Why are they in a hospital bed? (Adoption related)

[FightingtheFoo]

I just want to be clear this has nothing to do with the parents in question being a same-sex couple. I feel equally about surrogacy whether it's Kim Kardashian buying a baby or Pete Buttigieg.

With that disclaimer:

Why on earth is he posing in a hospital bed?

I just find the absolute airbrushing out of the woman who actually carried, nurtured and gave birth to those babies for 9 months horrifying.

https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1434167993769111552

Not many people understand adoption or the adoption process.
In the U.K. the birth parent or parents will have been granted absolutely every single chance and opportunity to prove that they can meet their baby’s or child’s needs before being removed.
It can happen and does that a mother who is on the sixth or seventh child (all of whom are in the care system or have been adopted after all else has failed) gives birth to that child and the baby is taken by the new parent under the Foster to Adopt scheme.
I ask myself, how many chances do people want to give these birth parents who lead chaotic lives and can’t even look after themselves never mind a child or children?
My DD is adopted, it took us 6 years to heal her because she was so traumatised after only 14 months of being with her birth mother.
Birth mother went on to have another child, they didn’t take the baby into care straight away, they gave her every chance AGAIN to prove that she could parent. After a year and the child nearly dying of neglect, the child was taken into the care system again and adopted but again showed signs of the same trauma. Are some people of the opinion that she should be given another chance? Because if anyone is then they do not understand the implications and consequences.
Please don’t judge unless you know the full story, which you never will. So just don’t judge!

Hospital rooms don’t come with sofas, the bed is likely the only place to actually sit.

As others have mentioned, in the US, sofas in hospital rooms are often fairly standard, especially for maternity rooms.

Often (in non-covid times at least) sofas are in rooms so that a family member can stay overnight night with the patient.

It is odd that they are sitting on the bed.

I'm judging hard.

The numbers speak for themselves.

@NiceGerbil

I'm judging hard.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Well you really shouldn’t, unless you’ve been through what we have…..

@MummyJ12

Not many people understand adoption or the adoption process. In the U.K. the birth parent or parents will have been granted absolutely every single chance and opportunity to prove that they can meet their baby’s or child’s needs before being removed. It can happen and does that a mother who is on the sixth or seventh child (all of whom are in the care system or have been adopted after all else has failed) gives birth to that child and the baby is taken by the new parent under the Foster to Adopt scheme. I ask myself, how many chances do people want to give these birth parents who lead chaotic lives and can’t even look after themselves never mind a child or children? My DD is adopted, it took us 6 years to heal her because she was so traumatised after only 14 months of being with her birth mother. Birth mother went on to have another child, they didn’t take the baby into care straight away, they gave her every chance AGAIN to prove that she could parent. After a year and the child nearly dying of neglect, the child was taken into the care system again and adopted but again showed signs of the same trauma. Are some people of the opinion that she should be given another chance? Because if anyone is then they do not understand the implications and consequences. Please don’t judge unless you know the full story, which you never will. So just don’t judge!

I always find anything adoption related is almost purposely misunderstood outside the world of adoption.

Totally agree @Simonjt x

MummyJ12 and Simonjt - Your own bias is colouring your judgement though. (As is mine - I used to work with children in care and adopted children so I have reasons for my opinion on this).

Social workers are impartial and look at the needs of the child not the birth family or the prospective adoptive parents- quite rightly as the child should always be at the centre.

America doesn’t put the child at the centre, it puts the prospective parents at the centre which is wrong.

And I agree with NiceGerbil - those stats are absolutely shocking. How can we (as a society) denounce what happened in Ireland but support this ? It’s the same thing but with the carrot instead of the stick !

Totally agree on the US situation, but I really don’t appreciate people who don’t understand the system over here and think it’s the same. Nicegerbal had some really good points I thought but it’s really not ok that she posts she’s “judging hard” I take offence to posts like that with no clarity is all

Oh for goodness sake.

The picture is intended to imitate the traditional picture of a tired-but-relieved woman sitting up in a hospital bed with a baby. In those pictures, she is in bed because she has either given birth vaginally (exhausting!) or has just had surgery, and she is a patient.

People are finding this picture instinctively disquieting because when two men have a baby, whether through adoption or surrogacy, we know neither of them has been through labour, so why are they lying on a hospital bed as if they're patients? If it was two women, you'd naturally assume, unless told otherwise, that at least one woman had given birth, and the other was being a loving partner supportive her wife/partner.

As it is, it is setting off the subliminal faking-illness alarm that many people with a bit of life experience have.

FFS @NiceGerbil you’re making it sound like getting pregnant and giving up your baby for adoption is a life choice like surrogacy in the US, it isn’t. The reasons the numbers for babies being put up for adoption in the U.K. are myriad as a PP said because there is access to free healthcare, access to morning after pills and abortions, no stigma around abortions

Women who are matched while pregnant are not paid to give up their babies. Our friends’ lawyer worked on their and the birth mums behalf making sure her needs (physical and emotional) were met without our friends being “taken for a ride” (birth mum’s estranged mother started demanding they buy her a car and put her up in apartment back in her home state after the birth but under California law that’s actually completely illegal).

There are not people walking around trying to convince pregnant women to give up their babies for adoption FGS

But if you fall pregnant by accident, and it is illegal or dangerous or against your religion to get an abortion and you do not want a baby (our friends’ birth mum escaped an abusive marriage, was 35 and living in a homeless shelter) and there are huge medical bills
Mounting up because you do not have insurance and the option of your baby falling into care is a real possibility - in a country where social safety nets do not exist - wouldn’t you prefer to be able to choose a family for your child?

Most (maybe all) hospitals in the US aren't allowing pediatric patients to have more than one parent/caregiver present at one time due to covid, so it's a moot point. The usual rules are being bent in all kinds of ways for these two.

Unless you know what the rules are in this particular hospital you are stretching to reach a conclusion there.

Yes I am judging hard. Anyone who looks at this and does not for one second try high there could possibly anything peculiar going on with

3 in every 100 children living in a state being adopted.

The multiple commercial enterprises around birth adoption at birth and tracing birth parents. (That's a total capitalist win.)

And even in some cases go as far as to suggest with no investigation etc whatsoever. That the stats in Indiana for this are so high. Shows they are doing good and the UK must be failing babies all over the place.

I've read the stuff and had a think and I think this is very very worrying.

I've not just said oh yeah this must be the truth. And built up a load of random unsupported ideas to back up my view.

I agree with NiceGerbil. As the mother of adopted children, I wish they could have stayed with their birth parents. They were adopted only because they couldn't stay. And even though they were both voluntarily relinquished (a long time ago now), they could not be placed with me until they had been in foster care for a few months to give the parents (both birth mother and father) time to change their minds, or change their circumstances. Even after placement, the birth parents could not sign the final order, nor could we, until more time had passed.

In the US mothers can effectively sign away their rights before the baby is born, the adoptive parents can leave with the baby within hours or days. A system that discourages change of mind, that discourages a baby staying with the mother who has given birth, which removes the possibility of breast-feeding and which doesn't allow post-birth counselling at a minimum isn't fit for purpose.

I agree that often birth parents in the UK are given too many chances and the children suffer. But in the US birth parents are often given no choice at all, and those children suffer too.

Yes but @NiceGerbil where is the evidence to support that in this particular case?
You have to be careful in your posting so it’s not a blanket response to every situation.

Though I suspect from reading further about this case that we aren't actually talking about adoption . Twins are exceptionally unusual in adoption, they are exceptionally common in surrogacy.

@MummyJ12

Yes but *@NiceGerbil* where is the evidence to support that in this particular case? You have to be careful in your posting so it’s not a blanket response to every situation.

If the parents are taking the babies home straight from the hospital, the birth mother has not, by definition, been given time, space and support to make an informed, non-pressured, carfully considered decision.

@MummyJ12

Not many people understand adoption or the adoption process. In the U.K. the birth parent or parents will have been granted absolutely every single chance and opportunity to prove that they can meet their baby’s or child’s needs before being removed. It can happen and does that a mother who is on the sixth or seventh child (all of whom are in the care system or have been adopted after all else has failed) gives birth to that child and the baby is taken by the new parent under the Foster to Adopt scheme. I ask myself, how many chances do people want to give these birth parents who lead chaotic lives and can’t even look after themselves never mind a child or children? My DD is adopted, it took us 6 years to heal her because she was so traumatised after only 14 months of being with her birth mother. Birth mother went on to have another child, they didn’t take the baby into care straight away, they gave her every chance AGAIN to prove that she could parent. After a year and the child nearly dying of neglect, the child was taken into the care system again and adopted but again showed signs of the same trauma. Are some people of the opinion that she should be given another chance? Because if anyone is then they do not understand the implications and consequences. Please don’t judge unless you know the full story, which you never will. So just don’t judge!

What does that have to do with the discussion around relinquished babies for adoption? Why are you conflating the two very different groups of mothers?

Do we definitely know that it was a voluntary situation here? From the Twitter link, that the OP posted, the details weren’t known.

@MummyJ12

Totally agree on the US situation, but I really don’t appreciate people who don’t understand the system over here and think it’s the same. Nicegerbal had some really good points I thought but it’s really not ok that she posts she’s “judging hard” I take offence to posts like that with no clarity is all

Who has said that they think the system here is the same? I haven't read one post that says that

Your post at 11:38 @CloseYourEyesAndSee certainly didn’t differentiate….

@MummyJ12

Do we definitely know that it was a voluntary situation here? From the Twitter link, that the OP posted, the details weren’t known.

Even in America I don't believe you can adopt newborns removed from parents without a legal process being followed!

These babies were most likely born through surrogacy not adoption anyway.

@MummyJ12

Your post at 11:38 *@CloseYourEyesAndSee* certainly didn’t differentiate….

Please quote it, I can't find it

I'm a social worker in the U.K. so please point out if I've conflated the two systems as that would be a grievous error of communication on my part.

It's not about this specific case.

It's about the stats laws commercial involvement in Indiana that I for one had no idea about until yesterday and I'm very very taken aback by what I found last night.

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

And is that always in the best interests of the mother and child? How often does that lead to several miserable years on benefits with a damaged older child ending up in the care system with little, if any chance, of a permanent secure home?

I don't understand your point. Girls and women don't tend to relinquish their babies in the U.K. because they don't want to
So how would it be better for them to hand their babies over for adoption when they don't want to? Are you suggesting that babies would be better off with wealthy adopters than lower income mothers? What makes you think that babies will end up in the care system rather than being cared for largely happily by their own parents or families? It's a weird, social engineering, classist false equivalence.

@MummyJ12 I assume you mean this post? How on Earth have you read this as me conflating your U.K. and US adoption system??

So in the US a birth mother has up to 30 days to change her mind, she also has the option to sign away parental rights when she is discharged from hospital. Even then, the baby is officially a ward of the state until a year after birth when the adoption is finalised

Sorry but it’s just not a capitalist case of “get pregnant and be paid to adopt your child”
That doesn’t happen