Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Scam of a Birth Mother

Scammers. How low do you have to be to pose as a pregnant woman wanting to place your child for adoption only to disrupt people's lives with lies and deceit? Beyond low. Not long after my second adoption I was watching an investigative show and did not know what the topic was until I started to watch. The topic was adoption scammers and the toll it took on people. I thought it was about agencies or independent placers who were taking money from people and then not following through with their promises. To my surprise, it was an hour filled with stories of BIRTH MOTHERS who were scamming couples out of money with their promises of babies, telling lies to people to just advance themselves financially. The one that was the worst was a woman who had promised her baby to three different couples all of which paid big money to her directly for bills, doctors and so on. In the end, she had no intention of ever placing her child and sat face to face with these couples and just lied to them. They then found out that this very woman had done this scheme before with her older child, a child she used as bait to lure the new couples in her second pregnancy. (She claimed she was unable to keep the second child because she was already having trouble with just one.)I was stunned. I was sickened. I was furious that this news show was interested in airing these low life's and telling their awful tales of horrible moral wrongs. I could not believe that someone would do that to another human being. Very sad. So very wrong!



Unfortunately it is something that continues today, day after day, and the worst part is that half the time these women/girls are not even pregnant. Now, normally I would use an explanation point there, but it has happened so frequently that I am no longer shocked by it. I am always heartbroken to hear of a woman using someones else's emotions like that, promising something that will never happen, crushing a possible family's dreams. I am disgusted that there are human beings that would toy with emotions like that. I am even more repulsed at the horrible reputation that it gives birth mothers. These people are so scared of us, the birth parents, it is a fact that often is true. And why shouldn't it be true? This kind of behavior is a hard pill to swallow and it causes many to think so badly of those of us who are not bad people, not money takers, not behavioral deviates that are looking to rip your heart and soul out. Shame on these non humans who think playing this card is funny or entertaining. Shame on you all, and let me remind you that karma is a wonderful thing made just for people like you.



In the mean time, from the mind of a woman who has been through two adoptions as a birth mother let me say just a couple of things. No matter how many stories you hear that are bad, there are many others that are good. No matter how many times you hear of a birth mother that has gone crazy and is stalking someone, or the opposite ... has dropped contact all together, there are many other women who are privately dealing with an ever changing heart and doing quite well in their journey. No matter how many tales you hear of birth mothers who are not happy and you think they should "just get over it", well you should never judge a person until you hear the entire story of what they have been through, how they have ached, how they've wondered themselves to sleep, how they have lived every week thinking of all the actions they took in a 10 month period. No matter how many stories you hear about how reunions are awkward or bad, there are many others that are amazingly healing and wonderful to experience. And for every scammer there is out there I would only hope that people understand that there are thousands of us who would never, ever think of doing that to another person. It is not who we are. It is not what we want to be compared with. Don't think the same of everyone, because everyone is not the same.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When we were going thru our adoption journey, we had contact from 4 "birthmothers" that were scams. (I put it in quotes, because it could very well have been a man or a woman who was not pregnant) Unfortunately because of the simplicity of the internet, it's easy for people to prey on you. Thankfully for us, we were working with the IAC. Two of the emails were obvious scams to them, and they gave us the right questions to ask and things to say to them in our response, and they did not contact us again. One of them had contacted many of their clients so they sent out a warning to all. There was one we emailed a few times, but when we told them about the IAC and asked if they could contact them for further information, we never heard from them again either. Later we learned they were contacting other couples as well.

It's very sad that there are people out there who would pose as birthmothers to extort money from couples who are eager to have children and most times suffering because of whatever reason that they are unable to have children.

We are so thankful that we were working with an agency that was there to help us and protect us from the scams.

Tammy

MommySquared said...

I am a mom through adoption and am always upset that the media always focuses on the negative aspects of adoption ... I understand that these are real but there are blessing in adoption and people who may consider adoption as a way to have a family can be scared away from only hearing the negative.

I facilitate education groups about the aspects of domestic open adoption and always run into the myths surround birthmothers ... one of the weeks include a panel of birth mothers to come and share their experiences and the groups are always amazed that the birth mothers they meet are just like you and me!

We are blessed with two girls and our family has seamlessly expanded to include our daughter's birth mothers and their extended family ...

I wish more people would here our kinds of stories to see the balance of the good out there too!

Anonymous said...

Ialso think more is needed to educate the general public about birthmothers and ther stories and that they are individuals and everyone is different. I do understand that these things that are splattered all over the news do nothing but promote a negative image. You can only relate if you have had anything remotely happen that is similiar. As a foster parent looking to adopt the children that I parented for 2 year before finalization. I get the negative sterotypes of foster parents. Money-hungery, abusive and glorified-babysitters among other stereotypes. You don't hear about the FP that nurse children back to health and guide an teenager but rather a news breaking story about FP's with kids in chicken coups or the woman who doesn't seek treatment for a child with PICA. These things happen it's true but is it the general rule about fosterparents? Believe me I deal with the thoughts that children adopted from fostercare are damaged goods with all sorts of problems. I am offended and hurt by these things as well as the thought that birthmothers would scam adoptive parents. It really means more education is needed to understand the individual in the adoption triad.