Understanding Adoption

I’m going to be honest. Adoption is a lot of work. In certain ways we are just like other parents, offering care, love and support for a child. Yet there is other work involved. We are also helping children work through past abuse, rejection and abandonment. The stories are painful. The reward is incredible.

Understanding if and why you want to adopt is vital. During National Adoption Month we often reflect on our journey with adoption, and how working in youth services has impacted our experience and knowledge. My partner and I have worked with SunServe, an organization that works with the LGBTQ community, for several years. Ultimately, it was our experience with LGBTQ teens that led us to consider fostering and adoption. Seeing firsthand just how many teenagers needed the love and support of a family helped us better understand the impact we could have on someone’s life.

We met our daughter, Jessica, when she was 17. She was a beautiful, inspiring, loving person who had been too afraid to share that with the world. With the help of ChildNet and the National Youth Advocate Program, a foster care agency that focuses on finding placements for LGBTQ youth, we were able to take on a role beyond mentor. My partner and I adopted our daughter just before her 18th birthday. Most people don’t think of teenagers when they consider adoption, but they need just as much love and support as any other foster child. Jessica has come so far since we first met her and so has our family. The reward of seeing your child blossom because of your support cannot be expressed through words alone.

If you have unconditional love in your heart and a desire to give kids a stable and steadfast home, we would absolutely recommend you consider adoption and connect with an agency like ChildNet. I can guarantee there will be tough times, but I can also guarantee the benefits will far outweigh those moments. Seeing your child blossom because you have simply offered a home, structure and love is the greatest gift.

 

source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-viewpoint-adoption-20141121-story.html

Russian agents threaten couple in adoption cancellation

Moscow agents tracked down the private phone number of a Long Island couple who wants to cancel their adoption of two children from Russia and called them in an apparent threat.

The couple’s attorney, Thomas O. Rice, told a judge the call left his clients “in a significant state of fright” but wouldn’t elaborate on what was said.

In a case that has outraged Russian officials, the anonymous couple say they were duped in 2008 into adopting two siblings who have behavioral issues. The children, 12 and 14, have been living in state mental-health facilities since 2012.

Igor Golubovskiy, consulate general of the Russian Federation in New York, has written to the judge requesting “detailed information on this case.”

Kremlin agents also want access to the children.

But during a hearing in Nassau County Surrogate Court, Judge Edward McCarty III warned Russian officials to back off.

“Under international law, any contact between the Russian Federation diplomatic corps and local political institutions or courts is inappropriate,” he said.

The couple is asking the court to vacate the adoptions and turn the children over to New York state.

They are suing adoption agencies Spence Chapin and Cradle of Hope for alleged fraud, claiming a “bait and switch” ploy.

Last month, McCarty made an unusual decision to keep the courtroom open, citing public interest.

He said Russian agents’ interference would not deter him from keeping the proceedings transparent.

US-Russian relations have been strained over adoptions and worsened in 2010, when a Tennessee woman returned her adopted son to Moscow alone on a plane.

In 2003, Russia banned US couples from adopting its orphans, claiming 21 of the children died in American parents’ care. But it is believed the move was in retaliation for US sanctions.

Pavel Astakhov, an aide to Vladimir Putin and a critic of US adoptions, has blasted the Long Island couple in Russian and British media.

“This is utter nonsense. The American couple had a complete dossier on each child and had the right to consult any doctor,” he said.

Given the attention, the couple’s lawyers, the state attorney general and the adoption agencies want McCarty to close the court.

He said he would rule on the matter on Dec. 5.

 

source: http://nypost.com/2014/11/23/russian-agents-threaten-couple-in-adoption-cancellation/

Adoption: The Myth and the Reality

Reuters

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the adoption statistic headlines last week. “Number of adoptions plunges to crisis level after Michael Gove reforms” declared the Telegraph. The plunge refers to a dramatic downturn in the number of children being made available for adoption: “The number of initial local authority decisions that a child should be adopted fell from 1830 in the three months to September last year to 960 for the three months to the end of June this year, down 47 per cent.” What do these numbers mean? Are there less children in need in the UK now? Has there been a dramatic reduction in family breakdowns? Are fewer children being removed from their families due to neglect or abuse? Should I be celebrating the good news that fewer children are waiting for adoption or crying over more children not being adopted? The article did not really do the issue justice, so just to be clear…

1. The number of children coming into care in the UK is still at a record high

A child is still taken into care every 22 minutes in the UK. There are still thousands of children severely affected by family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, neglect and physical violence. After the recent spate of child abuse scandals in places like Rotherham I imagine that social workers will err more on the side of caution and remove children at risk more quickly. So how do we explain the downturn in adoption numbers?

2. The decrease in children available for adoption is a result of judges choosing other options for the long term futures of children in care instead of adoption.

There are still large numbers of children in care (68,840 children were in local authority care on 31 March 2014, compared to 68,060 the previous year) and there has been no change in the law. So what is happening? Judges are deciding not to make the orders that authorise that the child can be placed for adoption and opting instead for long term foster care, kinship care or special guardianship. Sir Martin Narey, an advisor to the government on adoption, has expressed concern about this trend and his recommendations are supported by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.

I have just returned from a speaking tour of Australia and Singapore, both of which have moved almost completely away from adoption. In some Australian states there are virtually no adoptions, with long-term foster care becoming the norm. This trend in those two countries seems to be to give birth parents every last chance to be rehabilitated and ensure the child’s primary identity is with their biological family. I believe in the family; and birth parents are of course in most circumstances the best people to raise their own children. But sadly some troubled families, with the best will in the world, are not going to get better enough to provide a safe and stable home where their children can thrive. While we wait for parents to recover from their addictions, psychological traumas or mental health issues the children inevitably suffer. This should be the primary concern – the welfare of the children, who are already victims of other people’s choices. Their needs should be the priority for our decision-making. Sometimes birth parents are advised to contest the local authority’s application that a child should be adopted, opting instead for the children to be taken into foster care. This leaves more options for the birth parents in the future, but the interests of the children are not always given primacy in that process.

3. Adoption is not always the best solution for children and we need more families to step forward for long-term foster care or special guardianship.

Adoption is not the only or best solution for every situation. Long term foster care and special guardianship orders are valid outcomes for many children currently in care. But sometimes those options are set in place because it is deemed ‘unlikely’ for a child to be adopted. I have heard of several children who are moved from short term to long term foster care because that was the order granted by the judge, when in fact there are families willing to adopt the child – sometimes even the original foster carers, or respite carers who are familiar with the children. Because children with disabilities or uncertain future learning needs, or sibling groups or older children tend to wait longer or indefinitely for an adoptive family to come forward, judges may be disinclined to grant an adoption order in preference for a quicker permanency plan. However I believe that adoption could be a good option for more children than it is currently available. The Home for Good charity is working to change the culture – showing authorities that ‘harder to place’ children can find loving permanent homes and more adopters with this vision are beginning to come forward.

As foster parents we have had children moved on to adoption, to Special Guardianship placements and to long-term foster care, as well as returning some to birth families. For those not adopted, there is a huge bonus of being able to maintain contact with birth parents and siblings. The disadvantage of long-term foster care, however, can be that the children have no sense of permanency. There is no obligation on the foster families to care for the children beyond 18 (or in some cases 21) and sadly the life outcomes for young adults that age out of foster care are statistically pretty dire. Thankfully most of the long-term carers we have worked with have done everything in their power to ensure the children are welcomed, loved and supported beyond the call of duty. However, my hope would still be that judges would not shy away from making the difficult decision to make children available for adoption.

4. Either way there are still a lot of children who need long term loving homes. Can you help?

Our priority has to be the long-term welfare of children and whether children are granted adoption orders or not there are still huge numbers of children needing a home for good. So at our charity Home for Good we are going to be doing everything we can to recruit more foster carers and adopters to offer the families these vulnerable children need in their lives. If you have space in your life and in your home, and a desire to make a difference in children’s lives, then please contact us.

Dr Krish Kandiah is president of London School of Theology, the largest interdenominational, evangelical theological college in Europe. He is also the founder of Home for Good, a start-up charity helping to find adoptive and foster homes for children in the care system.

 

source: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/adoption.the.myth.and.the.reality/43145.htm

Meet a Woman Who Adopted Her Daughter – as an Embryo

Liz Krainman and 4-month-old Sammy are your typical happy, healthy mother and daughter. Strangers stop to ask, “How old?” and comment on how much Sammy looks like her mom.

They’d never guess the extraordinary journey it took to bring Sammy into the world.

Krainman, 33, has severe diminished ovarian reserve, a condition that leaves her unable to have genetic children. So she and her husband Kevin, 37, turned to the little-known option of embryo adoption to start their family.

And Sammy? In 2006, 1,700 miles away from the Krainmans’ Austin, Texas, home, she was just a newly fertilized, 6-day-old embryo – the product of another couple’s IVF cycle – put on ice in a storage facility. Seven years later, that very embryo would be thawed and transferred into Krainman’s uterus. Nine months after that, Sammy was born.

Follow all that? It’s a mind-boggling process, even for the new mom herself.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how boggled my mind is,” she says. “I can’t even wrap my head around it.”

Meet a Woman Who Adopted Her Daughter – as an Embryo| Real People Stories

The embryo that would become baby Sammy was housed in the vial on the left for 7 years

Courtesy Liz Krainman
In the IVF world, unused embryos are typically discarded or donated to science, but a third option exists and is slowly gaining popularity: embryo adoption.

Krainman found two donors, Vicky Rauchle and Libby Kranz, on the Internet.

First, she found Rauchle on Miracles Waiting, an embryo donation site, and she found Kranz through a traditional adoption forum online. Krainman underwent three attempts at pregnancy with the donated embryos. The first two attempts ended in early miscarriages.

On her third attempt, one embryo from each donor was transferred into her uterus, and she maintained a healthy pregnancy. But until her child was born, she would not know which “batch” the baby came from.

Here, in her own words, Krainman and her husband tell PEOPLE exclusively about her unique road to motherhood.

What appealed to you about embryo adoption?
I had always been open to traditional adoption, but when I learned embryo adoption existed, something just clicked and felt right for us. I wanted to experience pregnancy. I wanted to offer love to a child who needed it. I wanted to experience birth. Embryo adoption seemed like such an interesting and unexplored path to parenthood, and it seemed like an amazing and exciting thing to be a part of.

With so many unwanted children in the world, why not adopt that way?
I believe life begins at conception. Therefore, these embryos are life. They deserve an opportunity to grow and live and be loved just as any child deserves. These are little humans who happen to be nine months younger. And secondly, while those who have not struggled with infertility may think traditional adoption is easy, it’s not. This notion that “just adopting” is as simple as going to the corner baby store to pick up one of thousands of unwanted babies is simply untrue. There are families on long waiting lists for newborns in the U.S., and many times international adoption is riddled with bureaucracy, extraordinary expense, fraud, etc. Sadly, there are no guarantees on any path to parenthood. It’s just about choosing what is right for your own family.

How did your husband feel about the idea of embryo adoption?
KEVIN: I knew very little of embryo adoption in the early days of our infertility. The ironic thing is that we actually said that if we had any remaining embryos from previous IVF cycles of our own, that we would want to donate them to a loving couple unsuccessful in IVF. Little did we know that we were going to be that family. In the end, we matched up with two incredible, selfless and amazing families. Unlike traditional adoption, my wife would experience pregnancy. I would feel my baby kick, go on late night ice cream runs and watch my wife give birth to our child.

RELATED: From MONEY.com: The High Cost of Infertility
LIZ: Before infertility, we started with the mind-set of, “We will be able to have kids whenever we want to.” Then: “Maybe it will take more time than we thought.” Then: “We might need IVF, but at least that will be the answer.” And finally: “IVF won’t even work for us.” Each step takes acceptance. And coming to terms with having a child who is not genetically related to us was no different. But as with most things in life, everything was meant to happen the way it did so we could have this little girl we have today. We wouldn’t change a thing.

Meet a Woman Who Adopted Her Daughter – as an Embryo| Real People Stories

Krainman on her third “transfer day,” wearing her lucky necklaces

Courtesy Liz Krainman
Why was being pregnant so important to you?
I’d always thought in the back of my mind that if I couldn’t have children, I’d adopt. I always felt that family wasn’t about genetics, it’s about love. When the reality came true for me that I couldn’t have genetic children, I had to grieve the imagined moments when I’d let my husband feel those first kicks or when I’d wake him up in the middle of the night to go to the hospital. That was a hard pill to swallow. When I learned that I could both adopt and experience pregnancy, I can’t even describe the overwhelming feeling I had.

Being pregnant with this miracle has made everything so much sweeter. I’d lie in silence in the mornings and feel the baby move and would feel overwhelming gratitude and joy. I know that this way of building a family may not be for everyone. But to me, every single aspect of pregnancy, the good and the bad, was not taken for granted because I had faced the reality that it might never have happened at all.

You refer to Sammy as a “snowflake.” Tell us about that term.
In our embryo adoption community, we sometimes lovingly call our frozen embryos snowflakes. It fits them perfectly! Each is a tiny, delicate, frozen being, and no two are exactly alike. They are God’s gift from heaven! Even though Sammy is no longer frozen, she is always going to be my Sammy Snowflake.

How much does embryo adoption cost?
It isn’t nearly as expensive as one might think. It’s usually much less than a typical IVF cycle. With IVF, you are creating embryos from scratch and it’s much more involved, therefore expensive.

In general, it costs $3,500 to $12,000 per attempt. For us, it cost between $6,000 and $7,000 per attempt and we had partial insurance coverage. Some clinics will do the whole process anonymously for closer to the $3,500 point. We did it all on our own. Donors typically ask for reimbursement for the storage, so that’s one cost, plus the medical cost for the transfer, shipping costs to get the embryos sent, and a contract between the parties. You don’t actually pay for the embryo itself – it’s illegal. [Editor’s note: Technically speaking, an embryo adoption is a transfer of property, rather than a traditional adoption, which makes the contract a relatively simple one, stating that the genetic parents have no rights to any resulting children.]

Some people may think this process is immoral or goes against God. How do you feel about that?
I very much disagree with this. I have a firm belief in God and know He always has a hand in this process. Man may put the pieces of science together to form an embryo and to freeze it, but God puts the life and soul into these babies, just as He does any other baby. If man were in charge, it would work every time. I think it’s incredibly arrogant to think that we actually create the life itself. We perform the miracles of science. God performs the miracle of life.

I strongly believe that this is not immoral or inappropriate. It is beautiful and the answer to prayers for both donor families and recipients who feel these embryos deserve a chance.

How do you plan to explain to Sammy the process by which she was born?
This was one of my main concerns when we first started thinking about embryo adoption. I did a lot of research and felt that open adoption would be right for us. I wanted our future child to have the option to know the family where she came from, and ideally have open communication with them. We talked to a psychologist who specialized in children born of donor gametes. One thing she reinforced for us is that these children deserve to know they came from embryo adoption and there shouldn’t be a time they didn’t know. We have decided we always want her beautiful story to be her “normal.”

Meet a Woman Who Adopted Her Daughter – as an Embryo| Real People Stories

Liz meeting Sammy the day she was born

Courtesy Liz Krainman
We decided to capture her story in a personalized book we will read to her. We will describe her as a baby seed. Something like: All families need baby seeds to have babies, but sometimes a mom and dad need help. A nice family with baby seeds gave us theirs to help us grow you in my tummy. We will further illustrate this with growing a garden and have regular discussions around it. As Sammy gets older, we will openly answer questions about it. We don’t want it to be a secret. Secrets imply shame and her origins are anything but shameful. It took the love of so many people to bring her into this world and it’s something to be celebrated.

What is your relationship with the embryo donors?
We love them as though they are our extended family and couldn’t be more proud of where Sammy came from. No one could have predicted that Sammy’s genetic family would endure the tragic loss of their eldest daughter, Jennifer, during my pregnancy with Sammy. But Libby and Tony have been incredible in not only making this possible for us, but in giving us their support and love despite their family tragedy. We are grateful to them beyond words. I get teary-eyed thinking about my gratitude – it’s a level I never even knew was possible.

Did you have any concerns about having a child this way?
KEVIN: The only real concern I had was that I thought I may feel like our child was “on loan” from our donor family. Would this child truly be our own? I think this is a fairly normal feeling for any parent-to-be who goes through either the traditional or embryo adoption route. You quickly realize that this is just not the case. Throughout Liz’s pregnancy, genetics played less and less of a role in my mind. This baby growing inside of her now had a heartbeat that was being sustained by my wife. What she ate, what she did.

When the morning came to meet our little girl I was both nervous and on top of the world. I knew that from that day forward our lives would never be the same. Then I saw my precious Sammy for the first time. Saying that the birth of a child is the happiest day in a person’s life doesn’t even come close. At that moment, all the years of sadness, hopelessness and loss vanished in an instant and when I heard my daughter’s first cries I followed suit. The only word that can describe that moment is “sacred.” This was the little girl that we were supposed to have and whom we had been waiting for our entire lives.

What do you want others to know about embryo adoption?
I think that many times couples who have leftover embryos don’t wish to donate them to science or destroy them, yet they don’t even know this third option exists! Not every embryo will result in a living, breathing child. Sadly, many of them do not. But it’s important to both the donating families and the recipient families they are given this chance. For the people who struggle to build their family but cannot, I would like them to know this option exists too.

Infertility and loss has produced some of the harshest pain I have ever known. And the saddest part to me is that there is a huge community of those who suffer in silence. I want others to not only know that they are not alone, but that there is another family-building option they may not be aware of. I hope that others can find success and joy in it just as we have. Even if I make a difference for just one person, it’s all worth it.

For more information on embryo adoption, readers can visit Krainman’s blog, Wishing on a Snowflake, and EDA Community.