You may have read about a prominent Dutch diplomat and his wife who “returned” their Korean daughter, whom they adopted when she was four months old. They handed the girl over to social workers in Hong Kong saying the adoption had not worked out.

In a statement published by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Raymond Poeteray — a Hong Kong-based Consul — said his daughter was “very sick,” and suffers from a “severe form of fear of emotional attachment.”

The child currently lives in a separate house, (the Hong Kong Foster system) and the entire family is in therapy.

“We tried intensive family therapy to find a cure. To our great disappointment, things didn’t get better, they got worse and the rest of the family began to suffer immensely from that,” he wrote in a letter signed by him and his wife, Meta.

“In mid-2006, on the advice of known medical specialists, professionals from the adoption organization ‘Mother’s Choice’ and the social services of Hong Kong, it was decided that in (her) interest she should be placed in a separate house and we would not be allowed to have any contact with her. The therapy for our family and our daughter continues to this day.”

I have heard of several children who have found new homes after they have been adopted from countries like Russia. I have mixed feelings about disruptions because I know that sometimes parents are doing the right thing for their children when they find the right home for them.

I have a friend who recently dissolved her relationship with her daughter, adopted from Russia two years ago. In my heart I know that it was the right choice for her, her family, and her daughter. Often, children have such special needs that can not be met in particular homes.

Is it not better to find the right home than to allow the child to suffer in the wrong one?

The mixed feelings come from parents like the Poeteray’s. Are they telling the truth when they say that their daughter was ill and unattached? Or is the an issue wherein the mother is unattached? Has a nanny cared for the child more than the mother? Did they adopt her to fill a void and not because they wanted a child? Did they ever really claim her as their child?

They seem to blame her for the dissolution but how much effort did they put into the relationship before they realized they were in trouble?

Post from: Blisstree

Disruption and Dissolution

Months later when I was sitting in a social worker’s office in Russia waiting for him to come to the room I paced nervously. How would he react to me? Would he like me? Would he let me hold him? And then I heard the doctor climb the stairs, stop and the top, set him down on the hallway floor and allow him to walk. All I could hear were two little feet paddling toward me. I looked at my husband in awe and mouthed “he’s walking!” because our social worker at home told us he was not yet. The doctor peeked around the door and AJ quietly followed her, hesitant and noticeably shy.

Our representative scooped him up and asked me if I would like to hold him.

Yes, I nodded, as I could not speak. She looked at me, never saw that I was trying desperately to hold back tears, and handed him to me. He was so frightened but he was able to loosen up the second day and get acquainted. When we returned to complete our adoption we believe that he recognized us. He immediately warmed to us and hated when we left each day, either throwing a fit with the caregivers or hitting me, a sign that he was growing comfortable with us.

When we finally left the orphanage for good he did not understand, nor did he know he was leaving but the orphanage is still in his soul, as it is in mine. A part of it will always be in him and me, just as Russia and his birth mother will be. It is where he spent over two years of his life and it has made such an impression on him that is has helped shape who he is and who he will become.

In honor of that this is what I would like for Christmas from my husband, my true soul-mate.

“The brief but effective message, “ot dushi” in modern Russian, is finely engraved in decorative Cyrillic letter forms of extraordinary complexity on this unusual ring. The letter forms are taken from a Russian Art Nouveau pattern book of about 1900, An album of Letters and Initials, by K.D. Dolmatov, in the Library’s collections; the letters are spaced around a bold contemporary ring band and separated by characteristic Russian motifs.”

Post from: Blisstree

From the Soul