One thing is for certain. Just like people, no two adoption situations are going to be the same. There are many ups and downs in adoption and uncertainties but when post-partum depression becomes a part of the story the outcome can be devastating.
There are no cookie cutter templates at your disposal to take the stress out of the unknowns. Adoption is a unique, special, and sometimes tragic event all wrapped up in one little package; a baby or child that we've dreamt of having as our own.
Mentally reconciling the emotional adoption process can take a bit of time, even for the most emotionally stable. There are a few things that you can count on throughout the process that are government or state enforced administrative, like paperwork and background screenings.
Please look to all resources available to determine which route is the best for you and your family. I took an adjunct route, I'll call it. My mother passed away in December and by January my husband and I were selected to become parents of a domestic baby girl. After taking care of my Mother for over 10 years in a nursing home after she suffered a pre-mature stroke, I was finally determined to switch gears in life and begin looking to the future, not the end of life as I had done daily for years. I was ready to be Mom. Being obsessive by nature and focused when determined to get something done, I went online and spent hours a day researching adoption options. I learned that you could search "adoption situations" online and find real people on lists looking for loving parents for their soon-due to be born child. I searched online, talked to attorneys, called adoption agencies and physicians.
I ultimately found a "situation" online through an adoption facilitator from an online database in California. This facilitator listed all of the women's 'available situation' with baby gender, ethnicity, and other important circumstances. There were only a couple of families listed as sending their bios in on a listing that caught my eye, "Caucasian-Latino baby girl" to be born by "M" who was listed in the facilitators' database. I emailed our bios to the agency, sent in a fee and the facilitator submitted our information to the bio-mother. The bio-mother was in an emergency situation, she was on the streets with two children and needed financial support immediately. Our bios were sent to M. M was given our phone number and called me directly to screen my husband and me. She sounded tearful, alone and desperate. I told her I'd send money right away for her hotel room and we'd immediately look for a house to rent for her and her two children. M sounded let down by previous broken promises that seem to be in abundance in the entire chain of the adoption process. M called us the day we'd submitted the papers. M chose us to be the parents of her soon to be born baby girl. My husband and I were beyond ecstatic.
I don't think there is enough time to go into the personal feeling of being "chosen" to be a mother in an adoption situation. It has to be equal in exhilaration and excitement as being told that you have a positive pregnancy test. However, the excitement is short lived when you remember "oh, I could still be denied the baby and there are a lot of legal and personal and emotional steps still to be made to complete the picture". This is a thought always running through your head until the day you finalize the adoption in court.
Adoption has a different connotation than before we 'jumped in with both feet'. Our Bio-mother was homeless, we put her up in a house where she could live with her two children she had from previous relationships. M was a drug addict although she promised us she'd quit once she found out she was pregnant. M said she had stopped all drugs, except marijuana. After reading research statistics on effects of drugs on baby's whose mother's used them in the first trimester, we decided to accept this and went forward with the plan.
My husband and I became very close to M as we navigated the last 2 rocky months of her pregnancy. Through severe itching to diabetes and a lot of money being sent to M, eventually, a baby that was born a month earlier than the due date given, we were together by phone almost daily. The bio-mother's mom, who was a heroin addict, had died ten years before when M was 21 years old. We were extremely happy and comfortable with plans to share our daughter's future with M. I loved her.I felt she was family and we related well and had similar personalities. I was maternal about M. We felt sharing our daughter with M could help keep the mystery out of the adoption process. Besides it seemed the right thing to do to keep the doors of love open between the bio families who can't deny there is a natural connection and therefore, loss. I didn't feel M would be inappropriately involved in our lives. She just wanted to keep in touch. M loved this baby. M asked me to stay at her house after being released from the hospital when I was in California picking up our daughter at birth. I slept in one of the small bedrooms of the home I was renting for her family. M showed me how to fix bottles filled with formula and tips on how to care for an infant. I was clueless about caring for a baby and had no mother of my own to ask questions. I enjoyed this special bonding time with M and her two children. The kids, one 7 year od girl and one 11 year old boy, called me their 'angel' for getting them off the streets and into their first house and asked me if 'Angel' could be a part of the baby's name, of which I happily obliged. After a seven day stay in California, I was approved by the states involved that I could now travel home with my adopted girl and proceed with the rest of the process of legalizing our daughter as our own. I was elated about having our baby and enjoying every minute of motherhood the second I took our daughter in my arms. Our daughter was healthy, alert and a non-complainer. Administratively, emotionally though the stress level was amazingly high. High stress is one thing you must expect through an adoption. After a few weeks and a little panic on my end as meetings to get signatures were missed, M finally signed parental relinquishment papers. That wasn't the end of the battle. As soon as we received the birth mother sign-off, the bio-father sends a letter from prison saying he was going to petition against the adoption. My heart fell. We'd had our baby girl over a month and there was no way we could let her go. M finally intervened with the bio-father. M begged the bio-father to let our adoption go through for the best interest of the baby. He eventually backed off just in time to let us move forward in the legal process.
It was a relief to get through the first couple of months but unfortunately, these hiccups along the way don't conclude our adoption journey. I had ongoing contact with M. One hot day eleven weeks after our baby girl was born we received a call from California. A voice of one of M's friends was on the other end of the line. She said M was found dead. She had drowned in the bathtub after doing heroin. I about fell over in shock and pain - I was devasted to think M wasn't going to be around for me to share my life with. I was overcome with guilt. Was it because I'd adopted her baby? The last time I'd spoken to M at length, M told me that her kids and boyfriend were 'being mean' to her. M said that her kids and boyfriend need to remember that she might be in the middle of postpartum depression. I suspect she had also gotten back on drugs. She would call me asking for money for food for the kids but I knew she got state support for food. I wondered if her kids were showing their resentment for her adopting out their "sister" by saying they 'hated' her and other things kids can do not truly meaning harm.
The lines can be blurred between addiction issues and adoption stress. I don't know if the drugs simply got the best of her or if M really did this on purpose. I'm not sure if the adoption was the driving force behind the overdose, if it was an accident, or the lack of support from her boyfriend, or her own thoughts that pushed M back to drugs. It was her straying boyfriend she was on the phone with when she died in a bathtub after doing heroin. Her boyfriend could have called her dad - who lives on a methadone program - and lived in the garage of the house in the other room to go in to the bathroom and save her but I suspect him being in his own addiction stupor, her boyfriend didn't do anything. A note was found. We still don't know if she meant this particular thing to happen that day as the note wasn't dated. It is heartbreaking to remember the words from the note. She wrote about watching over everyone from heaven as they graduate schools and live their lives. I can only hope M is watching over all of us. I know I could use her support after enduring the loss of such a beautiful, honorable and loving person who was doing her best in life to survive against the odds. We wanted M to be in our lives forever. M was absolutely brilliant and loving about how she allowed me in her personal life and shared with me the biggest love I'll ever have in mine. I have no idea how I will share this tragic story with our daughter. We hope to stay in contact with M's children. M wanted me to adopt her two kids if anything ever happened to her. I'd agreed not thinking I'd need to consider actually doing it. I tried everything I could except going to court to get the children after she died. They now live with thier heroin addicted father who may be more interested in getting the monthly money for the kids than being a father.
My attitudes towards adoption have changed dramatically after experiencing my adoption story and M's death. I am much more sensitive about adoption and the sacrifices on both ends. Adoption is hard. Adoption is stressful. People are always so complimentary of me, of how I saved the baby and took her out of a bad place. I am not so certain I should get the accolades but I do know the should. I am now certain that the sacrifice is far greater than any of us can know and it breaks my heart to think that Jessica gave up her baby probably not due to drugs but due to not ever having a chance to do better in life, for not having the resources to care for them. She had no good influences in her life and no resources to care fore her two children. Only someone who has given up a baby can realize the pain and loss birth mother must feel, even if they are convicted of the decision of adoption and know the baby will actually have a better life if adopted. My heart goes out to every one of these women making the hardest decision of their life so we can celebrate for the rest of ours.
I don't care if 'they are on drugs', or, 'live on the street', or are doing 'fine', or any other subtle statement that is used to make ourselves feel better about what we get and what the bio-mother loses. I never want to diminish the existence, the sheer heartache, the emotional trauma the bio-mother experiences through allowing another family to adopt her baby. And if she experiences post-partum depression the outcome can be devastating. In all cases of adoption someone has done something completely unnatural by giving up their baby. We show much respect to the adoptive families but in reality, it is what the bio-mother has done out of the love of her baby that makes adoption special. Most of us can't imagine the strength this act must take. For their selfless act of adoption, let's thank all of the incredible bio-mothers.