Hello,

My husband and I just experienced a failed adoption and it has given me comfort to read your posts. Today is Saturday, and we learned of the news on Monday. To add insult to injury, my sister is law is visiting from very far away. She had a baby last year after IVF. She leaves tomorrow and I really am in a tough situation where I need to go see her. On top of that, my other sister in law who recently learned she was pregnant (first try, gee whiz) will be there. So I get to go to “baby fest” when we just had a failed match 5 days ago after years of fertility treatments and miscarriage. On top of that, my husband’s family is quite clueless when it comes to the empathy department. They mean well, but really tend to say some insensitive things some times. They don’t have a clue what it is to wait and not know if it could be tomorrow we have a baby, or if we could be deluding ourselves that we’ll ever have a baby at all.

Sometimes I wonder if it takes this much effort, maybe it just isn’t meant to be?

Anyway, we had an almost match in December through a mutual friend, but the child had something in his background that we were not approved for. It was really disappointing, but there’s a reason we create our preferences page. Then Feb. 15 I got the call at work that an expectant mother had chosen us. She is due April 3 with a baby girl. Friday we learned the news, the next Tuesday we had a Skype match meeting, and it was a love fest. We thought she was very sweet and she really liked us. Two hours after that, one of the potential birth fathers said he might contest. Also, she had yet to tell her mother who was out of town. My husband and I refused to proceed with the match until at least one of those hurdles was addressed. In the state where the match would take place, birth fathers don’t sign anything. They are served notification, and if they do not take action by going to court, their rights are terminated within 30 days. The agency said in their 9 year history only 4 men have shown up in court. Also the e-mom said if we didn’t accept that match, she wouldn’t place. We were the only couple she wanted.

The e-mom told her mother and her mother was supportive. We were relieved and proceeded. A few days later (I do aggressive Internet marketing) a woman with a born baby that was 4 days old emailed me and was interested in us as adoptive parents. I wanted to do the honest thing and I told her the truth that we we just matched. I recommended she contact our agency. I felt very committed to our e-mom. How stupid was that?

We told the e-mom we would go visit her if she wanted. Three weeks went by and neither potential birth father had taken any action. We were a week away from being in the clear with them. E-mom texted me and asked if I would visit that following weekend. My husband and I flew to her city. On Friday she and I were texting and she asked us to meet at Olive Garden. E-mom’s counselor told us she saw the birth father who might contest and he said he was really looking forward to meeting us at dinner and seeing why e-mom really liked us.

Saturday we landed in her city. I texted to let her know and she did not reply. That seemed ominous to me, but I did not want to over react. Sunday we were to have dinner with e-mom, Monday morning we were to meet with our adoptive counselor and Monday afternoon fly home. Well, e-mom did not show up to dinner. I knew it was over. When we went to meet with our counselor the next day, she texted and said e-mom wanted to meet for breakfast. Our counselor said e-mom claimed to be in the hospital the night before with false labor. Our counselor didn’t believe her.

E-mom showed up and basically told us that she didn’t have it in her to break the news to her 5 and 3 year old boys. They kissed her tummy every day and she couldn’t do it. E-mom had drawn us a picture and was trying to give us words of encouragement. She talked about the connection she had with us and how she wanted to keep in touch. It was nice of her but also felt a bit like being dumped before dinner and then being expected to sit through the rest of it. It really did feel like being dumped by someone I really loved and having the realization I would never see him again. My husband made an excuse that we had to go, and e-Mom just waddled off into the sunset. 

While I feel terrible, my poor 75-yr-old dad is just heartbroken. I tried to warn my parents not to get overly excited, but they just couldn’t help it. Also two days after the failed match, I received this heartfelt email from a sick woman who asked if we would adopt her 11-year-old daughter that she cannot take care of. My husband and I live in the city (near really expensive private schools) and we just aren’t in the place to take an older child. We intend to move to a more affordable public schools’s are should we ever have a child about to enter Kindergarden. We have some many “almosts” but nothing seems to be the right fit. 

Sometimes I take the wait and disappointment in stride and sometimes I wonder how I will ever survive it. Now I worry we’ll have more failed matches. What’s the highest number of failed matches you’ve ever heard of? I’ve heard of three failed matches in three years. We’ve just had so much bad luck every step of the way—even with donor egg fertility treatments. Every step of the way even when the odds were much more in our favor, the worst possible outcome materializes. Does anyone know people who just could never adopt no matter how long they waited? Maybe God or the Universe or whatever I did in a past life—who knows—just doesn’t want us to be parents?

LB

Ahhhhhh. I’m so sorry that you weren’t able to get some closure from contacting her. It sounds like maybe she is in some turmoil herself or your contact wouldn’t have upset her so much. Maybe after more time has passed she will be able to speak with you.

And of course you are hopeful that she still might change her mind. That is only human!

Wow. I wish I knew what to say to support you. It is just so painful, especially at Father’s DAy as you noted. Your poor husband.

I’m going to ramble a bit now in hopes that I’ll eventually say something useful (hopeful smile). It’s not comforting, but matches do fall apart with some frequency (usually before placement), and in my limited personal experience, it can be something small and seemingly insignificant that tips the balance. Expectant moms are in a heightened emotional state, as are the hopeful adoptive parents. We look for “signs” where there may not be any. So, hypothetically, someone in your family MAY have done something to put off the mom, BUT that doesn’t mean that anyone did anything WRONG. Only that she was in a place where she interpreted a “sign” that told her what she perhaps unconsciously wanted to hear: she should parent the baby.

The expectant mom that I mentioned in my posts, “S,” had a dream that scared her about the baby. She had a history of abuse, and hinted that this was the tone of the dream. She insisted the dream had nothing to do with us, but it made her feel that keeping the baby with her was the only way to keep the baby safe. How could I argue with that? What could I possible say or do to reassure her? Nothing.

With our third match, for our daughter, we spent almost a week with her birthparents waiting for all of the paperwork to be set up. During that time it was VERY clear to me that C, the birth mom, was watching our every move for “signs” that we would be good parents. Talk about stressful! I don’t mean just making sure we were kind, trustworthy, etc. For instance, when she first handed little baby N.  to me, she feel asleep. C said, “Look how comfortable she is! That is a good sign!” Yikes! The baby was two weeks old—she could have started crying at any moment and that would have been a bad “sign” indeed! Another example—the night before the termination papers were signed, it was late, and my husband and I were leaving the birthparents’ hotel room with the baby (she stayed with us for 3 of the 4 nights we were up there). As my husband placed her little sleeping body in the carseat, she suddenly gave a loud cry. Poor birth mom jumped out of her chair with a look of alarm; my heart stopped because I KNEW this was the moment I had feared all week. You can imagine my immense relief when N. immediately feel back into a sound sleep.

But sometimes I DO believe in signs. (Yes, my rambling continues). The four days we were with the birthparents were so chaotic and stressful that I honestly don’t know how we did it. (Actually, our two failed matches really helped us prepare emotionally). One of the things I was stressing about was finding a meaningful gift to present to C and R after the relinquishment. We considered various jewelry, luggage, cell phones to keep in touch, etc. etc. We were running out of time and getting nowhere, when I suddenly had a revelation: dog tags. I could picture the birth parents wearing dog tags engraved with N’s birth name and date. I rushed around and managed to find a jeweler who could engrave them in time, for a reasonable price, and my husband picked them up the morning of the relinquishment. But when I showed them to the facilitator, it was clear that she wasn’t impressed. I was crushed. There was absolutely no time to find anything else, so the facilitator took the little gift bags to give to the birth parents (they decided at the last minute that it would be too painful to see us).  We left town, and a few hours later the facilitator called. She had visited with the birthparents, and something amazing had happened. Before opening our gifts or even seeing the bags, C, the birth mom, told the facilitator that she wanted to get dog tags made for her and birth dad! Wow! It sounds kind of silly writing it down, but I still get teary thinking about what a great “sign” it was for C to open her gift bag and see the dog tag we had made for her. Is that a true “sign” that we are a good match? I’d like to think so.

As far as trusting again .. . if you can, trust that your family can be completed through adoption. Trust that adoption can and does work. Trust that your family can and will be happy again, that you can heal and be stronger as a result of going through this together.

During our home study classes, we were encouraged not to “trust” that an expectant mom would place her child with us, simply because she cannot make that decision until the child is born and the moment of termination is upon her. She may have every intention of placing but then not be able to go through with it—is this a betrayal of trust? For me, no, I did not see it that way. We wanted an open adoption with a voluntary placement, as I reminded myself so many times. There is a huge amount of trust in an adoption match, no doubt, but for me it was more about trusting each other to be honest, no matter what. And trusting that if we were true to ourselves and treated every birth parent with love and respect, eventually we would find a match that would be a blessing for everyone. It was worth waiting for.

I pray that you are feeling a bit stronger day by day. A big hug to you,

Celeste

Thank you so much for your response, Celeste.  I sent E. two text messages last night, one to wish her and the baby the best, and to call us if she ever needed to talk, and the other to say that I would still love to be her friend yet I understood if she didn’t want contact, and that I hoped I wasn’t bugging her.  Last night I received a text from her lawyer saying that E. requested I not text her because she was very emotional and my texts were bothering her. I said ok, thanks for letting me know, but we were so confused and did she know if E. was angry with us for something we did? E.‘s lawyer said that she wasn’t angry, just didn’t feel like it was a good match. 
A good match.  Talk about analyzing every insecurity I have ever felt.  I am trying so hard to not take this personally, I don’t doubt the difficulty of her decision, I’m just simply torn apart. We wonder if we will ever be able to trust again.  And in the back of my mind I wonder if maybe just maybe E. will change her mind. I can’t sleep well, my mind spins. It’s helpful simply to have someone like you respond since you know what we are going through.  I am grieving.  But I’m trying so hard to be brave in front of everyone else because it’s even harder to feel as though everyone is trying to comfort you, if that makes any sense.  And my husband… he is taking this so hard.  He is trying to be strong, yet tears are coming easily for him.  He is very cautious with his trust, as well as his hope. And when he held sweet Ella his whole face simply glowed with pride. And today is Father’s Day.  I’m trying to focus on our family, our boys, and the love I have to give them.  We just need to walk through this.  Yet there is still a baby girl out there who felt like a part of us, an extension of our heart.
One thing that keeps me going: is the thought that maybe…. just maybe.. there is another child out there that we are meant for, that we never would have known if not for the failing of this match….I have to tell myself there has to be a reason.

Oh, waitingnhope! It is so painful to hear what has happened—I can only imagine how you and your family are feeling. I am sending you hugs and praying that you and your family can find some peace in this difficult time.

All I can suggest is that you give yourself time to process what has happened. You have experienced a profound loss. If you are like me, it will impact you physically, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. But you CAN survive and be happy again.

Here is a website on disrupted/failed adoptions that you may find helpful in some small way:

https://secure.bethany.org/A55798/bethanyWWW.nsf/0/C03CC1BCED408BBB85256CE100693757

It includes information for friends and family who don’t know what to do or say to help you. My mom mentioned that the website helped her because it explains that it is OK for extended family to grieve the loss of a potential grandchild, niece, etc. Before reading that, she had not given herself permission to explore her own sense of loss, since she was focusing so much on my pain.

Perhaps, when you and she are ready, you will have a chance to talk with the baby’s mother.

In the situation I wrote about earlier on this thread, our fears were realized as S. did decide to parent her baby. We were filled with many of the same questions you described—did we do something wrong? was there something we could have done differently?  Our contact with S. had all been controlled by our facilitator, so we had no direct way to contact each other. After a week or so, we reached out to S. through social media (we found her MySpace account). We felt a bit like stalkers contacting her that way, but I felt I had no other choice as I was desperate for some confirmation that she and the baby were OK. We sent her a brief private message congratulating her and assuring her that we wished her and the baby all the best. We included our home phone number and asked her to call anytime because we would love to hear from her.

She called a few days later, and we actually stayed in fairly regular contact for a few months. She even sent me a few pictures of the baby.

It was extremely painful to have this contact with her, but it also brought me a lot of peace. Although I reminded myself constantly that the baby had not died, the pain was so great that I felt she had indeed passed away. Seeing her adorable photos reminded me that she was alive and well, just not with me. (It has been over a year, and I am still tearing up writing this.) I was also able to stop obsessing about what I might have done differently. S. assured us that she loved us but simply couldn’t let go of her baby—not even to us. We were also able to release her from any guilt she felt at hurting us.

Now, I am so blessed to be a mom to my beautiful, amazing 14 month old baby girl. The experience with S. has given me a tiny bit of insight into how birth parents might feel in an open adoption, and as a result, I think I have been able to form a stronger relationship with my daughter’s birth parents and even her paternal birth grandmother.

Know that you are not alone. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Celeste

I am sitting here on our bed at my brother’s… the last six weeks have been a flurry of getting ready for a yet-unborn baby girl due this month.  We live on the east coast, and baby was to be born in Oregon.  We had a beautiful matching experience, a wonderful relationship with the mother of the baby, and everything that could go wrong did not.  We have been so excited.  We flew to Oregon a week and 1 day ago, and this past Monday, went shopping with the mother and her two children and one of ours (we adopted two boys, age 6 and 4,  through a 2 year roller coaster in foster care just this past November).  We ate at McDonalds, browsed in Target, discussed her changing her mind, and she reiterated that to do so would only be selfish because she could not give the baby a good life.  Tuesday we went to her dr. appointment with her, and they decided to induce her.  We have been at the hospital from Tuesday til yesterday.  Sweet baby Ella Mae was born on Thursday, and I was present in the delivery room and cried my eyes out to see the miracle of life I had just witnessed.  We had skin to skin time right after birth, baby wanted to eat and I planned to breastfeed, so we experienced that.  Perfect sweet girl… we were in love through our tears of joy and amazement.  Yesterday afternoon I spoke with the birthmother and she was so ready to see her other children, and said she was going to waive the extra days she had to change her mind because there was no point in it.
One hour later the social worker and mom’s lawyer came to our room, and told us that the birthmother had decided to parent the baby and is very sure of her decision. No reason was given.  Confusion, trying to accept this devastating reality… we packed our bags in a few minutes and stumbled to the parking lot, I couldn’t hold myself any longer and fell to my knees on the pavement sobbing in front of our car.  My jacket’s sleeve still smelled of her sweet baby scent, mixed with the salt of my tears.  We are here at my brother’s in Oregon now, and I miss this child we only knew for a few hours.
I believe that God makes families, and we are trying to accept the fact that Ella was not meant to be ours.  We don’t think the birthmom premeditated this, we just know it was so hard for her and finally couldn’t handle it anymore.  So here we are.  I googled “grieving the loss of a failed match” last night and was so blessed to read all your stories.  Thank you for reading mine.  If anyone has suggestions on how to stop going over and over in my mind what may have went wrong, please tell me.  My mind won’t stop spinning with all the known and unknown scenarios….

Hi,

I’m Geneva. My husband and I just experienced our first adoption failure. We’ve been waiting since last year and got a call in June. My family and friends were preparing to have a baby shower Saturday, July 23rd. The baby was born Monday as expected. Our agency called and asked us if we wanted a little newborn boy. He wasn’t born yet. Of course I answered yes and I told him a little later and he agreed. Here it is a few weeks later. I remember specifically asking the agent about the birth parents. She said that the mother kept in touch with her because she was sure she didn’t want the child, the father is a truck driver and didn’t want the child as well. This was a closed adoption, therefore, we did not meet the birth parents. The Monday the baby was supposed to be born, the agent called and told us they were going to induce the mother, Tuesday she was going to the hospital to have the mother sign the papers. I was so sure we were going to be parents.  When I got the call Tuesday morning I wasn’t prepared to hear that the mother changed her mind. When I did, I was devastated. I had just assembled the bassinet, countless hours getting the nursery together just to be told there will be no baby to bring home. I had to take the car seat out of my back seat. I just needed someone who had encountered this kind of hurt to talk to. My husband is also a truck driver, I had to call him while he was on the road. Thank God my sister-in-law was there. I don’t think I can go through this kind of pain again. It felt like someone in my small family died, it actually felt like it did when I found my mother dead on the floor after talking with her thirty minutes before she passed away. Completely shocked and unprepared. I hope I can muster enough courage not to give up.

Completely Devastated

i just dealt with the 1 yr anniversary of the loss of a child.  we took him a legal risk placement, which was supposed to be resolved in 6 weeks after publication for named BF.  well, the mother lied, so the risk drug out to 6 mo (looong story.)  the day before the 3rd scheduled TPR hearing, she told the agency she wanted him back.  he was 7 days shy of 6 mo when we handed him back.  at 6 mo, we could have contested it in our state.

he will live in poverty for the rest of his live.  he will be on medicaid and receive the same poor medical care that his mother rec’d.  he is not even living with her as she does not raise her other 8 children either.

our 3 yr old son is still recovering from this.  we also chose not to fight as we really had no legal ground to fight on.

sorry for the failed matches.