adoption attorneys

What to Expect If Adopting

January 19, 2016 By Linda Russell Leave a Comment

Adoption offers a new life in a new family. New beginnings offer hope for a new future. Adoption indicates a wonderful beginning and time for healing of a child who needs a family. Most of the time adoption includes a wonderful answer for both the parents and the child.

“If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Human beings strive to get needs met. Sometimes meeting needs takes longer than expected. When it takes too long (according to expectation) to get the need met one way, ingenuity or opportunity may be used to get the need met a different way. Just as Abraham and Sarah experienced with the birth of Ismael through Sarah’s servant (today her servant would known as a surrogate). We know how that turned out. In the case of a child whose parents or family need rehabilitation, financial assistance, or stability, adoption is a common intervention. In the same way when an infertile person exhausts attempts to become fertile, adoption is a common intervention. Adoption, the panacea for the unmet needs of an “orphan” and infertile person. Not to minimize the amount of money, time, and emotional roller coaster that the adoption process typically entails, this sounds a little too good to be true.

How can meeting the needs of a child through the adoption process be anything but good? How can making parents of someone who has been told they will not be able to conceive or have anymore children be anything but good? When it isn’t good, that’s when. As an adoptive parent shared the other day, “we need far more education than we receive” before completing an adoption. Commonly, adoptive families second guess themselves on whether or not the adoption was a good decision, after the adoption is completed. Second guessing happens when a child doesn’t “feel” like their child; when a child doesn’t behave in a manageable way as a toddler, adolescent, tween or teen; when the realization arises that the child has attachment challenges. Or even when, in an adoption where the information has been shared between the biological family and adoptive family, the adoptive family no longer wants contact. Biological mothers may drop from sight after agreeing to stay in the child’s life. So many variables exist in adoption, and absolutely no guarantees (as with all of life).

How can adoption be a good option when the circumstances require a child to be raised by a nonbiological family? Five ways to know that adoption is a good option.Continue Reading

A Not So Perfect Solution for Your Baby

March 27, 2015 By Linda Russell Leave a Comment

Adoption offers a “perfect solution” for a baby whose mom isn’t ready to raise a child. Adoptive families offer better financial circumstances, “stability,” opportunity for college education, an “intact” family, and happiness that mom (who isn’t ready to parent) cannot offer. Statements such as these are often used in advertising on adoption sites. However, these phrases offer eloquence in the wording to entice moms to consider placing their child with a loving family, albeit strangers.

Looking back on a lifetime of pain and complete regret, advice from this side of the world comes easy. Looking back from the current vantage point the change in life circumstances, overcoming those temporary circumstances seems so certain and obvious. However, when mom begins the journey of making decisions about an unplanned pregnancy, the present and current circumstances give an essence of never ending. Stress, anxiety, uncertainty, lack of familiarity, and the involvement of others about something that feels so personal becomes a difficult matter.

A few points follow to help you begin to bring perspective on the frantic feelings you may have.

1) First of all, put off freaking out until after some decisions are made. This is critical because you feel like freaking out. But think about it, freaking out will not change the pregnancy and will only cause you to feel much worse. So put it off and go to your calendar. Set a date (make it at least a week or two out) to freak out. Now you have it on your calendar and you have given yourself permission to freak out at that time.

2) Understand, this is your baby you are carrying. Babies are their own individual human selves. They are not a “part” of you, they are now another human being. Your baby is shared by the person you were with when your baby was conceived. However that circumstance may not be a pleasant one. You may have difficulty considering the involvement of the other person. Right now, making the decision about the involvement of the other person isn’t critical. You have a baby to nurture and protect.

3) Do your research on your options. As pointed out earlier, going to an adoption site and talking to someone at an adoption agency can result in no further research. What does that mean? It means that an adoption attorney or an adoption representative will tell you that adoption is the very best solution for you and your baby. However, they will continue to state that it is your choice. If the father of your baby happens to be at risk for as a good parent, all the more reason for the agency to encourage you to place your baby. However, adoption agents are NOT about your best interests, nor about your baby’s best interests. You are a supplier of the product that commands a lot of money from adoptive couples who desperately want children. In fact, that agency and private adoption attorney can offer you quite a bit of money for living expenses and help you with your financial indebtedness. An exchange of money for your baby is selling your baby. You can get resources and helpful support. If money is what you need, you can get help.

4) Find someone you can trust to confide in. Friends may or may not be your first point of contact. There is an organization, Family Preservation Outreach, linda@familypreservationoutreach.com, who will talk with you and help you in this unplanned circumstance. Of course, the options out there are: parent your baby, place your baby, allow guardianship arrangement, or even find a doctor to do an abortion. Getting educated on these options is critical because you are making a life altering choice.

5) Getting counseling will help you with any guilt or shame you may feel. While these emotional responses come naturally they can impose another layer of anxiety and stress, unproductive energy. When more anxiety happens, it’s impossible to make a good decision.

Before making a decision, remember time is on your side. Research, talk to people who have truly been there (you don’t have to tell them your circumstances), read books, articles, and get some good counseling help. Letting someone tell you that you MUST make a decision now, make up your mind, or pressure you in any way, will not result in a decision that you can feel good about later.

You will get through this and you can get through this with a good life decision. Next article on threats or circumstances of having your child removed from your care.

Getting Involved to Help Parents in Forced Adoption Cases

November 24, 2014 By Linda Russell 2 Comments

Here is a link with a great article and ways to help two of the cases fighting unethical adoptions involving their children. I am personally aquainted with the cases and can tell you the courts are wrong in these cases and the money from the funds goes directly to the attorney fund, not to the individuals. It’s the holiday season and children should be with their families. Can you help?

http://www.sisterwish.com/adoption-isnt-like-that-anymore/

NOVEMBER – ADOPTION AWARENESS

November 2, 2014 By Linda Russell Leave a Comment

The month of November is Adoption Awareness Month. This awareness theme gets a little old and can be lost on those who might turn away from the truth in adoption. Most of us learned that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Adoption begs for squeaky wheels to step up and recreate adoption to address the appropriate audience, the children without homes.

Following the adoption blogs (just Google for the latest) will educate you on the swell of awareness that has started. Adoptees are beginning to find their voices with help and support. Birth families find it easier to speak up about the difficulty they encounter in “getting on with their lives” after placing a family member. Fathers find themselves in forward motion to claim a stake at parenting versus placing a child for adoption unlike ever before in history. Adoptive parents find voice and something to add when the integrity of adoption is at risk.

The parties whose silence is deafening in helping change guidelines of adoption are the agencies and attorneys who complete adoptions. Anyone who follows the trend of ethics in adoption practice easily understands the reasoning behind the silence of these entities. The “almighty dollar” serves to quiet the disquieted soul of destruction. When did society decide that a price tag could be placed on the life of a child?

Apparent in the voices of all those who must live out the decision of adoption is the common thread of trauma. Trauma in separation, loss, identity, belonging, and family, seep through every pore of those separated from families of origin and grafted into families of strangers. This statement offends none but those who deny the substantive loss of the “other.” Money fails to connect family. DNA and biology came together to fashion an offspring, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandchild, or cousins. Money only buys the paper to make those feigned connections.

Growing up hearing that money cannot buy happiness defies the attempt being made at buying happiness when acquiring a child in exchange for money. The purpose of the exchange is perverted when the attempt is made to create a family (not for the real purpose of offering an orphan a home). Money substitutes for a lot of tangibles these days, children being no less attainable by the same means.

Advertisements, “gofundme” accounts, adoption fund car washes and garage sales, fertility funds, court funds to fight biological parents commonly headline social media sites as well as websites of adoption services. One adoption advertisement site proudly posted a picture of a nice looking young lady with the words: “Will find your baby a good home,” “Will pay living and medical expenses.” Advertising for children would place them in a category of a good piano for sale “will pay moving costs.” How did stooping to the level of offering children as commodities happen in a civilized society? When connected with money, the answer boils down to greed, selfishness, and lust. Harsher words could not be spoken about the evils of humanness and carnality that is disguised as being Christian.

Taking a good, long look at what adoption should be and what adoption really is would behoove everyone because with nearly 70% of the population being touched by adoption, the dilemma will be faced by many. Educate, speak out, find compassion to recognize the trauma that adoption leaves in its wake. Make November a month to become aware of adoption more than ever.