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This afternoon I was taking a break after mowing the several acres that is our yard. I was flipping through channels and landed on a show on Discovery Health Network called “Adoption Stories.” Obviously this caught my attention.
This is the first episode I have seen, so my opinions are based on this episode alone.
The episode focused on one family. This is the description listed on the Discovery Health Network website.
The Wengrenowitz’s are passionate advocates for the adoption of special needs children. They plan to adopt 2-year old Faith who has been in foster care with them since she was an infant. Before foster care, she was drug-exposed, abused and neglected.
I did not see the passionate advocate part at all. For the most part, this was a “warm fuzzy” story about this family.
The couple already had two children when they decided to adopt. They adopted a little boy and were able to be at the hospital for his birth. He and his birth mother both tested positive for drugs at his birth and he has fetal alcohol exposure, but if there are issues involved, they were not mentioned.
They still wanted more children (I missed the first part of the show so I don’t know if there was an infertility reason for adoption, or just a heartfelt decision) so they got licensed with an adoption agency in California that only places infants.
They were soon called about a little girl that had been removed from her birth family for Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) that left several skull fractures, failure to thrive and malnutrition.
The show adequately portrayed the damaging effects of SBS and the developmental delays involved, along with some of the fears that plague the family. However, this child did not suffer long term effects from her abuse (thankfully) so I am somewhat concerned that someone watching this show may have seen it and be given an unrealistic expectation of what happens with SBS. My friend, Ruby, is in the process of adopting her fourth child with SBS. Through her I have come to realize how much SBS damages a child and what a parent truly goes through in the daily care and therapy for these children. It is not an easy road by any means.
What the show did a wonderful job of portraying was the adoptive mom’s despair when dropping off her little girl with the birth mother for the weekly visits. She openly talked about how hard it was to leave her child with her birth mother and how distraught her little girl was after the visits. The baby reacted to the visits by breaking out in hives. The adoptive mom read parts of the journal she kept that documented the baby’s reaction.
The final part of the show depicted the adoption day in the courthouse. The excitement and apprehension of the parents was very apparent. Both parents talked about the feelings that finalization made this child truly a part of them. They talked about how she was already a member of the family, but what finalization feels like and the permanency involved for everyone.
Overall I’d say it was a good show and accurately portrayed different aspects of the adoption process. The episode descriptions that are listed on the website show more of a leaning toward international adoption stories. I hope they choose to focus on special needs adoption as well.
Photo credit – Kelly Killian
I’m still confused about your last post. Was the report about all children or just those in foster care?
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve subjected myself to the nonsense of this show. Their attempts at Domestic Adoption and, more specifically, open adoption are unrealistic, often inflammatory and frequently unethical.