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We finalized the adoption of our very special needs daughter last month, now that the adoption is final I can share a bit more about the situation. Our beautiful girl suffered a horrific physical assault, perpetrated by the very person or people who were supposed to protect her. The alleged person is in jail. Here is my dilemma, I monitored all visits for 18 months because I am a nurse and the baby is fragile, during that time I thought that this particular person and I had developed a bit of a relationship, they did sign over their rights voluntarily, I'm sure they knew the court was going to do it if they didn't. We signed an extensive open adoption agreement based on our supposition that this person was not involved and knew nothing about the alleged abuse. Fast forward to adoption and we are given full disclosure which contained some very ugly pictures of my girl when she came into the hospital. The evidence is clear that the person that we had come to know was clearly lying about not knowing what was happening to their child and had spent the last 18 months lying to us every week about their innocence and ignorance. Now, We have this very liberal open adoption agreement with someone who, at the very least had to have known what was happening and at the very most participated. I am heartbroken and don't know where to go from here. Do I confront them on what I know or do I just live with it???
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I would confront. We were in a similar situation in that one parent was charged and convicted of the abuse, and it turned out it was in fact the other parent who had perpetrated it. I found out after the fact (post adoption). When I had a chance to meet this parent, they started out by saying that it had "just been spankings" and they had no idea why the kids had been taken etc. I simply stated quite clearly that I had seen the photos and the police and social workers reports. I knew it had been more than that, but I still wanted a relationship with them. I think when it comes to abuse, there are so many other dynamics of interpersonal relationships taking place within a home that we can't really know what is going on. In our case, one parent was willing to take the fall by going to jail because the charges were essentially rolled into time that was already being served for other reasons. The actual abuser was willing to let the other take the fall because it was assumed it was a sign that they still loved each other and their relationship would pick up again later (which it did, resulting in another child). Anyways - be honest. Let them know more information has come to light and you are aware. It will affect your relationship and the level of trust. Does the baby have the awareness of the relationship? I think alot depends on if this person is honest with you from this point forward.
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This babies injuries are so horrific, that she was left with little brain function, she has no cognitive ability, she is not aware of any relationship and will never be, that is the problem, the open adoption is supposed to be in the best interest of the child, this is not in this child's best interest as she is in a minimally conscious state and has no awareness of this person, so we are left doing this for this person only, who we do not trust and now suspect has something to do with our girls injuries.
I think it is totally up to you -- in our situation, because I hoped that forgiving themselves would allow them to move forward to become someone my kids could be proud of one day, I chose to forgive and facilitate a "safe" relationship. BUT in your situation, I don't know what your motivation would be other than from the goodness of your heart. I guess I would confront with the new info, and see what the response is. Go from there - take it one step at a time. And heck, if you are too angry right now to do visits, just wait. Give yourself time to come to terms with the new info before you feel like you have to deal with them!
Oh man. I can promise that if it was my newly adopted child that i found out the depths of abuse had involved the person I agreed to do open adoption with... I'd close it in a heart beat. My reasoning is that they lied to you for all those months... they need to be in prison forever for what they did to this baby. If they somehow manage to get out, they don't deserve to ever lay eyes on the baby again. They basically killed her, without killing her. There's not much worse than causing someone to live, imprisoned in their own body, for the rest of their life. I know we're supposed to forgive, and we can forgive... but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences to their terrible actions against a helpless human being. One of those consequences being that all contact is cut off. I would confront the person and explain in very clear English exactly why you are not keeping it open. They need to know that YOU know what they did, or at the very least, helped to do.
These are my feelings, exactly. I am so angry right now that I don't know what to do with these feelings. This person is not in jail, and will not be, they managed to get away with it because the other person involved confessed and took the blame, that person sits in jail awaiting trial. They now say that it was both of them who did it and they decided that one person would take the blame. I am hoping that something will come out at trial that will get the second person arrested, too. I told my DH that I want to call our attorney and officially close our adoption, I hope that is possible, if not I am not sure how I can do the visits and have to sit in the same room with them. My girl will never have a life, why should they.
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Depending where you LIVE, you can not just walk away from an open adoption agreement. You have a few choices. You can hire an atty and go through the courts to close it. You can close it and let the bio take you to court first. We recently learned that emailing photos and a brief update "counts" as contact per our OAA... that's what we choose to do for now. Good luck!
That's true, in my state an open adoption agreement is legally binding, we are considering speaking with our attorney to see what we can do. I realize that we just might be stuck and it breaks my heart, makes me wish I would have followed my instincts and waited for the court to terminate their rights, but we didn't and now we have this situation.
ScrapMonkey
We recently learned that emailing photos and a brief update "counts" as contact per our OAA...