Category Archives: Adoption Process Issues

“Wrongful Adoption” Lawsuits

Occasionally one hears of adoptive parents suing an agency for “wrongful adoption”. The parents usually claim that after they adopted the child, the child began to exhibit special needs and/or behaviors that were unexpected. For example, a child who sustained extensive sexual and physical abuse is considered at risk for attachment disorders. Children who were abused themselves also are at risk for becoming abusers of others. A child may have disabilities related to fetal alcohol exposure. The parents claim that the agency either knew about these problems, or factors putting the children at high risk for these problems, and withheld … Continue reading →

Certificate of Citizenship: Why Isn’t a Passport Good Enough?

My last blog talked about the importance of ensuring your adopted child’s US citizenship. This blog talks about the importance of being able to prove it. When our daughters’ adoptions were finalized, we immediately obtained passports for them. A passport, I had always been told, was the ultimate proof of citizenship—better than a birth certificate, better than a social security card, better than just about anything. Our older daughter’s adoption was finalized in 2001, just after the Child Citizenship Act took effect. We were told we could apply for a Certificate of Citizenship. None of us really knew what that … Continue reading →

“To Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity”

Most parents would assume that once a child is legally theirs, their citizenship extends to that child. After all, plenty of parents serving abroad in the military or on business give birth overseas and their children are citizens. We have always been told that having one parent who is a U.S. citizen automatically makes a child a U.S. citizen. Except, adopted children haven’t always had this protection. Until recently, children adopted from other countries had to go through a separate naturalization process (forms, filing fees, sometimes court appearance). There have been cases in which adoptive parents assumed that their citizenship … Continue reading →

What Is An Adoption Doctor and Why Would I Need One?

What in the world, you may ask, is an “adoption doctor”? Adoption is not a disease, after all! (In fact, I still remember how disturbed I was the first time I went to the library for information on adoption. Instead of being in the parenting section, “Adoption” books were shelved between “Addiction” and “AIDS”. ) Nevertheless, a new subspecialty has developed in adoption medicine. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a new committee for it. Why? Especially with the advent of international adoption, many doctors were unfamiliar with the terminology used by doctors overseas and were unable to advise parents … Continue reading →

Adoption Day #2

I have detailed in a number of blogs what turned out to be a fight for Isaiah. He came to our house on a “foster to adopt” basis because we already had adopted his four older maternal brothers. His birth mother had been encouraged by a movie (Losing Isaiah) to fight for his custody. She finally decided, during court ordered mediation, to sign a relinquishment of her parental rights. We agreed to send her, through an intermediary to protect our identity, pictures and a narrative of all five boys every six months. We had a “goodbye visit” with her and … Continue reading →

The Redacted File

In Texas, families who are adopting children do not find out vital information about the child until just before the adoption is finalized. That put us at a distinct disadvantage. In the adoption process, a redacted file is one in which certain information is blacked out in order to preserve some legal right. For instance, if the state had been called out to investigate a home that a child was in, anything revealing the identity of the person that submitted the report to the state is blacked out to protect them. There was a lot of important information withheld from … Continue reading →

The Fight for Isaiah is Over

The first mediation session ended without success because Lola decided that she needed to talk to her drug rehab counselor at the last minute and we could not find him. We were all guardedly optimistic about the second session. We started to worry when Lola arrived. She looked really bad. I had seen her like this many times before. She told us that she had not talked to the counselor and that we were going to have a trial because she was not going to sign anything. When she came back, she told me that she had lost the pictures … Continue reading →

The Fight for Isaiah, Round Five

There were a lot of people in attendance at the mediation meeting. Our state social worker was there, with her boss, who brought her boss. The volunteer from Child Advocates was there, with her boss. The remaining participants were the mediator, Lola and her lawyer, the state’s lawyer, Nancy, and me. Apparently, a lot of people thought that there was a lot at stake. I certainly did. The mediator was doing all of the things that he could do to calm everyone and facilitate a free discussion. Lola was clearly uptight. The fact that it was Lola and her attorney … Continue reading →

The Fight for Isaiah, Round Four

As we moved closer to the day that a decision had to be made about Isaiah, Lola was talking more and more like she was assuming that she would retain her parental rights. Her drug rehab counselors were giving her pep talks and her lawyer was apparently encouraging her. She would talk about these things in front of me as if I was disinterested in what was happening. Some of her talk was clearly fantasy. For instance, she told me that she was going to be trained to be an ultrasound technician for a hospital. She had not finished high … Continue reading →