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| Lorraine |
Because it represents all the worst about attitudes towards adoption in America: that is that any two-parent group is better than the natural/biological/birth parent, if they have the child in their possession; that fathers do not have the same rights as mothers in claiming their OWN children; that the courts delayed on this case until years went by and it became a cause celebre in the media, which generally supports this kind of kidnapping.
Wyrembek is now suing the agency involved, Adoption by Gentle Care (care for their wallet only, apparently), in this helluva mess. They knew from the getgo that the purported "father," or husband of the biological mother, Drucilla Bocvarov, was not the actual father as he wrote: "I am not the biological father" on the release paper. That should have raised a red flag at the agency since that has the same meaning as "This property may be stolen" and "You had better get the biological father to sign off on this adoption." When Wyrembek filed with the Ohio Putative Father's Registry seventeen days after the child was born, both the agency and the Vaughns knew something was up. Jovan Bocrarov wrote on the relinquishment papers: I am not the biological father.
Adoption by Gentle Care should have never given the Vaughns the boy, and if the transfer occurred, any decent people would have returned the child immediately. The Vaughns are slime. They are lowlifes and ought to be smeared in every media report about this case. They kept a child they knew was wanted by his father.
Instead of returning the child, what the Vaughns and their parents did was smear Wyrembek: they accused him of not paying child support (to someone who has kept his child, whom he wants to raise himself); that he is a criminal (a drug-related charge that was thrown out of court and dismissed); they said he did not send a gift or Christmas cards to the boy called Grayson while they were keeping him (they were supposed to be allowing Wyrembek visitations every weekend, but refused to do so); they suggested that he was unfit because he did not support the mother prior to the child being born (but she was still married and he had no way of knowing if the child was his); they delayed the DNA test for as long as they could, and that is why it was over a year before the Ohio confirmed Wyrembek's paternity (by the time the DNA results made it clear by Wyrembek was the father, Bocvarov was no longer pregnant and had signed away her parental rights and any need for support from Wyrembek).
I did find this on the net today: The Adoption By Gentle Care Agency was found to be in contempt of court for not complying with a court order relating to this case earlier this year. The agency should be bankrupted and destroyed, and any social worker involved in this case ought to have their license to practice lifted. This was a huge miscarriage of justice against a father and his son.--lorraine, mad as hell
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HAPPY BEWARE ADOPTION MONTH, y'all. Starts tomorrow. Tonight I'll just scare the children who come to the door!!!! Because I'm mad as hell--and supplied with Snickers. Yeah, it's my favorite Halloween candy and I'm hoping for some left over. In the meantime, I have been downstairs and back upstairs while writing this blog that I don't need a Stairmaster.
I hate the attitude towards adoption in this country that denies how meaningful the biological connection really is. And this attitude is usually held the strongest by those who KNOW their biological families.
ReplyDeleteShocking case, saddest of all for the child.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that Ben's lawyer wisely cautioned him not to try this case in the media as the Vaughns chose, but to let the strength of his case prevail. Now that he has custody is the time to go after the real culprits, the unethical agency involved.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame the Vaughns as much as some; they believed they were buying a baby with a "clear title." Once they found out that was not true, while I don't agree with the tactics they used to fight Ben, I understand their motive; they had become attached to the child. We humans are programmed to love infants - it's how the race is perpetuated!
Every society in every age has assumed that the natural order is for children to be raised by their biological parents. That principle is inherent in law; it is only when that is not possible that laws and procedures must be devised to determine "the best interest of the child." In this case, once Benjamin's paternity was established, the adoption was moot and the courts rightly returned Grayson to his proper place. For the courts to have ruled in the Vaughn's favor would have set a horrible precedent; had they done so, every parent (not just adoptive parents) would rightly fear for their own parental status!
Termination of parental rights, whether involuntary or voluntary, is a very serious business and Benjamin's suit against Adoptions by Gentle Care may serve as a warning to other agencies that they bear personal liability for playing fast and loose with required consent.
I noted a couple of things in the filing of the suit; one is that Ben's attorney requested a jury trial. Given the percentage of the public who have a personal connection to adoption, voire dire (jury selection) should prove interesting! Will adopted adults, adoptive parents or first parents (we who know firsthand) be challenged as biased?
I also noted that the suit names several Jane and John Does, which normally means parties to be named later. If this means the Vaughns will be added as defendants, no wonder they have brought Lin Wood into the case - now that they may bear personal liability, they want a "dream team" for their own defense.
I hope the jury awards punitive damages enough to put ABGC out of business; that may deter other agencies from ignoring the rights of other first parents...
I hope the man wins. Their negligent acts have damaged his child and I think that those baby thieves should be included as co-defendants. They deliberately conspired to obtain a child that was not ever free for adoption. They relied on the public opinion that "the best interests" would only be them after that period of time - the original year that they made sure occured. If that kind of planning is not conspiracy to traffic in children, I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteI think some of the John and Jane Does may be employees of the agency who worked on this particular placement and their names are not known. Not sure though.
ReplyDeleteWhat this agency and the Vaughns tried to pull is a travesty. They tried to to legally kidnap a child.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to read that Grayson's father is suing that agency. He will prevail.
People should start calling social services on those people for the reckless endangerment of children questioning the treatment they extend to theirs.
I hope once he's finished with this hack agency, Ben sues these kidnappers, too.
ReplyDelete@d28bob-
"I don't blame the Vaughns as much as some; they believed they were buying a baby with a "clear title." Once they found out that was not true, while I don't agree with the tactics they used to fight Ben, I understand their motive; they had become attached to the child. We humans are programmed to love infants - it's how the race is perpetuated!"
I DO blame the Vaughn's. They knew within a week the baby's natural father wanted him. they should have handed over THAT DAY.
I don't care how "attached" they think they may be, it is not even close to the attachment a child has with their NATURAL parents. We humans are programmed to love our OWN babies- the babies who come from OUR DNA- not stranger's.
I love babies. They are adorable. But my babies are my own, and I could never attach to a stranger's baby like my own. Our race is perpetuated through our DNA, not by stealing someone else's child.
easily said by someone who CAN have their own children..hope you feel better !
DeleteIt's very sad when someone wants to have a baby and can't, but that is NO reason to take someone else's. Children in foster care who genuinely need a family are the only ones who should be adopted (legal guardianship is preferable). Newborns and babies should NOT be for sale ever. Life is not fair; sometimes it is filled with disappointments. Many who would like to marry can't find a suitable mate. Many who would like to be financially secure have to struggle all their lives. Many who would like to be healthy suffer from chronic illness. Infertility can be a disappointment, to be sure, but it is not an entitlement.
DeleteIt looks like the complaint was filed last year but I'm sure it was on hold pending the FINAL outcome of the custody fight. If Ben Wyrembek had ultimately lost the parental rights fight, the suit would have been moot. All the more reason for the Vaughns to keep fighting, methinks.
ReplyDeleteThe John and Jane Does are listed in the Complaint as unknown persons, so they would not include the Vaughns. Since the Complaint was written in 2009, there will probably be an Amended Complaint.
I absolutely cannot believe some of the comments I am hearing from you people. It is obvious to me that NONE of you have ever had the privilege of knowing the love and blessing that adoption can bring. Words like "buying babies" and "legal kidnapping" are an absolute slap in the face to the thousands of adoptive parents out there who have opened their hearts and homes to loving a "Stranger's DNA". I am an adoptive Mother but because of the laws in this country that protect the biological parents rendering adoptive parents virtually powerless in the court system, we chose to adopt internationally. I stumbled on this site by mistake and cannot believe how you people have demonized the Vaughns for fighting for a child they believed to be their's from DAY ONE! It is sad that this legal fight has dragged on so long but saying that the Vaughns loved this boy less than the bio father is a travesty! Linda, it is obvious to me that you do not understand adoption or the love that you feel for your adopted child. I struggled with infertility for 13 years before becoming a Mom and I can tell you now that when my babies were placed in my arms there is not a feeling in this world that can compare to that love. And it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with biology. My pangs of wanting to be pregnant completely left when I became a Mom thru adoption. How dare you say that my love is not as strong simply because I did not give birth to them. But I do agree that perhaps you would not be the perfect candidate as an adoptive Mom if you really believe in putting such emphasis on biology. The Vaughns are at fault for one thing. For loving a child so desperately that they fought tooth and nail to keep him. You can argue the ethics surrounding this case all day long. But you people demoninzing adoptive parents for fighting for a child they love is an absolute shame. But again it is easy to make judgements on people when you have absolutely NO CLUE about adoption and the love you feel for your child. This situation is sad beyond belief. God Bless the Vaughns, Grayson and Ben. I hope they will find a way to work together for Grayson's sake.
ReplyDeleteI am an adoptive mother who loves her son. I am also a natural mother who relinquished a son for adoption. I know what I'm talking about when I talk about adoption. Yes, I love my adopted son, but what I feel for him is, in all honesty, not identical to what I feel for my biological children (I raised two). Loving an adopted child is, I find, more like loving a spouse. The attachment can be intense and enduring, but it's qualitatively different from the attachment between mother and biological child. I loved my birthed babies long before they were born. I fell in love with my adopted son AFTER picking him up at the airport in 1974 (he's Vietnamese). I have no doubt that you love your adopted child, Diana, but as you haven't given birth, you can't compare it to what a natural mother feels. Einstein said that God does not play dice with the universe. Well, he doesn't play dice with parenthood either. I'm not religious, but I'm pretty sure that God would not put a baby into one mother with the plan to "give" it to another. Adoption should be about the needs of the child, not the desires of the adoptive parents, strong as those might be. I love my adopted son, which is why, if he had the chance to reconnect with his biological family, I'd be the first to celebrate with him.
DeleteHaha. Diana, your comment is most amusing. But welcome and continue reading. This is a great site that will teach you many truths about the myth of adoption - both domestic and international. You have found yourself a wonderful resource to educate yourself and make you a better adoptive mother. Its obvious you have been mislead by the adoption industry. You should be as outraged as many are here.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, dear, Diana. I completely understand adoption. I AM ADOPTED. You are correct- I would never be a "suitable candidate" to be an adoptive parent....because I AM ADOPTED. I would NEVER adopt. It is not normal.
ReplyDeletePlease do not speak of something you cannot comprehend- the natural bond a child has with his or her natural parents. It's NATURAL. Meaning from NATURE. Adoption is man-made.
And, yes...you BOUGHT a baby.
The Vaughns believing that child was "theirs" from day one is just as delusional as your thinking.
I feel sorry for your bought children. Their adoption (s) was not about them, but because of your body failing you, and your need to shut out a child's first family by purchasing a child from another country.
Shame on you. You should have never passed a home study....and neither should have the kidnapper Vaughn's.
oh, and ps- your children probably feel the same way I do, lol. Give 'em 20 years and then search for THEIR blogs. Thanks for the laugh.
I hope he takes Gentle Care and the Vaughns to the cleaners.
ReplyDeleteBut what do I know. Like Linda, I gave birth to my kids, so it should be automatically assumed that I have NO CLUE about adoption. It would be a funny assumption if it weren't so sad....
"For loving a child so desperately that they fought tooth and nail to keep him."
ReplyDeleteIf they loved him, they would have done the right thing to begin with - give him back.
"I struggled with infertility for 13 years before becoming a Mom and I can tell you now that when my babies were placed in my arms there is not a feeling in this world that can compare to that love. "(....except that in those 13 years, if I had had my OWN batch of kids that I tried so hard to have...I'd be lovin them and not some other woman's baby.)
ReplyDeleteDear Clueless,
One does not own a baby because one got put into your arms. This has nothing to do with biology? Might want to review your notes from , say, 10th grade. There has to be a mighty mighty mighty MIGHTY strong reason to sever the tie between a newborn and his/her natural parents. The Vaughn's were on thin ice and they knew it. And, ps--they have their OWN children..ok?
I do not think biology is EVERYTHING but is it certainly the MOST IMPORTANT thing in determining the rights of a newborn or any child. I am sorry you are so afraid of biology that you went to a less fortunate country to take away that child's entire culture, but I guess you solved that problem for yourself.
ReplyDeleteI would fight tooth and nail for my children. ALL of my children. This isn't their child, never has been never will be! Grayson, or whatever name his FATHER gives him, has always belonged to the only parent who cared enough to not give him to strangers - BEN! I am so sorry that you have never known or felt the love you feel for a baby in your tummy or the pains of birth but I promise it isn't the same. It just isn't! You love other children but they are never "yours" the same way your blood is. Nature and God didn't make us that way. You can love and cherish them, but DNA matters in the end. You end up over compensating for that and the adopted child feels alone and out of place without their real family.
I am glad Ben and HIS son are together at last. I hope they enjoy and cherish every second of it. This age is full of tantrums and testing limits. I hope the love they share grows and expands as all love for your children does. He missed a lot, but a lot more is yet to come!
Just a question.....there are thousands of children in the US that are abandoned by their bio mom and dad.....just as Grayson was (save your breath, Ben didn't come forward until 17 days later)....what would you propose happen to all these children? I suppose you would like them to live in gutters?? Somehow, the blessing of parenthood and family (while thru adoption, heaven forbid) seems like a much better option to me!!!
ReplyDeleteAssuming that adoption is the only option for a mother in crisis is plain wrong. And I don't suggest that abortion is the only other option either. Consider providing support to that mother so that she can parent her own child. If we truly valued families in this country, we would have systems in place to do just that. No mother should be forced to lose her child because of youth, poverty, or lack of family support. In the end society would pay less to keep families intact, as the rates of incarceration, suicide, and mental illness among adoptees attest.
DeleteDiana wrote,
ReplyDeleteI stumbled on this site by mistake and cannot believe how you people have demonized the Vaughns for fighting for a child they believed to be their's from DAY ONE!
As an adoptive parent I am surprised you do not realize that a child is only the natural parents child from DAY ONE! Aparents must go through a legal process to make a non-blood related child a member of their family. I'm sure that from DAY ONE the Vaughns thought this boy was a potential adopted son, if they believed he was their son from DAY ONE then they need to bone up on adoption law.
Diana, I am also an adoptive mom as well as an adoptee. I do love my adopted son as much as my biological daughter, so we agree on the love being equal. I am not infertile like you are. I also had to let a child go when he was an infant, because it was the right thing to do. It hurt really bad and I was a mess, but I could never keep a child who had willing biological parents. The fact that you adopted internationally makes me wonder if you are willing to have your children know their birth/first family. Would you be willing to let them know the first parents while they are still young? Our son has always had visits and some vacations with his family and it did wonders for his self identity and self esteem. I don't understand why the Vaughns were willing to keep a child from his family when they knew from the beginning that the biological Dad did NOT consent. Do you condone this? Would you adopt a child without the parent's legal relinquishment signatures?
ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteI could love an adopted child as much as a biological child. However, it is the child's feelings I am thinking about. It is very different to grow up adopted into a family rather than being a biological child. If a child has been abandoned by his/her parents, is a ward of the state, in foster care, etc then adoption is a loving option.
You mention that you struggled with infertility for 13 years so obviously adoption was a second choice for you. You probably wouldn't even have considered if you could have had a child naturally.
Diana finished her remarks by saying "I hope they will find a way to work together for Grayson's sake." When adults loose sight of the best interests of a child the outcome will inevitably be disastrous.This child's father's rights were overlooked, but in the end it is the ex-adoptee, the returned child who will suffer.How do you undo adoption, how many ex-adoptees are there in the world?Will he feel his isolation even more in this farce that is American adoption?
ReplyDeleteDiana you stumbled on this blog 'by mistake' - there are no mistakes in life, only learning.If you want to learn more of the truth of adoption please drop by my blog any day, it's always open!
But again it is easy to make judgements on people when you have absolutely NO CLUE about adoption and the love you feel for your child.
ReplyDeleteI will never, ever understand WHY adoptors fail to understand that whatever they may feel for their legal child, we natural parents feel in spades for our natural children. WHY they think they can take a natural parent's child to raise, and that natural parent not suffer the horrors of hell on earth because of it, is waaaay beyond me.
I mull this over quite a bit. I am convinced that, somewhere deep in their hearts they either think we simply don't exist, OR they are convinced that we are less than human.
WHY CAN'T THEY UNDERSTAND that all their joy is built upon our agony?
DIANA, what you fail to realize is that Ben's pain was just as real and just as valid as any adoptors. VALID, REAL, PAIN, Diana.
What is different between the two? Well, you state that the pain of your infertility was cured by adoption.
But our loss goes on forever.
@ Here for the Vaughn's: The child formerly known as Grayson Vaughn was not abandoned....he was KEPT from his father whom he NOW lives with.
ReplyDeleteDo I sound like a broken record?
Dear Here For the Vaughns,
ReplyDeleteBen did not abandon his son! He has fought and fought and fought some more for Grayson. I see nothing that even comes close to abandoning in his actions in any way.
And contrary to belief, there are not all these newborns out there in risk of being abandoned. The majority of mother's who give up their babies for adoption aren't doing so because they "just don't care" and would otherwise leave them sitting on the curb. They are doing so because they are led to believe they would be no good for their child and that someone else - richer, more successful, married, etc . . .would be a better parent than they ever could be.
I can guarantee you, adoption IS NOT saving all these infants from being abandoned by "terrible" parents.
We are not against adoption per se; it was and will always be necessary. However, we are against all closed adoptions unless there is a compelling reason to hide the child from his or her parents, but that child should always know the truth about his/her parents, whatever that may be.
ReplyDeleteBut in the case of Christy and Jason Vaughn, they kept a child who had a father who wanted him, and the Vaughns, and the sleazy agency, Adoption by Gentle Care, knew from the first that there was a question of paternity, as the husband (of the biological mother) wrote on the relinquishment paper: I am not the biological father. And the real father stepped forward immediately. If they were good people they would have returned the boy to his rightful, natural father immediately.
Yet the Vaughns kept this baby, and gave him a family name Grayson; they tried to prevent the DNA test, and then delayed it for as long as possible; they continued to fight in the courts until three years had passed; they slandered the biological father everywhere they could. How do those actions make them good parents, or even good people? They simply wanted to keep the child, period, and in doing so, deny him the right to grow up with people who look like him.
If you think people like this deserve a child, please give them one of your own. Or do you expect the world to provide one for you? Simply because you want a child does not give you the right to take someone else's.
@"here for the Vaughn's:
ReplyDeleteBen came forward when he found out about his son. There was NO abandoning done- except for the reckless abandonment committed by the Vaughn's, Ben's son's KIDNAPPERS, and the baby's first Mother and their baby broker. They abandoned this baby's rights to be with his REAL family. Ben is NOT the guilty party here.
The Vaughn's wanted another baby. Period. If they truly wanted to help a child, they would have helped a child from FOSTER CARE, where there is no hope for reunification.
I guess the Vaughn's would like "those THOUSANDS of children" to live in gutters. You make me laugh.
Your point is NOT valid. Ben wanted HIS son from the day he found out about him. What the Vaughn's did to this boy is child abuse. Maybe child services should remove their biological children. They clearly are unfit parents- to the child they kidnapped, and their own biological children, too.
I had adoptive parents who adore me. But, from the moment I lost my first Mother and the rest of my first family, it was my goal to get back to them. My adopters are nice enough people, but they are not MY people.
I hate to even bring adoption into this, because in the Vaughns case, THERE WAS NEVER AN ADOPTION. They were never his parents. They were his captors. They kept him from his FATHER!!
All these Vaughn "supporters" are just as clueless about adoption as The Vaughn's themselves are.
Thank god my state has done the right thing for this boy and his father.
If you truly support The Vaughn's, you will recommend they get therapy for their issues and some parenting classes for their OWN children.
Thank you to the adoptive parents here who truly understand what has happened here, and realize the crimes and sins The Vaughn's have committed.
Adoption is SUPPOSED to be about what is best for the child- NOT infertile people's wants, or some whacked out Indiana couple who wanted a playmate for their bio-kid.
abandoned by their bio mom and dad.....
ReplyDeleteWhen a newborn is kept from his parent and signed away without his consent, it isn't abandonment.
When a newborn is snatched out of his mother's body and disappeared while she is drugged and tied to a delivery table, it isn't abandonment.
When a woman is threatened with bodily harm if she doesn't sign adoption papers, that isn't abandonment, either.
There is moral hazard in adoption, and it isn't natural parents.
""there are thousands of children in the US that are abandoned by their bio mom and dad""
ReplyDeleteI think you will find those truly 'abandoned' children in the foster care system. Did you adopt a foster child, that otherwise would languished/aged out in the foster care system? There are few newborns for adoption these days (thru adoption agencies). The supply is low and the demand is high.
"".....just as Grayson was (save your breath, Ben didn't come forward until 17 days later)....""
Pray tell, just how was little Grayson 'abandoned'? Didn't Christy Vaughn catch this newborn baby, as soon as he exited his own mother's womb? O! Jeez...Holy Cow! a whopping 17 days, Jeez what was I thinking? And the Vaughns already had this newborn in their home. BY LAW!! HELLO! LAW..Ben at that point was a 'putative father'. No man can truly know that the baby a woman carries in her womb is his. Afterall she was married to another man. Ben by law had to PROVE he was the father of Drucilla's baby. There was no abandonment of this child. I notice this word gets thrown around so easily..as if mothers and fathers are leaving their newborns in shopping bags on the side of the road, by the thousands, each and everyday!
""what would you propose happen to all these children?""
Where are all your stats for ALL these children that you personally know to be abandoned by the 'thousands'?? Those 'thousands' of abandoned children you speak of, are not languishing in your neighborhood adoption agency, they are languishing in the foster care system.
You speak with forked tongue, intentionally misrepresent facts and plain out twist and turn everything to justify the buying of newborns from private adoption agencies.
@Here for the Vaughns...educate yourself about adoption, about pre-birth matching (which is highly coercive), the true meaning of the word 'abandonment' as relates to the Vaughns non-adoption case. Where did you acquire your child from? Foster care or private adoption for which you would have paid several thousands of dollars to enjoy the smell of womb-fresh.
@ Chris
ReplyDeleteAw, Chris, Here For The Vaughns is just trying to grab the moral high ground. (Surprising, eh?) The truth is, if a woman doesn't want her baby these days, she has a nice quiet abortion, and goes on with her life.
His choice of the word "abandoned" is just laden with moral judgements that cast natural parents as cackling psychopaths who leave their infants on a doorstep to freeze to death on Christmas Eve.
Needless to say, his characterization has nothing to do with reality. Nothing whatsoever.
The real harm in this characterization, besides the needless suffering it heaps upon people who already are in a world of hurt, is that it covers the tracks of the people who are the moral hazard in adoption. It's the adopted person and the natural parent who bear the consequences in adoption, not the adoptor or the (correctly named) agency.
These people are p***ing their pants because THIS TIME the adoptors have to bear the consequences, a situation which almost never occurs in adoption. They are feeling the pain. They have born the loss.
And just listen to them squeal.
YET, when the shoe is on the other foot, (as it almost always is,) the compassion and sympathy over the loss simply evaporates, and the story becomes that these terrible people abandoned their kid.
Feh.
I cant believe the thing i am reading here you all are literally bashing women for having fertility problems thats horrible its not someones fault that they are infertile and if you are infertile and there is all these defenseless babies out there that need a home and loving parents/family why not adopt them.I am legally a step parent to a 6 yr old daughter whom lost her bio mom at the age of 2 i came into her life a yr later and married her father she now calls me mommy and i raise her,LOVE her and take care of her as MY OWN im in the adoption process so does this make me a bad person??? To all of you yes it does and thats sad.She knows her bio mom is in heaven and she says "my real mommy got sick and went to heaven but i have another now its ok" her bio moms family is still around and they agree with me adopting her they are very thankful for her having me.I have 2 bio children myself and my love for ALL my kids is the same.you all are horrible horrible people.The vaughns love GRAYSON and they will NEVER stop fighting for THEIR SON.Ben is a sick sick person for taking that child away from them thats the obly family he knows and yes he did abandon grayson when he abandoned drucilla the law states that if a man abandons a woman while shes pregnant that woman can place the child up for adoption.
ReplyDelete@ supporting the vaughns
ReplyDeleteI cant believe the thing i am reading here you all are literally bashing women for having fertility problems thats horrible its not someones fault that they are infertile and if you are infertile and there is all these defenseless babies out there that need a home and loving parents/family why not adopt them
"you all are literally bashing women for having fertility problems"
Not so. We are telling infertile people that the infertility is THEIR problem, and that NO ONE owes them a child just because they are infertile.
"thats horrible its not someones fault that they are infertile"
This is a medically inaccurate statement. Sometimes infertility is caused by factors beyond a person's control. Sometimes infertility is the result of contracting a STD.
"and there is all these defenseless babies out there that need a home and loving parents/family why not adopt them'
There ARE children out there who need permanent homes. Most of them are in foster care. Why not adopt them?
But in this case, the little boy HAD a home, with his natural father. He did not need a home. This was crystal clear 17 days after his birth.
""yes he did abandon grayson when he abandoned drucilla the law states that if a man abandons a woman while shes pregnant that woman can place the child up for adoption.""
ReplyDeleteDrucilla was LEGALLY MARRIED to another man when she became pregnant. Can't you just see any married man inviting in the man who may have impregnated his wife?!?! You cannot abandon a 'fetus', you cannot adopt a 'fetus'. Drucilla at first denied that Ben was the father of her 'fetus'. I am sorry but the logical thinking that seems to escape some of the Vaughn supporters, simply boggles my mind. And who said anyone here was against step-parent adoption, especially where the Mother has passed away? You said that... no one here has said that. And again I am very sorry...but little Grayson was not "THEIR SON"...no legal adoption took place...they had Grayson in their home, they cared for Grayson and I am sure loved the little boy...still at the end of the day, the Vaughns were not the LEGAL parents of this child. The only LEGAL parent of this boy was..Ben.
And no mother, no father owes their own baby to another woman/couple simply because she or they are infertile. The infertile are not entitled to other people's babies, because they cannot conceive and birth their own. That is absurd, if not mentally ill thinking.
It's a really long time in coming but now that sweet little boy is home with his daddy. There are still Dad's out there fighting to get their children out of the hands of these Baby snatchers. Please keep John Wyatt in your thoughts and prayers as her waits for the Utah courts to do their job and give him his daughter back. VA has already granted his custody and Utah has refused to acknowledge that VA has all rights to decide where she goes. Please Baby Emma needs to go home to her Daddy!
ReplyDeleteTo Diana and all other "Here for the Vaughns":
ReplyDeleteThis is my third attempt at a comment. I wrote out two, long, well-thought remarks and then deleted them, feeling they would immediately raise your defenses and you would instantaneously tune me out.
I ask that you read on in the spirit of discussion and please choose to NOT tune me out. My comments are not ones meant to attack, even if my gut instinct is, in fact, to brawl over this topic and the issue at hand.
I am a mother of three amazing kids. One of them is biological, two are adopted. One of them is adopted internationally, and the other domestically (open, with special needs). I am not infertile. I was able to get pregnant quite easily, and have no reason to assume I would not be able to do so in the present; fertility had no impact on our decision to adopt. I love all three of my children equally--biological or not--and I once stood, Diana, where you stand. I once felt similar to how you feel.
Well, maybe I was a less idealistic, but hey...you have to start from somewhere.
My husband and I were fairly young when we adopted for the first time. Our child was born in another country; a large-name agency found us gathering information, and for lack of a better term, preyed upon our lack of understanding (read also as: BLATANT IGNORANCE) of the system as it stood--and as it still stands. I was your typical, starry eyed, adoption-is-amazing AP. I'm ashamed now to admit it, but it's entirely true. Well, *was* entirely true.
In the more recent past, we adopted again--this time domestically (open). After we welcomed our third child into our family, a switch started flipping. I started reading this blog, and many, many, many other first parent and adoptee blogs as well. I still read as much as I can from the other members of the "triad" (and I use that term lightly since that would imply all sides are equal which I believe to be a grave miscarriage of truth). Once your eyes are open, you can't help but leave all that "adoption is the best for all involved" crap mentality far, far behind.
CONT...
Adoptive parents--no matter how hard they love or how much they try--will NEVER be a substitute for first parents. There is no "but if" to this matter. It is not the same. I can never replace what two of my children have LOST. I just can't. I can love them with all the power within me and beyond, but I will never be their first mom. I will never be the one to fill that void. And that doesn't even touch the loss of my children's first moms/parents.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, the Vaughn's did, in fact, want to and try to buck the system. You (or anyone else) can claim it was out of love, but at the end of the day, they were entirely in the wrong--legally, and more important, ethically. Ben came forth seventeen days after Grayson's birth to file paternity--before the Vaughns had even filed petition for adoption. At that point, how did it even come to be a matter of question as to what the *right* thing was to do? I feel this is a clear case of common sense gone terribly, terribly awry. (And again, that says nothing of touching the ethics--or lack thereof.)
Yes, the Vaughns raised Grayson and loved him dearly. I'm fairly certain it's impossible to dispute this fact. But Ben has lost all this time--all these years with his son. He will never get this back. Dirt can be thrown about his past (oh, stones and glass houses--gotta love it), blah-blah-blah, but at the end of the day, he not only crossed every "t" and dotted every "i", he is *always will be* Grayson's true, natural, first father.
I used to gasp when I'd hear the term "legalized kidnapping" used in regard to any issue in adoption. But really, what better instance than this example? I could site specifics from this "case" all day and night, but at the end of the day, Ben fought for his son and won. Do I feel sorry for the Vaughns' heartache? Well, sort of. I mean, I feel sorry for the other kids who probably can't (due to age) fully grasp or process the details of why the situation has transpired as it has. The parents? No, I don't--not even a little, actually. Even if they were (hypothetically speaking) led astray by legal counsel or whatnot, a google search of "birth" fathers' rights in adoption could've set them straight. They gambled and lost, and Grayson is rightfully returned to the father who has been fighting tooth and nail for his son.
The word "entitlement" comes to mind here--in neon, flashing letters. If the Vaughns love Grayson as they say they do (and I do believe this to be the case), they should bow out gracefully now--better late than never--and let Ben and Grayson move on with their lives.
Do you see where I'm going with this? With all due respect, it tends to be adoptive parents such as you who give us all a bad name--and rightfully so.
CONT (Part 2 of 2--okay, maybe 3)
ReplyDeleteAdoptive parents--no matter how hard they love or how much they try--will NEVER be a substitute for first parents. There is no "but if" to this matter. It is not the same. I can never replace what two of my children have LOST. I just can't. I can love them with all the power within me and beyond, but I will never be their first mom. I will never be the one to fill that void. And that doesn't even touch the loss of my children's first moms/parents.
Simply put, the Vaughn's did, in fact, want to and try to buck the system. You (or anyone else) can claim it was out of love, but at the end of the day, they were entirely in the wrong--legally, and more important, ethically. Ben came forth seventeen days after Grayson's birth to file paternity--before the Vaughns had even filed petition for adoption. At that point, how did it even come to be a matter of question as to what the *right* thing was to do? I feel this is a clear case of common sense gone terribly, terribly awry. (And again, that says nothing of touching the ethics--or lack thereof.)
Yes, the Vaughns raised Grayson and loved him dearly. I'm fairly certain it's impossible to dispute this fact. But Ben has lost all this time--all these years with his son. He will never get this back and at the end of the day, he not only crossed every "t" and dotted every "i", he is *always will be* Grayson's true, natural, first father.
@supporting the vaughns
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to quote the law, then get it right. The clause is "wilful" abandonement without "justifiable cause". That means he has to know, and not be constrained by another party's actions/inactions, like not telling him or asking him to stay away. Selective omissions work online, but not in a courtroom. Which is why the father won every case.
Part 3--the last one, I promise (at least for now)...
ReplyDeleteI used to gasp when I'd hear the term "legalized kidnapping" used in regard to any issue in adoption. But really, what better instance than this example? I could site specifics from this "case" all day and night, but at the end of the day, Ben fought for his son and won. Do I feel sorry for the Vaughns' heartache? Well, sort of. I mean, I feel sorry for the other kids who probably can't (due to age) fully grasp or process the details of why the situation has transpired as it has. The parents? No, I don't--not even a little, actually. Even if they were (hypothetically speaking) led astray by legal counsel or whatnot, a google search of "birth" fathers' rights in adoption could've set them straight. They gambled and lost, and Grayson is rightfully returned to the father who has been fighting tooth and nail for his son.
The word "entitlement" comes to mind here--in neon, flashing letters. If the Vaughns love Grayson as they say they do (and I do believe this to be the case), they should bow out gracefully now--better late than never--and let Ben and Grayson move on with their lives.
Do you see where I'm going with this? With all due respect, it tends to be adoptive parents such as you who give us all a bad name--and rightfully so.
Oh, Courtney, thank you so so much for your understanding. You cannot know how much we appreciate you and hearing your evolution on this difficult road called life.
ReplyDeletebless you--lorraine
We've given 30 days for a man to locate and file for his child before he loses that child. It says a lot about the value they place on a God created family, that they're now claiming that 17 days was too much time. That unless you're in the delivery room you lose your parental rights. The logical conclusion to this trainwreck is to say whomever holds the baby first can keep it, even if they have to rip it from the womb.
ReplyDeleteThey don't say anything about giving mothers weeks and months to contest an adoption she AGREED to, but a father shouldn't be allowed DAYS to contest an adoption he did NOT agree to.
Courtney, thank you. You give me hope that someday we will be able to change the face of adoption in this country. Every word you said, it what so many of us have been saying for weeks in the Vaughn's case, and for years in our own cases. Bless you for understanding and getting it.
ReplyDeleteWow. I have been following this, but have been involved, also, with the final days of our beloved canine baby, Rocky. I am glad to see the term "entitled" used to exemplify the attitude of people like the Vaughns and their supporters. That idea of feeling that one's wants create automatic superiority over the natural parents is a nasty little turn in our social evolution. It is more widespread than ever.
ReplyDeleteAs for infertility being a random affliction, according to years of scientific reasearch into the problem, the leading causes remain; delayed childbearing (those eggs don't last forever), STD's, obesity, and other lifestyle choices such as smoking, etc.
@Here for the Vaughs and Diana; unlike you, we have been here for Grayson. When you meet the adult child you surrendered for adoption and to all of adoption's false promises and see the damage done, then you can lecture us. Until then, shut up, read and learn.
Dear Amanda Dickens-Fancher,
ReplyDeleteIt's lovely that you feel so loyal towards the Vaughns but it's really sad that you have no idea what you are talking about.
It astounds me that people can be so hateful.
What the Vaughns did was wrong, there can be no denying that. Further I have no desire to stoop to Amanda's level.
I find the whole drama about the little boy quite distressing and sad. I just wish his mother had kept him that's all. I wonder how she is feeling in all of this.
People who support the Vaughns are dickering over the 17 days. They KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING that paternity was an issue, and knew before 17 days that Benjamin Wyrembek was asking for him. It is my understanding that they knew within a week. And furthermore, the man who signed the relinquishment papers stated on them: I AM NOT THE FATHER.
ReplyDeleteWhat would it take for this couple, Christy and Jason Vaughn, to understand this was not a child available for adoption? It seems nothing stopped them, and then they are being praised and supported? This was a kidnapping, never legal.
On top of this, the criminals in this case are the people who run the Adoption by Gentle Care agency. Their concern for the legal issues involved, FOR THE CHILD AT ISSUE, and for the natural father were nil. They were only concerned about the fees generated from this adoption. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law--and be in jail for three years.
Question for natural moms here: would you have given your child willingly to the biological father had he asked?
ReplyDeleteGood lord, YES! In my case, I wanted to keep my daughter and marry the father. Did not happen.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is not germane in this case. The boy has the right to grow up with people who look like him.
I wondered about Anon's question too because Drucilla selected the Vaughns as parents and obviously didn't let BW know what was going on. This was also an extramarital affair. There was no way she was going to marry BW and excluding the possibility of raising the child herself, she went the extra step of excluding him too. (Not justifying the unjustifiable here--just asking the questions.) Is it *that* unusual to consider that a pregnant woman might not just hand over the child to a guy she had an affair with if she was not planning to disrupt her own marriage or raise this child? She might say to herself: "No way is this guy raising this kid," especially if she had seen anything she didn't like. This is not about what she *should* have done, but about human nature. I don't believe that reproductive rights extend after birth, though I know that is what some lawyers were arguing; I'm just trying to figure out how everybody got here. And I still say that a woman who doesn't really like the guy she had sex with--doesn't respect him on some level or doesn't feel he's dad material--may be reluctant to just turn her child over to him. She's not thinking of Adoption 101 or his rights at that point. She's only thinking of her child.
ReplyDeleteJust my 2 cents.
Anon asks..""Question for natural moms here: would you have given your child willingly to the biological father had he asked?""
ReplyDeleteThat question is extremely disingenuous. That question as you have stated, would presume that 'natural moms here', did not want their babies and gave their babies up most willingly (non-coerced)for adoption. That presumption then carries to "given your child willingly to the biological father had he asked". You know that question is garbage, we all know that question is garbage.
I can't speak for Drucilla, the mother of Grayson, all I can go on is what I have read from the legal documents. Drucilla was by no measure a young, unwed mother. She was already a mother to a teen son when she gave birth to her baby. I don't know if she truly did not want her baby (or did she?), how soon in her pregnancy an adoption agency and the Vaughns were involved in her pregnancy. Was it a pre-birth match?, again I don't know. But what I do know of many of the mothers that comment here and will presume to believe rightly..that the majority of the mothers here truly wanted their babies and had little to no options to keep their babies, with or without the fathers in both of their lives. Many of the fathers of our babies, ran for the hills as soon as they heard the word "pregnant". It gladdens my heart to see fathers such as Ben..step up to the plate like a father should and acknowledge, that yes indeed that is their child and want their own child to raise, protect and love..not separated as if strangers.
Now do the right thing and quit asking garbage questions, that you know are garbage as you write them.
I wanted to marry the father, but he did not want to marry me. He had a new girlfriend already when I told him I was pregnant. He married her, then later they were divorced,no kids, but years later he said they tried to find my son in foster care but it was already too late.
ReplyDeleteIf he and the new girlfriend had succeeded in getting my child, at the time I would have been furious. I hated her for taking my man and would not want her to raise my child. Years later and given the parents my son got, I may have felt differently, but at the time, no.
The fact of matter is.....everyone here is right in their own opinion, own experiences, and own self. What is lacking here in many posts is compassion for others. It's a horrible thing to have a child taken from you. While I only experienced it for a short amount of time, I've been there and it's heart wrenching. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy and words cannot express the anguish. On the other hand, there are biological parents that aren't ready to be parents and not all adoptions are illegal or immoral. And those parents seeking children through adoption should not be viewed negatively or selfishly, because as it's stated over and over again in these posts, adoption is not natural. Therefore, only a select few can adopt, love with their all, and do it well. For those people, who give their all to non-biological children....kudos to you. Because you are doing something that's outside of the norm, which is extending a love that is not 'biological'. Therefore not everyone possesses it. I am adopted, I have adopted,I've worked with kids in the Foster system, and I have bioligical children. I know and understand the differences very well. But that is all they are....differences. One does not have to be greater than the other and it doesn't have to be black and white. In most cases, as with most things in life, it's grey. There's good and bad to adoption, but opinions need to developed on a case by case basis. And there definitely needs to be more compassion and less finger pointing for the HUMAN BEINGS that are involved in this unfortunate situation. We all hurt. We all love. And we all make mistakes. And to all whom are doing right by your children, whether bioligical, adopted, inherited, etc. - good for you! We need more parents like you!
ReplyDeleteDiana, Here for the Vaughns, et al., this one's for you...
ReplyDeleteDELUSION
Main Entry: de·lu·sion
Pronunciation: \di-ˈlü-zhən, dē-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin delusion-, delusio, from deludere
Date: 15th century
1
: the act of deluding : the state of being deluded
2
a : something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs
— de·lu·sion·al\-ˈlüzh-nÉ™l, -ˈlü-zhÉ™-nÉ™l\ adjective
— de·lu·sion·ary\-zhÉ™-ËŒner-Ä“\ adjective
Asking if I would have allowed my child to be raised by her father is really an apples and oranges comparison afa this case and my personal experience of adoption.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to raise my child.
The adoptionists had other ideas.
Had I been in the situation of pregnancy via an extramarital affair and for some reason I could not raise the child, yes, I would expect the child's father to step in. Hell, yes. After all, it's his child, and it is his right. If he said no, I would ask my parents or my extended family to raise the child.
Kinship care is the best alternative in these situations, not stranger adoption.
@ Chris
ReplyDelete"You know that question is garbage, we all know that question is garbage."
You know what they say Chris. Garbage in, garbage out.
I am astounded how people who are holding a child they have NO legal right to can be called adoptive parents. THEY DID NOT ADOPT! No, instead, they withheld a child from his father.'
ReplyDelete@Supportingthevaughns said "I cant believe the thing i am reading here you all are literally bashing women for having fertility problems thats horrible its not someones fault that they are infertile "
Wait a second, sister. Unless you've had your head under a rock for the past 40 years, you must know that the two leading causes of infertility are STD's, and -- in the case of women: AGE. If you waited beyond age 27 or so to conceive, then WHY complain, it was your own choice not to start a family until it was too late. Ages 16 to 27 are your optimum fertile period. Use it or lose it.
Adoption is not a cure for infertility. You are raising another womans' child, and those children you are raising have to other parents out there. And, like my son, they just might choose to RETURN TO their natural parents again. Adoption is a legal and social experiment that is only 159 yrs old. There is NO reason why it should be considered a "blessing" or "permanent." I got my son back -- I even legally adopted him back. Blood can be thicker than paper. If you bought yourself a child, then you believed false promises that your baby broker business should not be making. Adoption does NOT make a "Forever Family." That's a myth.
The Vaughn's had a moral obligation to ensure that the father had signed the papers to surrender, before they took that baby. They did not. And they held that baby captive from him for 3 years. That is not a "Christian" thing to do. No, it is avarice and theft.
Answer to anon who asked if I would have given my daughter to her birth father if he had wanted to raise her.
ReplyDeleteIf he had expressed the slightest interest in her, I would have kept her and worked out a joint custody arrangement. Although unheard of in 1966, this is quite common today where parents are not married but are committed to the welfare of their child.
Diana and Here for the Vaughns, you may be hearing from the other side of adoption for the first time on this site. If that is so, it may be shocking to hear these perspectives.
ReplyDeleteAs an adoptee, I "bought into" the conventional wisdom of adoption as a "win-win" for adoptees and adoptive parents myself - until I could no longer ignore the effects being adopted had upon my self-esteem and relationships.
There is a statement on the first page of Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound which every adoptive parent must understand; in describing how she had given equal love to both her biological and adopted daughters but her adopted daughter still had problems, Verrier wrote:
"I came to realize that just because I could give her unconditional love did not mean she could accept it."
In my own case, fear of emotionally hurting my adoptive parents kept me from ever discussing my real feelings with them. I have yet to meet an adoptee who didn't have mixed feelings about being adopted - which is NOT the same thing as whether or not we love our adoptive parents, as I did.
@Donna..""What is lacking here in many posts is compassion for others.""
ReplyDeleteAs much 'compassion' that was shown/given/written for Ben the father of Grayson on the FB site "Keeping Grayson Home"????????
""It's a horrible thing to have a child taken from you.""
I am going to hopefully assume that you do know who the majority of your readers are here on this forum??
""While I only experienced it for a short amount of time, I've been there and it's heart wrenching.""
Try 34 years....
""I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy and words cannot express the anguish.""
Does that "anguish" extend to the many mothers that lost their newborns to adoption through no fault of their own, for over several decades? Does that "anguish" extend to the non-surrendering fathers who wanted their children, but lost their newborns/children to a faulty court system, favoring people who adopt?? Does that "anguish" extend to the many now adult people who were adopted when infants, who cannot know from whom or whence they came because of closed adoptions and sealed birth records, again a closed/faulty system that was founded in the best interest of adoptive parents?
@here for the Vaughns,
ReplyDeleteBen did not abandon Drucilla. During the pregnancy he could not have known for sure that he was the father. Since Drucilla was married to another man I doubt he would have been invited to move in to await the child's birth. Also, I suspect Drucilla and Ben wanted to keep their extramarital shenanigans on the Q.T. It does say something about his love and desire for HIS child that Ben was willing to trash his reputation worldwide to get HIS son back.
@Courtney,
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is so nice to see an A parent who is willing to take off the rose-colored glasses about adoption. I do not like the terms triad/triangle either as they imply that we are all equal. HA! The adoptee never has any say.
@Lorraine,
"We are not against adoption per se; it was and will always be necessary."
Agreed, however I want to add that it is preferable in most (though certainly not all) cases that the child remain with his/her original family.
@Robin,
Thank you for mentioning the damage that being adopted does to the child.
"I came to realize that just because I could give her unconditional love did not mean she could accept it."
ReplyDelete--quote attributed to Nancy Verrier
That is a really chilling statement coming from an adoptive parent. She is talking about an infant! So it is the adopted infant's fault for not reciprocating the adoptive mother's love?
Unconditional love is just that, it does not have conditions, including the condition that the loved one accept or return that love.
To Lorraine, Maryreunited, and Robin:
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comments regarding my commentary on this blog/topic in general. I really, really, really appreciate the welcoming environment in which I was able to assert my feelings about this situation and adoption in general as an A-mom. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time on the "other" (read also as: WRONG) side in my thoughts/feelings/beliefs on adoption, but I hope other adoptive parents--especially ones who are still entirely in the dark--happen upon the discussion on this page and that starts the proverbial wheels into motion...
Thank you again,
Courtney
Adoption never cured infertility.It may provide an infertile couple with a child or even a fertile couple.Adoptees are not cures and placing that burden on them is a whole other story and would be a red herring here.I have seen no evidence of the bashing of the infertile here, but I have seen truthful, from the heart responses to a heart-breakingly sad situation.There's always room for more compassion in life and particularly in adoptionland where the adoption industry seems intent on pusuing motives mostly to do with greed and profit.
ReplyDelete@maryanne FFS, again with the PW hate.
ReplyDelete"I came to realize that just because I could give her unconditional love did not mean she could accept it."
--quote attributed to Nancy Verrier
That is a really chilling statement coming from an adoptive parent. She is talking about an infant! So it is the adopted infant's fault for not reciprocating the adoptive mother's love?"
Umm you just don't get it. Verrier is not saying it's the infant's fault, nor is she saying she expects it. She is saying she GETS it. She is saying the infant was traumatized from losing their first mother and is, in most cases, unable to ACCEPT unconditional love. That is an extremely common trait of adoptees....
more than likely your son, too.
@Courtney- thank you.
@ Linda, thank you.
ReplyDeleteIndicting Verrier for having compassion, what next?
Linda, please do not comment about my son and how he feels. You do not know him, and that is a cheap shot. He does not seem to have problems accepting unconditional love, as he has been very happily married for 8 years. His adoptive mother was not a very loving person, If there was a problem there is came from her, not him. He does not believe in Primal Wound theory either.
ReplyDeleteNo more comments, pro or con, about Primal Wound.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know how anyone is able to actually tell for sure whether a very young infant is being accepting of love or not (or is even aware of "love", at least in the sense that we imagine it). Security, comfort, expressed affection, these things I am certain are of of particular importance to a baby. But love is an abstract concept, and I think I find it misleading.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to know how much of supposing the child *is* rejecting (of "love" or whatever) may have to do with the parent or caregiver's personal fears of inadequacy or rejection.
Haigha
@ Chris,
ReplyDeleteYes!
Part 1
ReplyDeleteWow. That's all I can say is, Wow. For a forum that tells its posters to refrain from nasty remarks, attacks and misrepresentations I have certainly been a victim of all 3 as have any of the other posters who come on here and dare to disagree with your "perspective". It must be difficult to walk thru life having that much bitterness in your souls. I have been called names such as baby buyer, legal kidnapper, delusional, and undeserving of a child because I was unable to bare one "the natural way". I have also been told that my beautiful family is not real, it's "man-made" because we dared to build it thru adoption. It makes me laugh to think that those of you who have attacked my character really don’t know why I feel as strongly as I do about adoption. I too was adopted and raised by my non-bio step-father after my "real" (and yes I use that term loosely) father couldn't find it in his heart to love me enough to be my Dad. And this is the man that opened his heart to my “bought” baby and loved her with all of his heart. She was 14 months old when he died and she was the last person he saw before he closed his eyes. He died with a smile on his face.
Now by sharing this do I expect to feel even an ounce of understanding of my situation. No, I don’t. It takes looking at things in a different light and from what I have read on this forum I don’t see that happening. It kills me to think that there are actually people here who believe that a child is better off living in an orphanage for the rest of their life with no family to call their own just to keep them in their native country. How sad is that. If you can say that then you probably need to do some research on just how sad some of the conditions are in an orphanage. You see, years before we were married my husband, who is a Marine has been to the exact orphanage our daughters would have grown up in and saw just how deplorable the conditions were. Yes, this was before we considered adoption as an option to building our family. Because like the many thousands of women who have ever suffered from infertility you always believe that you will have a baby the “natural” way. Its not until you are in the throes of your struggle that you start to realize that this may not be the plan you were meant to take to build your family. My husband and I did not exercise all of our options in building our family the “natural” way. When we came to a crossroads of pursuing extreme options such as IVF or choosing the path to adopt, we chose to adopt. Because I began to realize that having that biological tie to a child was not important to me. So in a sense adoption was a first option for us. I began to understand that there were millions of children across the world living in orphanages that needed parents as much as we needed them. And I do admit that I did not set out on this journey with the notion of being a “savior” to a child. I just wanted to be a Mom. And if that makes me selfish well then, yes, I am selfish. And you can say that adoption if not a cure for infertility. Well no, it’s not. But having the family that I always dreamed of, heaven forbid, thru adoption, I was healed.
Excuse me for being behind the times, but where is it reported that Gentle care is the agency involved? Thanks
ReplyDeleteSorry, to be weighing in on this so late. I have a few comments, but will divide them up.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about media involvement--ie Public Relations-- but it's become apparent since Baby Jessica and Baby Dick that getting the media on "your side" is essential to good PR and public opinion, irregardless that neither has anything to do with legal decisions.
No matter who is right or wrong, media is all about perception, and since adoption is held in such high regard in this country, a case has to be framed as totally egregious to get the public on your side. So, not only are cases such as Ben's a race to the courthouse, they are also a race to the newspaper office and the TV station.
On the one hand, I don't like to see children paraded around like trained dogs by a bunch of entitled adults who are upset for not getting as much bang for their buck as they thought they'd have, such as the Vaughns are. These adoption battles, like divorce, are always about adults and who gets the spoils.
Clearly the Vaughns played the media (or should I say jerked them off?) They were very good at it, I must say, and I was impressed with how much angst. tears, pomposity, and self-righteousness they were able to inject into a legal argument. Funny how if our side, that is, people who have actually experienced firsthand adoption corruption, greed, and lies, were to act like this, we'd dismissed as ungrateful or over-emotional and in need of therapy.
On the other hand, without media you're a cooked goose, at least as far as your ego and the public are concerned. Ben, for instance, is clearly in the right in retrieving Grayson from the adoption mill, yet he may as well be Osama bin Laden for all the clueless consumers of media hype care. Ben's lack of media presence, that is, lack of positive media imagine due to being a no show, which was no doubt advised by his lawyer, has framed him as the bad guy, the sperm donor, the drive-by dad, the abuser, the abandoner, the baby stealer.
Not that any of this means anything in the real world of law where decisions are made with facts, not TV tears. The Vaughns and their supporters don't seem to grasp this concept. They may feel good about themselves, but all their self-indulgence, candlelight vigils, and breast beating, came up empty, because the law isn't Dr.Phil.
Here's what's really going on. We have a mutual aid society operating here. Litigants empower the media. The first one through the door gets the pretty frame and the positive press. In turn the media empowers the litigant to be the hero of their own narrative in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the public. The public in turn, gets to blow-out its grievances against the state, the courts, or whatever government bete noir they suffer from. The media campaign acts as a safety valve as well as a point of future political action.
If Ben had gone and presented his case to the media early on, there wouldn't be over 7000 people on Facebook demanding his tar and feathering or sending the Vaughns bags of money and gifts to pursue their pointless appeals. Ben took the high road--the old road of private space and family privacy-- and look what it got him. A spot for the Meanest Man in America. The Vaughns took the low road--of public space and family exploitation-- creating themselves as victims of an "unjust system" when they were, in fact, victimizing Ben and Grayson.
Under these contemporary circumstances, IMO, there are respectful ways (such not allowing Grayson's picture to be published, not marching him in front of the press) in which Ben could have presented his case to the public out the gate. It's happened in other cases. Sad to say, but nowadays, it seems that adoption litigants need to hire media consultants, though I still can't figure out what they hope to get from it.
PART 2: On the other hand, without media you're a cooked goose, at least as far as your ego and the public are concerned. Ben, for instance, is clearly in the right in retrieving Grayson from the adoption mill, yet he may as well be Osama bin Laden for all the clueless consumers of media hype care. Ben's lack of media presence, that is, lack of positive media imagine due to being a no show, which was no doubt advised by his lawyer, has framed him as the bad guy, the sperm donor, the drive-by dad, the abuser, the abandoner, the baby stealer.
ReplyDeleteNot that any of this means anything in the real world of law where decisions are made with facts, not TV tears. The Vaughns and their supporters don't seem to grasp this concept. They may feel good about themselves, but all their self-indulgence, candlelight vigils, and breast beating, came up empty, because the law isn't Dr.Phil.
Here's what's really going on. We have a mutual aid society operating here. Litigants empower the media. The first one through the door gets the pretty frame and the positive press. In turn the media empowers the litigant to be the hero of their own narrative in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the public. The public in turn, gets to blow-out its grievances against the state, the courts, or whatever government bete noir they suffer from. The media campaign acts as a safety valve as well as a point of future political action.
If Ben had gone and presented his case to the media early on, there wouldn't be over 7000 people on Facebook demanding his tar and feathering or sending the Vaughns bags of money and gifts to pursue their pointless appeals. Ben took the high road--the old road of private space and family privacy-- and look what it got him. A spot for the Meanest Man in America. The Vaughns took the low road--of public space and family exploitation-- creating themselves as victims of an "unjust system" when they were, in fact, victimizing Ben and Grayson.
Under these contemporary circumstances, IMO, there are respectful ways (such not allowing Grayson's picture to be published, not marching him in front of the press) in which Ben could have presented his case to the public out the gate. It's happened in other cases. Sad to say, but nowadays, it seems that adoption litigants need to hire media consultants, though I still can't figure out what they hope to get from it.
PART 2: On the other hand, without media you're a cooked goose, at least as far as your ego and the public are concerned. Ben, for instance, is clearly in the right in retrieving Grayson from the adoption mill, yet he may as well be Osama bin Laden for all the clueless consumers of media hype care. Ben's lack of media presence, that is, lack of positive media imagine due to being a no show, which was no doubt advised by his lawyer, has framed him as the bad guy, the sperm donor, the drive-by dad, the abuser, the abandoner, the baby stealer.
ReplyDeleteNot that any of this means anything in the real world of law where decisions are made with facts, not TV tears. The Vaughns and their supporters don't seem to grasp this concept. They may feel good about themselves, but all their self-indulgence, candlelight vigils, and breast beating, came up empty, because the law isn't Dr.Phil.
@Courtney,
ReplyDeleteYour welcome. You were not on the "wrong" side you just believed what you were told about adoption. Adoption myths are a form of brainwashing. You might like Nancy Verrier's work as she is an A mom, too.
RE: Nancy Verrier's statement.
I, too, found it disturbing as it sounds like she is blaming the child. However, as I know she is very much on our side, I think we should cut her some slack on this one. Verrier actually got into her life work because of the differences between her bio-daughter and her adopted daughter. She also writes about her adaughter "For someone who was adopted almost at birth, who was never in foster care, and who was truly wanted and loved by us, she seemed to be in a great deal of pain". I think Nancy Verrier gets it!
Diana,
ReplyDeleteIt is not our intent to denigrate all adoptive parents; we apologize if we allowed a few readers to overstep our boundaries. As birth mothers, we understand their anger and pain. We, too, have some bitterness in our souls -- and with good reason.
We have never suggested that children are better off in orphanages than with loving families. The orphanages you and your husband saw, however, may well have been staged by con-artists in order to "sell" their product to kind-hearted westerners. Many children in foreign orphanages were kidnapped or put their by their mothers while they dealt with a temporary family emergency. The mothers returned and learned their children had been taken to the US and the mothers could not get them back.
As you note, there are million of children throughout the world who need help. There are about 20,000 children adopted into the US each year, most of them from China which has the resources to care for its children. Obviously, adoption does not make a dent in the problems of poor children.
While adoption has healed you, please will reflect on the damage inflicted on the women who lost their children in order to give you the family you always dreamed of. I hope you will see fit to help your children and their birth families heal by helping them to reconnect with each other.
Hmm, I had to cut up my comments and they got a little mixed up. You should get the idea, though. I'll be claning them up and adding some more for my blog in the next day or so.
ReplyDeleteActually, Diana, some of us here know exactly the love and blessing of adoption can bring. This forum is full of bastards, adoptees, first parents and adopters. We also know the secrets and dysfunction that adoption entails. Adoption is a creation of statute. It is the way for the state to create families. Unfortunately, it's never gotten to the "ideal" stage of a family building policy for children who need families. It's always been about adults who want baybees or in the case of Orphan Trains, older children for farm hands. Anyone's progeny will do.
ReplyDeleteApproximately 6 million adopted persons in the US today are not allowed access to their own birth certificates, through this statutory creation. We're issued fictive documents of let's pretend. And when we demand the return of our records and our identities we're told to shut up, be grateful and go see a shrink. I won't even discuss what is done to "brave" mothers who surrendered their children to the adoption mill. They have their own voice and use it quite well.
The Vaughns and their supporters have shown no ounce of comprehension of how bastards are treated in this country. They have shown no comprehension of the damage caused by adoption lies and secrets psychically and practially. They can probably get a passport for the asking. Some of us can't. They have shown no comprehension of how they have disregard and denigrated every one of us who is adopted--including Grayson; not to mention the ethical adoption process.
I have no doubt that the Vaughns love Grayson very much. But who dragged out this nightmare? Not Ben. It would have felt bad to return Grayson on the 17th day, but the pain would be nothing like it is now. Ordinarily, I'd feel some sympathy for them, but their dog and pony show precludes sympathy.
For the Vaughns, it's all about them and screw adoptees Adoptees shut up. For us, Grayson's return is a victory for ethics.
Jane said, "We apologize if we allowed a few readers to overstep our boundaries."
ReplyDeleteThe rules say that nasty remarks etc. will not be published. I guess it really depends on who is making them and how useful would be to publish them.
Jane said, "The orphanages you and your husband saw, however, may well have been staged by con-artists in order to "sell" their product to kind-hearted westerners."
Pardon my skepticism but some of the comments, including that to which you are responding, sound rather contrived to me.
BD said, "It would have felt bad to return Grayson on the 17th day, but the pain would be nothing like it is now."
For whom? It would certainly have spared Grayson a great deal of pain.
Haigha
Part 2
ReplyDeleteAlso, I did not walk into adoption with the Pollyanna notion that things would be perfect. I spent months researching trans-racial adoption. I attended meetings with birth parents, adoptive parents, as well as adult adoptees from all aspects of adoption. And yes I heard about many of them who struggled with their identity at one time or another. I heard from those who chose to seek out their bio families and also those who had no desire to ever search them out. I heard from families who shared nightmare stories with us about their experience with RAD syndrome, others who struggled to bond with their adopted children. And these stories were hard to hear. But I listened and I learned. And I went headfirst into our adoption plan knowing the risks we would likely face. And one thing I find very ironic about hearing from all of these folks is not ONE TIME did I hear any of them say that they regretted their decision to adopt. Nor did I hear one adoptee say they regretted being adopted. In fact in the 12 years since my first daughter came home and the countless adoptees we have met (many of them adults), I have never heard any of them voice regrets. You say that adoption is not “natural”. Well what is not natural is the belief that because nature doesn’t always work as it is intended to that the millions of children and those people who have open hearts enough to adopt should suffer. As humans, most of us with character are built on a complicated mixture of compassion, education, understanding and tolerance. Turning our backs on one another simply because we are not biologically related is not normal. In fact, I believe that it is a quiet form of discrimination. That’s just my “perspective”.
I am fortunate that my daughters had a loving birth-mother who made a difficult choice to place her children for adoption. She lives in a country where sex outside of marriage is taboo much less having a child out of wedlock. She could have had a back-alley abortion or left them abandoned on the streets like so many others are. But she chose to give her children life and work with an adoption plan with the hope that they would have a better life than what she would be able to provide. I know this because we were contacted one year after our first daughter came home, at the birth-mother’s request, to see if we would adopt her 2nd child. That is enough for me to know that my children were loved. And although many of you will shudder at this word, she did give me a gift. The gift of motherhood that I PROUDLY share with her. I did leave our information open with the orphanage in the event she would want to contact us someday. I am open to having contact with her should she make that choice in the future. In the meantime we are very blessed to have such a loving and supportive community of native immigrants from my daughters’ country who have embraced us and welcomed us into their hearts and their lives. I love the diversity in my life and in my daughters’ lives and would not change a thing. Whatever obstacles we face as they grow older we will face together as a FAMILY.
Part 3 (conclusion)
ReplyDeleteI realize that many of you here may not have had the same experience as others in your own adoption experiences. And maybe those experiences have led to this warped belief that all adoptions are bad. But it certainly does not give you the right to judge someone’s character simply because you do not share their same belief. Some of the things I have read on here do make sense. But most of what I have read is tinged with anger and bitterness towards those of us who do believe that adoption is a need, not only for us barren women, but also for the countless number of children who would much rather share their life with a “stranger” in a “man-made” family unit rather than alone in the world. You can say what you want. But my family is real and based on love and acceptance, not biology. This will be my last post on here. And although I expect much reprieve from this post, I will not be around lurking to read them. I have had my fill these past few days of what you guys support and I choose to not surround myself with the negativity that you guys call “The Truth”. The truth is that your experiences in life are what you make of it. If you surround yourself with the idea that the world is bad then you start to believe that. I choose to believe the opposite. There is much ugliness in the world. My husband has seen war and atrocities that cannot be compared to anything. Adoption is not one of them.
"There are about 20,000 children adopted into the US each year, most of them from China which has the resources to care for its children."
ReplyDeleteA little correction, sorry for being OT. About 12,750 kids were adopted internationally in the US in 2009. About 3000 of those kids were from China. At its peak (2004-5), adoption from China represented about one-third of children adopted internationally into the US.
Not sure if I'd state unequovically that China has the resources to care for its children because the one-child policy was instituted on the assumption that the country could not sustain its projected population growth. Also, it's a matter of what you choose to do with your resources and how you think you should get there. Like Russia's orphanage system (absolutely not staged for any Westerner—also considered a vital source of jobs, twisted as that may be), Chinese population control is primarily about power and bureaucracy, not kids. Currently, int'l adoption funds the orphanage system. It need not, but those are the choices that have been made.
Diana, If you read more into First Mother Forum you would know that we do not think ALL adoptions are bad, as you state. We think all closed adoptions are bad, period.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your own adoption experience, as I have read it, means that you were legally adopted by your step-father. Which would mean you never had a real moment of doubt about who you were, or who your biological parents were. Very different from the experience of being adopted by genetic strangers and then told that you have no right to know your own heritage, story, kin. Very different. You have not walked in their shoes.
And Diana, please do not condescend to tell us we made "loving" decisions when we relinquished our children to strangers. We were desperate and we gave up our children in desperation. We did not do it because we "loved" them. That language indicates that you do not have a clue about what it is like to give up a child your bore. Not a clue, nor have you made any attempt to think that through.
ReplyDeleteI mean pain for the Vaughns. Grayson would have felt nothing. Babies respond to whoever waits on them.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of adoptees who wish they hadn't been adopted and would undue their adoptions if they could. Many are OK with it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the corrections Osolomama. I chose a number from the peak of foreign adoptions to show that even at its high end, foreign adoption can only benefit a fraction of needy children.
ReplyDeleteI should have said the country providing the largest proportion of children is China although only a third of the children come from there. Regarding China's efforts to reduce its population -- even if all the children sent to western countries, perhaps, several hundred thousand, were kept in China, it would have virtually no impact on the population of over a billion people.
Adoption and especially the high number of female fetuses that are aborted have resulted in something like 90 marriageable women for 100 marriageable men. I think it likely that Chinese men, like Korean men, will begin to bring women in from other countries (Thailand, Viet Nam) to get a wife.
By taking these children from China, western families enable China's misogynist policies but do nothing to stem China's population growth.
If Westerners were not seeking Chinese children, I suspect that many of these families would have kept their children. I know that Korean men forced their wives to to give up their daughters by painting a rosy picture of the life these girls will have in the west. I suspect Chinese men did the same.
And yes, international adoption funds the orphanage system, thereby exacerbating the problem those who adopt think they are helping to solve.
BD said, "I mean pain for the Vaughns. Grayson would have felt nothing. Babies respond to whoever waits on them."
ReplyDeleteThe point is that Grayson's no longer a baby. Returning him then would have spared him the pain he is experiencing now.
Haigha
“By taking these children from China, western families enable China's misogynist policies but do nothing to stem China's population growth.”
ReplyDeleteBut int'l adoption was never proposed as a population control measure. It was initiated by the Chinese gov't when Chinese families could not absorb (informally) all the girls abandoned in the late '80s and early '90s and the orphanages were substandard and could not care for the explosion of girls who wound up there—it's a tiny piece of the puzzle that you are blowing up to be a cause. And I am not pointing a finger at you—I hear this all the time. Adoption from China has zero impact on 1. China's population problem, and 2. “mysogyny,” which is, btw, a western way of looking at the situation.
“If Westerners were not seeking Chinese children, I suspect that many of these families would have kept their children.”
Actually, in many parts of China parents are not even aware that international adoption exists. At best, they expect the children they abandon in public to be informally adopted as they have been for years since the one-child policy. Also, children adopted internationally represent only a fraction of the total number of children abandoned, which census data suggest are in the millions. There were no westerners lining up to adopt in the early '90s when the orphanages were bulging with girls and China decided to start int'l adoption for cash. For the first five years of the program, the demand was minimal. However, demand has probably kept the NSN program going longer than it should because China doesn't want to lose the funding. Shut it down? Sure, lots of people think its time has passed.
“And yes, international adoption funds the orphanage system, thereby exacerbating the problem those who adopt think they are helping to solve.”
Not exactly. Most children are not in the adoption program. Funding benefits all children in the orphanage system, not just the few that are in the adoption pool.
@Diana,
ReplyDeleteA step-parent adoption is not the same as being given to strangers and does not include the emotional impact of one's own parents giving you away.
Also you write "She lives in a country where sex outside of marriage is taboo much less having a child out of wedlock." HaHaHa. Where have I heard this before? This is the reason for FMF's existence. We are all dealing with the negative consequences of these beliefs and policies.
@Jane, you wrote "By taking these children from China, western families enable China's misogynist policies but do nothing to stem China's population growth."
Another comment said this is just our "westernized" view. I disagree. I have always been surprised that there is not more of an outcry against this discrimination against females. The "it's their culture" excuse frightens me. Apartheid is wrong, oh but that was just in S Africa, the Nazi Holocaust was wrong, oh but that was Germans, Wife beating is wrong, but a Middle Eastern country's high court just allowed some "discipline" of wives and children, Slavery is wrong. Where do we draw the line?
"Another comment said this is just our "westernized" view."
ReplyDeleteThe comment did not say that it was "just" a westernized point of view, and it certainly didn't imply that misogynism is right.
Nor was it an "It's their culture" excuse.
It was clearly not intended to give misogynistic practices, cultural or otherwise, a pass, but to simply state a tragic reality that I am sure the commentator finds as abhorrent as you do.
Haigha
I usually don't pimp other people's blogs, but I just put up a new blog about Grayson, based on some of what I wrote here yesterday: Adoption as a Public Event: Media, Perception, and the Grayson Wyrembek Case. http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/11/adoption-as-public-event-media.html
ReplyDeleteComments welcome
Diana, it's all about YOU isn't it. Again I have to say I find it inappropriate for a woman to come to this forum and write not one but THREE VERY LONG posts using patronising descriptions like "loving choice" and "gift" and being sure to mention that many mothers ABANDON in alleyways....
ReplyDeleteThere are other places to leave your opinions about you and YOUR experience of adoption. I find it inappropriate for you to come here.
You want praise for leaving a forwading address for the child's mother? I'd like some praise too because I went shopping today and didn't steal anything....
"because of the laws in this country that protect the biological parents rendering adoptive parents virtually powerless in the court system, we chose to adopt internationally..."
ReplyDeleteThese kinds of comments really scare me, I feel so sad for the mothers in developing countries, their children mostly get adopted by the worst types of people.
Robin wrote: "As for infertility being a random affliction, according to years of scientific reasearch into the problem, the leading causes remain; delayed childbearing (those eggs don't last forever), STD's, obesity, and other lifestyle choices such as smoking, etc."
ReplyDeleteI'm an infertile mom, via fertility treatments, who utterly abhors what the Vaughns did to that poor child and his natural father, and am generally sympathetic to the views expressed in this blog. I don't think any infertile person is owed a child, particularly at the expense of the natural family.
But it really saddens me to see how quick some here are to heap blame on women for their infertility. Having struggled to have a child of my own for many years, I have read the stories of many, many women and I just don't believe it's true that most of their issues are due to lifestyle choices. There are so many medical, hormonal, structural, environmental and immunologic causes of infertility (not to mention male issues).
And even among those you could attribute to "lifestyle choices," it is often not so simple to blame the women. For example, with respect to age, often with older women, the delay is due to the person waiting to meet her life partner (not the typical stereotype of delaying because of career and simply putting having a child on the back burner). With respect to weight, it is quite common that there is an issue (e.g., PCOS) that causes both weight gain and infertility.
I get that infertile women are not owed anyone else's child. By all means, point the finger at women who think they are so entitled. But don't be so quick to blame the victim for her condition, already a source of great suffering and stigma.
Regarding Diana's comment that the laws protect birth parents and render adoptive parents virtually powerless, nothing could be farther from the truth. In most states, the laws are grotesquely tiled towards adoptive parents. Birth parents have fewer rights than purchasers of vacuum cleaners from door-to door salesman.
ReplyDeleteJane said, "Birth parents have fewer rights than purchasers of vacuum cleaners from door-to door salesman."
ReplyDeleteRight. And I don't think even vacuum cleaners are always purchased that way any more. They can be bought online.
Haigha
I am new here and I am an adoptive mom, twice. I adopted older ( 8 yrs and 16 yrs old), US kids who had parential rights terminated because of profound abuse and neglect.
ReplyDeleteI struggled with infertility for years and years, and once I became a mom, it went into the back seat, meaning I didnt cry every time I got my period any more.
Graysons case is astounding...The wrong that was done to Ben AND to Grayson is horrific and, I suspect, criminal. If this family, the Vaughns, had done the right thing, this would have been over BEFORE Grayson got hurt. Clearly, the ethical, honest thing to have done was return him to the parent, the biological parent, who wants him and loves him. Now, its a very hard thing for the little one, yet its because of the agency and the Vaughns that it has happened at 3 yrs old instead of when he was a tiny infant.
I love my kids..who are adults now. They have ties to their bio siblings, cousins, etc, as they desire. All 4 bio parents of my kids have died, 3 of drug related issues/illnesses and one was shot in self defense as he was attacking his girlfriend. My kids have always had whatever contact they wanted and asked for, and I had relationships with the bio families as mush as they allowed.
So, now, I am a grandma..and here comes the infertility demon again. I was there when my grandaughter was born and BAM..there it was again..She wasnt related to me, and she clearly looked like her bio family..and it slammed me in the heart, after many, many years. I adore my grandkids, yet I still long for that pregnancy, that DNA tie..Being an adoptive mom really didnt take that drive away from me, tho when I was raising my kids, I was very happy and satisfied.
I absolutely agree that adoption is NOT a perfect option for a child. Loss of the bio roots is extraordinarily painful. Sometimes, tho, as in my kids case, its far better than floating around in a foster care system that routinely is far less than perfect. Open adoption seems to me to be the best option, when adoption is chosen With my kids, the rights were terminated, yet we still allowed contact when my kids started asking for it. Anything else would have been, in my opinion, a terrible injustice to the kids.
As adults, they make their own choices and they each seem to have chosen limited contact and occasional visits with siblings. They still see me as Mom and seek me out for mom stuff, holidays, lunches,time,babysitting, etc. We all know we arent blood, and mostly that doesnt matter as our relationship is what it is.
Re Grayson...This will leave a scar and I am angry that the system failed him so horribly, way back when.. He is where he belongs and where he should have been since the very beginning.
Why does this guy feel a paternal bond with a child that was born out of adultery!?!? That child deserves a loving home, and garendamntee he won't be cherished or loved in this biological house. He won't be taught the value and sanctity of marriage and something will always be missing. Just because you slept with a married woman doesn't entitle you to the result of that huge and illegal mistake. Yes he is a criminal on so many levels and unfit to be a responsible parent. It is a just as it has been said, he is after the paycheck, that is all! I love how these comments are censored, lets see if this gets posted...
ReplyDeleteJamie said...
ReplyDelete"Why does this guy feel a paternal bond with a child that was born out of adultery!?!? That child deserves a loving home, and garendamntee he won't be cherished or loved in this biological house. He won't be taught the value and sanctity of marriage and something will always be missing. Just because you slept with a married woman doesn't entitle you to the result of that huge and illegal mistake. Yes he is a criminal on so many levels and unfit to be a responsible parent. It is a just as it has been said, he is after the paycheck, that is all! I love how these comments are censored, lets see if this gets posted..."
So you think it's ok that the Vaughn's did what they did? I hear so many of you saying how horrible it is to rip a child from his "mother's arms" You do realize that is exactly what the Vaughn's did when this child was born right? They inflicted a wound on him, just as his mother did. Do you honestly think simply because they have more money and are married that it makes them better parents? If that's the case should someone take my still minor child from me and finish raising her? She of the 4.0 GPA and she who has already begun applying to colleges, she who has done better than my best married friend's daughter who is a cutter and on Prozac for her issues?
Who caused all the issues Grayson is now experiencing? Oh right the Vaughn's did that by stalling, defying court order's and refusing the mediator's suggestions. It is the Vaughn's who have caused all this. It is the Vaughn's who prolonged the litigation, forcing Ben's hand. Why do you find it so objectionable that a man would want to raise his child?
Further to your comment about deleteing and censoring comments. Go talk to Keeping Grayson Home- with the delete happy mod who can't stand to see the truth on the page. I suggest you and all of the other supporter's of the Vaughn's learn the real truth of what has gone on before you judge Ben Wyrembeck, who has every legal right to raise HIS CHILD!
So you are saying that he couldnt possibly bond with his son because he was concieved in an affair? Can a mother bond with a child under the same circumstances?
ReplyDeleteThis boy should have been legally returned to his parent, the parent that wanted him, as soon as paternity was determined.
@Jamie,
ReplyDelete"He won't be taught the value and sanctity of marriage and something will always be missing."
You are right about one thing. Grayson will be taught something. He will be taught that he is the most valuable thing in the world to his father and that his father would go to the ends of the earth and trash his (the father's) reputation worldwide to be able to take care of HIS son. Grayson will be taught that even though his parents made a mistake that it is not his responsibility to pay the price for it by being abandoned and rejected by his bio-parents and raised by genetic strangers. do Grayson will be spared the low self-esteem so common in adoptees. He will never have to wonder who is REAL parents are, who he looks like, why he was given away and if he was loved by own parents. He will not even have to suffer the indignity of a fake birth certificate.
Granted, Grayson's bio-parents might not win the "most moral people of the year" award. However, unless you have been living in a cave, people have been having sex pre-maritally and extra-maritally since time began. Would it be a better world if people only had sex in marriage? Possibly. It would be an advantage to children to always be born to a married couple in a loving, secure relationship. But you can not state with certainty that Grayson will not have a loving and stable with his natural father just because he was born from an affair.
Jamie said...
ReplyDeleteWhy does this guy feel a paternal bond with a child that was born out of adultery!?!? That child deserves a loving home, and garendamntee he won't be cherished or loved in this biological house. He won't be taught the value and sanctity of marriage and something will always be missing. Just because you slept with a married woman doesn't entitle you to the result of that huge and illegal mistake."
Jamie, as one of those "results of a huge and illegal mistake" may I respectully suggest you take your pseudo-Christian holier-than-thou attitude and stick it and your judgments into some orifice that only gets sunlight when you stand on your head at noon?
So we bastards are God's punishment for our parent's failure to live up to your hypocrisy? May I remind you that Jesus' mother Mary was not married to Joseph nor to the Power of the Holy Spirit that "overshadowed" her and led to His conception. Thus by your standards Jesus was a bastard, too.
I'm curious what foundation you have for believing that Grayson cannot be loved or cherished in Ben's home. Apparently you believe only married couples are entitled to be parents?
Go read the eighth chapter of John's Gospel, Jamie. Then tell us who should be throwing stones at adulterers.
BTW, Jamie- nothing so builds a child's self-esteem as being daily reminded by Bible-thumpers like you and the Vaughns that he is a product of sin, redeemed only by the grace of people like the Vaughns.
ReplyDeleteIf we want to get technical, Ben was not married- Drusilla was the one who violated her marriage vows by having an affair. Whose halo are you polishing?
Thank you d28bob!
ReplyDeleteLMAO!!!
@Jamie,
What Kool Aid are you drinking?
I think it is interesting that ABGC knew that BW had registered with Ohio putative father registry and as the agency that has CUSTODY of the yet-to-be-adopted child, they did not enforce their own policies. They knew BW had registered and was exherting his parental rights. They sat back and watched this unfold saying, "its outta my hands" when really it was only IN their hands. They coulda and shoulda stopped this all in the very beginning. I believe the Vaughn's did what they were told to do as did Ben. But the agency just did what it wanted to. Shame on ABGC. Why are they still open??? They were held in contempt of court and yet they sat back and continued to say it had nothing to do with them. I hope baby Wymbreck sues them (if they are still around) when he is 18.
ReplyDeleteWow, so much anger and hate on this site. I have just one question. Why do all you anti adoption people blame good people who open their hearts and homes to adopt a child. Aren't the bio parents the ones you should be pointing the finger at. They are the ones bringing children into the world that they cannot care for.
ReplyDeleteJust in case you haven't seen the news...it's over but there is a hint in the article that more could be done...sigh
ReplyDeleteUS Supreme Court declines to hear Indiana adoption case; couple surrendered boy to his father
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/031839d11a94432bb76ba8a365d0876a/IN--Adoption-Dispute/
There should be an anti- dual agent law against agencies who profit hugely from the sale of white infants. ( now that it is trendy perhaps the price of a different skin color is highly valued by purchasers)
ReplyDeleteNo infant adoption should take place without representation for the mother/father, notification to all adult kin and a clear explanation of government support that most women would choose if they knew. (Informed consent)
Also to speak about a "waiting" adopter or attacking a women's ability to parent her unborn child should be grounds for loosing a license as it is undue influence/ pressure.
As is plain to see virtually all children that are forcibly surrendered as infants are illegal adoptions.
I am fortunate my son knew intuitively that his mother did not give him up. He consistently asked about me and even told his teachers that his mother wanted him but he was bought.
My son and I are both extremely traumatized and the adopters continue to bask in their denial and delusions.
Lorraine, You are quick to describe the Vaughns as slime. Please make a note that the Vaughn's are also sueing the adoption agency because of informaton withheld from them. Perhaps you are correct the child should have been returned earlier however if you had been given the same information the Vaughn's were you may have made the same decision they did...particularly if you felt the child was endangered. How you been the least bit concerned about the child since he was given to the father. The courts have seemed to wash their hands of the situation. What if the information regarding the biological father was true...shouldn't the community been somewhat concerned and shouldn't someone be monitoring the transition for this child? As we have seen many times a biological connection is not a guarantee of a safe environment.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Anon's comment that the Vaughn's had information that the Wyrembek boy would be in danger if he was returned to his father: the Vaughn's should have passed this information on to the state Child Protective Services. If there was evidence to support the allegations, CPS could have commenced a court action to keep Benjamin Wyrembek from having the boy. Wyrembek would have had the opportunity to defend himself. Instead, the Vaughns chose to fight the case in the media, relying on it to publish only their side of the story and giving Wyrembek no opportunity to defend himself.
ReplyDeleteWhat Anon is advocating is a doctrine that would allow someone to grab a kid and keep him simply by convincing the media that he would be a better parent. Fortunately this is not the law.
Great post! Been studying adoption recently. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/adoption-by-gentle-care-an-adoption-agency-in-ohio-not-so-gentle-not-so-caring/
ReplyDeleteAdoption by gentle care has my son.
Please read.
Same agency. Help us.
Carri beat me to it! I was gong to post that this is the same agency keeping camden from her and his sibs.
ReplyDelete