Three Common Misconceptions About Infant Adoption

Misconception #1:
Birth and adoptive families have frequent, face-to-face contact.
Every adoption situation is unique. Period. You may know a family (like mine) who visits with their child’s birth family regularly. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, “Wow, you see your kids’ birth parents? Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that unusual? Isn’t that…abnormal?”

No, it isn’t. I can rattle off the names of several families I know who have adoption situations very similar to ours. I can rattle off the names of just as many who have no contact with their child’s birth family, and I can name still others who send pictures and letters periodically, or talk on the phone a couple times a year.

When you adopt an infant within the U.S., your situation is what you and your child’s birth family decides it will be. Leave room for growth and change and most importantly, respect one another’s boundaries.

Misconception #2:
Birth parents can “take their child back” whenever they want.
Less than 1 percent of domestic adoptions are legally contested after parental rights are relinquished. Depending on the state in which you live, birth parents have anywhere from 48 hours to three months (after they sign relinquishment papers) to revoke their consent to adopt. After that revocation period (considering the adoption was done legally), the adoption is a done deal.

Misconception #3:
Birth parents don’t care about their babies.
I can hear birth parents everywhere shouting, “Not true!”  While there are a few birth parents who are so drugged out and messed up that they may not realize that they do care about their child, I have yet to meet a birth mom who does not care deeply for her child, whether it’s been one day or 40 years since she’s seen that child. The same goes for birth fathers. Even though they weren’t physically pregnant, they don’t forget.

Attorney Mark McDermott says that most birth parents “have made a painful, but loving, choice—one for which there is very little societal support.”

Most birth mothers aren’t teenagers, either. Many are single mothers in their 20s and 30s who already have at least one child.

You’ll find detailed information about misconceptions concerning adoption in my upcoming book, The Adoption Decision: 15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting.  Add a comment to this post and you may win an autographed copy!

Inspiration for this post came from:
“Perception & Reality: The Untold Story of Domestic Adoption,” by Eliza Newlin Carney, Adoptive Families, June 2007.

Related article:
Domestic Infant Adoption: Alive and Well

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and check out my Exploring Adoption bookstore.

Comments

[Lynette LeMaster]

We have an open adoption with our daughter's birth family. They have been amazing through this whole process, and by the time we took our daughter home, we felt as if we were the ones who had been adopted. More people need to know that open adoption can be a wonderful experience that benefits everyone involved. We have not only gained a beautiful daughter, but an entire family as well. We keep in contact mostly by e-mail and by phone. We plan to visit atleast 2 times per year in person.

[Llama Momma]

As a birthmother, I can only add "amen" to #3! I have felt so misunderstood by the christian community, that for a time I just never mentioned my birthson (who will be seventeen in August).

[Darci]

I appreciate what you said about leaving room for growth and change in the relationship with birthparents. Many people assume once we have our daughter that her birth family will vanish- but we would really like to maintain as much of a relationship as is possible and healthy for all involved. . . and it is just too difficult to know what or how that will look like in the beginning, there's just too many unknowns.