Strollerderby : biological parents

Should Mixed Up Embryo's Mom Get to Weigh In on Abortion?

JeanneSager — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Remember the outrage over the Japanese doctors who oh-so-accidentally transferred one couple's embryo into the wrong mom-to-be?

The story's back in the news - with a twist. It turns out the woman whose embryo was accidentally transferred into the womb of an ususpecting IVF patient (who later aborted) did not find out about the incident for a full two and a half months. Doctors said the woman, who was in her forties, was not overly concerned. Her exact words (according to the health officials) were "I'm sorry to hear that."

So what's the problem? Some members of the press are now debating whether that woman should have had a chance to weigh in on the subject when doctors realized the mistake. In other words - some are debating whether the embryo's "Mom" should have had the right to talk the pregnant woman out of aborting her "child."

Wait, what? Technically, they're suggesting that one woman should have the right over another woman's body. And they're not the only ones.

Some of the commentors on the original reporting of the story here on Strollerderby expressed their outrage at the woman who underwent the abortion - even pro-choice moms. As Emma says, "That's pretty disgusting. This woman was so desperate for a child she paid for expensive IVF treatments, but she couldn't bear to keep a child that wasn't her's biologically? I completely understand her anger, and a large settlement would be justified. For me, despite being pro choice, the abortion is unfathomable."

As a woman who was very happy to get pregnant and even happier when the pregnancy ended (with the birth of my daughter), I'm not sure I'm OK with the idea of going forward with a pregnancy for the sake of someone else . . . especially someone I've never met. Planned surrogacy is one thing. Accidental surrogacy, and suffering through all the ill effects of pregnancy for someone else's child is quite another.

On the other hand, this woman and her husband provided egg and sperm in good faith. They thought their embryo would become a child, and it was their flesh and blood. They didn't impregnate some poor woman on purpose, and they sure as heck could have suffered exponentially from the loss of either the chance to become pregnant or the loss of that fetus.

Should the biological parents' of the embryo have been allowed to know the situation right away? Should they have been allowed contact with the pregnant woman? Or was there enough of a burden on the women who suffered from the wrongly transferred embryo?

Image: PatDollard.com

Former Foster Care Kid Adopted At 36

JeanneSager — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:31:00 GMT

I may be totally ripping off Grace Slick, but everybody wants somebody to love, right? Even if it's been eighteen years since you aged out of the foster care system and gave up your dreams of one day finding a mom?

Alice Jones spent sixteen years in the foster care system, and she's been out of it for eighteen. But last week, Jones finally got adopted.

The thirty-six-year-old computer programmer entered a Texas courtroom with friend Kate Held, a fifty-year-old mentor and mother figures of sorts who officially became her mom during a short ceremony complete with "It's a Girl" balloons.

Are you crying yet? Just wait.

Alice Jones was abandoned by her biological mother as a baby, by her biological father at two. Until she was eighteen, she spent her life in foster care - but her foster family opted against adoption. She went on to college and began a successful career as a programmer. At a fundraiser for a Texas charity that helps low-income kids last spring, Jones was paired with one of the organizers, Tracy Eilers, executive director of the Adoption Coalition of Central Texas, for a special meet-and-greet section of the program. She told Eilers she'd been in foster care, and though she never asked for it, Eilers hatched a plan to get Jones adopted.

Eilers told the Austin-American Statesman. “It was very hurtful to her. The pain doesn’t go away at some miraculous age.”

Eilers convinced Jones to talk to Held, and voila . . . instant-family.

My hat's off to all involved - Eilers for realizing adults who have aged out of the foster system are still in need of family support, Held for opening her heart, and Jones for keeping her heart open. But for all the good in this story, I'm still angered by the fact that it had to happen.

She spent sixteen years in the foster system, and no one stepped forward. There is still too much emphasis put on adopting babies in this country - and out of this country. I'm not against international adoption, but I find it hard to sympathize with people who say they could have adopted domestically, but they would have had to "sacrifice" their dreams of adopting a baby. Parenting means parenting kids - period. If you can't have your own - or decide not to - turning to adoption is supposed to be a mission of helping a child as much as that child will help your family.

Babies, people say, are easier. They don't come with baggage. Not true, actually, when you talk about a baby born addicted to drugs or you're dealing with an open adoption (a wonderful thing for parents to opt for, I might add). Kids don't come in neat little packages at any age.

Adopting babies is a wonderful gesture. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who come into this world in need of a Mom or Dad, and adoption will change their lives. It will prevent them from ever ending up in a foster system, it will give them a chance they likely wouldn't have had with their birth mother. But it shouldn't be the only option for new parents.

Consider when you're planning to expand your family - do you want a baby because a baby is cute and cuddly? Do you want a baby because it's a fresh start? Do you want a baby because you think it will be easier? Or do you just want to give a kid a chance at a better life, and let them enrich your family with all they can offer?

If your real desire is the latter - keep your options open. You may find an Alice Jones, two and just abandoned by the only parent she had left, waiting to come home with you.

Image: Yell

Adoptive Parents Report Paying Traffic Tickets as "Fees"

JeanneSager — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:26:00 GMT

Putting adoptive parents through the ringer to ensure they're ready to be trusted with your child is one thing. Asking them to pay your traffic tickets? Or buy you a TV?

The state of Oklahoma is working on legislation that would finally put an end to these sorts of demands from biological parents, exorbitant expectations that are being lumped in as part of the adoption "fees" parents-to-be are going into debt to pay.

Technically, in states like Oklahoma, the Department of Human Services (or a like agency in other states) oversees adoptions; private firms and attornies simply carry them out. But while the Oklahoma Department of Human Services doesn't charge any fees and reports that most adoptive parents are average working joes, the fact is, what's being accepted as part of the adoption process in many places puts undue burden on adoptive parents. The lack of transparency in the process allows the biological parents to walk out with benefits that fall precariously close to having sold their baby in exchange for something of value.

But if baby selling is illegal here and in most western countries, how much of the estimated $40,000 (on the high end) for a domestic adoption is going to pay for legitimate costs? And how much of these fees are really necessary?

Shouldn't the goal be to put kids in need homes with loving families? There should be court costs, sure; attornies fees, certainly. But if adopting a child via the foster care system costs less than $10,000 on average (often much less), how can we justify adoption of a newborn costing families quadruple that amount?

This new law proposed in Oklahoma would force transperancy on the process to help weed out the fees that are "above and beyond" those required to ensure the attorney gets paid, the adoption agency workers get their paychecks and all court costs are covered. I'd like to see states go a step farther, pushing not just for transperancy but a reduction in overall costs to make adoption an option for more people. It's in their best interests after all; children adopted into loving homes as newborns are less likely to end up in the foster system, costing the states down the road.

Image: Yell

"Dads" Want DNA Testing in Kansas

JeanneSager — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:28:00 GMT

Christopher Sprowson's ex-wife had an affair that resulted in a baby. Now the State of Kansas wants him to pay for a child genetic testing proves isn't his because he's the "presumed father."

A bit presumptuous, aren't they?

Sprowson and his first wife divorced when the child, now thirteen, was just a baby. He's never had a relationship with the child, nor has the mother called for one. Why should she? He isn't the boy's father.

Kansas officials stepped in when the ex-wife filed for welfare.The state automatically seeks child support for any parent receiving public assistance to reduce the state's burden. Unable to provide a name for a father of her boy, the state put the blame on Sprowson. When DNA proved otherwise, a judge said it didn't matter – as her husband at the time of the baby's birth, he had to pay some $10,000.

But Sprowson and wife Karey have three kids of their own to support, and they have made a bid to the state legislature to change the laws, allowing men to use DNA evidence to prove once and for all that they aren't responsible for kids with whom they share no blood relation.

Critics have said this will pave the way for stepfathers everywhere to shirk their responsiblities to their stepkids. The way I see it, stepkids are just that - "step" kids. Short of a marriage to the child's biological parent, they aren't that child's parent. So why should they be responsible for their care outside of the marriage? Their argument is the old standby - it takes more than biology to make a parent, and I agree with them. But that's a saying used to describe the non-biological parents who nurture children, not one that can be supplied to defend thrusting someone else's responsibilities on men like Christopher Sprowson. He never nurtured the child because he had no reason to - he wasn't the boy's father in any sense of the word, biological or emotional.

I don't fault the state for trying to reduce a burden on taxpayers by requiring non-custodial parents to step in to care for a child rather than the state. But you can't legislate family ties into existence anymore than you can force an angry spouse to accept their cheating partner's love child into their heart.

Give the guys their DNA test, Kansas. And let the real fathers stand up.

Image: NIH

Family Adopts Eight Siblings Separated by Foster Care

JeanneSager — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:02:00 GMT

It's like Jon and Kate Plus Eight without Mother Nature pulling the punches. Or maybe 17 KIds and Counting without all the baby-making.

An Ohio family has added eight children to its brood completely by choice - they've adopted a set of eight siblings, who were previously split between three separate foster homes.

Oh yeah, and they already have seven kids of their own living at home.

The presiding Judge, Allan Davis, says this is the most unusual adoption he's seen in all his years on the bench in Hancock County, Ohio. But it's no less heartwarming.

The kids - whose ages range from five to seventeen - were removed from their biological parents in 2006 when social services found they were living in a deplorable conditions. There was just one bathroom in the house - and the plumbing didn't even work (imagine, no potty, and eight kids?). Dubbed mildly mentally retarded in court papers, the parents reportedly failed to complete a case plan and were unable to obtain appropriate housing for their kids - resulting in a complete loss of parental rights.

The eight kids have spent the last six months living with their new family as a sort of "trial run," to ensure it was more than a hunch that that this group must somehow form a family. (hum along with me folks. . . ). Monday, they were all in court to give the judge their own OK on officially becoming the kids of their new parents.

I'd be terrified to have that many kids, but good for these folks - for realizing siblings need to be able to stick together. I know the foster system tries as often as possible not to break up families, but in a family so large, this was likely the only chance these kids would have at a normal life.

The new, big, happy family jumped in a van to go home after the court appearance - any guesses on whether they stopped off for jerseys? They've got just enough for a rugby team.

Image: University of Nebraska

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Dad Finds Daughter Abducted During Bosnian War

JeanneSager — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:01:00 GMT

It's been sixteen years since Muhamed Becirovic saw his family, abducted by Serbian soldiers at the start of the Bosnian war. But the Bosnian Muslim - now living in Germany - never gave up hope.

Now Red Cross workers, using DNA samples, have reconnected the father with one of his two little girls, now living with a foster family in Serbia. Senida was nine months when last seen by her father; she's now sixteen and goes by the name Mila.

She's also a Serbian. And a Christian.

She's known nothing of her father for the past sixteen years, nothing of his life or her heritage. Now she faces the biggest question of all - should she stay with what she knows? Or join her biological father in another country, taking on a new life?

It's the kind of story that tears at a parents' guts. Becirovic has rebuilt his life since losing his wife and two daughters after fighting broke out while he was working out-of-town, and ethnic Serbs took control of his hometown. By the time he finally got to his home, the building was demolished, his family gone. He's spent more than a decade and a half trying to find them, even if that meant discovering they were among the bodies dumped in the mass graves created during the Bosnian war. He's also since become a permanent resident of Germany, remarrying a German woman and fathering another daughter.

But a third daughter can't possibly replace his elder two. Finding Senida would seem like a dream come true.

But what of Senida? She's no longer a baby, and she says she doesn't want to move to Germany. “Of course I am very happy to have found my family and my roots. But at the moment it is all too much for me," she told the Sunday Times.

Is it fair for a child to be uprooted from everything that she knows? With the long history of the region, pitting Serbs against Bosnians and Christians against Muslims, it's hard to say how much of this child's biological heritage can really take hold over what she has been raised to believe. It's akin to a child raised evangelical Christian in America suddenly learning she's an Orthodox Jew - and her biological parents believe nothing of the born again, Jesus loving faith she's been raised to hold so dear. Doesn't nurture trump nature in this case?

By the time kids reach a certain age, biology can hold only so much sway in their lives. Heritage is more environmental and less what one is born with at sixteen. Not to mention the utter lack of relatable moments between father and daughter in this situation because of such a large chunk of their lives spent apart.

For the Becirovics, what should be one of the happiest days of their lives is fraught with confusion. Unfortunately, they're still a family torn apart by war.

Image: USIP

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More News About Missing Child Adam Herrman

Brett Singer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Jeanne first told us about the bizarre case of the little boy who has been missing since 1999, but the story gets even stranger with some new details.

Let's start with this one: it turns out that the person who tipped off police about Adam's decade-old disappearance may have been the daughter of his adoptive parents. To clarify: Crystal Herrman, the biological daughter of Doug and Valerie Herrman, may have called the police and told them that Adam, whom Doug and Valerie adopted, was missing. Crystal emailed KSN.com, the Kansas NBC TV affiliate, saying the following:

"We started this, which was hard against our own parents as we were not adopted. But we want more than anything to find the truth, answers and justice…We pray every day our parents will come forward. Do the right thing not only for what they already put Adam through in the past, but to make it right for him now."

KSN says that that last sentence implies that Adam was being abused, although it doesn't appear to explicitly state that fact.

There's more: a woman described as "a former relative, who says she remains close to one of Valerie Herrman's sisters," told KSN that Valerie recently said, "They can dig up the whole state of Kansas, they'll never find a body." The Herrmann's attorney says that his clients are "worried" that they face murder charges, pointing out that there is no evidence of such a crime. He calls the Herrmans "good people," and claims the couple had no part in Adam's disappearance. The attorney has appeared on the Today Show, and also on local station KSN, stating that the Herrmans thought that Adam had gone to live with his biological father when he didn't come home after some time. Why they didn't call Adam's biological father and find out is a question that seems not to have been asked.

Lastly, Adam's biological father, Irvin Groeninger, gave an interview to KSN. He says that he "lost" Adam once and can't lose him again, and just wants to know what happened. Here's video of the interview, which also has clips of the attorney.

It's nasty stuff. I suppose I'll say that I hope they find out what happened soon, since it doesn't seem likely that this story has a happy ending.

Source: KSN.com

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Journalist Suing for Sperm-Donor Dad's Identity

JeanneSager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:51:00 GMT

Oliva Pratten knows her dad was stocky. He had brown hair like her and blue eyes. She even knows his blood type. What she doesn't know is who his or how he came to deposit a cup of sperm at a bank in her native Canada. Now she's suing to find out.

Pratten, a twenty-six-year-old journalist who now lives and works in New York, is suing on behalf of the spawn of all sperm donors in British Columbia, hoping to protect sperm bank records from a shredding of Arthur Anderson proportions. The goal, she says, is to end the practice of destroying medical records after six years practiced by many fertility doctors. The suit has already ensured a temporary injunction against destroying the paperwork in British Columbia, laid down by chief justice of the BC Supreme Court.

Currently adoption records in a number of Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, are protected. Pratten says that protection should apply to the children conceived by gamete donation because they too have a biological parent mystery to be solved. The fertility doctor who helped her mom get pregnant respectfully disagrees. He says he'd be violating the man's confidentiality, and without a signed release he'll give her no more than the basic medical facts.

I'm a big proponent of open adoptions, and I'd say that would extend to gamete donations. Kids should get the full story if everyone agrees to share it. But that's a very personal if. If a guy walks into a medical office today with the full knowledge he might have a kid knocking on his door in 18 years, that's one thing. It's why I think all donors today should be subject to having their identity shared with their "kids" down the road. For the kids' sake.

But for the medical student who yanked off into a cup to help pay his tuition twenty-six years ago, thinking he was doing so under a shroud of anonymity? Is anything more than disseminating medical information to the products of his donation a violation of his privacy? Or should a guy going through med school have been capable of seeing this coming?

Image: Vancouver Sun

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Dad Wants Daughter Back Despite Negative DNA Test

JeanneSager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:05:00 GMT

A text message from England told an Australian man the nine-year-old girl he always thought was his daughter isn't technically his daughter. The man's reaction? He doesn't care. He's still her dad, and he wants her back. Cue the tears folks.

An Australian newspaper reports the man (whose identity is being protected) was in college in England with the girl's mother when she became pregnant. Believing the child was his, he stepped up in terms of financial support and involvement in the girl's life. By the time the girl was two, the couple's relationship fell apart. The "dad" met an Australian woman, fell in love and got married. His ex-girlfriend stayed in England, but she too fell in love and got married. The man continued to make trips back to England to see his little girl, sending presents and letters. His mother, who still lives in the UK, remained involved as well - even stepping in to babysit.

But in the past year, the man says the girl's mother made it increasingly difficult for him to see their daughter. Packages and letters he sent to the little girl were returned unopened. His lawyer suggested a paternity test would give him grounds in a legal case to see his daughter more often. The hope was that the result would reopen the lines of communication between Dad and daughter.

But the DNA test came back negative. The girl's mom sent a blunt text message: "Got the results. Im sorry. I will sort out the birth cert + there will b no more contact. Sorry." She followed it up with legal papers, cutting off the man's financial responsibilities. Now he's being offered a refund for child support. But all he wants is his little girl. "She's still my daughter," he told the newspaper. It sounds like we've found the poster dad for that saying "any man can be a father, it takes a real man to be a dad."

The hundreds of thousands of adopted children are evidence that a biological connection has nothing to do with the bond between a parent and a child. So is this really any different?

Image: The Mercury (paintings the little girl sent to her "dad")

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Jay Thomas Reunites With Out of Wedlock Son

Brett Singer — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

I guess nobody cares about Jay Thomas anymore, because if not for the fact that I heard about this on the Howard 100 News (The Howard Stern Show news outlet on Sirius XM Satellite Radio) I don't think I would have seen it. Yes, it was on the Today Show, but it was on the 27th hour that Kathie Lee hosts. Certainly SOME people care; he's gotten plenty of press attention for the story over the past few months.

I think it's a good story, although not exactly Lifetime TV material. Here's what happened: Jay Thomas, an actor and radio personality (he used to be on 'Cheers', and also had his own show called 'Love & War', plus he's done a ton of movies and TV guest spots), had a son with a girlfriend 28 years ago. The boy was adopted as an infant and his parents named him John Harding, although his nickname was JT, same as Jay's. JT moved to L.A. 11 years ago hoping to find his biological dad. He knew from his adoptive family that, " my biological dad was 'different' and not like the rest of us. Those remarks often caused me to fantasise [sic] and wonder about just me who my birth dad really was... A monster? A member of the traveling circus?"

According to JT the younger, he eventually heard that his father was on 'Cheers', so of course he thought that meant Ted Danson. Not quite. Eventually he found out it was Jay, and they've been spending time together ever since.

So why are we only hearing about this now? As the National Ledger puts it, "It's just that JT's star is rising now, with his JTX band and his hot Next Plateau Records song, 'I'm Gonna Party Like a Rockstar.'" In other words, they want publicity. In fact, Jay says in the Today show clip that he's selling t-shirts that say, "I Reunited With My Biological Son Because It Was Good For Both Our Careers" or something like that. Can't find the shirt, though.

Thomas is so cynical and hilariously inappropriate, making this is a slightly different adoption-reuniting tale. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Here's the clip from Today, and also the video for John Harding's song (with his band, JTX).

Jay Thomas reunites with his son

JTX-(I'm Gonna) Party Like A Rockstar

Jay is also a regular guest on Letterman. Here's a clip. He's a funny guy.

Jay Thomas' "Lone Ranger" Story

Source: Today Show, National Journal

Image: Superior Pics

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Biological Father of Madonna's Adopted Son Very Concerned

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Yohana Banda, the biological father of Madonna’s adopted son David, is very worried about the boy's happiness. Although Banda and his second wife live simply in a thatched hut in Malawi, he thinks that three-year-old David may be happier living with him than with the most famous woman in the world.

Banda put David up for adoption after his first wife, David’s biological mother, died from complications in childbirth. He hoped that David would have a better life in the U.S., but, he says, “Now I see him in a big bewildering crowd in the street with people pushing and shoving, and many cameras around, and without a mother and father to hold his hand. I’m feeling bad for him.”

Madonna’s divorce from Guy Ritchie has strengthened Banda’s concerns about David’s welfare. “This is a new and terrible thing to happen to him. I am too upset to think clearly,” Banda said.

Although this is clearly a unique case, Banda's concern raises interesting questions about the rights of biological parents to be involved in their children’s lives after adoption. Naturally, Banda cannot know what David’s private family life is really like without personal contact from Madonna. Do you think Madonna has an obligation to reassure Banda of David’s happiness, or are her family’s decisions none of his business?

Photo: Celebpick's Weblog

John McCain Doesn't "Believe In" Gay Parents

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:16:00 GMT

One would think that John McCain would be the most likely candidate to understand the importance of making unwanted babies into wanted ones, since he and his wife have an adopted daughter. But his support of adoption only goes as far as his ideology—or his political interests—will allow. He recently stated, “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption.”

I’m so glad that writer Terrence Heath, who recently adopted a baby with his husband, thoroughly took McCain to task so I don’t have to. In an elegant essay on Huffington Post, Heath points to the arguments raised in the California Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriage, including the assertion that adoptive parents are just as “adept” at raising children as biological parents—and to argue that gay parents shouldn’t adopt is a slippery slope to being anti-adoption. Heath includes stats from numerous studies showing that gay parents are just as likely as straight parents to raise healthy, happy kids.

Lastly, Heath points to the tragedy of three-year-old Turner Jordan Nelson, whose father killed him by throwing him over a bridge in the midst of a nasty custody battle. According to the thinking of the anti-gay parent faction (including McCain), this father is a “real" parent because he is a straight man who “created” his son through vaginal intercourse, while Heath and his husband, a loving couple committed to always doing what's best for their child, are not.

Fortunately for unwanted babies everywhere, parents like Heath exist whether McCain believes in them or not.

Photo: aglp.org

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2008/07/03/mrs-and-mrs-degeneres-and-a-male-perspective-on-the-name-game.aspx