I shouldn’t see the harm in having a child representative for infant private adoption finalizations.  After all, aren’t the agency and the adoptive family all saying they’re concerned with the child?  I would have been fine with it, that’s for sure.

I’d have added birth family in that, but I guess my reasoning there is that already their rights have been terminated/signed.  So at THAT point, there’s not the need for them to have legal counsel.  And after all, at TPR they should HAVE legal counsel.

Though I suppose in the case of a child’s respresentative in finalization with domestic infant adoptions, they have had the social worker evaluating the whole time to make sure that things are ok with the placement, etc….so that IS a safeguard for the child.  And at court since the infant can’t speak even to tell their representative something, the results would be the same as having a rep at the finalization….so perhaps that’s the reason?  I know that they did go over our social worker’s notes, etc, formally at finalization. 

At any rate, I can’t see why anyone would want less representation or rights for the child.  Unless of course you’re just a crappy person and are not doing it for the child anyway, and in that case, perhaps you should not adopt/be an adoption worker.  As for first parents, the right to keep custody or not needs always be preserved.  Anyone can find themselves in a situation like that, even those who don’t think that’s true.

My husband and I adopted our infant son privately. In our state, though he was only five months old at the time of adoption finalization, our son was appointed legal representation. Of course, being only five months old, he could not really voice opinions to his legal representation.

Felicia, that’s good to hear.  I’m not so naive as to think that the lawyers would do anything less than agree to everything, but at least it is a recognition of our right to due process.  It’s a little bit of something.  Adoption laws vary by state, of course, but due process is a US Constitutional guarantee.

This article on private adoption and due process was written earlier this year.  It concerns New Jersey specifically.

http://www.njesq.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173:20090518-adoption&catid=6:this-issue&Itemid=17

It’s realizing that despite the fact that you are meeting these individuals for the first time, you’ve lived with them throughout your entire existence.

Yeah.

I remember when I stepped off the airplane in Taiwan and saw my baba and sister staring at me. Face to face. It was crazy. It was surreal. I remember just standing there, shocked for an entire ten seconds while we looked at each other. Frankly, even if there hadn’t been a language barrier, I don’t know what I would have said during those first few moments.

It was just so unreal.

I saw bits and pieces of myself in them: my baba’s face (I am the mirror image of him), my mother’s smile… my sister’s stance… my brother’s facial features. My mom used to tell me that when I went throughout the house, I sounded like an elephant because of the way I would walk (you know, that THUMP THUMP sound when you drag your feet?).

Well, I discovered that it was due to my stance - because my sister does the exact same thing and she was almost identical to me in terms of weight and height. It was kind of scary, actually - to witness that we had the same “dragging” walk. It was scary that we were almost the exact same height, that after showering sometimes we’d run back and forth in the residence and I’d “see” myself reflected in her because I’d never experienced genetic resemblance before and I didn’t even realize what a surprise it was until it hit me in the face.

Things like that, you can’t get from adoptive nurture. Things like that just are.