I have a friend who is going through something terrible. I'm going to give her history, even though she is not the main subject of this post, just the jumping off point. And also because she needs help and is one of the most terrible people at ASKING for help, because she's so mortally embarrassed about the whole thing.
I first "met" her online (though I've met her several times now) when Darkship Thieves came out. Which I think --though I could be wrong-- is when she found me. Weirdly, she didn't send me a fan letter, but instead asked if she could post in my facebook conference a plea for help for a neighbor who was a disabled veteran with no family and was having some health problems. She was helping as much as possible, but she had almost no resources, since she was either studying or had just finished nursing school. This is by the way of giving you an idea of her character. This is what impelled her to write "big writer" (I'm not, but at the time, before the blog, I seemed even more remote, I guess?) and ask for help.
I'm not going to say she is a saint. She can be salty, and sometimes hot tempered. But she and her then husband-to-be are basically, fundamentally, good people. So good, as you will see if you follow their Give Send Go Link, that we trusted them with two of Miso's kittens, Bruiser (now renamed Ranger) and Banshee.
Even before they were married, I knew they wanted a large family. I didn't know that Amanda had had her tubes tied, before legal age in what I can only term an inexplicable act of parental and medical malfeasance. (I'll just say she's the vanguard of a lot of very hurt people. I'm sure if she were fifteen years younger she'd have been put on puberty blockers.)
Unfortunately she found the sterilization couldn't be reversed, so having babies became a matter of harvesting eggs, creating embryos and implanting them, which required them to have the sort of medical insurance that would cover some of it, and the money for the rest Which meant waiting far too long, until it was an unlikely endeavor, due to her age.
Last year they tried and spent all their savings. They got two "viable" embryos, which is a shockingly low number. The one implanted didn't take so they have one remaining. They are trying to take care of some remaining issues to give this little snowflake baby (frozen embryo) a chance at life. (Note that the chance of success is about 20%. Still worth it.) The problem being they're all out of money. I had to kick them, screaming, into putting up the GSG.
Note, though THIS ISN'T US ASKING FOR HELP. WE'RE SHUFFLING THINGS AROUND AND I ACTUALLY MADE MONEY LAST YEAR, FROM AMAZON. AND I NEED TO WRITE MORE: We're very tight right now because of the watermain break, which involved breaking up part of a concrete foundation (but not to the house) and other exotic amusements just to get fixed, and for other reasons, which took up most of my income for the last year, but when I told my husband the knife I was about to plunge into our bank account for their GSG he didn't even flinch "Do it. Poor kids." So, I consider their cause very worthy.
So worthy that I linked it at instapundit.
I never read the comments at instapundit. If I did, I wouldn't be able to continue posting there, both for time sink reasons and because it would corrode my soul.
However friends have reported the comments are full of "Just adopt" and "so many children need homes."
And I see it's time, once again, to turn Heinlein's picture to the wall, roll up my sleeves and speak frankly.
WHY ON EARTH WOULD PEOPLE ASSUME THE ADOPTION PROCESS WORKS WHEN ANYTHING ELSE THE GOVERNMENT DOES IS A FLAMING DUMPSTER FIRE? WHY WOULD THEY ASSUME IT'S NOT INFECTED WITH DEI AND WORSE? WHY?
As with student loans, as with everything else that the government has got its dirty mitts into, I find a lot of people have a rose-colored idea of what goes on in realms they never had anything to do with and don't understand.
I suspect if most people actually knew what is going on with children: CPS, fostering, adoption, etc. etc. etc. there would be torches and pitchforks. In fact I suspect that's true if they really understood student loans; what's being done to the job market, particularly for youth; youth labor laws; schools, etc. etc. ad nauseum. (And trust me, the nauseum applies.)
I haven't had recent experience of any of this, but I have seen young fans go through this, and I know it hasn't gotten better. It MIGHT have gotten exponentially worse, but it's hard to tell because at some point you hit infinity, and how much worse than infinity can you get. It was already a horrible system for mothers, fathers, babies and everyone.
Lately there has been a ridiculous upswell of anti-IVF on the right because of various misconceptions, including what IVF is, what surrogacy is, etc. BUT ALSO this idea that babies are just waiting to be adopted, and if you only weren't so h*ll bent on having your own genes you could just adopt, and it's so much cheaper, etc.
All of this are fantasies. And those comments tempted me into doing something I never like to do and speak of my own life, particularly very private parts of my own life here.
When I got married at 22, we wanted a very large family. For whatever reason I was fixated on "at least eleven children" though I was willing to take more, if they were given to us. We were "careful" for a year, while we frankly got used to each other, since we'd dated mostly by phone and letter. Only not that careful, because we wanted kids. And frankly, being young and ADD the only reason we didn't have a honeymoon baby is because... I turned out to have the fertility of a small rock.
I've only recently identified what I think caused it, and this is based on a bunch of things, including an episode (months long) of unexplained body-bruising (like, bruises just appeared randomly all over my body) in my late teens. If I'm right, my issue, never really diagnosed (though there were guesses, but those were more on the symptoms and treating the symptoms) is an auto immune disorder (natch) that attacks pregnancy hormones. One of the clinchers on this is that the way to defeat it is to get supplemental pregnancy hormone from the moment of conception (and that means guessing, because you can't tell. You can just tell there was a chance.) And that if you defeat it, you'll have pre-eclampsia.
The symptoms... My cycle went from absolutely regular -- 28 1/2 days -- to being 40 or 45 days one month, 14 or 15 the next. This came with uncontrollable weight gain, and um... exponential breast growth.
For six years. There were days I got my period, at 45 days, and cried for the next two weeks, because I'd been hoping and dreaming.
After a year and a half we sought help. Because at 24.5 a year and a half is a long time not to be able to conceive.
We found and shook out a bunch of other little things. Despite being regular, my ovulation wasn't. So for instance, child one was conceived on the 27th day of my cycle, Second child on the... 4th? None of this makes sense.
Also I'm more neurotic than a shaved cat and episodes of anxiety translated to my period arriving because why not.
Now, various religions -- including mine -- have problems with at least part of these processes, and I was lucky we never needed IVF, though we skirted the edge of licit (in our religion) with what we needed. And I was desperate enough to do IVF, etc. if we could have afforded it. However, even back then, it was as far from our grasp as the moon from the Earth.
When we sought help for infertility we found that at least in the eighties, in Charlotte NC, most infertility doctors were the least sympathetic bunch of loons I ever dealt with. All but one.
Anyway, the ones I went through, besides bizarre and dehumanizing exams and tests and "therapies" that made me feel like a malfunctioning machine, were full of advice.
My favorite was the guy who told me all Portuguese people were infertile. (WHAT?) And then there was the one who told me G-d knew why he didn't give me children, and if we adopted we should get a severely disabled child, so we couldn't screw him/her up more.
All of them were interested in one thing only: Doing a laparoscopic exam for endometriosis. This was the hotness in the eighties, because most people looking for help were mid thirties to forties, and relatively well off two-income couples and because the exam was new. I no longer remember what it cost. My memory insists it was 20k, but I actually doubt it. It was probably 5k. At any rate, back then we made 20k a year. 25k if I was working. So either amount might as well be "the pound of flesh closest to your heart" for our ability to pay it. Also, though I know younger women can have endometriosis, it was highly unlikely at my age and history. But most of the doctors, once they found out we couldn't afford that, told us they couldn't do anything else.
Needless to say, meanwhile I was reading books on infertility left and right. And eventually in one of them found a mention that one of the best infertility doctors for desperate cases (which due to age and long-trying we qualified for) lived in Charlotte, NC. I called, and scheduled an appointment. I'll point out parenthetically that this was the ONLY female doctor for female issues I ever found who was competent and a decent human being. Most of the female doctors in this field are far worse than the males. This is MY experience, note, and I don't claim it's universal.
Anyway, Dr. Hoover was an amazing doctor, the kind you can talk to, and who goes "Oh, okay, no that theory is crazy" but doesn't hold it against you. And if the theory wasn't crazy, she would try things.
I thought what I had was a short lutheal phase, so she went "what the heck" and gave me hormones, starting the day I could have conceived (and to ensure I did, she did IUF (intra uterine fertilization.) Though there was also opportunity for natural conception. However, she wanted to make sure it "got there." The possibility was for "false pregnancy." But in fact when we had the ultrasound at 8 weeks, it showed 10 embryos. Which in turn set of a panic, as they wanted us to reduce, etc. But a month later there was only one. That was likely due to pre-eclampsia and a whole different ball of wax. We won't go into that portion of it.
Instead, I want to point out that as 20 somethings, really tight on money, we were spending $500 a month in an attempt to have children.
DO YOU THINK WE DIDN'T LOOK INTO ADOPTION?
We did. Both before older son and after, when his brother -- miracle child -- made himself waited a mere three and a half years, and after younger child, when we continued to have no luck while actively trying to conceive for SEVENTEEN YEARS. (I told you we wanted a large family, right?)
Though I will admit, once we had the second we didn't push into what it would take to adopt quite as assiduously. For one because we already knew it was hopeless. For another because I was leery of the intrusion it would entail.
Hopeless? Intrusion?
Pull up a rock.
Back when we started looking into it, in 86? 87? I had the same idea most people do. There are all these kids being moved through group homes and foster care, in the hope of adoption, but no one will adopt, the heartless cads, preferring to spend hundreds of thousands on IVF or even inexplicably adopt abroad. (Though that seems to be less now, for various reasons. Mostly ours and their governments.)
The truth... we went to various meetings, read everything we could on the process, talked to people who had adopted or were in the process.
The idea of us adopting was... hopeless:
1- we were too young, and only one of us worked. We weren't judged "stable" enough. Ultimately? We didn't make enough money. There was a minimum to even apply.
2- we didn't have enough money. To even enter the process for adopting you needed to pay money to go through things like "home study" etc. We didn't have the money. And later on you'd have to pay court fees, etc. I THINK -- again, it's been a long time -- fourteen thousand dollars? Something like that. No way did we have that. Our savings were negative at the time, but anything we managed to sock away was "to buy a house."
3- we were the wrong race.
Now here people will rant and rave about how most kids needing adoption are black or Hispanic, but most adopters are white, and "waiting for a white infant" because they're obviously "racist."
Pardon me, it only hurts when I laugh. I'd have taken a child of any tone or description, BUT THE SYSTEM WON'T ALLOW IT. The system is designed to place the children with people perceived as being the same race. And even though Hispanic is not a race but a culture, my culture wasn't close enough. And even though I have more than the required drop at the time I couldn't prove it (And I'd have claimed it for a kid. Even though I don't, because I don't have the experiences.) As a "present white" couple, we just weren't allowed to adopt ANYTHING ELSE. Weren't ALLOWED. Wouldn't even be considered.
Heck, we wouldn't even be considered for disabled babies or toddlers. We would be considered for older children, but we were in our mid twenties. We weren't qualified for older children. And frankly, I still wouldn't take anyone much older than 3 because I know how children develop, and the depth bombs that can be buried, even though the person no longer remembers them. Losing a child because of trauma inflicted before we got him/her or because we weren't qualified to raise someone almost our age was not acceptable.
So the other advice we got was to foster-to-adopt. But there again, you had to be willing to do this, with the possibility when you started the process to adopt the kid would be yanked from your house and you could never contact him/her again. Or the possibility his/her say incarcerated natural parent would suddenly claim to have found Jesus, get parole and take them back.
I don't know in what percentage of cases this happens, but the fact it happens at all -- the fact that manifestly unfit parents are given "back" infants or toddlers they haven't seen since the day of their birth because our child services worship Rosseau and think there's something special to the "natural" link -- made me unable to do it, because I'm more neurotic than a shaved cat.
This left private adoption. We did tell people (And for the love of heaven, even though we're now grandparent age, if you're a hun who finds herself in that bind, do not abort. We will take the child. We'll figure out the financials to make it legal.) and put out feelers, but one child she decided on abortion (long story) and one the mother decided to keep.
Things we hadn't even considered at the time, because we couldn't, because we didn't have life experience, but which, now, having dealt with schools and assumptions of officialdom about our child rearing, are the fact that after adopting, even foreign or private adoption (I think) you lay yourself open to scrutiny by the government busybodies, who can yank that child from your house for any reasons or none, after you've been his/her only parent for life.
I wouldn't put it past, in the current environment for "you don't vote for democrats" or "we don't like your yard signs" to be a reason to take your child away. You know they've convinced themselves we're all secretly horrible people, anyway. What about being a sincere religious person? You think that won't turn CPS against you?
As an example of our brush with stupidity, they tried to start the process to take younger son -- born very much to us and our genetic child -- away because he had a speech impediment and a problem paying attention (both proceeding from a hearing issue), which they -- using their powerful intellects and no information, not even casual query beyond his PRESCHOOL TEACHER'S OPINION -- determined came from us speaking exclusively Russian at home. This was revealed to us when we fought back. We had to break it to them, not only didn't either of us speak Russian, Dan speaks only English and bad public school French, and I speak only English except for the weekly call to mom, when I speak Portuguese (and the guys amused themselves pretending to understand.) BUT NO ONE HAD ASKED. AND THEY'D STARTED OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS to first take his education out of our hands, and eventually the child. (That was fun to fight. BUT we ended up diagnosing and fixing his unusual hearing issue.)
After that, and knowing the possibilities, we remained registered with our church should they absolutely need a family for a child. (We did get a pint the one year it was absolutely impossible and when we were unlikely to get approved as we were over 50, but that's something again.)
It never happened.
It never happened because it's almost impossible. Yes, there are children in need of good, permanent families. There are families willing to give them homes.
But the government is standing between and making it almost impossible for the two to meet, and also bleeding them of money when they do meet, to the point you have to be well of to do it.
People aren't undergoing dehumanizing exams and treatments that cost the Earth or adopting abroad (when it was possible) because they are heartless loons, but because it's almost impossible to adopt. And when you do "adopt" it's conditional, and your child could be yanked from you for years.
Now, would too loose an adoption system have issues? Likely. There are nefarious actors abroad.
Would it have more issues than this?
Look, it's almost impossible.
I hate to say it, but there is no perfect system. Children will be harmed either way. But this system seems to harm children UNIVERSALLY, instead of the rare case.
And it was created by a combination of wanting to avoid the occasional bad outcome for a child (a laudable goal) and wanting to keep the iron rice bowl of CPS bureaucrats filled (A far less laudable but predictable goal.) The result is a inhumane meat grinder that ends with many miss-placed, often dead children. And with decent, middle class, not wealthy Americans balked of their chance at parenthood.
Now you know.
In any such case where people are doing what seems oddly expensive/harmful/irrational, assume the system is borked. Because every official system, in which the government has ANY hand is borked right now.
Fixing it is going to take things getting much worse. Which will hurt more people but seems inevitable.
And that's the times we live in.
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