Healthvues

Our agency told us that these types of scams are rare and can be extremely difficult to deal with. Basically, these involve the birthmother making an adoption plan with the chosen adoptive parents, but never intending to carry out the plan - stringing the adoptive parents along, so to speak. The hard thing to understand is the motivation - why would someone want to do this? It’s not financial - they ususally don’t ask for money. Perhaps they have a real psychological condition that makes them feel like they need people to be dependent upon them, or have power over other people. (I’ve come across that in my professional life, so that doesn’t seem all that rare!) Sometimes there’s no baby at all. It’s so difficult because the adoptive parents are going along as if everything is on track and then - boom - nothing.

There was a period of time for us when it seemed we were getting contacts from two or three birthmothers per month. An embarrassment of riches and dare I say it almost got to be routine as most of them were not good matches for us - we became pretty adept at “qualifying” the contacts quickly. It was during this time that we received contact from a birthmother that seemed to be right - conversation was easy, she asked all the right questions of us and answered all our hard questions with (seemingly) honesty. I seem to remember that initially she even told us she was talking with another couple at the same time, but only to narrow her decision down to the “right” couple for her. And that was OK with us - a match has be right for everyone so careful comparison is expected. At some point, she decided on us and then contact was only with us. Whether there really was another couple or not, we don’t know. In any case, it felt right so we proceeded.

At first, it was surprisingly easy to talk with her. It was an equal mix of emails and phone conversations (she lived several states away from us). She was very open about her situation; she owned her own home (though barely able to keep it); she was in her ’30s and already had a school-aged son. Our beliefs in the world at large (religion, kids, balance) seemed to match perfectly. She wasn’t too sweet or too cold - but just like someone who was in a bad situation and was logically and methodically trying to move through it. She even sent us pictures of her and her son. She told us that she just could not afford to keep this baby and that the circumstances under which she became pregnant meant that she didn’t really want to keep it anyway (you can imagine what that might mean). Bascially, this seemed like the adoptive parents’ wish come true - a seemingly low-risk birthmother with a plan and determination - and she had “chosen” us.

Probably the only red flag was her hesitation to contact our agency (remember that qualifier?). She said she would, but she wanted to get to know us a little more first. Like I said, communication was easy - we got know each other and just had small talk between us for a time. Eventually though, we began to have doubts - only because the conversations never seemed to move beyond that small talk stage and into the real meat of planning for this adoption. She never asked for money or support (at least not outright) nor did she ever hold this baby over our heads or dangle it like a carrot in front of us - or at least we never felt that way. But talks just seemed to have stalled. We told her that in order to move forward with the process, we would like her to contact our agency counselor for an official intake call. (With our agency, it was not a requirement for the birthmother to work with them for counseling, etc., though there were certainly benefits for all involved if they DID work with them, but we also had a contractual obligation with our agency that once we established contact with a birthmother, the agency would be notified. And in this case, they were aware of the situation and were waiting for her call.) Eventually, she did call the agency. There were some slight discrepancies in the story she told our counselor and the story she told us, but that’s not uncommon so there was no need for major concern. Our counselor agreed with us that while this seemed honest and legit, there was just something a little odd about it that you couldn’t put your finger on. She told us to be on our guard. Which we were anyway.

I distinctly remember the night it all fell apart. For about a week, there was this air about our conversations that things were turning serious but at the same time they just weren’t making sense. I don’t want to say to that we felt we were being “reeled in”, because we didn’t really allow ourselves to fall victim to that (again, goes back to our promise not to become desperate), but looking back on it, that’s probably what it was. I remember that our attitude (my wife and I, that is) was that we wanted to get on with it - either take this to the next level or diplomatically back away from this birthmother and move on. Perhaps she sensed that, because that’s when things really got weird. Perhaps she felt like she was going to lose us and she wanted the game to continue (it felt like a game by now). The exact instance I remember that I realized this was not legit - and it hit me that this was probably an emotional scam that we had heard was so rare - was when she asked us if we were willing to also adopt her school-aged son. Never in any of our conversations had she ever hinted of that scenario - and in fact it was always the opposite; that she was adopting her unborn baby so she could better provide for her son. It was so out of the blue, it really felt like one those As Seen on TV commercials (”but wait! there’s more!”) - that may sound odd, but you really had to be there, so to speak. I guess we didn’t fall for it, because of instead of jumping at the chance for a two-for-one, we said we would definitely consider it, but given the surprizing circumstances, it was really now time to formalize our plan. She said OK but we never heard from her again. We’re not even sure there was a baby or even a son.

I mentioned that we were getting contacts from several birthmothers during this time. That really helped, because we felt we had options - or at least that we were doing something right because we were getting contacts and we now felt confident that eventually the right one was going to find us. It helped in that we didn’t allow ourselves to get emotionally attached too much with a situation that had this odd air about it. I can’t say for sure what our emotional state would have been had we NOT had these other contacts. And we had recently come off a tantalizingly close successful adoption (more on that in another entry) which was very painful, so we were understandably approaching any adoption contact with a bit of healthy skepticism. It was also during this time that we received contact from the birthmother who would eventually follow through with her adoption plan with us (though we didn’t know it at the time) - so to say that helped is quite an understatement.

We didn’t feel crushed by this experience, because again it just felt a bit odd. It certainly felt honest enough to want to seriously explore her adoption plan, but it never moved on to that level. Perhaps she was genuinely a lonely sole who needed companionship - or she was a real emotional scammer who, once she realized she was not affecting us like she needed, moved on to another couple. We felt no animosity towards her because once we realized it was not meant to be, we had to move on to the next opportunity. I guess the lesson here is that there will always be a defining moment in the process - the analogy of “doing something” or get off the pot comes to mind! But if it never comes to that point, then perhaps it is time to move on.

One of the things our agency stressed to us and we always remembered was that most state’s definitions of what is financially allowable is fairly narrow - meaning, there is a short list of reasons to give money to a birthmother. The most obvious are access to prenatal healthcare (related to the pregnancy, not elective surgery, etc.), maternity related items, living expenses and such. We were told that the birthfather’s “expenses” were not allowable items, period. And we were told that some states, even if they allowed a broad range of things an adoptive family could pay for, there may be a cap. The reason our agency gave us for being conservative was financial - not to get in over our heads by financing a pregnancy with no guarantee that the adoption will actually take place. Our lawyer asked us to look at it from the perspective of a non-partisan judge in the event of a reclaim: by giving the birthmother/family money (of any amount, really), we are entering into an understanding that we are doing this with the expectation that she will adopt her baby to us. It’s a business relationship of sorts (how true). If she changes her mind, she could use the fact we gave her money against us - she could claim that she was under duress and thus could not make a sound decision, and that we were influencing her by giving her money. The judge will side with her on that basis just about every time. Being business owners ourselves, it was easy to look at it from a business perspective - would we enter into business relationship that was basically one-sided, where we were paying for a “product” without a legal contract, with no guarantee of fulfillment, where even a hand-shake deal (which is legally binding is some instances) is not legal, and we would have absolutely no recourse if the deal went south? Of course, there is the hugely emotional aspect of this whole thing - a baby. And because of this emotional aspect, sometimes logic and reason are tainted through rose colored glasses or forgotten altogether.

Coupled with this notion of being conservative financially, we had an honest discussion with ourselves that we were not going be desperate about starting our family. On many levels, that attitude helped us - it was very difficult, no doubt about that. But it was necessary for us. Desperation clouds judgement and allows false hope to creep in when logic says there is no hope. That included whether to continue fertility treatments, to continue contact with a birthmother when red flags abounded or what to do when a low risk adoption presented itself, but with conditions that we decided we could not handle (like too much contact and openness; legal hurdles such as the Native American Act; or health issues that we were not able to handle). This emotional shield - or blinders as we sometimes referred to them - really helped in “pre-qualifying” birthmothers who called us. It took us a while, but we became adept at diplomatically asking the hard questions right out of the gate: is the birthfather involved; do you have medical care; what about drugs; etc. And the honest, legitimate birthmothers surprisingly had no problem with us asking them or answering them. Birthmothers who contacted us had already seen our web site, so there really wasn’t anything about us that we hadn’t already put out there. But the questions they did ask were telling - and eventually we were able to identify, pretty quickly, those who could be potential financial scams.

One of the things our agency told us that could be a red flag is the birthmother’s unwillingness to work with our agency (intake, counseling, etc.). The agency recognized that a lot of birthmothers have this notion that she has to give her baby to the agency, then the baby goes to us - they’d rather give the baby directly to the adoptive parents. So, they may be hesitant, but birthmothers with a real adoption plan will most likely at least talk to the agency. If they refuse right away, that might be a red flag as an indication that something is not honest or they’re hiding something. Our agency’s goal was not necessarily to control all aspects of our adoption process (we wouldn’t let that happen anyway), but rather to help us qualify the situation that presented itself.

Also, on the advice of our lawyer and common sense, we made the decision that if we were going to help a birthmother financially (and there were some instances where we did in our successful adoption - more on that later), we were going to go through proper channels - we would set up a fund with our lawyer and she would administer it at our direction. Not that that was a guarantee protecting us from being scammed, but it was a legitimate and traceable fund source that would most likely hold up in court if a reclaim occurred. So we actually first told several birthmothers that we were not in a position to help out financially (that weeded some out right away), but that there might be options.

So what were the red flags that we found?

First, like I just mentioned above, if they’re not willing to contact our agency (the agency is not legally allowed to contact any birthmother - the birthmother has to contact the agency - again, the “duress” issue), that should tell us something. They may be hesitant because they don’t want an intermediary when contacting us, and that’s OK - it doesn’t have to be that way. Contact is what you make it. But if they are unwilling to at least have an initial conversation with our agency counselor, then they may be hiding something. This actually happened to us on a few occassions - birthmother would call us, after a brief conversation when it seemed we all wanted to continue, we’d ask if she’d contact our agency to make this formal, and then nothing after that. In one instance, we were actually hung up on at that question. Wasn’t meant to be.

Second, if the topic of finances comes up early in the conversation, especially if they bring it up first. There were several times this happened to us. In a few instances, the birthmother would immediately start talking about her financial or living situation (calling from a payphone, about to be evicted, car just broke down and can’t get to work…) - all may well be legitimate and real concerns - but they really didn’t want to talk about the baby, how she became pregnant or her discuss her adoption plan. Again, the agency question really helped in qualifying these contacts - and we did not hear from most of them again after that first phone call.

One couple was so brazen - we had an instinctual feeling that they were exactly the kind of scammers you see on Dateline, etc. Turns out they were. The birthmother called late one night (our agency said that was another red flag - calling very late to catch us off-guard, but we didn’t keep track of times) and seemed honest and forward enough. She asked us about our marriage, our religious beliefs and stability. We even heard a baby crying in the background - the one she said they were going to relinquish to a family they’d be choosing. Then she asks if I would talk to her husband, the birthfather. He seemed OK, but within one minute he started talking finances - and even went so far as to say we were more appealing to them because he understood our state’s laws to be more leanient when it came to the amount of expenses allowed, including the birthfathers! We always took copious notes during calls, and I remember starting to write dollar signs in big bold strokes. When I informed him that was not the case, nor are we able to give money directly to birthparents, his mood changed dramatically in an instant. They also were not willing to talk to our agency at all.

Turns out, our gut feeling was correct. We were able to get their names and address and it turns out they were indeed “known” to our agency - they had tried to scam a few clients 9 months earlier. Also - and this talks to the benefit of being a part of a legit online adoptive parent community - we found out through one of our secure chat rooms that they were talking with an adoptive single mother at the same time in another city. She had actually asked the group if anyone had had contact with this couple, because she had given them money, met with them, etc. and started to feel like she was being taken. We wrote to her to describe our contact and she called us almost immediately - this couple was indeed scamming her at the exact same time they were trying to scam us. I’m not letting my emotions guide my descriptions here - this was a bona fide, verifiable scam. We felt so bad for the adoptive single mother, but our defense mechanisms allowed us to move on quickly. Not so the birthfather - he called back a few times to try to keep it going, but when he realized we weren’t interested (we diplomatically backed away, saying the situation was not right for us), he actually started down a path of extortion of sorts! This guy was not a rocket scientist. We were willing to let go of the situation and get it out of our minds, but we all were so incensed at their actions that we contacted the authorities but we never knew what happened, if anything.

That was the worst one, but again our resolve prevented us from being sucked in. It’s the less obvious ones that are hard. And if an adoptive family feels desperate to start their family, the reality is clouded even more. We feel so bad when we see desperate couples and individuals, because we feel there are rough times ahead of them. And we know that if you stay the course, don’t compromise yourself, don’t take your eye off the end goal and brush aside those times that challenge your resolve, it WILL happen - we’re proof. For us, the financial scammers were pretty easy to spot. It’s the “emotional scammer” that’s really difficult… more on that in the next entry.

Our very first birthmother contact came within a few weeks of our site becoming live. We were very anxious about getting “the call” and no matter how many times you rehearse, you’re never really ready. At least we weren’t. It was probably fitting that our first call was from a birthmother who was as green to this process as we were - we all were feeling our way through this. She seemed genuinely scared and honest, and we were a bit naive so we believed everything she said. We maintained contact with her for a few months, getting to know her more and more, but it became apparent that this was an unlikely adoption plan - at least for us. She never asked for money or support, but we eventually lost contact with her.

Until about 6 months after we finally adopted our daughter about a year later. Out of the blue we get an email asking how we’re doing and if we ever found our baby. Turns out, she kept her baby, she married and had another and was very happy. She thanked us for listening to her and helping her through her ordeal. Everything she had told us during our contact was true - she even sent pictures. I have to say that that made us feel very, very good - that the right thing was done in the end. She helped us too - being our first contact, we learned how to talk to a birthmother, how to move through the process of contact and questions, and how to accept a lack of contact after so much contact. And that sometimes a genuine birthmother keeping her baby is the correct decision.

The point of this is that not all birthmothers will follow an adoption plan and that is OK - there are those who are scared, do not know what to do, are alone in their decision making and need someone to help them through the through process. We were able to do that for her. To say she was kicking tires is a snarky statement, but it’s true. Any life altering decision needs to be carefully considered, with research and hypotheticals and ponderings. Having known her didn’t bring us a baby, but it did bring us a sense of peace.

As more birthmothers and birthparents contacted us, we had to remind ourselves of this, because it became rarer and rarer that a truly sincere birthmother contacted us.

I was channel surfing last night and came across one those “investigative” programs on TLC. It was about adoption scams - or more specifically about one woman who had been scamming couples out of money on the promise of a baby, probably one of our biggest fears as adoptive parents. We’re told to ignore these types of programs because they are usually sensationalistic, not comprehensive (don’t tell the whole story) and not representative of the adoption experience as a whole. But I actually thought this program was done pretty well and accurately portrayed what (unfortunately) can and does happen in the adoption process - that there are bad people out there who prey on the emotional vulnerability of adoptive parents. The show was formulaic in its approach: follow a couple through the process of finding a birthmother, their contact and budding relationship, their reaction when things don’t add up, the “sting” operation and confrontation of the scamming birthmother and the aftermath/fallout. Turns out this “birthmother” (she never was pregnant) had been scamming other couples and even previous husbands.

I think programs like this are detrimental in one respect because they toss out difficult subject matter - verbal hand-grenades as I like to call them - and don’t follow up with the overall facts and stats about the likelihood of this happening, how often it happens, or most important in my mind, how to avoid it happening to you. To the population who are not adoptive parents, it’s easy to become judgmental about the perceived desperation of adoptive parents and the process. But as I watched it as an adoptive parent, it reminded me of our own adoption journey and the many birthmothers and birthparents we met along the way - some scared, some good, some bad and some really bad.

Our adoption journey really began around 1999, just when the internet was emerging as a viable resource for parents and birthmothers - though some agencies were slow to catch on. We had signed up with a national agency who was comfortable doing things the way it had always been done but was getting into using the internet as a means for expanding the reach of our Dear Birthmother letters (which were web sites). Since that’s what we do for a living (visual design), we had our own ideas about what to say and how to design our own web site. We were met with some resistance from our agency (perhaps they wanted more control?), but we did it our way anyway. In the roughly 14 months our site was active, we had contact from about 20 different birthmothers from all walks of life, experience and motivations - an amount we were told by our agency was unheard of at a time when most of our peers were getting perhaps one or two contacts a year. (Guess we were doing something right!) So I’d consider us experienced when it comes to dealing with initial contact from birthmothers.

My only real complaint about the TV program was that they did not do an adequate job of presenting what adoptive parents should do or watch out for (red flags) beyond one single line of copy (”use an agency and an adoption lawyer”) right before the credits. This blog thread will attempt to do that by presenting our experiences - the good, the bad and the unfortunate (meaning “bad” but not malicious - sometimes things just don’t work out) - and what we did to deal with them, recognize them and avoid them. For the sake of clarity, I’ll categorize the type of contacts we had - the types of scammers, if you will, and even some that were definitely not scammers but who did not really have an adoption plan. I’ll reiterate that adoption DID work for us, and while it was a rocky road, it was rewarding far beyond what we had imagined.

More to come…