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My heart is broken for this couple, firstly for the failed adoption, as a mixed bag of emotions that it is, but then to deal with the child you nearly adopted being murdered (probably) by it's first family (Dad) is just too hard to imagine. Two losses (for the first mom as well) is just too much back to back. They learned through other means (than 1st hand accounts) that the child had passed and they were very upset no one called them. I'm not sure why anyone in the family would call them. The child's biological mother would be devastated and I doubt anyone else around her was concerned for their feelings (would have been considerate but certainly not obligated). But It's tragic for them none the less. I couldn't even imagine.
I feel for the first mom too. How horrible to go through a crisis pregnancy, adoption plan, relinquishment of the child (physically only? I assume, but i imagine the toughest part), failed adoption, then eventual death of the child. The guilt that will haunt that poor mother is beyond comprehension.
I will keep this family in my thoughts. I'm traumatized for all involved. I thought I'd share since it was a different take on a news story concerning adoption. Something I've never seen on the news before.
Link to Gabrielle's story:
[url=http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2014/04/24/infant-death-des-moines/8083533/]Former adoptive parents stunned by infant's death[/url]
I'm not sure why the child is named McFarland (adoptive parents last names) in the story. Not sure his name would have been different at the point they were in the adoption. But perhaps 1st mom gave him their name but struck me as odd (and a bit disrespectful). I wish I could find a story with more details surrounding the adoption. It seems odd that he would be going back to the first family at this stage unless they hadn't terminated rights. Lord knows.
But sad, tragic and heartbreaking all the way around.
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Why was this thread moved to "failed and contested adoption?" I can see moving it somewhere, but this was not a failed or a contested adoption.
It is not a "failed adoption" when a mother declines to surrender her child to people who would like to adopt him/her.
It is not a "contested adoption" when the natural parents have not signed TPR and no adoption has taken place.
This isn't to hit on the admins for moving the thread here, rather, I want to say (again) that this situation is being wrongly framed as having anything to do with adoption--it's a tragedy of an entirely different sort.
Rachel and Heidi wanted to adopt this baby, whom they knew was not legally available to them for adoption. Then they were not successful. What happened after had jack to do with them.
I understand feeling compassionate toward them, but, OK, the more I understand their attempts to manipulate the media and to make the story about THEM, and the more they totally allow the natural mother, who just suffered a horrific loss, to be thrown under the bus--I'm losing my compassion.
The baby died at the hands of his father--or through the neglect and/or ignorance of the 17-year-old father and I'm not at all commenting on that here--while in the custody of his mother. The fact that the child had been a child who may have possibly been adopted by this couple wouldn't even enter into the radar of most news organizations.
Rachel and Heidi may indeed feel real grief, but they are attempting to use the media, and really, to use the death of this child they claim to have loved so much, for their own purposes.
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