Jessica lied to her mother and the rest of her family.
She had been hiding her pregnancy; however, this deception was not going to be possible anymore. Instead of revealing her situation, she took her four-year-old and two-year-old sons and left, telling her family she was going to school. She planned to place the baby with Wendi, never telling anyone she had been pregnant.
Wendi met Jessica through a caseworker.
Wendi didn’t want Jessica ever to feel she had been coerced.
The two women immediately felt a connection.
“We talked for hours that first night,” Wendi explained. “There was definitely a kinship, a relationship.”
However, two competing worries kept haunting Wendi–
Number 1–
Jessica could easily change her mind, and just as concerning
Number 2–
Wendi felt Jessica needed to tell her mother and make sure the birth father was agreeable to placement.
Wendi recognized that her two concerns were incompatible.
Telling the baby’s biological grandmother might increase the likelihood that Jessica would decide to parent. As Wendi became more familiar with Jessica’s family dynamics, she recognized that Jessica’s grandmother would be the most upset about placement.
The women spent a week bonding with one another and the baby.
.
“I didn’t want there to be lies and dishonesty,” Wendi said.
To ensure there was no deception, Wendi bought an airline ticket for Jessica’s mother to fly across the country and spend a week with Jessica and Wendi’s extended family.
Wendi and Jessica’s mother went to the hospital when the baby was born.
“I left them together with Janell,” Wendi said of the night after the birth. “That was the worst night. I knew her mother would talk her out of placing the baby. But I knew this was the right way. I didn’t want her ever to feel coerced or manipulated.”
Jessica and her mother flew home and left Janell with Wendi. They speak regularly.
Wendi feels the relationship has remained close because “Everything I told Jessica I would do. I didn’t blow her off.”
As an agency, we encourage our adoptive parents to, “Do everything they said they would do.”
This does not mean we become victims. There are scams out there. We don’t want potential adoptive parents to be victimized. But just like in this recent placement, we always try to love the birth family and let them know of our love.
