Ron Reigns:
Welcome and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me, Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.

Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid and for yourself. Because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid and that’s not fair.

Speaker 3:
I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.

Speaker 5:
Don’t have an abortion. Give this child a chance.

Speaker 6:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I am the executive director, president, and co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency, the Donna K. Evans Foundation and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development, and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns, I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the cohost of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney, and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Today we’re going to be talking about what happens when an adoption match fails.

Ron Reigns:
Oh. Tragic.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. It is. It’s hard on everybody. It’s hard on the adoptive family, it’s hard on the agency, it’s hard on the caseworkers that had connections with both the adoptive family and the birth mother, it’s hard on the birth mother case manager. Because if this was a situation where it was known that the birth mother is not going to be able to care for the child, or the state’s going to get involved, the long-term outcome for the child, it’s a global sadness. It’s a global feeling of defeat.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And I’m going to say another Maya Angelou quote because we all know now that I love her, and this is a really good lesson to live by when you’re talking about something that is not lighthearted and fun. When she says, “I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.” I practice this every day in my life.

Ron Reigns:
Really?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes, I always have to find peace in a decision.

Ron Reigns:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And once I find peace, then I move forward and I don’t look back. And so when you have a match that has failed and you make the decision, “Yes, I do want to proceed with adoption. This was hard and this really hurt, but-“

Ron Reigns:
“And I could face this again.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct, but this is still my passion and this is still the journey that I want to travel on. Then you proceed.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We talked before also about the five stages of grief and when an adoption match does fail on behalf of the adoptive family. It’s really important to understand that these five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, are applicable in more than just death.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What’s very confusing amongst adoptive families who experience a failure of an adoption match, and again, an adoption match is a match. It is when an adoptive family and a birth mother and mutually agree upon a relationship as to where she is going to place a baby with them. This is often formalized with an adoption agency or an attorney. Paperwork is initially signed, not the final consents, but basically stating, “We are moving forward in the direction of an adoption placement.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When you do have a match that fails, it is very similar to a death for an adoptive family. It’s a death of a dream. It’s the death of all of the hopes and everything that you’ve poured yourself into.

Ron Reigns:
For some time, absolutely, right?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. And it is a loss, financially, it’s a loss emotionally, for some I’ve heard it can be a loss spiritually. It can be a loss in every aspect of everything that you’ve ever experienced, and it’s hard for people who support you on the outside who haven’t experienced this loss, because they don’t understand the right words to say. They don’t understand how to jump in and help. They don’t understand how… this was a child that you never saw. This was a child that you never held in your hands. This was a child that you had never set your eyes on, and your grief is that of losing a child. Where I’ve walked adoptive families through a failed match and it is devastating.

Ron Reigns:
It is like a death in almost every aspect, right?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. And at the same time, when you are in the throes of your worst moments, whether it’s when you first hear those words from your adoption caseworker or when you share it with the other children in your home, or when you have that moment when you sit down and it hits you like a tidal wave, you have to know that this was not what you wanted to happen, but it is part of your adoption journey.

Ron Reigns:
Certainly.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And you have to have the belief that, at the end of your adoption journey, you are going to hold the child in your arms that you’re meant to hold. I have said this countless times to families and at the end of an adoption journey, I’ve never had a family come back to me and say, “You’re wrong.” They’ve always come back and said, “It was hard to believe what you were saying was right-“

Ron Reigns:
Especially at that time.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
“But looking back, I am holding the child that I was meant to have and I had to go through that valley of despair and literally, the shadows of death just to rise again”. It is so hard at that moment to conceptualize what it’s really going to be like when you are handed your baby, and the papers are signed, and you can exhale and call that child your son or daughter, but you have to have faith in the adoption process that it will happen. Just patience and time.

Ron Reigns:
This too shall pass.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It will, and it’s really hard when you’re in the throes of it. There is an unknown author that had a really great statement on grief saying, “Grief never ends, but it changes. It is a passage nor a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness nor lack of faith. It is the price of love.” I think that’s perfect, and very applicable to what this whole podcast is about because you have to have faith, whether that is in religion or whatever you believe in.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
You have to have faith in what you’re doing and what you believe in, in order to get through those moments that are the hardest. Because if you can get through those moments, you’re going to experience the moments that you’ve been waiting for.

Ron Reigns:
Right. Now on top of faith, what else do you, as an adoption provider, what do you recommend?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I really recommend… some families say, “We had prepared ourselves for something like this happening and we absolutely want to jump right back in, and be presented to the next birth mother and we’re good, we’re solid, we’re fine.”

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And for some families, that is their way of coping.

Ron Reigns:
They’re able to do that.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And they’re able to. Other families, it hits them, like we said before, like a tidal wave. And they really need to go to counseling, and they need to find healing through a support group, through talking to other families that-

Ron Reigns:
Have dealt with this.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Have experienced the same, they need to reevaluate, “Is adoption the right choice for us? Is this really the journey that we’re supposed to be on?”

Ron Reigns:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When I used to be a school counselor, and I would get the call from the mom in the morning and she would say, “Hey, would you mind checking in on my child today? Her hamster died last night and she’s really upset, and I want to know if I should go out and buy a new hamster today, after school with her.” And my response was always, “What does your child wants to do?”

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Because for some-

Ron Reigns:
The child is ready to go and get that new hamster and others are like, “You know what, I need to get through this process.”

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
And it’s….

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. It just depends on the temperament and personality of that child. I think that some people find healing in nurturing and caring for another hamster right away, and some families may find healing knowing that although they’re no longer on the adoption path that they were on before, they’re on a different path.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And they find solace and faith in that. And so, it really depends on where you are in your adoption journey and what you’ve done to prepare yourself.

Ron Reigns:
Right. Now, for the families who are going through this, what would you say the percentage is for families who decide, “You know what, this isn’t working out. This is not for me. I’m going to end my adoption journey.” As opposed to the ones who say, “Let’s continue on.” No matter what the time-frame is.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I would say, I think less than 10% after one adoption, one failed adoption match, say, “I’m done, I’m out.” I think that those that truly say, “We had a one and done chance.” I think it’s more for financial reasons than it would be for emotional or any other reason.

Ron Reigns:
Right. It’s just we can’t financially bear this again or…

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. You know, I really think that it’s important to hear from a family that has experienced the highs and lows of adoption, and has moved forward after having a failed adoption match. And so we have a family that is going to join us. Let’s hear from them.

Zach:
My name is Zach, I’m from Kentucky, been married to my wife now for 15 years. We started dating when we were in high school, high school sweethearts, and been together and we had a great life together, there was just something missing. My wife’s a teacher, she loves children, working with them, coach’s youth sports, loved working with children too. And we didn’t have children and weren’t able to have children naturally. We had taken a spring break trip to Washington, D.C. in 2013, and on the way home we just got to talking and, you know, we’re saying that we would love to have kids and thought that we should give adoption a shot. So we came home and we started the process of filling out the paperwork, finding a local agency, doing the home visits, et cetera. We got everything finalized right before the first of the year, 2014.

Zach:
Agency sent our profile out, about three weeks later we were chosen by a local family. Baby was going to be due right around the 1st of April, Ashley and I were ecstatic, could not wait. Getting everything prepared, and then two weeks before birth the family decided they were going to parent the child on their own, and we experienced the disruption, which was a tough on both of us. Something that our agency and worker had talked to us about, tried to prepare us for, but ultimately until it happened to us, we really weren’t prepared for everything that came with it.

Zach:
So we took a little time off, sat back and decided if we wanted to continue on, knowing the possibility that that could happen again, and then we decided we were going to keep our profile open. I guess it was about August of 2014, we got a call from an attorney out of Wool, an adoption attorney. And there was a young lady that was at the hospital getting ready to give birth, and they had contacted our agency and asking if they had any open profiles for her to view, and they sent ours to. She said that she liked us, but she went ahead and chose a different family.

Zach:
The adoption attorney looked at our profile and she thought it was very strong. So, she contacted us personally, and we came up to her office right about mid-September and… she was an interstate adoption attorney, and she told us that she had contacts with, I think, 11 different states that had different agencies. So, we sat down that day and we filled out paperwork for the different agencies, and submitted our profiles once again. Then a couple weeks later we got connected with Building Arizona and got chosen by a birth mother.

Zach:
I guess we probably had our first session with our birth mother around October, we hit it off with her instantly. I’m a carpenter and in our profile book, I have some pictures of me doing work, and she said that was one thing that really drew her to us as a couple. We have a little dog and he was featured in there as well. She said she liked that, so we were matched up with her.

Zach:
We were with her probably five or six times, up until our son was going to be born in March. So we made us a reservation to come out to Arizona, we were going to get there three days early and as soon as we get off the airplane, our phone starts buzzing and they tell us to come over to the hospital, she’s getting ready to have our son.

Zach:
So we got a rental car, and couldn’t figure out how to start it at first. Got in there and drove right over to the hospital, and we got there early enough to where we met with our caseworker and our birth mother. We were able to go down and have lunch with her in the cafeteria, and get to know her a little bit, personally. And then we took us up to the floor, and we got a nesting room right down the hall from her, stayed there overnight and our son was born that morning, in Phoenix. Stayed out there 17 days with our son and then brought him home.

Zach:
That was in March of ’15. We’re raising him and then, I believe it was the St. Patrick’s Day of 2015 we got a call from Arizona, and I thought it was someone checking up, making sure everything was going all right with this. And it was asking us if we would be interested in adopted a sibling, and we took a little time to think about it, not a lot. And then we call her back and said yes.

Zach:
So we went through the process again, had us a beautiful daughter, Vivian, she was born out there in December of ’16, and we’ve had a very happy family since then. It’s been everything that my wife and I had hoped and imagined and even more. So, that’s kind of our story.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Beautiful.

Ron Reigns:
It is. And you’ve got that extra blessing on top. That’s amazing. And I know that was tough going through, but what a story. Thank you for sharing

Zach:
As far as the hard times, I mean, I think in the end, looking back on that… it’s funny we were kind of talking about this the other day, I think what happened to us happened for a reason and it has worked out just perfectly for us. And Kelly knows this, and I tell everybody when I speak at the seminars they have locally here in Kentucky, I tell everybody all the time that adoption is a roller coaster. I mean, it could go from a super, super high to a super low, but then you always come back up at the end, and then there’s no feeling like it. And I’ve got a friend that is going through a foster to adopt program here locally in Kentucky, and they just got the okay to begin the court proceedings for the TPR. And that’s what I told him. Every time I got off that roller coaster ride, I want to get right back and line and ride it again. Because once it ends, there’s nothing like it. So.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Is that your way of saying that you’re about to get on the adoption journey again?

Zach:
Well, you know… we talk about it all the time. Right now, I don’t know, between the two and the four-year-old, if we’re ready to take another one on right now.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Gotcha.

Zach:
But that’s what we say, it’s never closed for us. Jason’s a little athlete, he plays all the sports. So, he keeps us busy, and then Vivian, she’s getting into swimming and she’s at the age she can start doing all this stuff. So, we’re pretty much on the go every day, right now. I can just imagine having a third one in the mix and I don’t think that’s something we can take on at this point. I’m not saying it’s over with.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Gotcha. As a family that has gone through a failed adoption match, what is the best advice that you would give another family who’s experiencing that?

Zach:
Just be prepared for it. They stressed to us that it’s almost like losing a child, and to some degree that was for us. We went ahead and we had a baby shower, we had the nursery all ready to go, so of course we had stocked up, and we probably left the door closed on that room for three to six weeks and never went in there. But you know, like I said, that is the low end of it. Now when we got that call from Building Arizona Families, and we had been chosen again, we forgot all about that.

Zach:
Yeah, but that would be my advice. It’s going to hurt for a little while, but if you want something bad enough in life, just keep going at it, and going at it, and doing whatever you need to, and you can get there. Just through hard work, say prayers, however you want to go about it. But just stay with the program. Don’t let a disruption get you completely all the way out of it, there is plenty of time to sit and mourn a little over it, but don’t let it beat you down. There’s plenty of kids out there that maybe they’re looking for the right situation, and your family will be become that for them.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is really, really good advice, and especially from somebody who’s been through it. Is there any other adoption advice or recommendations or anything else that you have that you want to share?

Zach:
Oh, it’s just a wonderful experience for us. And I don’t want to just, like I said, paint this picture of, it’s all rainbows and butterflies, because it’s not, but I keep stressing that once you… you go through the court proceedings, and you start off filling out the profile, getting chosen, then if you’re fortunate enough to be at the hospital for the birth, that’s an experience that… it was just amazing. And then, we had the ICWA hearing, and then we get the notice that, everything’s done with that, stop and get on the airplane and… we love Phoenix, but we were out of there within three hours.

Zach:
After that, then we come back home, and we do the finalization in Kentucky, and on that day, it’s amazing that your family is whole at that time. And we celebrate our Gotcha Day with both of our kids every year, and I just want to… anybody that’s listening to this too, before we started the adoption process, my wife and I didn’t know a lot about it. We didn’t have anybody to talk to as far as… even just with dealing with the emotions of the disruption, or the highs and the lows of getting chosen and the possibility of a birth mother, or family, rethinking their decision. If you could find somebody or a group through a church, or a local organization to have a common bond with, I think that is very helpful when going through the process. Especially for the first time.

Zach:
I try to stress when I come to the seminars, to the people there and give them my phone number, that any question they have as far as that goes, or they even just want to talk or anything, I’m open to speak with anybody on it. So, you know, as far as that of my skill sets, that’s what I would have.

Ron Reigns:
Okay. Now, you said that no matter how much they tried to prepare you before the disruption, that you still didn’t feel prepared and then you say that people should be prepared for this. What would you suggest for, say, Building Arizona Families or us on this podcast or anybody? What could have helped prepare you for this a little more than you were?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
More like a bridge; like what could we do differently? What could we improve? That’s a great question, Ron.

Zach:
Honestly, when it happened with us, there wasn’t much communication between our local agency and us. It was kind of, it happened, they called us and let us know, but there was not really a… “Come in to the office, we can to speak about this, we can show you other profiles.” There wasn’t a lot of support from our local agency. That’s what I would suggest. When it does happen, and I’m sure you all do this, maybe you don’t, but reach out to them and say, “Hey, would you like to come in? Just sit down and talk to somebody about it?” That’s something that we didn’t have on end.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. And I know your disruption was with a different agency. Yeah. With our families that are local, we do provide a counseling session with one of our adoption counselors, and we do do that as well. It’s harder with our out-of-state families, because we don’t have the ability for them just to walk right in.

Ron Reigns:
And I want to commend you as well, Zach, because you speaking about this, and apparently you go and talk in front of people who are interested in adoptions, I think you’re doing something amazing in helping to prepare them for this very rough situation. We all go through rough spots in life, but it does help to be prepared, and I think you’re doing that. You’re doing your part. So good job.

Zach:
Yeah. This is something I’m very passionate about.

Ron Reigns:
Oh, obviously.

Zach:
My whole life I’ve always wanted to be a father. Building Arizona gave me that opportunity to live my dream. And when I go to the seminars or even… not even there, when I, Like I said, I’ve got a friend that’s going through the process, and I know the way that I felt once we had a child, and I just want everybody that’s there to feel the same thing that we did, our family did.

Zach:
And I know there’s people that… we went to the very first one and then they come back now and they have a child. And that’s that’s amazing too. I mean I feel just as happy for them as I do for us. There was a good friend that we had met through these seminars. She had a little more trying story than we did. We had got her in touch with Kelly and Adam, and she’s got a beautiful daughter now, and every time we come to it, our kids play together and that’s… It’s just something I’m very passionate about. I love kids, and I just feel like there’s plenty of loving families out here that will help a kid out, or vice versa, the kid can complete a family that’s missing something too.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So I guess with that, adoption does provide the rainbows and butterflies. It’s just at the end.

Zach:
Yes, yes. But it’s like I said, it’s not all that. And if it is for people out there, then enjoy that ride, because I haven’t met anybody yet that it’s been completely like that, but if it is, you got lucky with that.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Thank you, again, so much. Like I said, it was great to hear from you. We always appreciate your support and…

Ron Reigns:
Hug that family for us.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. Give them a hug for us.

Zach:
I will, and thank you all for doing the podcast. Like I said, if this was something when we were going through it, you would’ve handed me the card or you know, send it in correspondence. I would have been listening the whole time throughout our process to it as well. And I encourage anybody that is listening to this, that hasn’t listened to the previous episodes, to go back and listen to those as well, because there’s a lot of information. Not just from my side of it, but seeing the side of the birth mother, the child, all aspects of it, not only yours. So, thank you all once again too.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
All right. Thank you Zach, thank you so much.

Ron Reigns:
Thanks, Zach.

Ron Reigns:
We have a pregnancy crisis hotline available 24/7 by phone or text at (623) 695-4112, or you can call our toll-free number 1-800-340-9665. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get you to a safe place, provide food and clothing, and started on creating an Arizona adoption plan, or give you more information. You can check out our blogs on our website at azpregnancyhelp.com. Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry, and edited by me, Ron Reigns.

Ron Reigns:
If you enjoy this podcast, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And as always, thanks to Grapes for letting us use their song I Don’t Know as our theme song. Join us next time for Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m Ron Reigns and we’ll see you then.