My ideas for our healthcare system (in re: adoption)... sad story... and UPDATE on previously mentioned first-mom.
This story is about a woman charged with kidnapping her biological twins. They had been adopted right after birth. I think this story says a lot about the way adoption works in the U.S. and the lack of effort put into helping first-mom's keep their children. Thank you Mia for providing the link!
By the way, the mother that I spoke of here "decided" not to parent her child. I think about her and her baby daily. Apparently there is a 10 day period in which she can change her mind... I'll never know, but I HOPE that she does. I'm sure that she didn't make an informed decision. I firmly believe that if she had more information she would have kept the baby.
Her story has encouraged me to talk with the management at my hospital and perhaps start an "Adoption Committee". The committee would have several goals:
Currently our hospital has a fetal demise (death) committee that provides these services and support, but there isn't anything similar for "adoption" patients. The ideas are still floating around in my head, but once I get it all organized I hope to present it to my management. I don't know of any such committee at any hospital. If you know of anything like this, please let me know! I would also love to hear your ideas about it. It would be amazing to start such a comitee and watch it spread to other healthcare institutions throughout the U.S. I know that's a stretch, but reform has to start somewhere!
By the way, the mother that I spoke of here "decided" not to parent her child. I think about her and her baby daily. Apparently there is a 10 day period in which she can change her mind... I'll never know, but I HOPE that she does. I'm sure that she didn't make an informed decision. I firmly believe that if she had more information she would have kept the baby.
Her story has encouraged me to talk with the management at my hospital and perhaps start an "Adoption Committee". The committee would have several goals:
~ To provide information about resources to help the first-mother keep her child.
~ To provide resources to first-mom's who decide to place their child (i.e. support groups, books, on-line resources, etc)
~ To help educate other health care providers on the importance of helping first-mothers make an EDUCATED and INFORMED decision.
~ To provide first-mothers who choose to place their child tangible items to take home with them such as: pictures, memory box, birth bracelets, baby blanket, etc.
Currently our hospital has a fetal demise (death) committee that provides these services and support, but there isn't anything similar for "adoption" patients. The ideas are still floating around in my head, but once I get it all organized I hope to present it to my management. I don't know of any such committee at any hospital. If you know of anything like this, please let me know! I would also love to hear your ideas about it. It would be amazing to start such a comitee and watch it spread to other healthcare institutions throughout the U.S. I know that's a stretch, but reform has to start somewhere!
posted by Ryan | 1/03/2007 08:23:00 PM
4 Comments:
The committee is a WONDERFUL idea, Ryan! I will ask my L&D peers at our hospital if they have any such thing (my guess is not)...
I wonder if there is a way to get more education to RN's about this topic- could the ANA have it pushed into nursing curriculum? Maybe you could start some kind of CE course on the topic?
Ryan,
I think it's an incredible idea and one that I would love to see come to fruition. My mom was a L&D nurse for 30+ years. I'll ask her if she knows of any thing like it. Please keep us posted on your efforts!!
Ryan,
I think the idea you have is a good one but I wanted to respond to your previous post regarding the first mother and this update.
We have been the adoptive parents that have been through a disrupted placement and unless you have been in those shoes to say that someone would be sad but move on is not true at all. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of the child I loved and still love. I think of him and what he is doing and I pray that he oneday have a forever family. You see not every first mother ( as you call them ) wants to parent. I know you think they do and that with assistance they would and of course do a good job of it. But that is not always the case and our child was born exposed to drugs and his first mom left the hospital at the 24 hour mark and never looked back. He was her fifth child and the fifth child that she does not parent and that is a choice she makes by her actions. Our adoption was not disrupted due to a birth parent but by a sibling who wanted the state money that would be provided by taking in another child. The sad truth is that the sweet baby I held and love is now at the age of almost six bouncing from foster home to foster home as the state had to take him from the bio extended family due to abuse.
So, I guess my point is.. you can't ever know what someone else is thinking or feeling and if that first mother wanted to parent that baby or not. Placing the baby may have been the best decision she made at the time and the best place for the baby to be. I can guarantee you that the baby I would have raised as my son would have spent the last six years of his life far better off than where he has been and of course that was after I got him over his withdrawls from the drugs his first mom but into his little body.
Not trying to sound mean but sometimes the cold hard truth is hard to understand and not every woman who bears a child wants to parent it. And by no means does a woman have to bear a child to be a mother.
I wanted to reply to the above "Anonymous" comment.
Thank you so much for your insight, and for explaining your loss. I totally understnad that every situation is different, and I understand that there are first-mothers who really don't want to parent or who shouldn't parent (drug use, abuse, etc).
In this situation, neither of those was the case. I wish I could go inot detail, but because of confidentiality laws, I just can't. This first-mother did NOT want to leave the hospital, and tried to stay there until her baby was discharged because she loved it and didn't want it to be alone. There was also no drug use in her history, no abuse, and she had taken good care of herself and her pregnancy. She was also in a good relationship.
In terms of the would-be adoptive parents... they had only found out the night before. They hadn't followed the pregnancy and been part of that experience. They had only been "in process" a few months. I spoke with them, and they were very cautious of getting attached. I realize that if that first-mother had changed her mind and kept the baby that the would-be-adoptive-parents would have been crushed... BUT, because the first-mother was a smart, "with-it" kind of person, I think the adoptive-parents may have felt some comfort in that.
I think your situation and this situation are entierly different. The only thing keeping this first-mother from her baby was lack of money.
I am not a beliver that adoption is bad. (Obviously because I HAVE adopted!) I do, however, believe that some babies placed for adoption would have been kept by their mothers if their mothers had been more informed, AND that those babies would have had a good and decent life with thier bio. mother. Obviously there are situations like yours, and that is awful. BUT, at the same time, there are situations like the one I have been speaking of... and in this specific case I think that the baby would have been in good hands with his first-mom.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Ryan
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