I have talked about international vs domestic in past posts. I have not really gone into why international is our preferred method. I would say that I don't like it when people think just because we are adopting, we should do it from America. Sure there are plenty of children out there. If they are so concerned to make that comment, maybe they should adopt domestically. We can say been there done that.
I did not want to rush into this. We have wounds that are healing. We were foster parents for a couple of years. We had plenty of children come in and out of our house. When they just come in and take them to a new place, it is like your child has died. That is unless you have not bonded with the child. Some disorders may make you happy when they move on. They can be destructive. If you are looking towards social services to fix what they destroyed, keep looking. From what we heard, once you take in the child they are your responsibility.
Our last child turned out to be our first child adopted. She came to us a child in need of care. We did the best we could with the disorders she has. As she grew older, she became more aggressive. Doctors gave her medicine. They worked for a while. But as her body grew, the meds seem to wear off. We went to the doctors because she was becoming violent. At first, they decided to change her meds. When you play with these kinds of meds, you have to be careful. The doctor should ween the child off one med to switch to another.
The biggest problem is that your child will be off a med that controls her aggressiveness. We would have to deal with issues. Then, the meds they would put her on, may or may not work. One med would give her nightmares, another med had the opposite effect. Instead of calming her down, it would make her super aggressive. These meds would also create things that were not there, like tics and picking at fingers.
As it got worse, we started to look for outside help. Then, our doctor decided that they did not want to see her. We had to find a psychiatrist who could dispense psychotropic drugs. Luckily, we found one. Another issue she had was her insurance. Since she was from fostering, she had Medcaid coverage. It is really hard to find doctors that accept this insurance. If they do, there is a waiting list to get in.
The violence started to get worse. We had police and emergency services visiting about every other day. This would usually be followed up with a Baker Act. She would end up in a behavioral facility for a couple of days. They would monitor her, but they would not alter her meds. We kept going back and forth.
One time, she had been taken to the hospital after a violent outburst. The nurse at the emergency room tells Angie "Why don't we just give her back to the state?" Angie gave her a piece of her mind. I think the nurse was even written up. A couple of weeks later, this nurse and a doctor friend of hers call DCF (Department of Children and Families) and filed a complaint on us. At around 3:00 am, we get a knock on our door. It was an investigator. She starts questioning us. As I listened, I felt she was asking leading questions. These questions were trying to paint us as having Munchhausen disorder. I don't see how they could assume this when it was our daughter who was beating everyone up.
We did get a subunit of DCF to assist us, but they were no help. They talked us into changing her insurance and when we did, we found out that the insurance was not accepted at the behavioral hospital. They did not offer much assistance. I even questioned why they were "helping" us. Everywhere we looked, we could not find help.
Wouldn't you think that the state would have some kind of program that helps children in these situations? They did not. We did not get the help we sought after until our child attacked Angie and almost killed her. Then she went on to tell people that that was what she was doing. She wanted mommy to take care of our dog in Heaven. She did not understand that if she did that, she would not be coming back.
Finally, the DCF declared an emergency. They found her a hospital and are paying for it. We could not afford that kind of care. We still visit her every week and call her all the time. She is still our child. We love her. The DCF felt she was a danger to herself and others.
This is what can happen. It's not just domestically. My main issue is that the system did nothing to help us until someone got hurt. They even tried to blame us for our daughters aggressiveness. Our international adoptions have not had these types of issues. Sure we have some hiccups, but we are getting them therapy.
Given a choice of adopting internationally or domestically, I go with international. That is our choice. I am not preaching that everyone should do it. But, if you do adopt, do the homework. You will save yourself from the surprises that might accompany.
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