Adoption Part 2: Over Before It Began

I posted this series (three posts total) a few years ago on my old blog so if it sounds familiar you probably read it there. I have done some minor wordsmithing (mostly to be consistent with how I refer to certain people on this blog) on it but it is otherwise the same. Also, you can thank Desmond Jones for me posting these. He asked, and I am happy to oblige. You can find Part 1 HERE.


Good Friday. Less than three months after we returned home childless from Michigan. I am in my office working on month end reports when the phone rings. It is the adoption facilitator with whom we are working. There is a baby boy available just 80 miles south from us. He's a month old. Due to some medical problem that has cropped up with the adoptive father, the adoptive family has decided they can't adopt the baby. Any possibility we could go down there that very day to get the baby? I don't even hesitate before saying yes. After getting directions to the social worker's office I hang up. I call W and tell him about it. He is at home and agrees to throw together the things we will need to bring the baby home. I track down my boss, explain the situation and leave work for the day although it is before noon. I arrive home. W and I put the diaper bag and car seat in the car and away we go.

It is early afternoon when we arrive at the social worker's office. She is very pleasant, very positive. She calls the other adoptive mother and asks her to bring the baby into the office. She then interviews us briefly asking fairly standard questions of prospective adoptive parents. During the interview the first adoptive mom arrives with the baby. We can hear them in the outer office, and we go out to meet them as soon as the social worker concludes our interview. The first adoptive mom hands the baby to me and starts telling us things she thought we should know about the baby's habits and routine. The social worker comes out of her office and asks us to leave for an hour or so while she prepares some paperwork. I hand the baby back to the first adoptive mother.

At this point it is around 2:00 p.m. but we haven't had lunch so we figure that would be a good way to spend the hour. We find a nearby sandwich shop and order lunch. While we eat, we speak happily about our new baby. Yet something seems wrong to me. Something doesn't feel right to me about the way the social worker asked us to leave and return. W chalks it up to my normal overly pessimistic attitude and convinces me (sort of) that all would work out.

After we finish lunch, and the hour has almost passed, we return to the social worker's office. As we walk in we see that the first adoptive mother and the baby are still there in the outer office just as when we left. The social worker ushers us into a little room to the left of the outer office. She quickly and rather brusquely tells us that "this situation isn't going to work out" and we should leave immediately. Bewildered at what had happened, we begin to ask questions, but she cuts us off and tells us we weren't going to get the baby and that we should leave immediately. At that point, we leave and head home.

I will forever wonder what happened. Did we say or do something that caused the social worker to dismiss us? Did the first adoptive family change their minds? Did the birthmother not agree to allow us to adopt her son? We'll never know. Unlike with Victoria, I rarely think of this baby or what may have become of him. I had so little time with him it was really like never having him at all.
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FOOTNOTE
I promise this is the last of the sad adoption stories. I have one more to post, but it has a happy ending.