We didn't write anything about this for a little while because it was all too fresh and our emotions were too high. But a few weeks have passed now, and we can talk about it and write about it without getting too upset.
Long story short: we were victims of an adoption scam.
It happened basically like this - We were sitting at home one day, watching TV, when Dana happened to get curious and checked our adoption email account. Lo and behold, there was a new email there that had been sent only half an hour ago, from someone saying that she was placing her child for adoption, and that she was due to deliver any time, and that she wanted to get to know us better.
Of course, we pounced. We were so excited! It had been months since we had any word from a birth-mom We didn't have any prospects, and were starting to get discouraged, so this email felt especially timely and like a big blessing.
Over the next two days, we had a blizzard of emails sent back and forth. The birth mom told us that her name was Baleigh, and that she was already over-due to deliver. She was in her 30s, lived in Georgia, and for sure was going to place her child, a girl, for adoption. She just needed to be sure she had the right couple, since she had been working with another couple for months and it fell apart at the last minute. Since the child could be born at any minute, she was in a hurry to get to know us.
Given the really short time line, and the limitations of emailing, we gave her our cell phone numbers and asked her to call, which she did. When she called, the number came across as blocked. We both thought that was a little weird, but didn't think anything more of it. If only we had listened to our instincts at that time.
Over the next few days we shared multiple phone calls at all times of day and night. Baleigh was obviously very highly emotional and easily offended. She was offended that Dana had a hard time understanding her strong southern accent, offended that their phone conversations were awkward. She also miscommunicated the time of a phone call, and almost called the whole thing off because we missed a phone call from her. We spent almost all of our time with her trying to calm her down and soothe her frantic emotions. This should have been another warning to us, but again, we dismissed it. We were desperately worried that some small misstep on our part would result in us not getting the child we have prayed for for years. So we did whatever we could to keep her satisfied, in spite of the misgivings we had about her. We even talked about how important it would be to give the child a home that was not as emotionally volatile as the one Baleigh would likely provide.
Meanwhile, we were rallying the troops among our adoption team, and even more troubling evidence came to light. We called our worker almost immediately after our first email with Baleigh. He wrote back the next day, and we called later that afternoon. He was excited for us, and since the time-line was so short, he was very anxious to get in touch with her so he could start making arrangements for the placement.
We then started telling Baleigh that she needed to contact our worker, and this is when things started to get even more strange. She had always been a little protective of her own information, blocking her phone number, not telling us any specifics beyond her name and email. But when we started asking her for the name of the hospital she was going to deliver at, she told us the GPS coordinates instead of the name and address. She kept referencing her supportive father in law and other family members, but never named them and wouldn't even give us the name of the town she was from. This started to seem very suspicious.
Meanwhile, we heard back from our worker again with news that was not good, but that started making more sense. He told us that there had been several families in the Georgia area that had been scammed by a birth mom called Baleigh, and that she had told them more or less a very similar story as she had told us. She never asked them for money, and her motivations could not be figured out, beyond the possibility that she is a very sick person who enjoys playing with the emotions of vulnerable people.
Armed with this information, we started trying to force a decision - either our Baleigh was the real deal, or we were getting scammed like the others. It was impossible for us to give up hope, even while knowing that we were most likely getting scammed. When you have wanted something for so long, you don't let go of the possibility until it is forced from your hands. But we did start to ask more pointed questions, and started expressing our frustration and our disbelief. The child that was supposed to be born the day before the first email was still not here after a full week, but each new day brought one more doctors appointment that could result in an inducement.
After we started firming up our expectations, Baleigh predictably responded with anger and irritation, but never provided any information. She made one final attempt to play on our emotions by suggesting that she was just going to go with another couple, because working with us had been "too frustrating." So rather than continue to work with the couple she had spent hours getting to know, she would place her child instead with someone she didn't even know.
At that point we knew for sure that she was not sincere, and that she was very very sick. Who would fake a pregnancy to take an innocent couple on a wild goose chase. Of course, we will never know what her true motives were, but we suspect that there never really was a child, and that Baleigh (if that is her real name) was running some sort of psychological/emotional scam.
We are only glad that we had a good agency who looked out for us and gave us the heads-up early enough to keep us from being even more wounded by her. We have since done everything we could to make the authorities aware of her criminal behaviors, and warn all the adoption agencies in that area that a predatory birth-mom is out there praying on adoptive parents. Hopefully she stops her terrible and hurtful deception, so that no more desperate couples have to suffer at her hands.
It probably goes without saying that this experience was very difficult for us. It hurt us exactly where we are most vulnerable. While it was going on, we had to keep brave faces and go about our lives, because most people didn't even know we were talking with a birthmom in the first place. We had many nights that we spent talking and venting our frustrations and anger together, nursing our wounds and taking care of each other, and we definitely leaned on the wonderfully therapeutic presence of our adorable beagle, Louie, who instinctively knew that we needed his wet-nose, waggle-tail form of love and sympathy. But through it all, we re-learned one thing we already knew: that we can completely depend on each other when things get tough. We never fought with each other during the whole ordeal, never lost our tempers with one another. In that way, this whole process has been a great blessing. It reaffirmed our commitment to each other, our dedication to our little family, and our ability to work together without falling apart. We love each other more, and we hope that we will now be even better parents for the child that really is meant to come into our family.
