Generally, in most cases of planned adoption, the birth mother makes the decision to give the child (or in this case, children) up for adoption while still pregnant. Whether the adoption is private or through a state agency, whether she meets the adoptive family or not, whether there is counseling or not (and I absolutely agree that there should be), she has thought about this decision while going through the pregnancy and has not planned to keep the children probably from very early on.
Once the child (I'm just going to go with singular here) is born, she may or may not have a period of "goodbye" time to spend with the child before the adoptive parents take the baby home. Then, most states have some form of sunset period during which she can change her mind.
However, from what I've been able to glean from the contradicting reports on this case, the birth mother had every intention of keeping her babies, however, her boyfriend at the time wanted her to give them up to members of his family. She was very ill, having suffered from extreme illness during the pregnancy and probably depressed and probably not really capable of making good legal decisions. The most sympathetic stories describe her as feeling completely helpless and facing the possibility of caring for two possibly special needs infants on her own, what with her own physical imparements at the time, she gave the babies up - 6 weeks after they were born.
Clearly, the facts are not crystal clear here. Some sites say 12 hours. Some say 6 weeks. And exactly how and when she began the process of trying to revoke the adoption is not clear either.
My guess, and this is only a guess, is that in some states the sunset provisions do not apply or are less lengthy for adoptions when the children are older. I'm not positive on that though.
But no matter how you slice it, this case is nuts.
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-05 09:20 pm (UTC)Once the child (I'm just going to go with singular here) is born, she may or may not have a period of "goodbye" time to spend with the child before the adoptive parents take the baby home. Then, most states have some form of sunset period during which she can change her mind.
However, from what I've been able to glean from the contradicting reports on this case, the birth mother had every intention of keeping her babies, however, her boyfriend at the time wanted her to give them up to members of his family. She was very ill, having suffered from extreme illness during the pregnancy and probably depressed and probably not really capable of making good legal decisions. The most sympathetic stories describe her as feeling completely helpless and facing the possibility of caring for two possibly special needs infants on her own, what with her own physical imparements at the time, she gave the babies up - 6 weeks after they were born.
Clearly, the facts are not crystal clear here. Some sites say 12 hours. Some say 6 weeks. And exactly how and when she began the process of trying to revoke the adoption is not clear either.
My guess, and this is only a guess, is that in some states the sunset provisions do not apply or are less lengthy for adoptions when the children are older. I'm not positive on that though.
But no matter how you slice it, this case is nuts.