Tragedy in Minnesota

Recently in the City Pages, the cover story was about Ty Mooney (my stepbrother, whom I have never met) and his wife Stacy. If you have time, you should read it in full. In case you don't have time, I will summarize.

Ty and Stacy recently adopted a little girl. It was a private adoption, and to make sure everything went smoothly, they hired a lawyer. They went along on the prenatal visits with the biological mother, they were at the hospital when the baby was born, and Stacy even was the one to cut the umbilical cord. When the baby was a month and a half old, Stacy got a phone call from her lawyer that in a half hour, she needed to meet the biological mother in the park to return the baby. If she refused, she was told she would be arrested for kidnapping. The baby was then adopted out to another family. Stacy and Ty are suing their lawyer for adoption malpractice, since he clearly did not know or bother to research adoption laws.

I hope this story is widely read and gets much publicity so that other families don't go through such a horrific ordeal. Lawyers are supposed to be experts you can trust, and these two believed in theirs. They believed he was leading them down the right path, that he was doing all he could to help protect their growing family, and that he was trustworthy and honest.

I can only imagine what Ty and Stacy felt during this ordeal. Parents deal with loss all the time; I deal with loss all the time: the loss of a pregnant belly, the loss of a chance to deliver a baby naturally, the loss of a gummy smile, the loss of a former social life. In unfortunate situations, parents must deal with the actual loss of a child. In this case, the parents have to deal not only with the loss of a child, but with the knowledge that the baby is out there, adopted into another family, being raised by other parents.

When this happened, my mom was really upset. She was the Grama, and she loved the baby. Suddenly, the baby was gone. When she told me about it, I thought the whole thing seemed fishy. How could that really have happened? When I read all the details about it in the City Pages, I was furious and terrified.

I have never gone through the adoption process, but the one thing I have gathered from people I know who have is that adopted children are as much a part of parents as biological children are. If I adopted a baby, in theory I would consider him/her to be as big a part of my life as Fox is (though I can hardly imagine loving anyone as much as Fox:)).

What must that have been like? What would I have done in that position? It is easy for me to say that if it were me, I would have done something differently, but the truth is nobody knows how he or she would react to that situation. So, I have made a plan. If someone, for whatever reason, were to try and take Fox from me, I know exactly what I would do and where I would go. None of you would be able to find me (except PV, because I told him my plan. But then I made a backup plan in case I need to hide from him). For obvious reasons, I cannot tell more details about my super awesome escape plan. Some of you may be reading this, thinking I have wound you into my little plan somehow. I assure you--none of you will be getting a call for help from me. You are all too obvious. My plan is complex, my contact people obscure, and my route untraceable. I hope I never have to use it, and I sincerely doubt I ever would (what grounds would someone have to take Fox?), but the plan is there.