Hopeful Parents Find Distress During Private Adoption

Hopeful Parents Find Distress During Private Adoption

Laws May Not Always Protect Prospective Parents

POSTED: 9:40 pm EST February 3, 2005

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore television station WBAL wanted to know if current laws fuel a competitive baby chase. A Maryland couple, already parents of a 6-year-old girl, want nothing more than to add to their family with a newborn baby. And so began their story of hope and heartbreak of private adoption. At the couple's request, the station agreed not to identify the parents.

"We just know we have a good home and we can provide financially and emotionally for another baby," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

The couple turned to a Maryland attorney and soon were part of an intricate nationwide network of couples, like themselves, in search of a baby. They turned to adoption consultants whose job was to match them with a willing birthmother, the station said.

"In private adoption, open adoption, we're able to meet the birthparents, to see them. And we felt we had a great deal more control by going private," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

A few weeks later, the couple's lawyer called with exactly the news they wanted to hear: A birthmother had been located who was willing to put the baby she was going to have up for adoption.

But that person wasn't in the region, but halfway across the country in Sioux City, Iowa.

Near the end of July, the Maryland couple went to Sioux City to meet the birthmother and her husband.

"They already have a child of their own, they had put another child up for adoption," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

"She was very forthright in her feelings about children and raising her son. She did not want to raise any more children. Financially, they could not do it," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

"It was almost a relief to hear her say that because we knew she wasn't going to change her mind," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

With the so-called match, the couple made their first financial commitment for the adoption: $7,000 to the consultant to pay her fee, plus another $2,000 to cover what the consultant had paid to relocate the birthmother from North Carolina to Iowa.

"We made the agreement verbally that we would adopt their child and that was it," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

Or so it seemed.

For a few weeks, the couple said, they and the birthmother had regular contact by phone. But, as August turned to September, the couple learned the birthmother had missed doctor's appointments, and the phone calls from the birthmother stopped.

What the couple learned next shattered their dream, the station reported. When someone came to the apartment where the birthmother was staying, they discovered the apartment had been emptied out, and the birthmother was gone without a trace.

"She was pregnant, very pregnant," a neighbor said.

Another resident in the Sioux City apartment complex told the station that he watched the birthmother and her husband leave.

"Did it seem their departure from here was very sudden?" a reported asked.

"Oh, yeah. They were loading up his truck and they were putting stuff in the back of her car. The next night, I saw them driving away, and they never came back. That's the last I ever saw them." he said.

"We were completely caught off guard when we found out they had run away," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

"I just fell in my chair and I cried," one of the prospective adoptive parents said. "Where is my baby? Where is my baby?"

The only previous hint of trouble, the couple said, concerned the issue of money. While it's illegal to buy a baby, adoptive parents are permitted to pay certain expenses for the birthmother. But each state's laws vary.

"It's surprising, the degree to which the laws from one state to another differ," said Mark McDermott, a former president of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. "Maryland doesn't allow any living expenses to be paid for the mother. D.C. doesn't either, and it varies from one state to another for what kinds of living expenses can be reimbursed to the birthmother," McDermott added.

Under Iowa law, the Maryland couple was permitted to, and did, pay the birthmother's rent, food and furniture rental. But other expenses were prohibited.

"She would make comments to us that their car needed to be fixed [and] they had outstanding parking tickets that needed to be paid. [She] would never come out and ask us to pay for it, but [she] certainly would make it clear she would accept our money if we gave it," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

The couple's suspicion that money was a factor deepened a few weeks later when they learned something from their lawyer that may have explained where the birthmother had gone: Beverly Hills, Calif.

"We got a call saying the Adoption Law Center of Beverly Hills had just contacted her doctor in Iowa asking for her medical records to be sent forward," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

And no state is quite like California in the private adoption world, the station reported.

Adoption lawyers and consultants describe a gold rush of sorts in the adoption business in California because the state's laws allow all types of expenses to be paid by the adopting parents on behalf of the birthmother.

David Leavitt is the lawyer who runs the Adoption Law Center of Beverly Hills. The station asked him about the birthmother in Iowa who had been dealing with the Maryland couple before disappearing.

"Unfortunately, if I did have involvement in this matter, I couldn't discuss it. If the situation were like many others, I would suggest that perhaps these birthparents did not feel they were being treated properly and exercised their right to make other arrangements. They can do it and they do," Leavitt said.

Leavitt said he knew of no birthmother he represented who might illegally have taken reimbursement from two different sets of adoptive parents at the same time. He then pointed out there's nothing to stop a birthmother from simply switching from one adoptive parent to another, regardless of the expenses that have been paid on her behalf.

"The birthparents can withdraw, and they're under no obligation to reimburse the adoptive couple for what they've spent," Leavitt said.

Maxine Buckmeier is the adoption attorney who represents the Maryland couple.

"Based on my experience with parents who have adopted in California, or tried to, it's carte blanche," she said. "Adoptive parents can even buy a birthmother a new car, set up a trust fund, pay for college."

Buckmeier said that can lead to a bidding war.

"I don't want this to sound like people who are adopting are buying cars, but the most sought-after child is a healthy Caucasian infant girl, followed by a healthy Caucasian boy," he said.

"We paid for living expenses," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

Out tens of thousands of dollars, the couple asked the Sioux City Police Department to investigate. But because so much about adoption is secret, the department said this is tough case to pursue.

"The laws need to clamp down to protect both parties," Sioux City Police Lt. Doug Young said.

But the Maryland couple hasn't closed the book on adoption.

"I know that adoption has brought happiness to so many people, I don't want to discourage people from adoption. I just want them to know what they're getting into before they get into it," one of the prospective adoptive parents said.

But the couple now knows the cardinal rule for adoptive parents and that all of the involved risk -- emotionally and financially -- is theirs and theirs alone.

Ten years ago, a national commission wrote a uniform adoption law and urged all 50 states to enact it. So far, just one state -- Vermont -- follows it, WBAL reported.