike Mulligan are now suing the adoption agency for
damages, because they say they weren't told of their children's
psychological conditions.

But in court records obtained by "20/20," the adoption agency argues
the Mulligans agreed to assume the risk that their adopted
children "could arrive with undiagnosed physical, emotional, mental
and /or developmental problems."

The Mulligans' lawsuit is pending.



The Unthinkable: Disrupting an Adoption
Eventually, after life became unbearable, the Mulligans sent their
daughter to a boarding school specializing in behavioral issues. But
after two years, they realized they could no longer afford the
$40,000-per-year tuition. In June, Margarita returned to her home in
Tampa.

"We are doing everything in our power not to return them," Mike
Mulligan said. "We didn't set out to do this [adoption] to just, you
know, simply exchange them or give them back."

"I didn't want perfect children," his wife said. "But I didn't want a
child that was going to hurt me. I didn't want a child that was going
to disrupt my family and disrupt my marriage and make my relatives
turn against me. I didn't want children that would make us feel like
outcasts in our own neighborhood, isolate us and make us feel
humiliated." In the last 20 years, foreign adoption has become more
popular; Americans now adopt about 19,000 children per year from
overseas. While the vast majority adjust successfully, surveys
suggest anywhere from 10 percent to 25 percent of foreign adoptions
end in disruption.

Disruption refers to the ending or "disrupting" of an adoption. The
majority of these children are from eastern Europe and have spent
their formulative years either in institutionalized state-run care or
with family members ill-equipped to care for them.

In some cases, the biological mothers of these children suffer from
alcoholism, leading children to suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome.
Many of these children also have bonding and attachment issues.

Like the Mulligans, many adoptive families deplete their savings and
cash in retirement funds to pay for the doctors, tutors,
psychologists and therapists that their kids need.

The Department of Health and Human Services says that 81 children
adopted from overseas were put into foster care in 14 states in 2006.
For kids who are 16 and older, JobCorps -- which helps students learn
a trade, earn a high school diploma or GED and get help finding a
job -- is an option as a sort of aging-out program.

But an undocumented number of children are simply lost, part of an
underground, undisclosed network of children who are transferred
between families, adoption experts say.



When the Worst Happens
At its most desperate, the situation between adoptive children and
parents can turn deadly. Since the early 1990s, the murders of 15
Russian children by their adoptive parents have been documented.

"People don't understand. These kids come at you every day & many
times a day," Tanya Mulligan said. "It's like a battering ram and
they just keep at you and keep at you and keep at you. And finally,
they'll do something that endangers either a pet, or you or another
child in the family and you snap."

Peggy Hilt, 36, was one of those adoptive parents who snapped. She's
serving 17 years in a maximum security prison in Virginia for the
2005 murder of her adopted daughter, Nina, 2.

Hilt and her husband adopted Nina from Russia in 2004. Nina was the
second child they'd adopted from Europe and Hilt said from the
beginning she was withdrawn and often impossible to handle.

"She would bang her head on the wall, she would pull her hair out if
something frustrated her," she told "20/20."

A stay-at-home mom, Hilt says she began drinking heavily in secret,
downing close to a 12 pack of beer each day. The alcohol made her
even more impatient with her children, as it did on the day when she
finally lost patience with Nina.

"Nina picked up a fork off the table and went towards [her sister]
with it, and I saw red," Hilt said. "I grabbed her and I snapped. I
hurt her. I didn't mean to hurt her. Then I kicked her with the side
of my foot and told her to get up and then I put her up in her bed
and struck her repeatedly."

Two days later, Nina died from internal bleeding. Hilt admitted that
what she did was inexcusable, but says she had never heard of RAD and
didn't know that help was available to her. She said she's sharing
her story hoping that no other woman has to walk in her shoes.


The Adoption Whisperer
Across the country, at the edge of Glacier National Park in Montana,
Joyce Sterkel understands the despair that many adoptive parents and
children feel. She raised three Russian-born teens, one of them a boy
who had tried to poison his first adoptive mother.

She has dedicated her life to preventing American parents from
disrupting their adoptions.

"It's like a divorce, with all the ramifications of a divorce," she
said. "Legal, spiritual, emotional, financial -- it's a divorce. I
think these parents are just hurt people that are afraid for their
lives. I am the last person to judge them because I have seen
children that, for lack of a better word, truly are sociopaths."

In 1999, Sterkel opened the Ranch for Kids, a last stop for parents
who can no longer handle their adoptees and are considering giving
them up. It can house 40 kids at a time and is at capacity with a
long waiting list.

"It's really sad because many times the parents are at the end of
their rope and they're crying on the other end of the phone, 'Please
help!'" Sterkel said.

Though she's a nurse and not a trained psychologist, Sterkel has an
uncanny ability to reach these emotionally damaged children.

"I'm very honest with them," she said. "And I'm straightforward and
sometimes very blunt."

The Mulligans, seeking help to avoid disrupting their adoption, spent
several months consulting with Sterkel on how to deal with Margarita
and Slater.

"I still feel that there's a soul in there that can be salvaged, a
heart that can be saved," Tanya Mulligan said.


Rebuilding Families, One Step at a Time
Sterkel suggested that all three Mulligan children -- even the
seemingly unaffected Elena -- should visit the ranch. So this
summer "20/20" flew them to Montana to stay at the ranch for a week.

The Ranch for Kids is all about structure and obeying the rules.
Every morning, the kids line up for a bare-bones breakfast and then
head to their chores and classes. Some kids are on laundry duty while
others muck-out horse stalls. A school on campus allows the kids to
keep up with their studies.

Sterkel is no-nonsense when it comes to disciplining both the parents
and the kids.

"It's the No. 1 sin of adoptive parents, is the overindulgence of
commercial and material benefits," she said. "We're not here to
entertain children. We're here to give you a work ethic and teach you
how to work and how to be responsible. And how important the family
is, your connections with people."

Child psychologists say Sterkel is on to something, but it can take
years to teach respect, set limits and build self-esteem.

In the week that the Mulligan children spent at the camp, some
progress was made. For Tanya and Mike Mulligan, there's a sense of
camaraderie with other parents.

"We're not alone," Mike Mulligan said. "We thought for the longest
time -- other children are experiencing the same behaviors. The
parents are at different breaking points. And the camp is really kind
of a catch-all."

Margarita had a breakthrough at camp, telling "20/20" that in Russia,
she had been the favored daughter, but in America she feels like she
plays second fiddle to Elena.

"She's an extremely hurt kid," Sterkel said. "She has a lot of pain
inside of her and she doesn't want you to see it."

Margarita says she thinks her parents wanted to buy her love.

"They always take us shopping. And, if they buy us things, they think
that we like them because they're buying things for us," she said.

At the end of the week, she had a surprise for her mother -- a hug.

"I almost didn't know how to react," Tanya Mulligan said. "She
actually reached for me and I was very, very surprised. I was very
happy that for once she was reaching for me. Just once, it felt very
good."

The Mulligans are understandably afraid to put too much stock in such
a moment, but say they're "cautiously optimistic."

"There are millions of children out there that need parents," Mike
Mulligan said. "Every child deserves to have a loving home. I think
the message really that we're trying to send is 'be prepared.'"


Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

November 26, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving


May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

"Let us give THANKS to the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures FOREVER"

Korean Adoptee Finds Mother After Decade

http://kaaltv. com/article/ stories/S675841. shtml?cat= 10151
KAALtv.com

Posted at: 11/24/2008 12:26:28 PM
By: Michelle Knoll
Minn. Korean adoptee finds birth mother after decade

More on Jon Huston's story

Susanna Song's Blog:
Why is Minnesota a hot bed for Korean Adoptees?

Searching for birth mom

Follow an adopted Korean trying to find his birth mom

Minnesota is home to thousands of Korean adoptees. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS
followed one them, Jon Huston, on his amazing journey to find his
birth mother.
Huston and his wife, Carrie, live in Buffalo, Minnesota where they
both grew up. But that is not where his life story began.

Huston's biological father was an American soldier who met his
biological mother in Korea. His father later died in the Vietnam War.
His mother was too poor to raise him. 37-years ago, when Jon was 6-
years-old, she decided to give her only child up for adoption.

"It had to have been the hardest decision she had to ever make," said
Huston.

He was adopted in 1971 by a Minnesota family. The state has since
become home to 13,000 Korean adoptees. That is the most in any one
place in the world.

"Minnesotans are very accepting," said social worker Hyun Sook Han.
She said she placed many of those children here because Minnesota is
one of the most progressive states for adoptions.

Despite that, Huston said he felt like an outcast in Minnesota. He
said kids made fun of his eyes and dark hair. It all changed for him
in fourth grade.

"A fourth grade teacher who probably was the best teacher for me. He
helped me fit in. He really helped me deal with it and supported me,"
said Huston.

From that point on he began making friends. He was even on the
homecoming court in high school. He met and married his wife. His
life
seemed complete until he held his daughter for the first time after
her birth 11 years ago.

"For a mom to give up a child, it's probably the most love they could
absolutely do," said Huston.

Huston spent ten years unsuccessfully looking for his birth mother,
until he went on a popular Korean TV show. It is a reality show where
Korean adoptees share their stories in hopes their birth parents may
be watching. He appeared via webcam from his home in Buffalo.

"I needed to this for her sake, ease her mind. I didn't want her to
go
to her grave thinking of her son," said Huston.

Seven days after Huston appeared on the show, his birth mother was
found.

"I didn't sleep that night after they confirmed 100-percent this was
her. I was so emotional I cried," said Huston.

On October 14, Huston went back on the show via webcam to see his
birth mother for the first time in 37 years. It was also the first
time he had heard his Korean name since she gave him up.

"Hong Soo, I miss you and I want to see you. I'm sorry Hong Soo," she
said.

"Here she was on Korean TV with baby pictures of me. I told my wife I
had baby pictures," said Huston.

Huston's birth mother told him she looked at those pictures everyday.

"She lived by herself and that was hard for me to hear that," said
Huston. Their time on the show together was brief, but very
fulfilling.

"I feel a piece of my puzzle is finally together," said Huston.

Huston was separated from his birth mother on Dec. 30, 1971. They
will
reunited in person on Dec. 30, 2008.

Man Switched at Birth Discovers Truth at Age 57

Man Switched at Birth Discovers Truth at Age 57
http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S675841.shtml?cat=10151

Imagine for a moment finding out that you switched at birth -- that
the hospital made a mistake and gave you to the wrong family, and
that
the baby that was supposed to be your parent's baby was given to
another set of parents. Imagine through your entire life you were
teased and sometimes shunned by your own family for being different
and that your father even accused your mother of having an affair.
Imagine finding all of this out when you are 57 years old!

Pembroke, MA (PRWEB) November 23, 2008 -- Frederick George was raised
as a Roman Catholic in a Lebanese family of 13 children but should
have been raised in a Scottish Presbyterian family of five, if not
switched at birth.

"I was accidentally placed in the wrong bassinet at the hospital the
night I was born and did not discover this until I was 57 years old,"
says George. "The result is that I lived a life that should have been
someone else's and he lived a life that should have been mine."

George tells the heart-wrenching story of two families forever
impacted by a nurse's simple mistake in the autobiography, Switched
at
Birth: My Life in Someone Else's World (ISBN- 978-1439204825, Sept
2008, BookSurge, 218 pages, $15.99).

Switched at Birth tells of growing up with a father who always
suspected George was someone else's son, of how the birth switch was
discovered, and how the author came to terms with the fact that he
had
been living in someone else's world.

"The man I knew as my father, John George, occasionally - sometimes
in
fun and sometimes more seriously -- accused his wife of having had an
affair before I was born," says George, "I didn't look Lebanese. As
it
turns out, I wasn't even slightly Lebanese!"

George was raised the son of John and Ngaire George in a Lebanese
community in Dunedin, New Zealand, where he remained for 26 years
until moving to America about 35 years ago. It took more than half a
century for George to learn he was actually born the son of Gordon
and
Helen Churchman. Of his four parents, only birth mother Helen
Churchman is still alive at age 85 in New Zealand.

The other "switched child", Jim Churchman, had become good friends
with the author's brother, Michael George, and met the George family
members growing up. As an adult, Jim Churchman suffered a heart
attack
and began exploring family medical histories for heart attacks --
none
in the Churchman's, several in the George's.

At the request of the author's brother Philip, via Jim Churchman,
Frederick George took a DNA test while visiting New Zealand and the
results confirmed the switch.

"The mother who raised me, Ngaire George, was the greatest person in
my life and will always be my mother," says George, "and Helen
Churchman will always be Jim's mother. I can't break away from my
history. I love these people. I've grown up with the Georges. I can't
leave them or trade them in as you might do with an old shoe."

Helen Churchman writes her recently-discovered birth son once a week
in an attempt to bond with a son she has not known for 56 years. "We
are in pretty close touch," says George, "and we are trying to get to
know each other. She is one of the reasons I wrote this book. I want
her to know her son; to know not just that I am but to know who I am."

Another reason George wrote Switched at Birth was to offer advice to
anyone who has been adopted, fostered out, or switched at birth to be
themselves, maintain old family ties while bonding with a new family,
accept their fate and get on with life. Switched at Birth is
available
at fine booksellers everywhere, online at Amazon, BN, Ablebooks,
BooksinPrint and the author's web site: www.switchedatbirth .org FOX-
25
Boston calls it an "incredible story."

About the Author

Frederick George and wife Paula have two grown children and a
grandchild and are living in Pembroke, MA. George, a veteran of the
New Zealand Army, has worked in a slaughterhouse, maintenance in a
factory, as a landscaper, baker and hairdresser among many other
jobs.
He now works in a deli department at a supermarket when not spending
time with his children and infant grandson.

To Save Adopted Girl, CA Couple Gives Her Up

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5heSxCktvPWKpNkcB6EUY
NjFHDLkAD94K38RO0

Jennifer and Todd Hemsley pose for a photograph at their home Sunday,
Oct. 26, 2008, in Los Angeles. Like thousands of other would-be
parents, the California couple went to Guatemala in hopes of bringing
home a baby, paying a $15,500 down payment to a U.S. agency that
guaranteed quick, hassle-free adoptions. And like all the rest, they
found themselves caught up in a bureaucratic limbo when Guatemala
began cracking down against systemic fraud last year. (AP Photo/Ric
Francis)

To save adopted girl, Calif. couple gives her up
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA 2 days ago
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) Jennifer and Todd Hemsley had to give up their
child to save her.
Like thousands of other would-be parents, the California couple made
a
$15,500 down payment to a U.S. agency that guaranteed quick, hassle-
free adoptions of Guatemalan babies. And like the others, they were
caught in a bureaucratic limbo after Guatemala began cracking down on
systemic fraud last year.
Many Americans with pending adoptions lobbied hard for quick approval
of their cases, trying to bypass a new system designed to prevent
identity fraud and the sale or even theft of children to feed
Guatemala's $100 million adoption business.
But Jennifer Hemsley did what Guatemala's new National Adoptions
Council says no other American has done this year: She refused to
look
the other way when she suspected her would-be daughter's identity and
DNA samples were faked.
She halted the adoption of Maria Eugenia Cua Yax, whom the couple
named Hazel. And she stayed in Guatemala for months, spending
thousands of dollars, until she could safely deliver the girl into
state custody.
Her decision could mean the Hemsleys � Jennifer is a freelance
designer and Todd creates visual effects in the film industry � may
never be able to adopt the little girl they nicknamed "la boca," or
mouth in Spanish, in honor of her outsized spirit.
"It's so crazy. None of this makes any sense," Hemsley told The
Associated Press. "I miss her deeply. There are no words."
But she says it was the only thing she could have done, morally.
"It wasn't even a choice. We did what I hope any parent would do: put
their child first."
The Hemsleys say they had many reasons for suspicion. But the final
straw was a doctor's statement that said DNA samples were taken from
the baby and birth mother on a date when Hazel was with Jennifer
Hemsley. She said her Guatemalan attorney told her, "Don't worry
about
it, you want the adoption to go through, don't you?"
If all it takes is a doctor's signature to hide a switch in DNA, it
would challenge the bedrock evidence on which the U.S. Embassy has
depended to guarantee the legitimacy of thousands of Guatemalan
adoptions over the past 10 years. Doctors' statements are routinely
accepted on faith by the U.S. Embassy, Guatemalan authorities and
adoptive American parents.
Neither country has the appetite for challenging already-approved
adoptions. But Hemsley says anyone who has doubts about an adopted
baby's true identity should know that the Guatemalan DNA evidence
might be worthless.
___
Guatemala's quick adoptions made the nation of 13 million the world's
second largest source of babies to the U.S. after China. But last
year
the industry was closed down, starting with an August 2007 raid on
what had been considered one of the country's most reputable adoption
agencies.
Voluminous fraud has been exposed since then � false paperwork, fake
birth certificates, women coerced into giving up their children and
even baby theft. At least 25 cases resulted in criminal charges
against doctors, lawyers, mothers and civil registrars.
Thousands of adoptions, including that of the Hemsleys, were put on
hold until this year, when the newly formed National Adoptions
Council
began requiring birth mothers to personally verify they still wanted
to give up their children. Of 3,032 pending cases, nearly 1,000 were
dismissed because no birth mother showed up.
Prosecutors suspect many of the babies in these cases never existed �
that Guatemalan baby brokers registered false identities with the
council in hopes of matching them later to babies obtained through
fraud.
Understaffed and with few resources, the adoptions council ruled out
new DNA tests as too costly and time-consuming. All but a few hundred
cases have been pushed through in the months since.
"The ramifications are immense," Hemsley said. "How many children
adopted by U.S. families may have had DNA falsifications such as
this,
and the U.S. adopting family is unknowing of the fraud?"
Prompted by the Hemsleys, Guatemalan investigators are trying to
determine Hazel's true identity and have opened a criminal
investigation into the people who vouched for her paperwork � from
the
U.S. adoption agency to Guatemalan notaries, foster parents, a doctor
and the laboratory that said it collected the girl's DNA.
Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who now leads investigations for the
adoptions council, praised Jennifer Hemsley.
"This makes me believe that there are people who still hold ethical
values," he said. "She could have easily ignored her suspicions and
gone ahead with the paperwork; instead she decided to risk the
adoption to do what she believes was right."
In an earlier case of switched DNA, Esther Sulamita, a girl stolen at
gunpoint and given a false identity, was recognized and recovered by
her birth mother in July just before an unknowing Indiana couple
could
adopt her.
Dr. Aida Gutierrez handled the DNA for both Hazel and Esther
Sulamita.
Now under investigation for allegedly forging birth documents, she
told prosecutors she followed established procedures. She refused an
interview, saying the embassy prohibited her from talking with the
media, a claim the embassy denies.
The problem could be solved by improving the chain of custody over
DNA
evidence � for example, by requiring new mother-and-child saliva
samples taken under the supervision of a government authority that
would send it directly to U.S. labs for testing.
But the embassy still says it must depend on the ethics of the
Guatemalan doctors involved. The adoptions council president,
Elizabeth de Larios, says more DNA tests would mean more costs and
"more and more months of being away from loving families" for the
babies in question.
___
Guatemala's old, fraud-plagued adoption industry was still going full
speed in June 2007 when the Hemsleys first held the 4-month-old girl.
"It was magical and a gift, and a feeling beyond description, "
Jennifer Hemsley said.
But even before their case was turned over to the adoptions council,
the Hemsleys were suspicious. The supposed birth mother disappeared
after a brief meeting where she "had no visible reaction at all to
the
child," Hemsley said.
Medical reports seemed obvious forgeries, without letterhead or
doctor's signature. And during a critical hearing, Hemsley said, her
Guatemalan advisers tried to pay a stranger to pose as Hazel's foster
mother.
"Todd and I felt a lot like, 'Gee, is this really happening?' Maybe
we
should just look the other way and keep plodding along, because every
time I tried to tell someone, nobody cared," Hemsley said. "I
couldn't
look the other way. I just couldn't turn my head."
Ricardo Ordonez, the Hemsleys' adoption attorney, denied any fraud
and
vowed to clear his name by producing the birth mother for new DNA
tests. Another court hearing is pending.
If the Hemsleys had walked away, as hundreds of other Americans did
after problems surfaced, Hazel would likely have been abandoned or
reoffered for adoption under another false identity, Tecu said.
Instead, Jennifer Hemsley stayed with Hazel for months, draining more
than $70,000 from a second mortgage on their home and paying for a
trusted nanny.
"She was a real take-charge little girl," Hemsley said. "We had a
little walker for her and she's just a real daredevil. She always let
you know what she wanted."
Finally, as a colleague of Ordonez threatened to take the girl away,
she asked the adoptions council for a "rescue."
The new rules require authorities to consider Guatemalan citizens
before Americans, and several dozen Guatemalan couples are in line
ahead of the Hemsleys. But they aren't giving up yet.
Jennifer Hemsley returned this month to Guatemala City, where she
briefly held Hazel � now more than 19 months old � at a crowded
orphanage. She emerged devastated.
Crying and shaking, she said Hazel had open sores on her face and a
cut on her head. Within hours, she managed to persuade authorities to
transfer the girl to a better nursery while the case is resolved.
"I think about her every day," Hemsley said. "It's horrifying on many
levels. It's horrifying for Guatemalan women who may have missing
children ... It's horrifying for adoptive families in the U.S. My
parents are devastated over this. This affects our whole entire
family, our friends, our neighbors."

To Save Adopted Girl, CA Couple Gives Her Up

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5heSxCktvPWKpNkcB6EUY
NjFHDLkAD94K38RO0

Jennifer and Todd Hemsley pose for a photograph at their home Sunday,
Oct. 26, 2008, in Los Angeles. Like thousands of other would-be
parents, the California couple went to Guatemala in hopes of bringing
home a baby, paying a $15,500 down payment to a U.S. agency that
guaranteed quick, hassle-free adoptions. And like all the rest, they
found themselves caught up in a bureaucratic limbo when Guatemala
began cracking down against systemic fraud last year. (AP Photo/Ric
Francis)

To save adopted girl, Calif. couple gives her up
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA 2 days ago
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) Jennifer and Todd Hemsley had to give up their
child to save her.
Like thousands of other would-be parents, the California couple made
a
$15,500 down payment to a U.S. agency that guaranteed quick, hassle-
free adoptions of Guatemalan babies. And like the others, they were
caught in a bureaucratic limbo after Guatemala began cracking down on
systemic fraud last year.
Many Americans with pending adoptions lobbied hard for quick approval
of their cases, trying to bypass a new system designed to prevent
identity fraud and the sale or even theft of children to feed
Guatemala's $100 million adoption business.
But Jennifer Hemsley did what Guatemala's new National Adoptions
Council says no other American has done this year: She refused to
look
the other way when she suspected her would-be daughter's identity and
DNA samples were faked.
She halted the adoption of Maria Eugenia Cua Yax, whom the couple
named Hazel. And she stayed in Guatemala for months, spending
thousands of dollars, until she could safely deliver the girl into
state custody.
Her decision could mean the Hemsleys � Jennifer is a freelance
designer and Todd creates visual effects in the film industry � may
never be able to adopt the little girl they nicknamed "la boca," or
mouth in Spanish, in honor of her outsized spirit.
"It's so crazy. None of this makes any sense," Hemsley told The
Associated Press. "I miss her deeply. There are no words."
But she says it was the only thing she could have done, morally.
"It wasn't even a choice. We did what I hope any parent would do: put
their child first."
The Hemsleys say they had many reasons for suspicion. But the final
straw was a doctor's statement that said DNA samples were taken from
the baby and birth mother on a date when Hazel was with Jennifer
Hemsley. She said her Guatemalan attorney told her, "Don't worry
about
it, you want the adoption to go through, don't you?"
If all it takes is a doctor's signature to hide a switch in DNA, it
would challenge the bedrock evidence on which the U.S. Embassy has
depended to guarantee the legitimacy of thousands of Guatemalan
adoptions over the past 10 years. Doctors' statements are routinely
accepted on faith by the U.S. Embassy, Guatemalan authorities and
adoptive American parents.
Neither country has the appetite for challenging already-approved
adoptions. But Hemsley says anyone who has doubts about an adopted
baby's true identity should know that the Guatemalan DNA evidence
might be worthless.
___
Guatemala's quick adoptions made the nation of 13 million the world's
second largest source of babies to the U.S. after China. But last
year
the industry was closed down, starting with an August 2007 raid on
what had been considered one of the country's most reputable adoption
agencies.
Voluminous fraud has been exposed since then � false paperwork, fake
birth certificates, women coerced into giving up their children and
even baby theft. At least 25 cases resulted in criminal charges
against doctors, lawyers, mothers and civil registrars.
Thousands of adoptions, including that of the Hemsleys, were put on
hold until this year, when the newly formed National Adoptions
Council
began requiring birth mothers to personally verify they still wanted
to give up their children. Of 3,032 pending cases, nearly 1,000 were
dismissed because no birth mother showed up.
Prosecutors suspect many of the babies in these cases never existed �
that Guatemalan baby brokers registered false identities with the
council in hopes of matching them later to babies obtained through
fraud.
Understaffed and with few resources, the adoptions council ruled out
new DNA tests as too costly and time-consuming. All but a few hundred
cases have been pushed through in the months since.
"The ramifications are immense," Hemsley said. "How many children
adopted by U.S. families may have had DNA falsifications such as
this,
and the U.S. adopting family is unknowing of the fraud?"
Prompted by the Hemsleys, Guatemalan investigators are trying to
determine Hazel's true identity and have opened a criminal
investigation into the people who vouched for her paperwork � from
the
U.S. adoption agency to Guatemalan notaries, foster parents, a doctor
and the laboratory that said it collected the girl's DNA.
Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who now leads investigations for the
adoptions council, praised Jennifer Hemsley.
"This makes me believe that there are people who still hold ethical
values," he said. "She could have easily ignored her suspicions and
gone ahead with the paperwork; instead she decided to risk the
adoption to do what she believes was right."
In an earlier case of switched DNA, Esther Sulamita, a girl stolen at
gunpoint and given a false identity, was recognized and recovered by
her birth mother in July just before an unknowing Indiana couple
could
adopt her.
Dr. Aida Gutierrez handled the DNA for both Hazel and Esther
Sulamita.
Now under investigation for allegedly forging birth documents, she
told prosecutors she followed established procedures. She refused an
interview, saying the embassy prohibited her from talking with the
media, a claim the embassy denies.
The problem could be solved by improving the chain of custody over
DNA
evidence � for example, by requiring new mother-and-child saliva
samples taken under the supervision of a government authority that
would send it directly to U.S. labs for testing.
But the embassy still says it must depend on the ethics of the
Guatemalan doctors involved. The adoptions council president,
Elizabeth de Larios, says more DNA tests would mean more costs and
"more and more months of being away from loving families" for the
babies in question.
___
Guatemala's old, fraud-plagued adoption industry was still going full
speed in June 2007 when the Hemsleys first held the 4-month-old girl.
"It was magical and a gift, and a feeling beyond description, "
Jennifer Hemsley said.
But even before their case was turned over to the adoptions council,
the Hemsleys were suspicious. The supposed birth mother disappeared
after a brief meeting where she "had no visible reaction at all to
the
child," Hemsley said.
Medical reports seemed obvious forgeries, without letterhead or
doctor's signature. And during a critical hearing, Hemsley said, her
Guatemalan advisers tried to pay a stranger to pose as Hazel's foster
mother.
"Todd and I felt a lot like, 'Gee, is this really happening?' Maybe
we
should just look the other way and keep plodding along, because every
time I tried to tell someone, nobody cared," Hemsley said. "I
couldn't
look the other way. I just couldn't turn my head."
Ricardo Ordonez, the Hemsleys' adoption attorney, denied any fraud
and
vowed to clear his name by producing the birth mother for new DNA
tests. Another court hearing is pending.
If the Hemsleys had walked away, as hundreds of other Americans did
after problems surfaced, Hazel would likely have been abandoned or
reoffered for adoption under another false identity, Tecu said.
Instead, Jennifer Hemsley stayed with Hazel for months, draining more
than $70,000 from a second mortgage on their home and paying for a
trusted nanny.
"She was a real take-charge little girl," Hemsley said. "We had a
little walker for her and she's just a real daredevil. She always let
you know what she wanted."
Finally, as a colleague of Ordonez threatened to take the girl away,
she asked the adoptions council for a "rescue."
The new rules require authorities to consider Guatemalan citizens
before Americans, and several dozen Guatemalan couples are in line
ahead of the Hemsleys. But they aren't giving up yet.
Jennifer Hemsley returned this month to Guatemala City, where she
briefly held Hazel � now more than 19 months old � at a crowded
orphanage. She emerged devastated.
Crying and shaking, she said Hazel had open sores on her face and a
cut on her head. Within hours, she managed to persuade authorities to
transfer the girl to a better nursery while the case is resolved.
"I think about her every day," Hemsley said. "It's horrifying on many
levels. It's horrifying for Guatemalan women who may have missing
children ... It's horrifying for adoptive families in the U.S. My
parents are devastated over this. This affects our whole entire
family, our friends, our neighbors."

November 23, 2008

Mothers Seeking Children Given Up for Adoption

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=3D/20081122/OPINION03/81=1220313/1038

Mothers seek children given up for adoption

In 1966 at the age of 20, Tina Caudill of Hazel Park found herself
pregnant and unmarried. While today she would be considered a single
mother, back then she was a disgrace to her family and community.

When her employer found out -- she was working as a secretary in
Detroit -- Caudill was forced to quit her job. She hid her pregnancy
and the job loss from her parents, telling them she had been
transferred temporarily to St. Louis, Mo.

To keep up the ruse, she set up a post office box in St. Louis and
got a subscription to the local paper so she could provide tidbits of
local happenings in letters from her new phantom home. In reality,
Caudill spent her pregnancy as a contracted, live-in domestic a few
miles away from her home.

Immediately after she gave birth to a son, she felt forced to give
the baby up for adoption. Because the culture deemed her "damaged
goods" and her baby "illegitimate," Caudill kept silent about her
long-lasting grief, never even telling her own mother that she had a
grandson.

In 1972, Caudill founded the Adoption Identity Movement of Michigan
(AIM) in her own living room, bringing together birth mothers like
her who shared their private pain with each other. At the end of each
meeting, they would all light candles in honor of their lost children.

Now, Caudill and AIM members are largely credited with spearheading
the open adoption records movement in Michigan, which seeks to give
adult adoptees access to their birth certificates. As it now stands,
adoption records for those born between 1945 and 1980 are sealed.
Last June, a bill that would open those sealed birth certificates
passed the Michigan House of Representatives with overwhelming
support: 99 to 10. But the bill has languished in the Michigan Senate
ever since. Caudill fears if it isn't voted on before the legislature
breaks for the holidays, it will be stalled indefinitely .

"There will be a new batch of leaders we will have to re-educate and
we will have to start all over," Caudill says.

"I know the legislature has a lot of priorities. But we've been
waiting for so long already."

Two years ago, Caudill was largely responsible for putting me in
touch with close to 35 birth mothers who put their babies up adoption
under duress. Now, in their 50s and 60s, many of them were plucked
from high school or college and ferried in secrecy to maternity
homes. Back home, in order to keep up the lie, friends and family
were told the teen went to care for an ailing aunt or to spend a year
in Europe.

They gave birth to babies they were never allowed to hold -- some
girls were even blindfolded during childbirth. They were told to put
this "bad chapter" behind them and were expected to resume their
lives back at school as if it never happened. Not surprisingly, they
could do neither.

While the confidentiality and secrecy inherent in the closed-records
era of adoption laws was partyly intended to protect birth mothers'
anonymity lest they be scorned or their children taunted, over the
decades, society has changed significantly. Studies have repeatedly
shown that many of those concerns, like the stigmas themselves, no
longer apply.

Still, an adult adoptee born during the closed era in Michigan has no
access to his or her own birth certificate from which to search for
his parents.

In Caudill's case, as soon as her son turned 18, she began to search
for him. It took her five years. She considers herself one of the
lucky ones. In a recent e-mail Caudill wrote: "Today my birth son,
who I have been reunited with for 17 years, called me from the
examining room at his doctor's office to ask who in his birth family
had high blood pressure. He said his was 'off the charts,' as he put
it. He told the doctor, he didn't know, but that he could find out
with a phone call. Think how many adult adoptees wish they had the
luxury to check on their medical histories every time they went to
the doctor."

Many of the birth mothers I interviewed had devastating repercussions
from decades-long grief over "giving away" their children. To this
day, they said, the most troubling part was not knowing how their
children are faring. They would search faces in crowds, at airports,
in stadiums. Who knows how many adult adoptees were staring back? So
many of them told me that while the love they have for their adoptive
parents is irreplaceable, they felt something was missing: a piece of
their identity.

One of them said: "In essence, we are being protected from each other
when we don't want to be protected."

Caudill is right: They have waited long enough.

Marney Rich Keenan's column runs in The Detroit News Features section
on Wednesdays and in Homestyle on Saturdays. You can reach her at
(313)222-2515 or mkeenan@detnews.com

November 22, 2008

Council Supports Adoptee's Rights Bill

O'port council supports adoptees' rights bill
BY LIZ SHEEHAN Correspondent

OCEANPORT — The Borough Council unanimously approved a resolution that supports passage of a bill in the state Legislature that would give adopted people access to information about their birth parents.

The resolution supports the language of the proposed bill, which would provide adoptees access to the "adopted person's original birth certificate and the adoptive parents of a minor the right of access to the adopted person's original birth certificate and related medical and cultural information, upon request."

The council members voted on the resolution at the Nov. 6 meeting, after Thomas McGee, a former borough councilman, asked for their support.

McGee said the bill, S-37-3, had been passed by the state Senate but was being held up in the Assembly. He said the Assembly bill had 23 sponsors but "can't be posted" because "it seems the leadership is standing in the way."



McGee said he had been adopted and found his birth mother in 2000. He said that members of her family told him how much happier his birth mother was after they were reunited.

"I don't know a woman who would surrender her child and not want to know what happened to her child," McGee said.

He said that before contacting his mother, he did not know his medical history and was concerned there could be a health issue that could affect him and his family.

After the meeting, McGee, who is a member of the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education (NJCARE), said the group is asking municipalities to pass the resolution to prompt the Assembly to take action on the bill.

He said Camden, High Bridge, Trenton, Morristown and West Milford have also passed the resolution, and it was waiting to be acted on in other municipalities.

There are now nine states that give adoptees access to their birth certificates, McGee said.

The resolution passed in Oceanport states that the state Legislature has considered similar legislation since 1980, and bills giving access to birth certificates passed in the Assembly in 1991 and 1994 and in the Senate in 2004, 2006 and this year.

NJCARE wants the bill placed in the Assembly Human Services Committee so it could go to the full Assembly for a vote.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr., who makes that decision, has yet to do so.

Roberts did not return several calls to his office concerning requests for information about his position on the bill.

On Monday, Nov. 17, NJCARE was scheduled to hold a rally on the steps of the New Jersey Statehouse and has invited Senate and Assembly sponsors and co-sponsors of the bill to the rally.

Marlene Lao-Collins, director of social concerns for the New Jersey Catholic Conference, said the conference has formed an alliance with New Jersey Right to Life, the New Jersey Bar Association and the American Civil Liberties Union to oppose the bill.

She said the bill would unilaterally unseal the records and would not allow the birth parent to maintain their privacy.

The bill provides that for a 12-month period after its passage, the birth parent can submit a form to the state requesting nondisclosure, which would prohibit the release of the birth certificate.

When the request is acknowledged by the state, the birth parent must file a family history with medical, cultural and social history within 60 days, or the request for nondisclosure will be nullified.

Lao-Collins said this is a "punitive action." But adoptees should have access to medical and cultural information, she said.

She said she hopes a compromise can be reached on the bill.

Judy Foster, 61, Morristown, who said she was a birth mother, said she was married for 10 years before she told her husband that she had given birth to a daughter when she was much younger. He encouraged her to look for her daughter, she said, but Foster said it took her 10 more years until she worked up the courage to do so.

"I didn't feel I had the right," she said, and she went to therapy before beginning the search.

Foster said she wrote to the agency that had arranged the adoption, and after two and a half months, she received a "cold letter" that said her letter would be placed on file. Then she decided to hire a private detective, Joe Collins, who specializes in such cases.

Two and a half weeks later, Foster said, she sat in her kitchen with Collins and he pulled a photograph out of a folder.

It was her daughter's high school graduation picture.

"It could have been my high school picture," Foster said.

Her daughter was 37 and she was 55 when they were reunited, she said.

Foster, who is now retired, said she was devoting her time to work for the passage of the bill to open birth certificates.

"This is a basic human right to know your heritage," she said.

Foster said that adoptees are "starting to get a voice."

NJCARE, the group she is working with, is "just grass roots normal," she said.

Foster said that when she gave up her baby for adoption, she was not promised confidentiality nor did she request it, although those opposed to opening the records say that is the case with birth mothers.

What she did sign, she said, was a promise not to interfere with the family the baby was placed with.

Foster also said that she believes even if a birth mother signed a contract asking for confidentiality at the baby's adoption, once the child is not a minor, this should no longer hold, as is the case with other contacts signed for a minor by a parent, and the adoptee should have the right to the information about himself or herself.

November 21, 2008

Year Later, Baby Ordered Back to Adoptive Parents

By JOSH FUNK
Associated Press Writer

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday ordered a year-old boy back into the home of an adoptive couple who had to give him up months ago after not telling the biological family the woman was pregnant.

The court ruled that the boy - who has been living with his biological grandparents and is known by two names - should never have been taken from adoptive parents Jason and Angela Vesely because nothing in a written agreement required them to tell the Nebraska Children's Home Society that Angela was pregnant.

The ruling won't take effect for at least 10 days, but both the adoption agency and the biological family could fight the decision, potentially delaying the boy's move.

Megan Lynn Morgan of Sutherland, the boy's birth mother, had said she wanted her son to be an only child with the adoptive family and that she wanted an open adoption, an arrangement that grants biological parents many rights.

The Veselys, of Verdigre in northeast Nebraska, said they planned to tell Morgan that Angela was pregnant but were waiting because she had previously miscarried three children. She later gave birth prematurely, but the child is now at their home.

Kelly Tollefsen, one of the Vesely's lawyers, said the couple welcomed Friday's ruling.

"The Veselys are obviously excited and want to get Morgan back in their home as soon as possible," Tollefsen said. "They were very happy and elated."

P. Stephen Potter, who represents the Morgans, said he still needed to meet with his clients to discuss the ruling.

"I'm sure they'll do everything they can to maintain custody of the child," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Children's Home said Friday that officials planned to fully evaluate the ruling before deciding how to respond.

The Veselys applied to adopt in 2005, and Jason Vesely has said his wife was more than four months pregnant when the agency assigned the child to them in late 2007.

The boy lived with the Veselys from the time he was 4 days old until a Knox County district judge ordered him removed in February at 3 months. The agency placed him with the biological mother's parents in Sutherland in central Nebraska.

The boy has been known by two different names. The Veselys called him Morgan Jason Vesely, but the Morgans called him Brett Jonathan Morgan.

Here's the previous article when the baby was removed from the adoptive family:

Judge Orders Baby Removed Because Adoptive Parents hid Pregnancy

Lincoln, Neb.

Feb 15, 2008
Reporter: Associated Press
Email Address: desk@kolnkgin.com

A judge has ordered a couple to return a baby boy they were trying to adopt, saying the couple should have revealed that the woman was pregnant during the adoption process.

The ruling was filed Friday morning.

Judge Patrick Rogers of Knox County District Court said the parents trying to adopt the boy, Jason and Angela Vesely, were not honest with the adoption agency.

And Rogers said the Veselys violated the trust of the 22-year-old biological mother, who no longer supported the placement.

The 3-month-old boy's mother has said she wanted her son to be an only child with the adoptive family and that she wanted an open adoption.

The agency plans to place the boy with the biological mother's parents.

And the Verdigre couple who were ordered to give up the boy they wanted to adopt say they are devastated by the judge's ruling.

Previously, the Vesleys had said they didn't mean to deceive the boy's biological mother and the adoption agency. They said they delayed disclosing Angela's pregnancy because she had miscarried three children previously.

But the 3-month-old boy's mother wanted her son to be an only child with an adoptive family and she wanted an open adoption.

The lawyer for the boy's mother, P. Stephen Potter, said Angela Vesely was asked directly if she was pregnant during an adoption interview last fall, and the Veselys lied.

Potter said the boy's family doesn't believe the problems with this adoption were the Nebraska Children's Home Society's fault.

Find this article at:
http://www.kolnkgin.com/home/headlines/15670932.html

Copyright © 2002-2008 - Gray Television Group, Inc.

"I gave my adopted son back..."

Why after waiting years for a baby, I gave my adopted son back

She had years of fertility treatment. When that failed she went through endless vetting for adoption. Finally, Yvette and her husband were given the baby of their dreams. So why, after just two weeks, did it go so wrong?

By Kathryn Knight

Daily Mail, London
14th November 2008

Yvette Maguire gave up her adopted son, for fear she couldn't love him properly.
The beautifully decorated nursery has long since been wallpapered over and turned back into an office.
The baby clothes and toys have been given away, and the cheerful family photographs which dotted the room have been placed at the bottom of a drawer.

There is nothing at all to suggest this was once a child's bedroom. But a little boy did, for a time, sleep in this room.
He was a cheeky two-year- old called Ben, and his arrival two years ago into the life of Yvette Maguire and her husband Mark had initially been joyful, marking an end to years of infertility.
The couple had endured nearly two years of a protracted adoption process to find him and had believed fervently that he was the son they had always dreamed of.

But just two weeks after his arrival, 39-year-old Yvette made the astonishing decision to return him to foster care. Instead of fulfilling her maternal instincts, Yvette found herself facing a terrible conflict: her smiling new arrival reminded her only of her own biological failings.

She realised she would never be able to love Ben properly, and made the devastating choice to give him back. It was a decision she acknowledges that some people will never understand or approve of. Even some of her own friends do not feel she gave herself a chance to bond with her adoptive son.
But Yvette stands by her decision, insisting that, far from being selfish, she was simply doing the best thing by her little boy. 'I'm not an ogre. I know some people will think I should have given it longer, that I was selfish and that I couldn't cope so I did the easiest thing. But it wasn't like that,' she says.

'Not a day goes by when I don't think about him and I still feel empty inside. Every day I torture myself over whether I let him down. But deep down I know I did the right thing. 'Ben did absolutely nothing wrong. It wasn't about him, it was about me. You hear so many different stories about adoption being difficult, but they are always centred on the children.

'No one looks at it from the point of view of a woman who has not been able to have a child of her own and the effect that can have. I simply wasn't prepared for it emotionally.'
Her story is certainly an antidote to the usual happy-ever-after tales of adoption. And Yvette admits that it never occurred to her that she might reject her son.

But then she had always assumed she would be able to have children. The youngest of three sisters from a loving family, Yvette, a fine art student, had spent most of her early years dreaming of the time she would become a mother.
'I wanted the fairytale - the husband, the lovely home, and the babies.'

IVF proved fruitless
After meeting her future husband Mark, now 37, at the age of 23, she seemed set to achieve her dream. Fixed up on a blind date by her sister, the couple hit it off immediately, eventually settling into a comfortable family home in Horley, Surrey.
Mark worked as a project manager in the City, while Yvette was a florist. They spent their 20s in a whirl of foreign holidays and spirited nights out. Having married in 2001, they started trying for children but were not unduly concerned when it did not happen immediately.
Subsequent tests, however, revealed that Yvette carried a high level of the hormone FSH, which can impede conception, as well as suffering mild endometriosis, which required surgery.

'I was very stressed,' says Yvette, 'I felt the pressure acutely. Everyone around me was having children.'
After 18 months, Yvette was referred to a specialist, who suggested the couple try IUI, a less invasive form of infertility treatment in which the ovaries are stimulated but the eggs are not harvested.

No bond:
Yvette couldn't connect with her adoptive son because he wasn't her own (pictured posed by model)
But after three unsuccessful attempts, the couple decided to embark on IVF. The couple told themselves they would only undergo one round, but ended up paying for three cycles, all of which proved fruitless.
'I didn't ever fall pregnant and after the third attempt the doctor as good as told me, very politely, that I shouldn't waste my money any more,' Yvette says. 'It was a hugely emotional time.'

There were, of course, still options, but one of them at least neither Yvette nor Mark would countenance.
'Some friends suggested we consider surrogacy, but we knew it wasn't right for us. We'd always had this thing that it was either both of us or none of us.'

So did warning bells not ring when they decided to embark on the adoption process?
'If I put my hand on my heart, I think I pushed my husband into adoption,' Yvette confesses. 'We had talked about it in the past and he had said he didn't feel he wanted to go down that road.
'I think he had reconciled himself to a life without children. But he knew how desperate I was and agreed to come with me to a meeting.'

And so, three years ago, Yvette and Mark embarked on another emotionally exhausting journey, that of the adoption process with its meetings and assessments and form-filling and classes.
'The entire process is designed to put you off, to frighten you to see if you're 100 per cent committed,' Yvette says.
'But it didn't deter either of us. I was so blinkered that all I could think was: "I want a baby, I want a baby."
'Mark had decided he was doing it for me and that was enough for him. And while you hear lots of horror stories of difficult children taking months and months to settle, you never hear about a total breakdown where it doesn't work at all. Whatever we were prepared for, it wasn't that.

'Our families wanted a happy ending. too. It had been tough for them, particularly for Mark's parents as he was an only child and they were desperate for a grandchild.'
Finally, 18 months later, in early 2006, the couple were formally approved for adoption.
'It was a wonderful moment, the moment you believe you are finally going to be a family,'
Yvette recalls . 'But it's also frustrating as you are literally waiting for the phone to ring to tell you there has been a match.'

He was a lovely little boy
Six months later that call came, giving the couple the news they had longed for: they had been matched with a two-year-old boy called Ben.
'I was overwhelmed and so was Mark,' says Yvette. 'I was thrilled to get a boy. I had this picture in my mind of my husband and son together tinkering with the cars in the garage. Mark was thrilled, too.'
The couple were not initially aware of Ben's background, informed only that he came from a troubled family. Only after giving their full agreement to the adoption process were they allowed to see the full paperwork. It made for upsetting reading.

One of eight brothers and sisters who were all in care, Ben had been terribly neglected as a baby, and taken into foster care at just a few months old.
He was fostered alongside two older siblings. 'It did scare us a little,' Yvette admits. 'When you see this immense family backdrop you start to think about who you are inviting into your life.
'We already had our own family, but by taking Ben in we were also opening ourselves up to his family too. But we knew we could give this little boy a wonderful life and that overruled any fears we might have had.'
Within a week, Yvette and Mark set eyes on their son in the flesh for the first time, watching from a distance as he played in a local park.

'It was wonderful, but very emotional. I just wanted to give him a hug, but we had to stay away.'
A few days later they were shown a video of Ben at play with his elder siblings, aged four and eight, at his foster home. 'It showed that he was a little bit bullied by them and I found that very difficult to watch,' she says. 'By then I really felt he was my baby - so I felt very protective.'
After final approval from the county adoption panel, Yvette and Mark embarked on a two-week 'handover' period before being allowed to take Ben home.

'We met Ben every day for two weeks, initially at his foster carer's home. Later we were allowed to take him out on our own. It's not easy at first because you are having to get to know someone in a slightly artificial environment, but as the days went on and we got to spend longer and longer with him, it got easier.
'He was a lovely little boy, very happy-go-lucky and cheeky. We took him to the park, played games and started to bond. I felt very happy and optimistic.'
Handover day, however, was not quite so simple. 'Mark and I had been given the impression that Ben would have said his goodbyes to his siblings before we picked him up, but they were there. They were both distraught, sobbing their heart out, which meant Ben was sobbing too.
'It was terrible, and I felt I was wrenching him away from his family.'

I felt no bond with him
But, once at their home, Ben seemed to settle in quickly, delighted by his cheerfully-decorated nursery crammed with toys and clothes. But within hours of welcoming their son into his new home, Yvette admits she was overcome with waves of anxiety about what she had done.
'I was completely overwhelmed,' she admits. 'On the outside I was doing all the right things - looking after him, playing with him, hugging him - but inside I felt only turmoil.
'I have a very strong memory of looking at him in the first couple of days that he was with us, and thinking: "He didn't come from me." I felt no bond with him whatsoever.
'I loved him in the abstract, but not inside. Clearly I hadn't expected this to happen, or I wouldn't have spent two years struggling to reach that point. But whenever I looked at him I was reminded only of my own failure to be a biological mother.

'I don't think I had grieved properly for the fact that I would never have my own children, and now it was coming back to haunt me. But at the same time it was the most horrible feeling - how could I not love this adorable boy I had waited for for so long?'
Ironically her husband, who had been so wary about adoption in the beginning, had no such qualms, immediately bonding with the toddler.
'Mark loved him to bits. Luckily I was able to confide in him about how I was feeling. He was worried, but I think he thought it would settle down.' It didn't.
With each passing day, Yvette says, she felt increasingly alienated. 'I wasn't sleeping, I had lost weight and I was as white as a sheet,' she says.

'As the days went by, I did everything I could to bond with Ben. At night I would kiss his forehead and read him a bedtime story before tucking him in. We'd go to the park and play with his toys - he loved trains and trucks, like any little boy - but try as I might, I couldn't connect with him.
'I would look at him drinking or eating and be painfully aware that I hadn't been able to nurture him from my own breast, or feel the kick of his foot inside my tummy.

'One evening, I sat down to complete some adoption paperwork and had to write his surname as our own. Seeing it on the page just didn't feel right.
I couldn't love him the way he deserved
'I looked after him perfectly well, but I was just going through the motions. At night I would tuck him up in his Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas, saying to myself: "I am going to love you, I am going to love you."'
Matters came to a head just two weeks after Ben arrived, when a health visitor arrived for a routine check.
'She instantly knew something was wrong,' Yvette says. 'We started talking and I burst into floods of tears. It all came flooding out.'

Events moved rapidly: Yvette was referred the same day to a doctor, then a social worker, who said she should not be left alone with Ben.
'That was very difficult to hear,' she says. 'I knew they were only protecting the child, but I would never ever have hurt him.' Yvette was referred to The Priory, where a psychiatrist suggested that her inability to grieve over her infertility lay at the root of her feelings.

Both felt that keeping Ben was not to be recommended, and Yvette's social worker even said that she believed Yvette had post-natal depression, which, extraordinarily, can be diagnosed after adoption as well as natural childbirth.
'That made me want to scream,' she says. 'I knew what the problem was - while I loved Ben, I couldn't really love him in the way he deserved or needed from a mother.'
So, after a number of emotional discussions between husband, wife and social worker, the decision was made to return Ben to foster care. He had been with them for just two weeks.
'Mark had wanted to give things more time and I thought to myself: "I could lose my husband over this, I could lose my family." All of them felt that in time I would change, but I had to trust my instincts.
'In the end, Mark said he had married me for me, not for a child, and he would stand by me whatever I decided.'
Yvette adds: 'I know people will struggle to understand why I reacted so strongly to having Ben in the house, but I knew it wasn't just a case of him settling in.
'I knew that it just wouldn't work out with him. I felt he deserved to be with someone who could truly love him, and that I couldn't give him that.
'I have written him a long letter to be put in his file explaining everything that happened and how I felt.'
It was never going to work
One can only imagine, however, the bewilderment felt by the little boy as he was taken to his fourth home in two years, to a new set of foster carers.
Mark and Yvette accompanied him on the journey, taking with them the clothes and toys they had bought for him. 'We didn't explain what was happening to Ben as the social workers had told us not to, so on the day all we could do was take him to his new family.
'It was left to them to explain the situation, although at the time he would have been too young to understand. We stayed for three hours to make sure he was settled and then all we could do was leave,' say Yvette.
'Watching him in his new home was incredibly emotional. I consoled myself with the fact that I knew he would be loved. But when we went back to his nursery we both broke down. We were grieving for him, but also for the end of our dreams of having a baby.

'We both knew that if it wasn't going to work with Ben it was never going to work.'
Today, Yvette has, to a degree, reconciled herself with remaining childless. 'Sometimes I feel vulnerable because I look at Mark and think he could find someone who would provide him with children. But he has been a rock and our relationship is stronger than ever,' she says.
Some consolation has come, too, with the knowledge that Ben is flourishing, having been adopted by his new foster family.
'They have a little girl who he loves and they are devoted to him, so that has made it all worthwhile,' says Yvette.
It is a happy ending of sorts, but it's hard not to think that Yvette's struggle for motherhood came at a high price, not only for her, but the little boy she so longed to love.

Embryo Adoption

"Embryo adoption" gives new life to some couples' hopes for a child

Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell is starting a new "embryo adoption" service, where couples who have gone through in vitro fertilization donate any leftover embryos to infertile couples. While that practice is, in itself, not particularly controversial, the question of what's to be done with some 400,000 frozen embryos in storage nationwide touches on some of the most controversial issues of the day, from abortion to embryonic stem-cell research.

The day the frozen embryo arrived via FedEx was the day Maria Lancaster began experiencing firsthand what she had always believed: that human life begins at conception.

Lancaster was 46 and, after having three miscarriages, she and her husband, Jeff, longed for a child. One day, they heard about "embryo adoptions" — where couples who've gone through in vitro fertilization donate any leftover embryos to infertile couples. Several months of soul-searching later, they received a frozen embryo from a North Carolina clinic — cells that were thawed and implanted in Lancaster's womb.

Now Lancaster looks at her 5-year-old daughter Elisha — lively and precocious — and thinks: miracle. "It was a demonstration to us that every embryo is a complete, unique and total human being in its tiniest form," Lancaster said.

Earlier this month, Lancaster launched an "embryo adoption" service through Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell. The service aims to match couples who want to donate embryos with those who want to receive them.

It's one of only a few such services nationwide and, as far as Lancaster knows, the only one run by a church, though many such services are Christian-based.

While the practice of donating embryos to infertile couples is, in itself, not particularly controversial, the question of what's to be done with some 400,000 frozen embryos in storage nationwide touches on some of the most controversial issues of the day, from abortion to stem-cell research.

The stored embryos are the result of fertility treatments. When a couple undergoes in vitro fertilization, the doctor retrieves a woman's eggs and mixes them with sperm in a lab. If embryos result, a certain number are transferred to the woman's uterus and any extra ones are frozen for future use.

But often, especially once a couple has children, the additional embryos are no longer needed. The couple can then donate them to other infertile couples, give them away for research purposes, discard them or pay to keep them in storage.

Those who support research using stem cells derived from embryos see in it hope for cures for diseases that afflict millions, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes.

Others believe such research is wrong. "All these embryos are just people in an early stage of life," maintains Pastor Joe Fuiten, who heads Cedar Park Church. "We can't just treat them like trash."

Many others disagree that embryos are people, and that point of contention is central to the larger issues surrounding embryo donation.

Such issues came to the forefront when President George W. Bush restricted federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and may come up again once President-elect Obama, who supports relaxing those restrictions, takes office.

For many fertility clinics, it comes down to letting patients decide for themselves when human life begins. And "from there, they choose the option of what to do with their embryos," said Stephanie Frickleton with Pacific Northwest Fertility in Seattle, which runs its own embryo-donation program.

Seemed strange at first

At the Lancasters' home in the Snoqualmie Valley, Elisha is clearly cherished.

She twirls in her dress made of black velvet and pink tulle. Then she grabs her father's hand, pretending to paint his fingernails blue — though "sometimes it changes color based on whether you're a boy or a girl," she says.

Maria Lancaster, president of a ship-supply company, acknowledges that when she first heard about embryo transfers, "the thought of putting someone else's kid in your body" seemed strange.

For her, seeing Elisha come into being from two cells that had been frozen for four years before being implanted in her womb gave form to the words from the Bible, where God says: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."

Though brochures for Embryo Adoption Services of Cedar Park clearly come out against embryonic stem-cell research, Lancaster sees her work as noncontroversial, saying it gives infertile couples the gift of a child and embryos currently stored in freezers a chance at life.

Sean Tipton, spokesman for the 8,500-member American Society of Reproductive Medicine, says his group supports embryo donation as one of several options open to in vitro patients.

What he objects to is the term "embryo adoption," saying it is used by groups that "want to elevate the moral status of the embryo to be the equivalent of an existing child."

Scientifically speaking, that's simply flawed thinking, he says, explaining that in natural conceptions, only 25 percent of fertilized eggs develop into babies.

Embryo transfers themselves are often unsuccessful, since many embryos don't survive the freezing-and-thawing process. And even after an embryo has been implanted, the pregnancy rate is not high.

Equating a fertilized egg with a living child would mean "you can't allow freezing of these embryos for later use (because) we don't freeze babies," and you can't allow abortions or some forms of contraception such as IUDs, Tipton said.

"I think in most people's minds there's a difference between a fertilized egg and a baby," said Karen Cooper, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington. Calling embryo donations "adoptions" is a "political stunt, appealing on emotions," she said.

In any case, given the 400,000 frozen embryos in storage, the number of embryo transfers has been small. Tipton thinks that's because potential donors are uncomfortable with the idea of one of their genetic children being raised by someone else and those who go to fertility clinics do so wanting to have their own child. Indeed, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which runs one of the largest "embryo adoption" services in the country, says its program has resulted in 194 births over the last decade. Another large program, the 5-year-old National Embryo Donation Center, has logged nearly 100.

"A peace about it"

For Heather Mayer, 36, of Silverdale, the numbers don't matter much.

When Mayer, an adoptions coordinator at a local Christian organization, decided to "adopt" an embryo, it was a way of expressing her anti-abortion values, she said. She also wanted to experience pregnancy.

These days, she not only has a 10-month old daughter, Amelia, but a relationship with Amelia's genetic parents. Both couples were willing to get to know each other, and exchanged pictures and regular e-mails. The two couples plan to meet in March.

Lisa Maritz of Everett, a 39-year-old homemaker with three children, is committed to donating her four frozen embryos to Maria Lancaster's new service.

She acknowledges having long discussions with her husband about the idea of giving away what could become the genetic siblings of her three boys — two born after in vitro fertilization, one conceived naturally.

"We have a peace about it," she says of the decision. "We want to give another family the gift of having their own family."

Foreign Adoptions by Americans Drop Sharply

Foreign adoptions by Americans drop sharply
By DAVID CRARY, The Associated Press
4:32 p.m. November 17, 2008

NEW YORK — The number of foreign children adopted by Americans fell 12 percent in the past year, reaching the lowest level since 1999 as some countries clamped down on the process and others battled with allegations of adoption fraud.

China, which for a decade was the leading source for international adoptions, accounted for the biggest decline and dropped out of the top spot. It was replaced by Guatemala, which almost certainly will lose that status in 2009 because of a corruption-related moratorium on new adoptions imposed by U.S. officials.

Figures for the 2008 fiscal year, released by the State Department on Monday, showed 17,438 adoptions from abroad, down from 19,613 in 2007. The all-time peak was 22,884 in 2004.

Reasons for the decline vary from country to country. China and Russia _ the two largest sources of adoptees over the past 15 years _ have sought to care for more of their abandoned and orphaned children at home, and China has imposed tighter restrictions on foreign applicants.

The numbers were sobering to advocates of international adoption, who expect the drop to continue for 2009 as Guatemala struggles to rein in its formerly freewheeling adoption industry.

"There are still tens of millions of orphans around the world _ and we know there are millions of Americans willing to adopt these kids," said Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption. "Countries are very reluctant to let go of what they consider their future, even though they'll readily acknowledge the future for these kids is not promising."

By far the biggest drop was for adoptions from China, which fell to 3,909 from 5,453 in 2007 and a peak of 7,906 in 2005. Among the factors: a rise in domestic adoptions as China prospers and tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions that exclude single people, older couples, the obese and those with financial or health problems.

As a result, waiting times to complete an adoption from China have increased in many cases to three or four years, a deterrent to many aspiring adoptive parents. China offers a faster timetable for foreigners willing to adopt children with physical or emotional disabilities.

Adoptions from Guatemala also declined in the past year, from 4,728 to 4,123, and the number is projected to be sharply lower for 2009. Guatemalan officials are trying to replace an old system, which allowed abuses ranging from fraud to child snatching, with stringent new practices conforming with the Hague Convention, an international adoption treaty.

Other countries from which adoptions declined significantly included Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and India.

The biggest increase was in adoptions from Ethiopia _ they rose from 1,255 to 1,725, moving the Horn of Africa nation into fourth place on the State Department's list, just behind Russia. No other African country provided more than 250 adoptees last year, although the continent is viewed as one of the few potential growth regions for international adoption.

Thomas DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, predicted overall numbers would drop even more sharply for 2009, to as low as 10,000 to 12,000 foreign adoptions, as China continues its cutback and adoptions from Guatemala and Vietnam diminish.

There were 751 adoptions from Vietnam in fiscal 2008, but the U.S.-Vietnam adoption agreement expired on Sept. 1 as the two countries argued about fraud and corruption in the system. Hundreds of American families seeking to adopt from Vietnam were left in limbo.

DiFilipo said he doubted any foreign country would ever replace China as the source of 7,000 or even 5,000 adoptees per year. He predicted instead that far smaller numbers of adoptees would be comimg from a pool of perhaps 40 or 50 countries, including an increasing share from Africa and Latin America.

DiFilipo said the drop-off in foreign adoptions has been devastating to many U.S.-based agencies which specialize in them _ forcing closures or mergers. He predicted that the number of direct-service agencies with programs abroad would drop to fewer than 100 by the end of 2009, a third of the peak a few years ago.

"It's a rough time for the agencies," said Joshua Zhong, president of Colorado-based Chinese Children Adoption International. "It is more difficult for the families. They feel they're waiting forever; they're very discouraged."

Zhong said his agency _ one of the largest in the U.S. that specializes in adoptions from China _ expects to place 450 children by the end of the year, down from about 1,200 in 2005. The average waiting time for his clients has stretched from 12 months to three years, he said.

One byproduct of the decline in foreign adoptions is likely to be an intensified campaign to persuade adoptive parents to take children from the U.S. foster care system. Roughly 125,000 youths in the system are available for adoption, including a disproportionately large number of racial minorities.

"We're urging families to think about these kids," said Chuck Johnson. "We have a lot of work to do."

___

November 12, 2008

Oklahoma RegDay ~ November 15th


14th Annual "RegDay"

Separated by adoption? Looking for a relative? Could a family member
be looking for YOU? Register for FREE to be found!

RegDay is an annual event to increase public awareness of the
International Soundex Reunion Registry; a free humanitarian service
better known as ISRR. ISRR is a non-profit mutual consent registry
dedicated to reuniting adult family members separated by adoption,
divorce, or other dislocation.

For families separated by adoption who wish to search for lost kin,
state laws permanently sealing adoption records can make it that much
more difficult. Original birth certificates are even sealed in cases
of step-parent adoption.

RegDay can be a source for information on a variety of records-access
reform issues of interest to both the adoption and genealogy
communities. Recent open records victories in Maine, New Hampshire,
Alabama, and Oregon have helped to raise awareness of the need to
make these personal government-held records available to those to
whom they most intimately pertain.

With over 6 million adoptees in the U.S and countless other siblings,
relatives, spouses, and friends affected, this topic is not only
timely, but it is also universal.

For more information visit www.isrr.net

When: November 15, 2008
Where: Promenade Mall, Tulsa,OK; 2nd level, near the Food Court
Time: 10am to 6pm

November 11, 2008

"Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change"


Here are some amazingly honest quotes from some beautiful women at "Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change" ~ (you can link directly to the website by "clicking" on the title of this post above)
http://www.adultadoptees.org/forum/index.php?topic=12116.15

The reason I post these is because I, too, found that it was NECESSARY to grieve the unvalidated LOSS I carried inside as an adopted person. Adoption is applauded in society, but very seldom is the voice of an adult adopted person really heard. We are conditioned to completely ignore that part of ourselves that LOST so much, because of disenfranchised grief that we are not given permission to FEEL. We are "chosen", "lucky", "rescued", "grateful" beings whose life and identity is altered in order to fulfill another role. It takes a very long time (if ever) to "wake up" to the true self as an adoptee and allow ourselves to FEEL the loss that will make us whole. Wounded but whole. Real.

The Human Band-Aid (by Theresa)

There once was a small unborn baby, who loved her mommy. She couldn't wait for the day she was born to see her mommy's face for the first time.

The day she arrived, she took a big breath and cried and cried, knowing from instinct that would bring her mommy to her. But that was not meant to be. Instead she was put in the cool cool chilly hospital nursery, where she cried and cried and cried. She cried and cried and cried for her mommy so much, the nice nurses gave her some sleepy happy time medicine to make her stop crying. She fell asleep.

When she woke up the nice nurses fed her and changed her and kept her warm and dry, but she still cried and cried and cried for her mommy until she had more of the happy sleepy time medicine.

Five days later she was taken to the home of a lady who could not have babies. This lady was sad and wounded and hurt by all the times she couldn't have a baby. So the sad lady took care of the sad baby, and the sad baby became a human band-aid for the mommy who couldn't be a mommy. But the little sad baby didn't cry any more, because the hospital sent her home with the happy sleepy time medicine. So after a while, instead of crying for her real mommy, she just went sleep.

Where she slept for many years, until she finally woke up, and found many grown up sad babies just like her. And many deluded unable-to-be-mommy mommies. Like you.

Happy Birthday to Me (by MarLo)

My adoption solved two problems. One woman wanted a baby. One woman didn’t want a baby and both would be expected not to worry about their ‘problem’ any more, thanks to adoption.

Entering this world as a solution and a problem, I have felt that burden and that shame all my life. I am exhausted by my life-long effort to be the child my adoptive parents could not have and no day goes by that I don’t feel like the discarded ‘problem’ of my first mom.

When my birthday rolls around, I’m reminded of my status as a problem and a solution, not a person. I feel pressure to celebrate the day, to celebrate my birth, my life, my ‘adopted self”. I feel the pressure to smile and be happy and show that everything turned out a-ok for me.

But how do I feel? I feel like nothing on this day, like yesterday’s trash. My self-hate has always been at a high point on this day but it took many years to finally figure out that my birthday is a sad day for me. It is a huge relief to finally stop pretending. I don’t need to be happy or act happy. I don’t need to let people try to do nice things for me so that they can see that happy smile on my face. I hate this day. I need to feel bad on the anniversary of the saddest day of my life, the first day of my life. On this day I lost my mother, my family, my history, the comfort of being held by the people I was born to, of looking into the faces that I find familiar. I lost my sense of belonging this day. I felt alone for the first time. I haven’t recovered from this feeling alone. I felt that something was wrong with me for the first time that day. I still do. My needs were ignored for the first time that day, I still disregard my own needs. I was probably told how lucky I was for the first time that day, and of course all who learn I’m adopted still feel the need to comment on how lucky I am. My identity was buried and locked away from me that day and is still not legally recoverable. I was not treated like a human being in my own right that day but as an exchangeable commodity and a solution to a problem and still today I do not feel human.

Last year for the first time when I turned 42, I allowed myself to mourn on my birthday. I screamed and yelled, I bawled and felt the horrible anger and sadness I have inside about my first day of life. I let myself off the hook for acting happy. It was my best birthday yet.