Blog-Gag-Me
Back by unpopular demand, we bring you another edition of Blog-Gag-Me. Readers have sent us (and we have happened upon) so many adoption blogs and blog entries that are offensive, dangerous set-ups for the children, unethical, illegal and/or crazy that it exceeds our FacePalm capacity. [Edited to add Child Collector and/or Red Flags]
One
Hat tip to a new PAP reader. Anyone who questions the motives of this AP is a “loser” and she will turn you in to the FBI! if you attempt post your honest, disagreeing opinion on her blog, so you should post here instead, I guess. Losers “Go get a real life and stop being jealous of mine! ” 
Also in 2012, they adopted *2* unrelated at once from Ethiopia and the orphanage was already telling the older girl that the baby boy is her brother-even though they were not adopted yet. Infant referral “add on” in late 2011. 
Excerpts:
“We saw the picture of our daughter on a waiting child website. Yes, she is about 8. Yes, that’s older than what we were considering. Yes, she is a girl, and we told ourselves it would be another boy. But, we couldn’t say no to this striking beauty. So, we accepted.
Our agency told us it would be about a 2-3 month wait for a referral of a baby boy. We decided to adopt one now because it is much more affordable and feasible to adopt two at once than two separate adoptions. Plus, I think Tom might leave me if I suggested adopting again in a year or two. 🙂 So, we decided to adopt a baby boy also, even though it would mean about an additional $12,000 after foreign fees, plane fare, visa fees, Embassy fees, etc. But, we had faith… ”
“I answered and the woman identified herself as our adoption coordinator. That’s how new we are to this agency. I hadn’t even spoken to our coordinator yet.
She flat out said, “We have a baby boy that we’d like you to consider adopting. In fact, we waited to present him to you because we wanted to make sure he was at the same care center as your daughter.” Yep, she has been helping to take care of him. Once we send in the official paperwork, they will tell her that he is her baby brother. He will have someone there loving him every day. Helping his tiny body get stronger. Showing him the love that we cannot give him right now.
We have a baby boy. He is two months old. His name means “world praise.” And, baby, you were meant for us all. ”
Our reader was particularly upset about their pursuit of two children when they are still settling in two unrelated special needs children that they adopted from the Ukraine in December 2010. Sunday snapshots she jokes “Someone had several gigantic meltdowns, and I thought about leaving him with the elephants! 😉
Two
This person has been featured in two Montana articles, adopting from ET with fundraisers. They seem to KNOW that sharing photos is illegal as their November 2011 post says, yet we don’t think they understand that fundraising for an Ethiopian adoption is illegal. They still need $15,000 to complete their adoption and don’t have a court date, yet “The orphanage has now told him we are coming for him and we can start to communicate with him more now.”
A couple of excerpts from that Nov 2011 post:
“After a long break of blogging we are back! We had to disable our blog at the beginning our adoption journey due to strict limitations from the Ethiopian government on what is allowed. We are excited to again be sharing our journey with you. We have been so thrilled with the amount of love and support our friends and family have given us so far and overwhelmed with the response of many wanting to follow our journey….so here it goes! We can not mention the names, sex or ages of the children we are in the process of adopting or share any photos 🙁 but most of you by now know a bit of our story and know the details of the kiddos God has asked us to have join our family. We are currently finishing up our home study and beginning the overwhelming process of collecting our dossier. (A huge number of papers and documents that will be sent to the Ethiopian government through our adoption agency.)”
” Also our church is just finishing up a series called Kingdom Come which focuses on our need to help and love the poor, needy, widows, orphans and those left behind. At the beginning of one of our services many families with us included shared a little of our adoption story. Ours is through the lens of Chase as becoming a big brother and acquiring siblings. ”
Three
Hat tip to our reader. They have 5 children, one who needed a fundraiser to be adopted and are adopting one more but again do not have the money. They claim that they have all postadoption expenses to raise the special needs child, though.
Excerpt from their blog:
“Inevitably fundraising is one of the first issues that comes up in an international adoption. For us, it is the most daunting part of the whole journey. We are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. But we are blessed and have so much to offer our children and another sweet little one. We have no problems caring for the 5 children we have here at home. One of our children has HIV and she is receiving top notch medical care. There is absolutely no concern about being able to care for V or her medical needs once she is home.
However, we do not have $25,000 at our disposal to go to her to bring her home. We do not have a retirement or savings account to pull from. We do not have a relative as a possible back up. We can not borrow against our home thanks to the housing crash. We were audited last year and (thanks to a misunderstanding of self employment status) we owe enough money to not be getting a refund on our taxes this year. We can not even hope to get a loan right now.”
Fundraising is NOT inevitably what first comes to mind in a international adoption.
Our reader states “They’re looking for “sponsors” since they have no $$ to adopt, no emergency fund, no retirement savings, and cannot borrow against their house due to the housing crash. Oh and owe a ton in back taxes!!!!
No safety net at all. First adopted kid not remotely settled in yet. This is a recipe for disaster!!
Why why why do people sign off on these folks homestudies? Or give them $$? It’s a disaster waiting to happen!!”
Four Through Seven
Four
The motherlode of all blogrolls….the self-described “Megafamilies” Though the title says that it is a list of bloggers with “7 to 37 children.” , there is one that has adopted 53 children with 3 pending. There are 270 bloggers listed. Not all have adopted children.
“Thanks for your visit!
100% of the proceeds from this blog (via your daily visits, clicks, and purchases) go to the support of a proselyting missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Thank you very much for your visit today!”
Lots of children + Proselyting.
Five
“57 year old happily single mother of 39 young’uns… ages 9-38.” 20-something of them are adults.
Six
- The blogger with “31 kids” actually has a slew of helpers All Our Boys and she really has adopted 53 kids with 3 pending. According to their FAQs “
How many children have you adopted?
I have legally adopted 53 children. Three adoptions are still pending and should be completed by the end of this year. This will be a total of 56 children adopted. One additional child I will be able to take guardianship. Of my adoptions and pending adoptions, ten of the boys were adopted internationally. Additionally, ten of the children’s adoptions were private adoptions and eight of those were children who had disrupted from families who had previously adopted them. The other children were adopted through Department of Social Services, primarily from California. ”
“What size home do you have?
I currently have two homes, next door to each other. One home has is currently a nine bedroom and five bathroom two-story home with a residential elevator. The other home has six bedrooms and three bathrooms. I am in the beginning stages of adding an additional bedroom, bathroom, and a music room sound studio. We hope to have our plans approved by the city during the summer of 2011 and begin construction on the fall of 2011. ”
“How do you afford to provide for your large family?
I run a small business called “First Step Supported Living Services.” This business helps adults with developmental and other disabilities to live in their own homes in the community. From this business I am able to pay myself a small salary. Additionally, some of my children are eligible for the Adoption Assistance Program (AAP) which provides both medical insurance and a monthly stipend to provide for each eligible child’s unique needs. Thankfully, AAP is an available resource for most children to the age of 18 (and in some cases 21) who were adopted through the foster care system and are considered to have “special needs” which include older children, sibling sets, children with disabilities, children whose bio-parents have an adverse background, and children of varying ethnicities. AAP was established as a financial incentive to encourage the adoption of children with special needs who otherwise would not have found adoptive families. Besides this monthly stipend, some of our adult children with eligible receive SSI benefits. Our family also receive respite services for the Regional Center of Orange County for some of the children still living at home. Basically I try to tap into every generic financial resource available to my children and my family. Additionally we have periodically received donations through our non-profit organization that we use to off-set the costs of camps and other recreational programs for our boys.”
Seven
- 26 children and wondering where the money to raise them will come from. Blessingsx21
“Thursday, April 12, 2012
Faith
At times I wonder if my faith is where it should be, yes, we did step out in faith to add three amazing children to our family and anxiously await their arrival. But, as we greatly lack the funds I wonder if I am also lacking faith and that would be the reason we are also lacking the needed money to pay our fees. We don’t doubt for one single moment that God led us to these children but the discouragment of needing to pay our fees is over powering my faith. We have sold our basketball goal, our puppy, and our treadmill in the past week, how very thankful we are that God provided individuals to purchase these things, this money is going straight to our adoption fund.
Please pray with me that I can give our adoption over to Jesus, totally and completely and have the faith that He will provide. ”
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