Looking for advice/support for a complicated situation

Thanks. Yes, I also posted on the adoption and foster/adopt board. I am just trying to get as much advice and info as I can. I am trying to find places of support for her. Her counselor at school pretty much just referred her to the agency. The agency is really trying to help as well- but other than trying to find her a home and finacial support-- I don't really know what else they can do. Its just such a messed up situation. I know its hard to believe, but I think we are pretty nuetral. We have a 4 year old, and I think having him has helped us stay "sane" during the adoption wait. It also helps us realize the realities of what she's going thru as far as trying to raise this baby. Anyway...I am babbling....thanks for the supprot and if you or anyone know of some resources- please let me know.

Wow this is one hard difficult decision. Your so right about the father having alot of rights to his child. He may not be in a position to parent but when it comes to terminating his rights against his will the state must take that seriously. Yes this is putting an undue burdon on this young mom. I am an adoptive mom and have adopted children from foster care. We are also the legal guardians of our youngest son. He has lived with us for years. Its not ideal for him but it works for his first mom and for our family at this time. He knows who is who he was also a preschooler when he came to us. I would be happy to email with you If I can help you all come up with some kind of resource or ideas to help this child's mom as well as Your family find a solution email me at Terrie37@aol.com I will happily ask the members of adopt america network where I am a volunteer for ideas as well. I help find homes for children in foster care to find forever homes almost all of whom are Older have special needs or are a member of a larger sibling group. Best wishes to all of you. Terrie

Have you had a chance to meet the bdad and speak with him? The reason I ask is this is similar to our situation- it took 4 weeks after the girls were born for the bmom to get the bdad to agree to consider placing. (We just got called in at the end of the 4 weeks, so we were not part of this from the beginning.) Bdad was in a different state, had never seen the babies, wanted nothing to do with them or the bmom, but wanted bmom to keep them. (They were also no longer together.) He drove to the state the girls were in the hospital in to meet us. I wanted to talk to him about his hesitation to see if we could answer any questions- maybe he was just completely unfamiliar with what adoption is. When I asked if he had any desire to parent the girls, he looked right at me and said, "Well, maybe if one of them was a boy, maybe my parents could take care of IT, but since they are girls....No." He signed his placement papers that day and no one has ever heard from him again. We ended up being the support system for bmom, too, for a couple months since she had no family or friends nearby to help her figure out how to start back into her life again. How to look for a job, a place to live, what does she want to do, who does she want to be, etc. The hardest part for me with that is now- not when it was happening. I came to care about her very much, and we all agreed to no contact other than pictures over a website. 9 months later, I am concerned about HER and really want to know how she is doing and that she is ok. I think about her constantly and "worry" about her in a big sister way. If she had people other than my husband and I to help her during that time, I maybe would not be so obsessed with wondering if she is ok??? Maybe, maybe not. Just some thoughts; best of luck with your situation.

Wow! This really is a scary situation. Does the b-father have the right to 'force' the b-mother to raise the baby on her own and block her option to place if she so chooses? He sounds like a real nightmare! My heart goes out to the young woman and the baby.

As an aside, no he cannot force her to parent her child. Her choices have led her to become the legal parent of her child with all the responsibilities that go along with that. He is a parent, too, and must pay child support. While she may not have understood it at the time, she chose to be a parent when she chose to carry her pregnancy to term. No one who gives birth can choose to not be a parent; they can only, if circumstances happen to fall into place, choose to stop being a parent, but it is not a right to do so. In this case, circumstances don't appear to be falling into place as she'd hoped. I echo portlowski's sentiments. This is a family working out how to raise their child. Personally, I don't see a place there for a prospective adoptive parent, supportive or otherwise. I would give her my contact information, be clear that I care but that I'm not the right person for her to turn to, and move on.

Things got pretty crazy and hectic after I posted this...and I never came back to update. That post I made was in March....for the next 3 months I talked to this girl almost everyday,and we got together with her and the baby about every 2 weeks. We went to places like the aquariam and some other fun places, or just to have lunch or dinner. She asked me to babysit him one day and I did. It was scary and taught me a lot about myself...I was able to step back and realize that I may very well just have met her and this baby boy to be someone supportive in their lives. For these 3 months she continued to INSIST that we were meant to adopt him. All the while the b-father was refusing from prison and HER mother stepped in and tried to get custody. That is a whole other story...but she tried twice and a judge said she was unfit and he agreed an adoption plan was best. In May she and the baby were kicked out of her house. Our agency put them both with an interum care family for the weekend and asked us on a Monday if we'd take the baby as a foster situation as we worked out the legal pieces regarding the birthfather. We prayed, and cried...and prayed some more...and then said yes. We drove out to go pick him up and were loading up our car with his stuff and the girl's cell phone rang. It was the b-father. He asked what was going on and she told him that we were taking him as foster parents for now. Then I saw her crying and she waved me over. B-father went on to say that he was so sorry, and had no idea that things were this bad for her, and he never meant to make it so hard, but he was just scared and this was the hardest decision of his life..and he couldn't believe that we had never given up all of this time, and would even take him as foster parents. He then said he would sign the papers. We were all in shock and in tears. It was unbelievable really!! And he did sign...the very next morning. We would then have to sweat out the 30 day wait in PA. It was terrifying. I feared that the b-mom didn't know the reality of what it would be like to really loose her baby. I feared that the b-father would change his mind too. Neither of their families were supportive of the adoption. It was a VERY hard wait. A few days the b-father wrote us a beautiful letter apologizing for taking so long to decide and said that he is so thankful that we never gave up and he couldn't wait to meet us. On day 30 at midnight I got a call from b-mom. She was crying and saying congratulations on our new son and that she loved me. It was incredibly emotional. Yes...you read that right...he is OUR SON. This was the most complicated and emotional, and crazy adoption journey I had ever heard of!! But I now see that it all happeened for a reason. I was able to bond with my son for several months and that made his transition with us very easy. I was able to bond with his b-mom and now have an amazing relationship with her. I love her like a sister. We saw her a lot during the first 2 months, but then she had asked to not see him for 5 months or so because it was too hard. But we talk every other week and we'll be seeing her next month. B-father got out of jail a few weeks ago and called me the day he got out. We have been planning on meeting him, but he's cancelled 3 times. I think he's nervous, and I totally understand. We've had our son for 6 months now. Since we had been with him so much the transition for him was very smooth and he bonded to us immediatley. Our social workers say it's amazing actually. :) I really can't remember him not being here! Our older son is such a proud big brother and loves him to pieces. It was quite the journey-- but the destination is PERFECT!!

I do pray that the post-adoption journey for you, your child and the birth family goes well. I don't understand why the judge determined that the birth mother was unfit (permanently rather than termporarily) and that adoption, not fostering by either you or the birthgrandmother, was the solution? And I recall that in your first posting you'd mentioned that the birth mother had NO SUPPORT. To me, while I see that you're thrilled with the perfect destination and outcome, it sounds like the birth mother had made decisions under high stress, with no support, guidance and therefore may not have been able to make fully informed decisions about all options - a classic case that so many birth mothers have tried to challenge. Why did the judge and everyone rush into adoption, particularly since it appears that there were so many misgivings on the part of the b-parents regarding parenting, fostering and adopting? I'm glad to hear that the recent 6 months have been going well for you. And I do hope that as the post-adoption journey continues to unfold for all of you, particularly the adopted child, you'll be sensitive to the high possibilities of grief and other issues that may pan out within all sides of the adoption triangle [URL="http://www.adoptionsupport.org/res/7core.php"]CASE: Resources for all - 7 Core Issues[/URL]. Both the b-mom and b-father appear to being going through grief already, given that the b-dad has cancelled several times and the b-mom has even said that she finds it too hard to see you and the baby for 5 months or so.

Maybe I read the earlier post wrong, but I took it to mean the birth grandmother was unfit to adopt the baby and that the birth mother's adoption plan was the best option.

Oops! I think you're right - the reference to 'she was unfit' must have been the birth grandmother. Now it makes sense. Still, I am concerned that the birth mother seems to have not received much, if any, support or unbiased counselling about her options.

Yes...I meant that my son's birth-granmother (bmom's mom) was denied custody by a judge twice. She has a stack of open cases with child and youth services and some mental illness and bad decision making in general. At that hearing bmom told the judge she was trying to make an adoption plan and that is why her mother was now trying to get custody...because she wasn't supportive of the adoption. The judge said that he *thought* adoption was the best option as well. He wasn't the judge to terminate rights...that came later. He simply was expressing his opinion and denied the grandmother custody.

My son's birthmom first starting thinking about adoption when she was pregnant. She receieved counseling from her own personal counselor that she's seen since she was a child and 2 school counselors. She wanted to do it but was 15 and her mom made her feel very guilty for "giving away" family. When the baby was born she again wanted to do adoption, but didn't. When he was 6 months she decided that despite her family's opinion-- this is what she wanted for him. All the while she was being counseled by 3 people who were indepentent of the agency. She then went to the agency and was counseled for 3 months before they would let her choose a family. She then choose us and was counseled for 3 more months until we actually adopted him. And during all of this she saw/see her personal and school counselor once a week or more. She also still gets counseling from the social worker at the agency.

:( I know exactly what you mean. ((hugs)) The 1st few months after we adopted him I felt like that too. I had talked or texted or hung out with the b-mom a LOT, and truely just love her. At 1 point we wanted to adopt her too, but our agnecy said that that wasn't healthy for any of us. Anyway...we saw her a LOT in the 1st month after the adoption (several times a week and daily phone calls) She needed it, and our son needed it, and of course we just loved seeing her. After 2 months her personal counselor (not the agency) asked me to let HER do the contacting and that she also needed to wait 6 months to see him again because she needed the space and time to heal. It was hard for me. I missed her, I wondered how she was doing each day. After a month or so the counselor agreed that we could talk every other week, but still no visits until the 6 months was over. She was also adopted by a guardian, and I met this woman...and she also said phone calls were ok, and would let me know if the phone calls ever became a "bad" thing for her. So that's what we do now and I really am relieved to hear she's doing ok, and like hearing about her being able to be a normal teenager again, and her college plans etc, and I know she likes hearing about her day to day life. We usually talk for about an hour, sometimes more. If I hadn't had any contact with her since our last visit in July-- I'd be a mess and worry myself silly about how she was. Anyway....could you re-visit the idea of a more open relationship now that some time has gone by?

Thank you for those prayers. No...The judge decided that the birth-GRANDMOTHER was unfit to adopt him. She has a stack of open cases with child and youth services, 3 kids (1 of whom she didn't have custody of for awhile, and now she no longer has custody of our son's B-mom) and at the time was pregnant with a 4th child. She was trying to adopt him because she was against the adoption plan. At the 2nd court date (she appealed the 1st one) the judge said that the birth-grandmother was unfit to adopt him. At that hearing the b-mom expressed her thoughts about adoption and the judge agreed he thought that was best for the baby. He was not the judge to terminate rights, and has nothing to do with the adoption. This was just his opinion. Yes--Bmom had no support from her mom, the baby b-dad or anyone else. Her home life was horrible which is why she wanted something different for her son. She has since been adopted herself by a guardian since that home life was pretty awful. She did have over a year of guidance regarding adoption. When she was pregnant she wanted to do adoption and saw her personal counselor and 2 school counselors about it. At the time B-father agreed adoption was a good option, but her mom told her it was a horrible choice and she was an awful person for considering it. She gave birth and once again wanted to place, but didn't. When he was 6 months old she again talked to her counselors about adoption. These are 3 independent people and they went through various options for her and helped her in the ways they could. She had the necessities like formula, diapers, clothes, medical care etc. Mom/baby foster care was suggested but she wasn't comfortable with that. 3 independent counselors did what they could to help her parent him, but they couldn't change her home life, or the fact that she was 16 and doing this as a single mom. THAT is the part that made b-mom keep going back to adoption. She wanted a different childhood and life for her baby than she had. At that time they found an adoption agency for her and went with her. The social worker at our agency counseled her for 3 months before letting her look at adoption profiles. They wanted to make sure she was ready, and it's what she wanted. After she choose us she continued to be counseled by 3 indepentent counselors, and the agency for 3 more months before even placing him. There was no RUSHING into any of this. In fact she called me several times upset that the process took so long and said "I have wanted to do this since December and now it's March and I don't understand why I can't do this?" Thank you for that info about the adoptee. I have been reading a lot about it, and I know we'll all do our best for him. We have a very unique and great relationship with his b-mom, and I hope that will help him later in life as well. Yes...of course they are having grief. How can they not? B-mom seems to be doing better each time we talk. I never expect her pain to go away, but I do think its getting "easier" as time goes on...or at least that is what she has told me. Bdad's grief is a bit different and I think there is a lot of guilt there. He really never had mich involvement.

She was counseled by her own personal therapist whom she has seen for many years, and 2 school counselors-- all of whom have no opinion/stake in the adoption and were unbiased. She first mentioned adoption to them was she was pregnant. She was counseled by all 3 from the time she was pregnant until she placed-- so for about 16 months. They all helped her with trying to parent and things like formula, diapers, medical care, and support. They looked into mom/baby foster care, but she didn't feel comfortable with that. When the baby was 6 months she once again told them that she wanted to look into adoption and they found an agency for her. The social worker at the agnecy counseled her 3 months until they would let her look at profiles, and then for another 3 months until she placed. I don't know what is average...but 16 months and 4 counselors seems pretty decent in my opinion.

Glad to hear that she did have unbiased counselling and guidance after all. While it won't take away the pain of relinquishment, at least hopefully she'll have some comfort in knowing that she explored her options and did the best she could despite lack of support from her family/partner. One thing I've learned in reading these boards is just how painful everything is for birthmothers and my heart goes out to her. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a teenager and receiving little, if any support, from my family and partner during my deepest time of need. I've had minor pregnancy scares - and that's the closest direct experience I have.