Search Results for: blog is the adoption wait like a pregnancy

Avoiding an Adoption Nightmare

My last blog talked about the nightmare scenario of the Baby Jessica case in the early 1990s in which courts ruled that a 2 ½ year old child would leave the parents who had raised her for 2 ½ years and go to her biological father. This case had many unusual aspects, but the media did not always make clear that the adoption was never completed—the birth father asked for custody as soon as the mother told him about the child, when the baby was under a month old. Steps to take to avoid an adoption nightmare include: • Choose … Continue reading →

What is Adoption Loss?

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We all know of miscarriage, or pregnancy loss. “Adoption loss” is the bereavement felt when an expected adoption does not occur. Although less than one-tenth of a percent of finalized adoptions are contested each year, parents are often heavily invested emotionally before finalization or before placement. Often they have been meeting with birthparents for several months. They may have seen the baby via ultrasound, chosen a name for the baby, shared the news with their families, prepared the baby’s room, and bought clothing specific to the gender of the expected child. Some birth parents even invite the adoptive parents to … Continue reading →

Pregnancy Pact is Preposterous

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My fellow blogger Lyn just posted a piece in the Education Blog about teenage girls at one high school making a “pregnancy pact”. When I started to read this blog I had a faint hope that she was talking about the kind of “virginity pledge”, “chastity rings” or “True Love Waits” Campaign vows. But deep inside I suspected she wasn’t. That suspicion was right. This blog is about high school girls making a pledge to get pregnant and have their babies together. The girls seemed thrilled when they got pregnant, which nearly twenty of them have done. I guess we … Continue reading →

Fast Start: Hurrying Up While Waiting

You’ve probably heard international adoption called a “hurry-up and wait” game. Meaning, that you are often in a mad hurry to fulfill every request for a document or signature, lest you miss the monthly meeting of the Romanian adoption committee by one day, or your social worker doesn’t get a chance to fax her counterpart before her vacation, or whatever, and you miss another precious month of your child’s infancy. Then, you don’t hear back from anyone for weeks. Sometimes slow and steady is okay. You focus on your work, or your other kids, or whatever, sending out questionnaires to … Continue reading →

Reflections on Adoption

Had someone told me one day I would grow up, meet a nice man who I’d marry, would willingly go through state adoption; that our children would be born to mothers who were unstable and our kids would have challenges likely as a result, I would have told them they were crazy! Years ago I believed that the only people who adopted were those who couldn’t have children of their “own”. I’m not sure if going through pregnancy and childbirth is harder than adoption. I can’t even say for sure that love for a child who’s been adopted is different … Continue reading →

How Would an Expectant Mother Arrange a Private Adoption?

Adoptions arranged without using an adoption agency are called independent or private adoption. These types of adoptions are legal in all States except Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Minnesota (at the time of this writing). With independent and private adoptions, the pregnant mother needs to find an attorney to represent her. It is important to find an attorney who doesn’t charge a fee if the mother decides not to place her baby for adoption. She would also need to find adoptive parents. Here’s some information about how to find both of these: To Find an Attorney Legal Aid Is a service … Continue reading →

First U.S. Baby Born After a Uterus Transplant

TIME reported that, for the first time in the United States, a baby was born to a woman who had a uterus transplant. The birth took place at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. TIME protected the privacy of the woman and her husband in order to protect their identity. This was the first birth of the hospital’s ongoing uterus transplant clinical trial. The women who participated in the trial have absolute uterine factor infertility (AUI). This could mean that their uterus is nonfunctional or is nonexistent. Some of the women in the program have Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) which causes the … Continue reading →

Does Your Health Insurance Cover Maternity Care?

Most people consider pregnancy to be a blessing. Insurance companies, however, especially those that provide individual health insurance, consider pregnancy to be a pre-existing condition. What does this mean for consumers? It means that you should not assume that your individual health insurance is going to cover maternity care right now. This will change in 2014. Until then, check over the fine print on your insurance policy very carefully! Right now, it’s extremely difficult to get approved for an individual health insurance policy if you are already pregnant. Most of the large for-profit insurance companies, like Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group … Continue reading →

Stress, Weight Gain and Depression in Adoptive Parents

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“At least you don’t have to deal with the ‘maternity forty’!” chirped a colleague while I waiting for my third child’s arrival from Korea. Adoptive parents frequently hear comments like, “Oh, you’re doing it the easy way”. Now, having had a difficult pregnancy myself, I’m inclined to agree that MY adoption process wasn’t as difficult as my pregnancy. But I was blessed to have had the choice both to conceive and to adopt. Remember that many adoptive parents have been dealing with the grief of infertility. They often feel that their dreams of a family are at the mercy of … Continue reading →

Oprah’s Weirdest Day

Yesterday, Michele blogged about how Oprah’s show on Friday would be her saddest day. This is the show in which Oprah would talk about the death of her beloved cocker spaniel, Sophie. While that will indeed be sad, today has surely got to be Oprah’s weirdest show – ever. In fact, it may be the weirdest show ever in the history of talk shows (and I am including Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer here!). Today’s show will deal with a man…who is pregnant. No, it is not some freak of nature occurrence and yes, he really is pregnant. Thomas Beatie, … Continue reading →