Her Web site offers hardship stories, information on agencies
Monday, November 27, 2000
Her Web site offers hardship stories, information on agencies
Woman helps adopting parents
After a failed adoption in Russia, Mary Mooney of Lexington launched TheAdoptionGuide.com
By LISA APPLEGATE
The Roanoke Times
Before they flew to Russia to adopt a boy named Demetrie, Mary and Clark Mooney told their 5-year-old daughter Libby to get ready for her new brother.
But the Mooneys flew home empty-handed after the adoption agency said the paperwork wasn't ready. For two years, Libby asked when her little brother was coming.
He never came.
The Mooneys, North Carolina natives who now live in Lexington, successfully sued the adoption agency and won back most of the $30,000 they had spent trying to adopt Demetrie. But soon the Mooneys learned they were the lucky ones.
Frustrated by her experience, Mary Mooney sent her story over the Internet. The response from parents who also had tried to adopt from other countries was overwhelming.
One woman went to pick up her supposedly healthy child in Russia, only to have him die in her arms two days later from liver damage. Another couple was told their child was bright and healthy. Once they adopted her and returned to the United States, they discovered she was severely retarded with an IQ of 54.
Mooney wasn't sure what to do with all this information, so she taught herself to design a Web site. Soon, TheAdoptionGuide.com was empowering would-be parents, providing information for national media and government, and irking some adoption agencies.
"I don't want to sensationalize the horror stories, but I want to educate the public that it's buyer beware," she said. "Not that you're purchasing merchandise, but you are dealing with people who have agreed to provide you with a service."
Because states have jurisdiction over adoption agencies, there is no federal oversight and little comparative information available. Mooney's site is the first to try to fill the gap.
Many adoptions - and adoption agencies - are successful, Mooney said. But people need to look beyond their emotions and the agency's advice before they make such an important decision. She said much of the roughly 20 hours a week she spends online and on the phone is spent just hearing from parents who didn't do that.
Some adoption agencies "take advantage of people in their time of need," she said. "You see all these cute kids, you've been through infertility treatments for a couple years, you're desperate for a child, so you just sign on the bottom line."
Mooney has conducted research on adoption for The Hague Conference, which works to improve international cooperation through treaties called Hague Conventions, and she has spoken to the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. She's also been a source for national media such as U.S. News & World Report magazine, The Associated Press, NBC and Sally Jessy Raphael.
Called cantankerous by one friend, Mooney studied human services and worked for a time as the director of a nonprofit mental health agency. Now she works part time for Washington and Lee University's computer science department.
Mooney and her husband spent much of their 15-year marriage trying to have - or adopt - children. After two miscarriages, the Mooneys started infertility treatments. They tried in-vitro fertilization three times before Libby was born.
They hoped to adopt through a local social services department, but when the process dragged on with no child in sight, they looked overseas.
They found an adoption agency they thought they could trust; the director knew Mooney's family. In May 1996, after taking a second mortgage on their house, the Mooneys traveled to Russia.
"The day we came back to the U.S., they called and said, 'Oh, the papers are ready, come back to Russia.' Well, how stupid are we?" Mooney said.
Under the terms of the legal agreement, Mooney cannot name the agency. But nothing stopped her from posting other people's frustrations on the Internet.
Mooney said adoption agencies have threatened to sue her, but she feels safe knowing her site only serves as way to post other people's complaints. Other sites, such as one posting complaints about Wal-Mart stores, have been protected from lawsuits in the past.
Still, Mooney has a note to readers: "This is freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America."
Nationwide, the number of children adopted in the United States has increased 70 percent since the early 1950s to about 125,000 per year. William Pierce, who founded the National Council for Adoption, admires what Mooney does, but he understands the agencies' side, too.
"Adoption providers are really in kind of a bind because it is impossible to provide any kind of warranty," he said. "Even when you do the best good-faith job, you can still have something happen which is really beyond human beings' ability to control it."
Pierce, who has been in the adoption field for 30 years, said there have been some attempts to study the financial aspects of adoption agencies on a national level, but none like Mooney's site.
The Hague is working on a system to evaluate and regulate agencies worldwide. Meanwhile, Pierce said, Mooney's site is a step in the right direction.
"Part of the way we get closer to the truth in a free and open society is when there are people who are unabashed defenders of adoptive parents, like Mary," he said.
Mooney even formed her own organization to evaluate agencies; she uses a board of 10 parents who have struggled with an adoption. The National Association of Ethical Adoption Professionals will admit anyone who agrees to standards that include providing all "written information which will include medical, social, psychological, developmental and legal information."
To cover the cost of researching agencies and conducting background checks, Mooney charges parents $200 for her services. Her time is valuable, especially now that she's a mother of three.
Two years ago, she tried in-vitro fertilization one more time and gave birth to twins.