Happy National Adoption Month! There has been some great media this month about adoption. Check it out!
Recently on Weber State radio, one of our caseworkers was interviewed along with 2 birth mothers. Check it out here.
Also, this article appeared in the Standard Examiner on November 8th.
LDS Family Services encourages open adoptions
By JaNAE FRANCIS Standard-Examiner staff jfrancis@standard.net
ROY — When young children ask where they came from, some parents say from a stork, others say from heaven. Scott Case tells his 4-year-old, Ben, he came from a “neighbor’s daughter’s husband’s brother’s ex-girlfriend.” And it’s true. Ben knows well that he and some of his cousins were adopted. They talk about their birth mothers together so often that one cousin who wasn’t adopted cried because he felt left out. “He said, ‘I don’t have a birth mom,’ ” Case recalls. Describing both of his adopted children as “on the extreme side of happy,” Case said baby adoptions have changed a lot over the years.
Coming from a family touched by baby adoption in many ways, the 32-year-old adoptive father said he’s personally witnessed the change from totally closed adoptions to those that are so open that the birth parents almost become another member of the family.
But the face of new baby adoption in the United States has changed in other ways as well.
November is adoption awareness month, but many national studies indicate that the number of birth mothers placing their babies for adoption has declined dramatically over the last 40 years.
According to reports by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, current estimates are that 1 percent of unwed mothers in this country now decide to place their babies for adoption.
Cristina Alvear, a caseworker with Children’s Aid Society of Ogden, said her agency placed about 1,000 babies in the 1960s and 1970s but is now down to about 10 a year.
Older children
She said older child adoptions are much more common as young, single women who become pregnant now are most often keeping their babies.
At the same time, the number of unwed mothers choosing to have abortions also has declined.
According to Utah Health Department vital records statistics, the number of annual legal abortions in Utah has been cut in half since the high in 1990 of 114.7 per 1,000 live births to 63.9 per 1,000 live births in 2007.
Despite clear evidence that single parents have more struggles limiting their education and employment, more single, pregnant girls and women are choosing to keep their babies.
A 1999 article by Maggie Gallagher, “The Age of Unwed Mothers: Is Teen Pregnancy the Problem?” and published by the Institute for American Values, blames societal values for the trend.
In the article, Gallagher states that girls in the United States are being told that single parenthood will be acceptable once they are older than 20.
Church’s stand
In the face of such trends, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is promoting a stance in favor of new baby adoptions.
The church’s First Presidency issued a statement on adoption three years ago that officials have continued to support and promote through church publications.
“We ... express our support of unwed parents who place their children for adoption in stable homes with a mother and a father,” reads the statement.
“We also express our support of the married mothers and fathers who adopt these children.”
Last month, the part of LDS Family Services that handles adoptions in the Ogden area moved from 1525 Lincoln Ave., Ogden, to 435 N. Wall Ave., Harrisville.
Mitch Hirano, adoption manager at LDS Family Services in Ogden, said the move has helped the agency promote the cause of baby adoptions. He said since the move, seven birth mothers have signed up to find an adoptive couple.
“That’s definitely higher than average,” he said. “We’re hoping to meet with 80 birth mothers a year who wish to place their babies.”
Open adoption
Although Scott Case found his first children through a series of personal relationships, both of his children’s adoptions were handled through LDS Family Services.
He said the openness of both adoptions has contributed to the self-worth and wellbeing of all involved.
“There’s definitely a love between adoptive parents and birth parents,” he said.
Sheri Barker, a birth mother from Pleasant View who placed her daughter through LDS Family Services, said the openness of her 7-year-old daughter’s adoption brought her a great sense of peace and closure.
“They treat me like an angel,” said the 38-year-old of her daughter’s adoptive parents. “I do feel like their angel.”
She said adoption, as difficult as it is for the birth mother, can be a birthplace for love.
“It’s the hardest thing I ever did but at the same time, it was the best thing I ever did.”
Barker and the other parents interviewed said their children were conceived in married but abusive situations that soon ended in divorce.
Giving child a family
Barker said she chose adoption because she wanted to give her daughter a family.
“I loved her but I didn’t have a family to offer her,” she said.
Heather Prescott, of Roy, said her 9-month-old adoptive son, Jayden, was the greatest gift she ever received.
Devastation, frustration and despair are the words that Heather’s husband, Eric, used to describe the couple’s eight-year struggle trying to get pregnant.
Both Heather and Eric are 32. Like the Cases, they thought they’d be parents long before now.
Eric Prescott said he was most upset when his younger siblings were all having children.
“I see them all popping kids out and I was the one who wanted kids the most,” he said. “To see that we were still standing on the sidelines was hard.”
But Eric Prescott said those feelings dissipated when he saw his son for the first time.
“That first moment you see him, you have an overwhelming feeling knowing it came from someone else,” he said.
Receiving his baby gave him an undeniable message of hope, he said.
“All the struggles and tests and trials, everything you’ve gone through up until that time — it’s all worth it,” he said.
“He was finally here and he was going to be ours.”
