Adoptive moms?

Question

Do you ever think of what you could have done to help your child first parents keep and raise them?

Answer 1

I don't believe there is anything that I, personally, could have done.

My son was adopted from foster care when he was 2. He was placed in foster care straight out of the hospital when he was six days old due to the fact that his birth mother's other children had all been removed from her care previously. My son had weekly visits with her until her parental rights were terminated when he was nearly 3 years old. She had an attorney and the entire process was followed to the letter, including attempts at reunification. The simple truth is that she was unable to care for her children.

Answer 2

Yes, I have thought about it and there is nothing I could have done or said to change her mind. She had my full support and the support of her family no matter what her decision. She wanted us to parent her child.

Answer 3

I haven't adopted yet, but I have two stories for you.  

My "mentor" (the woman I learned about special needs adoption from, and who I ask most of my questions of) actually adopted one of her daughters from a foster program where she taught the bio mom how to be a mom, so to speak.  The mom was developmentally disabled.  For a year, my friend fostered her daughter and spent a few hours a day showing her daughter's bio mom how to do laundry, change diapers, etc.  Finally, the bio mom realized that she would not be able to be a mom, and asked that my friend be able to adopt her daughter.

Second story:  Before my husband and I had completed the application process, I met a woman who had just given birth to her drug affected baby.  Through a really weird series of events, I ended up spending a lot of time with bio mom and bio dad.  If the state had not already been involved, we might have raised their son in an open adoption.  What's even stranger is that after we had completed the application process (8 months later), their baby was one of the children we looked at.  Unfortunately, the bulletin said nothing about the biological family.

Answer 4

If our son's mom had decided to raise him, we were prepared to hand her everything we had purchased to bring him home, from stroller to car seat, and everything short of the crib.

I don't think we would have provided the kind of long term support she receives from us now (EMOTIONAL SUPPORT, NOT PHYSICAL), but we would have provided the basics to get her started.  We would not have paid her hospital bills, though.

Answer 5

YES!