Archive for the ‘adoption’ Category

May 18, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: In the News,Uncategorized,adoption

For those of you who are following this horrific story, here is a link to a newspaper article a colleague shared with me:

http://www.t-g.com/story/1634398.html

Tags: adoption

May 13, 2010 | By: Liz | Filed under: Egg Donation,Infertility on Television,Same Sex Parenting and Reproductive Law,Thinking Out Loud,adoption

I rarely watch television anymore.  I am lucky if I get time late at night to watch something and then I usually elect to watch a re-run of The West Wing.  However, the other night DH and I decided to stay up late and watch some television and he put on one of my favorite shows, Law and Order.  This episode may have been a re-run but I am not certain; we were watching it on NBC during it’s regular time slot 10-11 pm ET.  We only caught the last half hour, the part that always deals with the trial.  This fact pattern was very convoluted and revolved around a conspiracy by a doctor and a family to cause someone’s death of cancer at a certain time so that specific amounts of money would pass to certain descendants and not to other people or organizations (I didn’t catch the fact pattern well and it was really intricate).  Had the guy died of cancer on his own before some date the defendant and her partner would have inherited ten million dollars.

In the story, the prosecutor decided to use the fact that one of the defendants (who was a daughter of the guy who died and who was supposed to inherit ten million dollars) had conceived a child with her lesbian partner using an egg donor (at least I think it was an egg donor, it could have been that the defendant female partner had donated her eggs to her lesbian partner so that her partner could carry the baby for them to raise together . . . however, the prosecutor kept using the term “egg donor” so I assumed that the couple had used an egg donor and were planning on raising the baby together).  To further complicate matters, the lesbian couple had entered into an adoption whereby one partner had adopted the other so that they could obtain insurance together etc. and more relevant to the Law and Order story line, to inherit money together.

The prosecutor wanted to use the fact that the baby, because it was conceived via an egg donor, was not really their child (biological or otherwise) to cut off any inheritance rights the baby might have to the ten million dollars, and thus deny the defendant her right to benefit from the baby inheriting the money.

This had to be  a recent episode of Law and Order as the prosecutor is someone new, and Sam Waterston (sp?) is now the District Attorney or is in a more senior role and not trying cases.  The law as it pertains to same sex couples in NY has been pretty well established for several years.  Adopting an adult for purposes of a establishing a legal relationship between same sex partners is extremely difficult to do, and I believe there are and have been enough other laws that protect or recognize same sex marriages in NY that the adoption aspect of the story line was just plain stupid and offensive (if not legally wrong)!  I don’t believe that one adult can adopt another adult.  But . . .

Second and more to the point.  Law and Order got the law wrong on egg donation!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s assume first that it was a true egg donation whereby this couple used an egg donor to conceive a child they would parent together (and not that one partner was donating her egg to the other for purposes of conception).  In NY, although there is no statute, there is a case that specifically states that woman who gives birth to a child or children conceived via egg donation is the legal and natural mother of that child or children.  McDonald v. McDonald, 196 A.D.2d 7, 12, 608 N.Y.S.2d 477 (App. Div. 2d Dep’t 1994) (finding woman who gave birth to child conceived through egg donation to be “the natural mother of the children. . . .”).  Indeed, this case and a long line of other cases in NY deal with the presumption that a woman who gives birth to a child in NY is the legal and natural mother of that child.

Law and Order usually has lawyers that check the facts and the law on its episodes.  I am absolutely dumbfounded that they got this so wrong.  Regardless of whether one member of this partnership donated an egg to her partner or whether they used an egg donor, that baby was the legal child of the woman who was going to give birth to it.  Assuming the two members of this partnership had a legal relationship that could be recognized in NY (and maybe I am wrong on the adoption thing, but it seems that in 2010 it is easier to go to MA or Canada and get married than to try and adopt an adult (???) to create a legal union), that baby was a baby of their partnership and their love for one another, and if the baby was delivered in New York City or any of the five boroughs and they were legally married, then both of their names would go on the birth certificate.

This manipulative and legally inaccurate representation of same sex partnership laws, same sex parentage laws, and egg donation is staggeringly offensive and WRONG.  Where were Law and Order’s lawyers in this?  Do they no longer check that their story lines are factually and legally correct?  And if they have lawyers, may I take a guess that their lawyers are 80 year old homophobic men and that the show’s writers must have been on acid when they wrote this episode.

I am anxious to watch a re-run of this show and figure out what the facts were, and to determine just how wrong Law and Order got the law and order of reproductive law.

Tags: adoption, Egg Donation, hollywood, Law and Order, same sex parenting, television

September 28, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: Current Affairs,adoption

From Today’s New York Law Journal

Lawyer Accused of Stealing In Adoption Scheme

A Roslyn lawyer already under investigation in connection with real estate fraud was arrested Friday and charged with stealing thousands of dollars from prospective adoptive parents. Nassau District Attorney Kathleen M. Rice said in a statement that Kevin Cohen, 41, promised couples “babies that didn’t exist” and pocketed the money while telling them the funds were in escrow accounts while the adoptions were pending.

One couple paid Mr. Cohen $65,000 after he falsely claimed to have located two prospective birth mothers who sought to adopt out their children, Ms. Rice said. Mr. Cohen, founded the nonprofit Roslyn Adoption Annex in 2004, which provides services to adoptive parents and adopted children. He is charged with second-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheme to defraud and third-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. Mr. Cohen pleaded not guilty Friday afternoon but remained behind bars on $250,000 bail. — Vesselin Mitev

September 1, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: The Journey to Parenthood,adoption

My August put me upside down. I don’t know about you but most of my friends had a lousy month too. My right arm in the office, Danielle, took a position at a law school that means she won’t be working in the office on a regular basis, my mother-in-law passed away, my vacation wasn’t a vacation, and I am way behind on several projects for the office including the first of my E-Books which is so close to being finished I might be able to give up my addiction to Oreos. As a result of the events of this summer and primarily August, my husband and I have landed in a place where we have decided to reinvent our lives. Whatever we have been doing hasn’t been making us very happy (except of course for my work) and so we need to change things. And so we look at each other and say “what next?” But for the first time as we discuss what next, I understand that I need to look at the the what’s after part too and just roll with it. I need to let the roller coaster just take me . . . What the heck does this have to do with family building you ask? Well it has everything to do with it. Because I’ve never looked at the what’s after part because just like every other infertile person, I spent my life working on obtaining the “next” part.

And I saw this in action this week and last week with two sets of clients, each of whom has adopted babies within the last week or so. Each couple is stuck in a hotel right now waiting for ICPC approval to go home and each couple wants to go home so badly (as we all do, there isn’t a lot of fun stuff about living in a hotel with a newborn), but what is really going on is that they are (and I mean this in the MOST loving way possible) freaking out that they are finally parents and they don’t know what to do next. Home is the logical next step, and they have been so focused on steps and process that they are missing the beauty of their honeymoon in a hotel with a newborn. Once they get home, they can never get this time back. They will have family helping with the baby, they will be fighting to hold their own baby, and they will hit the wall of sleep deprivation. But once they are home, there are no more “what’s nexts?” It is just the now. And that is the other thing that is freaking them all out and putting them square in the middle of a parenting version of Fear Factor (I hate reality tv).

Parenting is the ultimate act of Zen living. Your baby gets sick and you have to call in sick to work or find emergency child care. Your baby has colic and you are up all night with a screaming newborn. Your baby doesn’t have colic but has his days and nights reversed and you have 3-6 weeks (or something like that) of living with only re-runs of I Love Lucy to watch instead of Grey’s Anatomy. Or maybe you just can’t plain watch tv because the baby needs to be changed and burped and cuddled. There is no more schedule, forget what’s next or what’s after . . . it’s all about THE NOW.

And after years of waiting and waiting and trying and trying and answering calls from birth mothers or having blood tests and ultrasounds, going from WHAT’S NEXT to THE NOW, well that is one mind bending trip. I don’t blame them for freaking out or being upset. This is the most amazing ride of their life, they just didn’t realize it was coming. Being alone in a hotel with a new baby, of course you want to go home where it’s safe and familiar. But from today forward nothing, not even going home, is going to go as expected or fear familiar (at least not at first). The what’s next, the what’s after, the Now are going to be constantly changing. Lord knows the minute you think you have a schedule, the schedule changes.

So as I sit here and mull over my own “what’s Next” and “What’s After”, I have to remember that it doesn’t really matter. I need to just roll with it. I’ve been blessed to spend the last 7 years learning to roll with it. I am far, far, far from perfect at it . . . but I am much better at it than I was when I was stuck in a hotel waiting for my own ICPC clearance.

To all of you sitting in hotels waiting for ICPC clearance, or those of you about to be sitting in hotels. Relax, breathe and remember that this is going to be the adventure of your life and now is the time to let go of what your next step or plan is, and now is the time to just enjoy. This is your honeymoon with your baby. Enjoy it, and learn to roll with it. It will serve you well in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

I miss my own stays in hotels waiting for ICPC clearance just like my clients. I know this is all hard, and those of you who are still waiting probably want me to step the hell off my soap box now . . . but I am not going to . . . this is all a part of the journey, let go, surrender and roll with it. This is an important parenting skill and I truly think infertility treatment and adoption planning is the BEST boot camp for parenting there is.

Forget what’s next, forget fear factor. Rejoice on the rollercoaster.

February 10, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: adoption

 

Starting an adoption plan isn’t easy stuff for anyone.  Most prospective adoptive parents come to the process carrying a hefty amount of baggage.  Whether it is from infertility treatment, or being an “older” adoptive parent, or our marital status, most of us are really scared about what a birth family may think about us and who we are.  There is no doubt that the fear of rejection is daunting.  It’s amazing what we do to ourselves through this process.  How we compartmentalize our personalities and our features and try to “predict” what it is that might make us more appealing to a birth family or what might make us less “pickable”.  It has gotten so out-of-control in some respects that I now lovingly call it the “Pickable-Factor” or the “Pickable List.”

 

The Pickable Factor is anything that we think might disqualify us or make us less attractive to a birth family, ultimately causing her to choose another adoptive parent(s) over us.  Every one of us has our own list of “pickables” that we think will make our wait take longer.  I don’t care what is on your “Pickable Factor” or your “Pickable List”.  The Pickable Factor is a myth!  Birth families usually don’t care as much about what’s on our Pickable List as we do.

 

Now before you go dismissing me altogether, please keep in mind that I have been on both sides of the fence.  I am an adoptive parent twice over and I am adoption advocate and professional.   And I can count the number of times on one hand that a birth mother has “rejected” an adoptive parent because of a “Pickable-Factor.”   I don’t mean in any way shape or form to dismiss the fears that give rise to our list of Pickable Factors.  I do want to reassure you that most, if not all of the time, what we think is going to disqualify us or make it harder to be chosen by a birth mother are not really what birth families are focusing on when trying to find a forever home for their baby.  

 

Among those of us who may have even greater fears regarding rejection by birth parents are prospective adoptive parents who are cancer survivors or who have some physical disability.  You may think that having had cancer makes you somehow less “pickable” than another adoptive parent.  But in my experience, it really isn’t true. The right birth mother is not going to care about your medical history.  Just like the fact that she’s probably not as likely to care about your religion, or your age or anything else on the list you’ve created.  She’s going to pick you because of some inarticulable, beautiful quality in you, one that is completely separate and distinct from your medical profile.  Or, maybe she chooses you because of a random baseball cap you’re wearing in one of the photographs in your dear birth mother letter or your adoptive parent profile.  (And yes, it can be that random.)  My point is this, what most birth families want and what we think they want, are vastly different.  Your Pickable Factors are exactly that, your Pickable Factors, no matter how consequential you may think they are.

  

            I recently gave a seminar on adoption advertising.  Although the crowd was relatively small, it was a diverse group, including three women who are cancer survivors.  Two of these women have children through adoption and the third was waiting to be picked by a birth family.  One of the women was very open about her experience (we’ll call her “Adoptive Mom A”).  Adoptive Mom A talked about how scared she was that a birth mom would reject her and all the things on her “pickable” list.  Her greatest concern, however, was that the birth mom wouldn’t want to place a baby with her because of her history of cancer.  She also had been afraid that her age, her physical appearance and her religion would ultimately (and always) cause a birth parent to choose another adoptive couple.  Much to her surprise, however, she and her husband met their first birth mother within a few months of starting their search.  And they met their second birth mother – for their second adoption – fairly quickly too.  Surprising to her, neither of the birth mothers with whom she and her husband made adoption plans, cared about her history of cancer, nor her religion nor her age.  The other adoptive mom who is a cancer survivor, Adoptive Mom B, also spoke about what it was like to search for a birth parent with this (as she put it) “elephant in the room.”  When she and her partner finally met the birth mother who chose them to parent her baby, the birth mom didn’t ask a single question about the cancer even after Adoptive Mom B brought it up.  What made these birth families look past something like a history of cancer?  Adoptive Mom A said that her first birth mother chose them because she just felt more “comfortable” with Adoptive Mom A and her husband; their birth mom felt less “judged” by Adoptive Mom A and hubby than she had when she met with other prospective adoptive parents.  Adoptive Mom B said that their child’s birth mother says she picked them because they looked like a fun family and that their child would live an active, fun-filled life.  Cancer, apparently, wasn’t on these birth parents “Pickable List.”

 

What these two women shared is consistent with a recent informal survey published in Adoptive Families Magazine.  The survey presented the birth parents’ perspective and what they are thinking when they choose adoptive parents (see Adoptive Families Magazine September/October 2008 issue at p.40).  Among the criteria Adoptive Families presented as important to birth parents were a stable and financially secure home life for the child.

 

            Everything we list among our Pickable Factors is legitimate, to us.  But it isn’t always relevant for birth families.  A dear friend (Mel from Stirrup Queens) emailed me about this issue, and I took some time to really think about it.  I put myself back in “waiting mode” and I thought about things from the birth parent perspective.  Ultimately, I think what brings us together with our children’s birth parents is largely out of our control and that is very hard to deal with.  We can obsess about just about anything and everything as part of this process; it is so hard to live a life with so little control about how, when and where we’re going to become a mom or a dad.  But the reality is that at the end of the day the obsessing and worrying is for nothing.  Cancer, your religion, your marital status are all aspects of who you are, but they don’t define you.  It’s what defines you as a whole – not just itemized, compartmentalized things on a list, even elephant sized things – that make a fit for a forever family.  The right birth family for your situation usually is the birth family that sees the whole you and looks past elephants and minutia to see who you really are and what you have to offer a baby, even if the essence of you is somehow inarticulably summed up by the beautiful baseball cap you’re wearing in the picture you threw into your profile at the last minute.  

Tags: adoption, Birth Family, Birth Mother, Domestic Adoption Planning