Adopted Children Don’t Come With A Receipt

By Diane Clehane

With all the stomach-turning news events that sickened me last week as the mother of a young child—Polanski and his apologists, Letterman’s sex with interns and the won’t-go-away Gosselins—there was one slightly under-the-radar tale of parenting gone wrong that stayed with me ever since I happened upon the story online.

Last week, parenting blogger Anita Tedaldi went on the Today show to explain her decision to give up a child she adopted 18 months ago. This mother of five biological children explained she “wasn’t connecting with (the adopted baby) on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters.”

Huh?

Go ahead, call me judgmental but, as the mother of an adopted child, I am horrified by this.

After watching the clip of the segment, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a woman I met a few weeks before my husband and I were to leave for China to adopt Madeline. I was, frankly, equally excited and terrified about becoming a parent to a child born half a world away whom I knew next to nothing about. The road to our adoption was a rocky one (mostly on an emotional level for me – I’ll explain more later about that). I knew I couldn’t fully grasp the ramifications of what I was about to do until I held the baby in my arms. I also knew I was committing to being a parent to a child and there was no turning back.

One afternoon while buying lunch at a sandwich shop in Scarsdale before we left for China, I was drawn to a woman who was with a pretty little Chinese girl who looked to be about five. I approached her tentatively and told her I was getting ready to go adopt my daughter. She said something that made my blood run cold: “Don’t be afraid if you don’t bond to her right away.I’ve got two daughters. This one I connected with right away, but the other one took almost two years.”

I remember leaving the shop in a daze. The thought of not bonding with my adopted daughter never occurred to me. What was she talking about? I was so unnerved by the whole idea of this, I didn’t mention it to my husband.

The evening we met our daughter for the first time, in November 2005, we’d been traveling all day, our luggage had been lost, and we literally had less than an hour after arriving at our hotel to get ready to get our baby when we got the call. My husband and I were called down to a brightly lit, stifling hot conference room where a group of babies in identical yellow suits were sitting in a semi-circle in the laps of older Chinese ladies waiting to be handed over to their new parents. We were summoned to the front of the room, a man put my daughter in my arms, and the three of us were ushered to a white screen where someone took an “official” family portrait for our documents. It was all over in less than fifteen minutes. “Well, that was a Hallmark moment,” my husband said at the time.

In the days that followed, our daughter was not like the rest of the happy, cooing babies in our group (we traveled with 12 other families). She was mostly silent and spent a lot of time covering her face with her hands whenever we took her out with the group. “It’s a gesture of sadness,” one social worker who was traveling with us told me. “She’s missing someone.”

My heart broke for her, but I never, ever, thought that this would be something we couldn’t overcome. By the time we got home, we were all in love—and have been ever since. I’m sure we’re in for some challenging times when my daughter fully grasps what it means to be adopted, but I’m fortifying her in the meantime with all the love I possibly have to give her. That’s all I can do. I simply cannot imagine loving any one person more than I love her.

I don’tknow what occurred in Tedaldi’s household for 18 months, so I can only go by what she’s written and said. On the Today show, she went so far as to place some of the responsibility for the lack of connection on the child. “It went both ways” she said. “D wasn’t connecting with us.”

What the hell is she talking about? He’s a baby, for goodness’ sake. As any adoptive parent knows (or should know), these children, more than likely, will have some issues with bonding. You sign on knowing that.

Now, let me get back to talking about the “rocky road” of our adoption. We chose to deal with a well-known adoption agency whose policy included attending mandatory classes to discuss (ad nauseam, I thought at the time) the enormity of adopting a child, particularly a child of another race from another country. There were many times I bristled at having to write yet another essay about my thoughts on subjects related to these issues and share them with the group. There were countless workshops on possible medical and developmental issues that could occur. Then, in the home stretch, we attended a lecture given by a “successful adult adoptee,” a young woman who had been adopted from Korea by a family living in Connecticut, who spoke of the fact that she was not really close with her adopted family because they had done little to foster a connection to her Asian heritage. Afterwards, everyone was so impressed that she had built such a successful life for herself—everyone, that is, except me. “Why did they pick someone who isn’t close to her parents?” I wailed to my husband that night when we got home, “What are they trying to do to us? I don’t know if I can do this!” My husband said, “Well, you have to make that decision now.” Thank God I chose to move ahead with the adoption because, if I hadn’t, I would have missed out on the greatest experience of my life. I went in with my eyes wide open.

I see now that our agency was doing the best possible thing for prospective parents—and the children they would adopt. First and foremost, they were advocates for the children. Their process was not for the faint of heart. By the end of it, if you were on that plane to China, you knew full well what you were getting into.

Looking back at that experience now, I will be forever grateful for the care they took in making sure we understood.

It sounds to me like Tedaldi’s agency didn’t do its job in its vetting process. The woman has five children and a husband in the military. Is it possible it was just too hard to deal with a child who was different from her other kids and required more than she had to give at this time? We don’t know, but without getting answers from Tedaldi, I think there must be something to that.

Ironically, Tedaldi wrote a column last year entitled, “We Can’t Trade in Our Children or Husbands” for military.com (the site has since pulled the piece).

And finally, what in God’s name is it about these people who make life-changing decisions on behalf of their children (Kate and Jon, I mean you) and feel compelled to go on television and exploit the tragedy? And it is a tragedy that Tedaldi’s adoption did not work out. She says the baby is in another home now. I pray that he is happy and loved. But since she’s not really provided the details that help people understand what happened, many people like me are left to surmise that this child didn’t fit into the picture of the life she thought she was going to have, so she gave him away. In short, she raises more questions than she answers—potentially frightening people out of adopting, which is a very bad thing.

Let’s hope this child’s new mother doesn’t hold whatever difficulties he might have in making what is sure to be a confusing and difficult transition against him and gives him all the time he needs to “bond.”

And let’s hope Tedaldi doesn’t try to adopt again.

Reader Comments:

Oct 8, 2009 08:44 pm

Posted by Mommyof4

I didn't see the Today show mentioned above, but I imagine there is alot more to the story than what was shown on the program. I have 2 biological children and 2 adopted children. It's been 4 years since the adoption. The two adopted children were 5 and almost 7 at the time and were biological sibings from Eastern Europe. The first year was absolutely awful. They did every horrible thing you could imagine (and alot you probably wouldn't imagine a child could do). I'm talking about playing with their poop, torturing the pets, sexual activity and much more (yes, they were abused where they came from). We watched them 24/7 with no break. It was exhausting. Try dealing with this kind of behavior when you don't even share a common language. Because they used to sneak out at night and steal the car keys, yes at age 7, I litterally slept outside their bedroom door for over a year until my husband thought to install a bell on their bedroom door (the kind that you see in shops to announce someone has arrived or left). A few years later and with lots of therapy, the older child settled in. The younger one still hasn't. I can honestly say that I love the older one just as much as my 2 biological kids. He's a joy when he's sweet and a joy when he makes mistakes. I would adopt him all over again. But what do I do with the other one? I never imagined I would have trouble bonding with a child I adopted, but here I am. I pray every day to find something I can appreciate in this child and to give me to strength to smile at him and say something constructive when he attempts to shock me with outrageous behavior. After 4 years of intensive therapy and prescriptions for this child, our bank account is drained, our hearts are broken and my husband and I spend our waking hours trying to protect our other kids from being hurt by this child. We have been advised and have come to accept now that some childhood damage is irreversable and this child has been hurt and broken. We can't fix that and we aren't bad parents or even bad people because we can't bond with him. Sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do. I guess what I'm saing is... Go easy on this mom we don't even know. You don't have the whole story until you walk in someone else's shoes.