Infants In Need Of Homes ?

That there are infants in need of homes is just one of the lies the adoption industry perpetuates to keep the money flowing in their direction. If what you really want to do is help marginalized or at risk mothers and children, find out how you can offer support within your local community.

One example from a quick google search yielded The Conrad N Hilton Foundation’s efforts (with the help of other local funders) through an initiative – LINK>Strengthening At Risk and Homeless Young Mothers and Children – that ran from 2007-2011. That initiative sought to improve the housing, health, and development of homeless and at-risk mothers and children by supporting locally-based partnerships that included housing/homelessness and child development agencies, as well as those that address family preservation, domestic violence, mental health, substance use and other support services for the target population. The Initiative’s desired impacts were not limited to clients alone; it also aimed to integrate systems and disseminate knowledge in order to improve services for families not directly enrolled in its programs.

If you google – “Helping At Risk Mothers and Children” – you will come up with many many organizations and state level efforts seeking to make a difference.

This all started because a woman wants to make the choice to adopt, not out of lack but as a personal choice, because infertility is not an issue for her. The perspective is – keep a child whose parents gave up or died or something else in order for that child not to be jumping from one foster to another until they age out but actually have a place to call home. One commenter noted – sounds like you have a savior complex. Very often such a desire does drive adoption choices.

Someone else tried to insert some reality – What you’ve heard and read about there being so many children in need of homes is a lie made up by the adoption industry. Really. It’s a MULTI BILLION dollar industry per year. The fact that you said that you didn’t want to go through an agency because of corruption – I think that’s what you said? tells me that you need to do more research. What little oversight there is happens with agencies that are required to be accountable (such as it is) to the government, state, etc. There are SOME rules. Without that, it’s a complete free for all. The women are lied to, you’re lied to and the child is the one that pays the price with trauma over a lifetime.

When you push back by saying that anyone who has something to say that you don’t like as being just negative – well, that’s really unkind of you and just not fair. Adoptees are the victims of adults who make choices about them without their control. With adoption, there will ALWAYS be attachment from the child to their biological families. These children have mannerisms, looks, hobbies, etc will be inherited from the biological family. Experts now know that children are not blank slates from birth.

As an example, the child I surrendered was during the closed era. Contact was impossible during her childhood but when we did reunite ? She has my mannerisms, she sounds exactly like me on the telephone and more. She even flips her hair out of her eyes, just like I do. Her passions in life are those of my family and her biological father, do not come from her adoptive parents. This is just a fraction of things to consider.

If you want to help others, you can donate to families that are in need, rather than just the babies or children. It would be terrific if you do that. It would not require you to separate a family and deal with all the things that you don’t want or need to deal with. Donate money or volunteer your time. There’s so many ways to help others that don’t make things worse, where you can really be of service.

Keeping Them Together

My husband heard this story on NPR and knowing it would be of interest to me, told me about it. I grew up in a different kind of Texas than we usually think about the state in these modern times. I am grateful to have something good to say exists in that state today.

LINK>Casa Mia is a refuge for mothers with opioid use disorders and their infants in San Antonio Texas. Through a partnership between the School of Nursing at the University of Texas and Crosspoint Inc (a local nonprofit organization), mothers and their young children are offered housing while the mothers are enrolled in a recovery program and receive support services.

Casa Mia is located on a quiet street in a predominantly historic neighborhood near downtown San Antonio. It is a two-story house filled with laughter, baby bottles, diapers and toys. It includes a garden in the back. Gardening is proven to be therapeutic and helps with recovery, and nutrition is important to recovery as well. “A lot of our ladies have grown up with food insecurity,” says Dr. Cleveland. “People who are in recovery from a substance use disorder often have cravings, and it is important to discuss nutrition for mom and for baby.” There are clean beds for the women to sleep on at night. It is a far cry from the streets where these women formerly resided. Back in 2019, they were able to help 32 women and 26 children.

Dr Lisa Cleveland co-founded Casa Mia after witnessing the traumatic separations of mothers, who were diagnosed with opioid disorders, and their newborns shortly after birth. She partnered with Crosspoint Inc who had previously used the building as a women’s recovery support home. Crosspoint is a local nonprofit organization that provides transitional and behavioral health services to San Antonio’s most marginalized and vulnerable citizens.

“Casa Mia follows a social recovery-housing model. The focus is on teaching moms to live their lives without substances. We show them that they can have a great life without them,” Dr. Cleveland says. They provide a comprehensive wellness program for the mothers and also teach them life skills, while offering them a safe place to live with their children, while they recover.

While nationally there are numerous transitional or recovery homes for women, only 3 percent of that housing offers beds for their young children. As a neonatal nurse for 28 years and a mother, Dr Cleveland understands the mental and physical need for a child and mother to be together from birth. The maternal bond is important for each of them. “We need to help women become moms in a supportive environment before we put them out into the world,” she says.

Local and county statistics further solidified her resolve to take action. One-third of all Texas infants diagnosed with opioid withdrawal are born in Bexar County, the highest rate in the state. This equates to 300 to 400 babies each year; more than Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston combined. Casa Mia is a one-of-a-kind program designed to turn the tide.

“The statistics just really floored me,” says Dr Cleveland, “and I thought why is no one talking about this, especially since it has a really large impact on our community. With those numbers, it stands to reason that Bexar County really needs to set the standard for the state, and we are now. Bexar County truly is the leader in best practices and best care for these families.”

Traditionally, pregnant mothers who are diagnosed with substance use disorder have only two options after they give birth: either have a family member take care of their infant while they go to a treatment center or Child Protective Services places the infant in foster care. “Even if the infant is placed with a family member, the mother and baby are still separated. This separation is very traumatic for the mother and very traumatic for the baby. It is traumatic for the staff at the hospital as well. It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Dr Cleveland says. “Why are we taking these babies away from mothers who need help? Why are we not helping the mothers instead?”

Funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Baptist Health Foundation and the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, Casa Mia is staffed 24 hours a day and can house up to 20 mothers and their young children at a time. Each woman must continue her recovery or treatment plan and follow the rules of the house. The first phase is fairly restrictive. Residents are not allowed to stay overnight elsewhere and must be in the house by a set curfew. They must let the staff know where they are going when they leave, even for treatment; they have to call when they get where they are going from the landline phone at their location, not a cell phone; and they have to call when they are on their way back to the house. As they progress through their recovery, the restrictions are relaxed until they eventually get ready to exit the program. There is no set timeframe for a resident to stay or exit the program.

“I think recovery is very individual,” Dr Cleveland says. “One of the things that makes our program unique is that if someone relapses, they do not get thrown out of the house. We know that recovery is a process and sometimes people relapse and that is part of the learning process. I have heard of women who have relapsed after leaving the program and then get right back on track. To me, that is a huge success.”

At Casa Mia, women may arrive expecting a child, having just given birth, or hoping to be reunited with their child. One case study is Becky who arrived at Casa Mia one January, six-months pregnant with her seventh child. After using drugs for six years, now at the age of 33, is thankful the judge sent her to Casa Mia. As a result of her drug use, she had lost custody of three of her children to their father and has joint custody of three others with a different father. She has been in recovery for more than a year and is finally excited about her future. While living at Casa Mia, Becky continues her recovery program, works a steady job (which she has had for almost two years) and takes classes to complete her GED. She plans to become a real estate agent.

“Now that my baby is born, I haven’t left her side, not even once. I am very happy because I think the Lord gave me another chance. He showed me these young women and how they take care of their children and that planted seeds in my head. Now that I have my little girl, he has given me another chance to be a mom again, and I’m very thankful for that.” She adds, “I love the staff at Casa Mia. They want what’s best for us, and they really try to help you. Having your children with you is the best thing, and I just see how everything works together.”

Crosspoint brings its expertise in recovery housing and support, the School of Nursing provides its expertise in women and children’s health as well as nutrition and childhood development. Classes for the mothers range from child nutrition and parenting to yoga and infant care.

When It Is Family

A woman’s sister writes – My sister asked me to care for her baby. The mom signed the form to terminate her parental rights, when her baby was only 2 days old. She had been in a car accident during pregnancy and lost her job. She is now financially stable, has her life together (her baby is only 5 months old now) and wants me to discontinue my adoption process regarding her baby.

The problem is – we don’t want to give her baby back. Is there anything legal – my sister, the baby’s biological mom – can do ? We’re so close to finalizing the adoption, all that is left is the home study. What do we tell our child, when she’s older, about why we refused to give her back to her original mom ?

Just goes to prove, that just because we are siblings born into the same family, once we are adults, all bets are off. I’ve seen it many times in many situations.

One commenter said – I truly can not fathom doing something so obviously horrible and disgusting. The fact that this woman is aware that what she’s doing is wrong because she wants to know what to tell the child (once they get older), well, it just makes it even worse. How incredibly selfish. That poor baby !

Important points not to miss – this women is the mother’s sister ! The baby’s Aunt ! In MANY families …. family members do HELP family members in crisis, to care for their children. Often via a parent-placed, joint custody with the more stable family having primary physical custody. The best thing about this is that there is no need to change the baby’s birth certificate. Any sister could raise her sister’s child appropriately, while calling herself Auntie. In some Indigenous cultures, it is not unusual for a primary caregiver to be called “Auntie” when that person is not the child’s actual mother. A term of endearment for the care given.

An overwhelmed pregnant women in crisis. with poverty related issues of housing, employment, transportation, food and daycare insecurity …. such a woman is easily manipulated into thinking she is not enough. Then in this particular case, add the huge factor of her physical injuries ….

This woman never offered her sister the option of providing temporary care. It was adoption or no help at all. That makes it very easy to see how this situation developed.

Most infants placed in foster care will remain there an average of 15 months with maybe 2 – six month extensions. That this Mom got herself back together in under 6 months is phenomenal. She has maintained contact with her infant and is now in a position to parent her child. Ethically this is a No-Brainer. This woman should definitely reunify her niece with her original mom. Need to tell other children why ? Family helps family. OK, someday you can tell the child that you did miss her living with you but you don’t regret doing the right thing at the time.

5 months is only the blink of an eye in this child’s life. Transitioning this baby as soon as possible back to the child’s original mother is important. Time is of the essence. Do the right thing !!

So often a pregnant woman in temporary crisis is pushed into a permanent solution – and then things get better. Most adult adoptees will counsel such a woman to sincerely try parenting her child first, before surrendering the child to adoption. Many times, this leads to a happy ending for mother and child.

Anthony Albanese

It is interesting that I had queried a friend in Australia about him being elected prime minister without knowing how she felt about the man and her response was very positive. “I am glad this happened and am excited at the results of the Greens and the Independents. The Independents who got in were all women. Some were given funding to run by an Australian billionaire, on the condition that they supported climate change action and making the government accountable.” and much more.

Then running late today and looking for a topic for this blog in my all things adoption group, I read this – “Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is the son of Maryanne, a woman who as a single mother in 1963, was strongly pressured to give him up for adoption. She resisted and raised him herself. He is a strong proponent of social justice and I’m so excited to see a new future for our country under his leadership.”

So I went looking for more and found this article in The Australian from 2021 titled – ‘Something wasn’t right’: Anthony Albanese’s heartbreaking Mother’s Day tribute. He said, she “sacrificed so much” for him. She had rheumatoid arthritis that “crippled her joints” and meant she couldn’t work. “She lived on a disability pension. Life wasn’t easy, and her health made things even harder but we got through because of her,” he said.

“We lived in council housing, which gave us a sense of security and stability. It was our home.” His mother taught him how to save money but the most valuable life lesson she passed on was to leave no one behind. “Truth is, mum was left behind by people who counted her out, and by governments who cut back support,” he said. “The cutbacks that happened in mum’s lifetime meant she had to justify the support she was receiving. When health funding was cut, the quality of mum’s care was cut too.”

“When they tried to sell our council house, it felt like our home was being taken from us.” It was his mother’s influence and challenge to make ends meet that inspired the Labor leader to get into politics. “Mum always gave me unconditional love. And I feel very privileged to have had that. Mums really are special,” he wrote.

Almost Never Acceptable

It’s very hard to understand why ANYONE would choose to take another mom’s (or dad’s) child either through adoption or by becoming a foster caregiver. The only acceptable path I see is true kinship, when their parents are dead, ie they are orphans (both of my parents were adoptees and I thought they were orphans when I was a child – I was totally ignorant that biological family existed and was living lives unknown to me). Other than that, no possible excuse.

So here are some questions for adoptive parents and foster caregivers to contemplate: How do you not see what an absolutely horrible thing this is to do? Have we as humans become so blind that we see taking another mother’s child as a good thing? Where is the accountability for adoptive parents and foster caregivers since they are contributors to this huge problem of family separation? Why are we constantly talking about the best interest of the child and not the best interest of the family? Do adults who lose their children not count as well?

A better choice is guardianship and not adoption – if there are children who have arrived in your home, who aren’t able to be with their first/birth family. Allowing them their identity and knowledge of their genetic family.

One should feel absolutely sick to their stomach, if they’ve built their own ‘motherhood’ on another woman’s brokenness and loss. How cruel and selfish, to be so focused on your infertility loss, that you failed to see the other humans in your family’s picture.

No one advocates kids being abused.

Our society needs to be doing something before a crisis sets in. Maybe the parents need support and some intervention but this should occur WAY before it becomes necessary to remove children from their natural home. Maybe those parents didn’t have a good role model, to show them how to parent properly. Without a role model for how it is done, it can really be an impossible task. Maybe if, as a society, we didn’t leave so many parents unsupported, there would be no need for adoptive parents and foster caregivers.

I know that this sounds very utopian. The challenge is actually translating this into the real world solutions. So how would real world people make a difference for families where the children have been separated from their parents for apparently valid reasons involving the child’s welfare? Here are some ideas related to foster care . . .

The social end goal for that situation is reunification of the children with their parents. There are a lot of steps along the way. Weekly urine analysis requirements, parenting classes, drug counseling, therapy, visits/phone calls with kids, parents needing housing, a job, education, showing up to court.

As a foster parent your job should be to walk along side the parents as an additional support to them in their own efforts. You can’t make anyone do anything, but you can support them, encourage them and remind them of the ultimate goal. You can help pay for those weekly urine analysis requirements, if $10 a week is too much. You can help them get signed up for parenting classes, you can drive them to parenting classes. You can help them find a drug program and get started with therapist. You can provide transportation and support after those sessions. You can go to court and support them and advocate for them. You can help them get to visits, or call them instead of waiting for them to call. You can help by providing resources for housing/jobs. Transportation, if needed.

And then after you’ve helped, you’ve taught them a lot about where to access the resources they need. You’ve shown them what they can do for themselves. And now, they may have many of the skills they need to be successful. You’ve lead them to goal by supporting them and making them feel safe that you aren’t only there to take their children away. Now they can find their own way to parenting their children properly.

And the inconvenient truth is this – too many foster parents flat out refuse to spend any time with the children’s parents or even talk to them because they look down on them as inferior and damaged and not worthy of help. Yes, it is true that some children’s parents are not safe, but it is more true that most of these parents simply need some help to be safe.