TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100989/10098900.027

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 18.6 KB | 363 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 86

COVER STORIES: The Baby Chase


No one ever said adoption was easy -- but as the market
tightens and competition soars, options for parents are more
intricate than ever

By Nancy Gibbs


    In the sixth month of her pregnancy, "Nicole," 27, picked
a set of parents for her baby out of a black loose-leaf binder.
It was a thick album filled with letters and pictures of couples
in search of a child. Jan and Dick Evans, like nearly everyone
else in the book, posed smiling with their dog. "We want, in
sum, to provide your child with all the benefits our own health,
love and success can offer -- not to spoil, but to share," they
wrote. Nicole liked that.

    Over the next few weeks she visited their house, saw the
baby's room. There were phone calls and counseling sessions at
the Independent Adoption Center in Pleasant Hill, Calif. In the
private conference room there, Nicole felt happy with her
choice. Still there were some delicate points to resolve.

    "You're thinking of nursing the baby while you are in the
hospital?" asked I.A.C. counselor Debbie Parelskin one
afternoon. The conference room became very quiet, breathless.
The last time this subject came up, negotiations broke down.

    "Uh, I don't know," replied Nicole, with her eyes down.
"That's still vague with me."

    "It's O.K. with me," said Jan gently. She and Dick have
made their peace with the idea despite their natural fear that
at any moment Nicole could change her mind and decide to keep
the baby.

    "I would like to see pictures regularly," said Nicole.

    "I hope we see you regularly," Jan interjected.

    "Would you let me spend some time alone with her?" Nicole
asked. "Just her and me, so we could be friends?"

    "I'd kind of like to have Nicole come up and baby-sit," Jan
said almost shyly.

    "If you'd trust me."

    "Who could we trust more?"

    When Nicole entered the hospital on Aug. 26, Dick's beeper
sounded and the Evanses rushed over from a Los Angeles Raiders
game. Jan helped coach Nicole through her labor and the birth
of the baby girl. The Evanses named her Rebecca; Nicole nursed
her in the birthing room.

    This is the way Nicole wants it: open, easy, absent of
mystery. As it happens, she was adopted herself. "I've had lots
of love in my life, but lots of questions, medical things,
heredity. With open adoption, all these questions will be
answered for my daughter."

    There is all the difference in the world between having a
baby . . . and getting a baby. So much has changed in U.S.
society in the past generation -- legal abortion, the growing
acceptance of single motherhood, new concerns about infertility
-- that people looking to become parents face a most intricate
enterprise. Possessing a scarce resource, birth mothers can
often dictate their terms; operating in a crowded marketplace,
adoptive parents must be ingenious and relentless in their
search and accommodating in their negotiations. As middlemen,
the old-fashioned agencies must now compete with newfangled
lawyers and adoption consultants. Sometimes, as with Nicole, the
groundwork is laid by an organization with a radical new
approach known as "cooperative adoption." Most of the
participants have a standard, emphatic defense for the various
practices they promote: we are doing what is best for the child.
With all that proclaimed selflessness, how can there still be
so many problems?

    No one actually knows how many babies are adopted in the
U.S. each year. The Federal Government stopped keeping track in
1975, though it promises to start counting again by 1991. The
best estimate -- from the National Committee for Adoption in
Washington -- is that there were more than 60,000 adoptions by
nonrelatives in 1986. The figure would be much higher were it
not for a great and tragic irony: while adoptive parents will
literally go to the ends of the earth to find healthy white, or
perhaps Asian, infants, thousands of other American youngsters
who are older or black or handicapped go begging for homes. In
1986 the nation's foster-care system harbored at least 36,000
of these adoptable "special-needs" children. Some 13,500 found
families. That same year more than 9,000 couples and singles
adopted children from overseas. Another 25,000 pursued and found
that most hotly sought commodity in the adoption marketplace:
healthy white American babies.

    Chasing after these scarce infants is harder than ever, as
supply flattens and demand soars. Abortion is one reason: half
of all unwanted pregnancies are now terminated. Teenage mothers
intent on keeping their children are another. In some states a
pregnant 15-year-old quickly learns that with a baby she can be
eligible for Medicaid, food stamps and other welfare payments
that total as much as $8,000 a year. If she decides on adoption,
she may get nothing but the pain of loss and the ridicule of her
peers. "Adoption is really unpopular in the schools," says
Independent Adoption Center executive director Bruce Rappaport.
If a girl doesn't decide to keep her baby, "people will
literally come up and yell at her in the halls."

    And even for those willing to part with their babies, there
is adoption's dark history to overcome. Until very recently,
every party to the transaction bore the scars of its language:
"promiscuous," "barren," "illegitimate." When adoption
professionals called a woman the natural mother, it left
adoptive parents in a semantic dilemma. Were they unnatural
parents? The techno-jargony "birth mother" was the more neutral
alternative. All the secrecy reinforced the shame: as recently
as the 1970s, some delivery-room nurses covered the mirrors and
draped towels in front of a woman giving up her child, or even
blindfolded her, so she could not see the baby. In the nursery
the infants were marked DNS (do not show) or DNP (do not publish
the mother's name). Says Rappaport: "Adoption was considered a
really sick process."

    Though many adopted children went on to live contented,
successful lives, others suffered from the start and were slow
to heal, a phenomenon largely ignored by the mental-health
community. The visceral sense of loss, psychologists suggest,
even in the case of infant adoptions, is an abiding wound, too
little understood. Adoptees represent 2% of the U.S. population,
yet by some estimates they account for one-quarter of the
patients in U.S. psychological treatment facilities. "There are
many issues that are particularly critical for adoptive families
-- issues of compatibility, intellectual mismatches, personality
conflicts," says Ruth McRoy, a University of Texas professor who
has studied emotional disturbance in adopted adolescents. "Some
children feel that being adopted means having been rejected by
birth families. That's very difficult to accept."

    Teenagers may be especially hard hit. "When I was four or
five, I used to tell everyone I was adopted," recalls Karla
Kelba, 16, a blond, cheery high school junior from Fountain
Valley, Calif. "I thought it was very special; the kids thought
it was great. But between ten and 13, I went through some rough
times. The kids wouldn't play with me. They said my mother
didn't want me." There was worse to come. In a health and
sex-education class, "my teacher went all off on the subject of
how adopted kids are second choice," she recalls angrily. "He
said it was the worst thing you could do to a child -- if you
had a choice, you should have an abortion."

    But now the entire landscape is changing in ways that could
ease the grief of birth parents and the anguish of adoptees.
Experiments like open or cooperative adoption not only appeal
to birth mothers grappling with their decision but may also lift
the burdens of mystery and shame endured by the adopted child.
Many developments are market driven, as agencies, lawyers,
"consultants" and counselors compete to open fresh avenues to
adoption or make the old ones less forbidding.

    While public agencies concentrate on special-needs
children, private agencies remain the traditional vehicle for
finding healthy infants. These have historically been clubby,
starched places; singles were not at the top of the selection
list, nor interracial, gay, handicapped or older couples. While
their policies are gradually changing -- especially in helping
place older or special-needs kids -- many still primarily serve
a specific religious group.

    Terry Ulick, 34, and his wife Linda, 45, of Bartlett, Ill.,
were rebuffed by seven agencies in their six-year quest for a
child. One agency said he was too fat and she was too old. "The
biological rules of nature are that any two people can get
together and have a child," says Terry. "When it comes to
adoption, the rules of nature don't apply."

    So the Ulicks, like so many couples, have had to look
elsewhere. Some go to countries where local custom discourages
adoption. In the past, South Korea was the prime source; in the
'80s alone, more than 40,000 Korean children have been brought
to the U.S. But in recent years Koreans have begun to question
the propriety of shipping so many infants abroad. The government
has stepped up its promotion of birth control and urged Korean
families to adopt. Last year the number of children coming to
the U.S. fell 18%, and prospective parents must find other
channels.

    While South Korea cuts back, other countries awash with
orphans or abandoned children try to remove potential obstacles.
Thailand, India and Peru are possible sources. Douglas Tifft and
his wife Bonnie MacAdam tried the agencies, avoided the lawyers
and waited a year for a Korean baby before looking elsewhere.
"The process can be heartbreaking," says Bonnie. But when they
applied for a Peruvian baby, the phone call came six weeks
later, and they soon boarded a plane for Lima. Last week Bonnie
returned to New Hampshire with five-month-old Rosa. "Once you
have the baby in your arms," she says, "it seems worth all the
waiting, money, traveling and hassle."

    For parents who have set their hearts on white American
infants and been endlessly wait-listed or rejected by the
agencies, the other choice is to go private. At the hub of
so-called independent adoptions, meaning placements outside the
agencies, are the ranks of lawyers, who usually charge from
$1,500 to $4,000 for their legal work. They typically steer
couples through a tangle of laws that vary wildly from state to
state.

    Among the legal considerations: Are lawyer-brokered
independent adoptions allowed in the state where the couple
resides? (Six states prohibit private adoption.) Which of the
birth mother's expenses can be paid by the adoptive parents?
Hospitalization? Maternity clothes? How long does she have to
change her mind about giving up her child? Does the birth
father, who in most cases is out of the picture, have to give
his consent? Because of their laws, California and Texas have
become magnets for couples seeking independent adoptions, while
Minnesota and Michigan have none. "There are probably more
infants from Minnesota placed in California than in Minnesota
itself," says Beverly Hills lawyer David Keene Leavitt, who has
handled more than 7,000 adoptions in 28 years.

    Some attorneys act as intermediaries between doctors with
pregnant patients and prospective parents. They may also advise
clients on how and where to advertise for potential birth
mothers. Pictures of perplexed young women appear in ads on
buses and in buildings throughout Illinois. Sample copy:
"Pregnant? Scared? Are you ready to be a single parent?" For
those who are not, the ad refers clients to lawyer Lawrence
Raphael ("He Cares") and even provides a toll-free number.

    Lawyers and self-styled adoption consultants -- many of
them people who have successfully adopted -- encourage would-be
parents to do their own legwork. Classified sections of
newspapers are loaded with often highly personal ads detailing
a couple's medical history and inviting pregnant women to call
collect anytime. In her book Beating the Adoption Game, clinical
psychologist Cynthia Martin offers tips: "Contact
physical-education teachers, who frequently are the first to
realize a young girl is pregnant; contact the school nurse to
find out if anyone has morning sickness. Never talk to the
principal, who may not want to know about these things." She
also suggests that would-be mothers and fathers start haunting
skating rinks, rock concerts, used-clothing stores, anywhere
they might hear some gossip and make connections.

    As more parents strike out on their own or with private
brokers, some professionals fear that standards and safeguards
are slipping. "Adoptive parents won't blink an eyelash over
paying $20,000 to $30,000 for a healthy white baby," says family
lawyer Samuel Totaro of Trevose, Pa. "This business can be a
license to steal." William Pierce, president of the National
Committee for Adoption and a militant defender of traditional
adoption practices, argues that abuses have multiplied as formal
agencies have lost control of the process. "One couple I know
adopted twins through a lawyer," says Pierce. "After several
weeks, the couple found that the twins were deaf. They had paid
the lawyer $25,000. Did they sue? No. By the time they found
out, they had become too fond of the twins to jeopardize their
future."

    The greatest change in recent years is the emergence of the
birth mother as a principal architect of the adoptive
arrangement. Her growing power allows her to shape the
relationship to suit her taste and needs. In as many as 80% of
the cases, she now has some role in selecting the parents, even
if they never meet face to face. "It makes you feel so much
better to know where your baby is going," says "Sarah," 26, from
suburban Chicago, who gave up her son three months ago. "If I
didn't know, I would spend my whole life wondering."

    There are countless variations on the same theme. If the
birth mother has her heart set on a Roman Catholic,
nondrinking, harpsichord-playing vegetarian couple, chances are
the agencies and lawyers will do all they can to accommodate her
wishes. In the most radical arrangements, she may live with the
couple until the birth and then continue to write and visit,
like an aunt or a godparent, as the child grows up. Some just
exchange a few letters; others go so far as to accompany the
family on vacations. Adoptive couples may embrace these
arrangements willingly or merely accept the openness as the
price of their parenthood.

    The emotional risks of opening up the process are usually
worth it, say advocates, because parents and children may suffer
less in the long run. Experts insist the secrecy that once
surrounded adoption was a cure for which there was no disease.
When the veil is lifted and histories shared, all parties can
benefit; birth mothers feel less guilty, more in control. ("If
her dog had puppies, she wouldn't give them to someone she
didn't know," observes lawyer Leavitt acidly.) Adoptive couples
feel they have been given a sort of subtle permission to parent
and are better informed about the ethnic, medical and religious
background of the child. Above all, the children may wonder and
worry less about why their parents are not their "real" parents.

    Whatever the style of adoption -- open, traditional,
independent -- it is not easy for a mother to hand over her
baby, even to the perfect handpicked parents. Dale Owen, 19,
sought a college-educated couple who "were into animals and
sports," who resembled her and the birth father, and who had a
long, stable marriage. Through the Golden Cradle agency in
Cherry Hill, N.J., she found just such a pair. But after she
gave birth at a New Jersey hospital last August, she burst into
a flood of tears and conflicting emotions: "This is my baby. I
can't leave him. But I know I cannot give him what he needs."
A few days later a Pennsylvania couple took her son home.

    Given the emotional stakes, some birth mothers still find
the old, anonymous approach to adoption the easiest course. They
may leave letters to their children on register at adoption
centers or state agencies in case the child ever decides to
search them out. Others choose to disappear forever. "Not to be
mean," says "Jackie," 18, due to give birth in December at the
venerable Edna Gladney Center for unwed mothers in Fort Worth,
"but I have to get along with my life. And I want him to have
his own life so he'll look for what he needs in his family."

    Some adoption professionals are troubled by the aggressive
pursuit of birth mothers that open adoption has spawned.
Without proper counseling, such arrangements can end grievously.
As soon as the transaction is legally binding, charges Los
Angeles author and adoption consultant Reuben Pannor, too many
adoptive couples leave the birth mother high and dry. They
change phone numbers, move away or otherwise discourage further
contact. "Until an adoption is finalized, the birth mother is
treated royally and seductively," he says. "Then the contact is
abruptly broken off."

    Even if some sort of relationship is maintained, the notion
of cooperative adoption may raise unsettling questions for the
children. In an era of divorce, remarriage and
yours-mine-and-ours families, it is perhaps less anomalous than
it once was to contend with two sets of parents. Still, what
does the child call this woman who comes to visit and sends the
birthday cards? What is he or she to think when that person
later has children she decides to keep? Worst of all, what
happens if the birth mother, having endeared herself to her
child, suddenly stops coming to visit?

    The Evanses, Nicole and their new daughter Rebecca are just
beginning to work out some answers -- a process that is not
without pain. Nicole admits she felt "a tearing away" when the
Evanses went home from the hospital with the baby; she paid her
first visit the very next day. "It's been hard for us to hear
the true sadness in Nicole's voice," admits Jan, "when we have
felt so much joy." More than once Nicole has had to battle the
urge to pick up Rebecca and run, particularly when Jan went out
shopping and left them alone together one day. "I could have
just walked out with that baby," recalls Nicole. "My car was
right outside." She has joined a birth mothers' support group,
and talks about going back to school to become a nurse. The
Evanses have invited her family to join them at Thanksgiving and
Christmas. Says Jan: "I suspect it will become a yearly ritual."


-- Mary Cronin/New York, Elizabeth Taylor/Chicago and James
Willwerth/Los Angeles