I have posted this before but will again. One of my friends adopted a child from Russia. The child’s and bio mother’s medical histories were hidden. The child was dropped at birth, suffering a severe brain injury. The mother received no prenatal care and drank heavily throughout her pregnancy. The son, adopted at 3 years, has SEVERE autism and my friend is all alone in handling him as her husband, the one who insisted on the adoption, bolted. The son is now a man, 16, and is over 6 ft, weighing about 250 lbs.
I beg all of you to not be judgemental. You have no idea what some of these adoptive families are going through and their options are very limited.
So you are saying she made a bad decision.
There is no such thing as being a victim of your own bad decision.
When a child has been abandoned and brutalized, there is often not enough help in the world for him. Sometimes the only thing that can be done is institutionalization.
No judgments here. Something similar happened about a decade ago in the DFW area. A couple had adopted an infant from one of the local, well-known adoption agencies. All was good until the parents noticed some developmental delays in the child. A thorough exam revealed the child was microcephalic, the brain was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than normal. Further testing revealed the child’s brain would be unlikely to develop much more, resulting in significant, pervasive and lifelong disabilities. The adoption agency was fully aware of this medical condition at the time the couple adopted the child and withheld the information from the prospective parents. The parents went to court and sued to have the adoption nullified. The adoption agency fought the lawsuit but eventually agreed to take the child back.
A great many people condemned the actions of the couple. I could not. They did not have the financial means to provide the lifelong care this child was going to require. If they had been advised about the medical condition prior to the adoption being finalized, that is one thing. Concealment of pertinent facts essential to an informed decision by the adoption agency is quite another.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome often doesn’t show its full ugly head until the age of 10. Sure, there are difficulties before then, but once the brain is trying to grow (but isn’t because the alcohol exposure programmed the brain cells to commit suicide) and the body is getting bigger and strong, the once manageable child is now, literally, a monster. Not even perfect parenting can make FAS kids turn out “right”.
As someone else said, the child may be better off in the orphanage where there is structure and a limited environment; but not Russian orphanages where, in the past, at least, children deemed not teachable are sent to a building to be drugged up and tied up until they die.
Those who judge without knowledge are a part of the problem.
“I beg all of you to not be judgemental. You have no idea what some of these adoptive families are going through and their options are very limited.”
I have a co-worker who adopted a girl from Russia. She has severe behavioral problems that have been ongoing for years and causing severe strains at home and affected his work. At times I thought he was going to go off the deep end but I think it’s gotten better now. He is very lucky to have excellent health care.
You make some valid points. This child clearly has some serious problems, problems that many parents are not equipped to handle.