Birthparents and Agency Lied About Drug Use - Weekend Wisdom

Question: My husband and I had a swift match and placement in December. When we were presented with the case, all that was reported for drug use was smoking 12 cigarettes a day. After about a month of trying to get medical records from the hospital for my pediatrician, I discovered my baby’s meconium tested positive for meth. This lab test resulted on Monday, and we were released from the hospital the Friday before, so no one told us about this result. The agency got me the medical records and didn’t mention them when sending them to me. I was also told the birth mom had prenatal care when the medical records say spotty prenatal care.     I was shocked when I came across the lab results. We met both of my son’s birth parents a couple of times while in the hospital and had good visits. My husband is usually very good at identifying people on drugs, but he didn’t suspect anything was amiss. We met our son’s siblings, and they all seemed well cared for. My son also did not appear to go through withdrawals. He was never in the NICU and was released from the hospital 2 days after birth. He was of a healthy weight and had excellent Apgar scores. I know I would have passed on this case if I knew meth was involved and so in a way this is a blessing because I love my son and am so glad we were selected to parent him, but I feel some trust has broken between us and his birth parents. I text them weekly with photos and small updates, but I can’t help but feel a little resentful (to both the birth parents and the agency). How do you suggest I deal with this situation? 

Resources:

• Raising a Child with Prenatal Substance Exposure (Resource page)
• Evaluating Risk Factors in Adoption (Resource page)
• Creating a Family Online Support Group

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome, everyone, to Weekend Wisdom. This is what we call a short -form podcast by
Creating a Family. We also have a long -form podcast where we interview an expert,
but Weekend Wisdoms are where we answer your questions. So do us a favor and please
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a comment, or review it, or comment on this one, and we will see it that way as
well. But the safest way is to email us at info @creatingafamily .org. Without further
ado, I'm going to jump into this week's question that came from Brittany. She says,
"My husband and I had a swift match and placement in December. When we were
presented with the case, all that was reported for drug use was smoking 12
cigarettes a day. After about a month of trying to get medical records from the
hospital for my pediatrician, I discovered my baby's meconium tested positive for
meth. This lab results came on Monday and were released from the hospital the Friday
before, so no one told us about the test results. The agency got me medical records
and they didn't even mention it when they sent the records to me. I was also told
that the birth mom had prenatal care when the medical records said it was spotty
prenatal care. I was shocked when I came across the lab results. We met both of my
son's birth parents a couple of times while in the hospital and had good visits. My
husband is usually very good at identifying people on drugs, but he didn't suspect
anything was amiss. We met our son's siblings and they all seemed well cared for.
My son also did not appeared to go through withdrawals. He was never in the NICU
and was released from the hospital two days after birth. He was a healthy weight
and had excellent apgar scores. I know I would have passed on this case if I knew
meth was involved. And so in a way, this is a blessing because I love my son and
I'm so glad that we were selected to parent him. But I feel some trust has been
broken between us and his birth parents. I text them weekly with photos and small
updates, but I can't help but feel a little resentful to both the birth parents and
the agency. How do you suggest I deal with this situation? Thank you as always for
your support and wisdom. Well, Brittany, first of all, I am not a mental health
provider. Let's get that out there. But it sounds to me like you're struggling
primarily with the feeling of being betrayed or lied Alright, so let's get,
let's start with more of the practical things at the beginning first. At this point
I would not worry about spotty prenatal care. Your son was healthy at birth,
fine weight, great apcar score. At this point that's something that I would just let
pass. Alright, now let's talk again from a kind of a practical standpoint about the
impact of meth, so that you have an idea of what you're dealing with. And you may
have already done some of this, you may have already know this, but the primary
impacts we see from meth are, and the short term ones, would be preterm delivery,
low birth weight, small head size, indicating poor growth, and obviously the worst
outcomes the longer during the pregnancy time that the mom used meth.
So you don't know how much he was exposed, But he has none of those symptoms. You
do need to be aware of his exposure because we do know that there are some long
-term impacts, learning issues, things like that, that can come with prenatal substance
exposure in general. And if you notice those, getting early intervention is effective.
It's a very effective way of helping these kids. So you're looking for behavioral or
are primarily developmental issues. But on the other hand, don't let it make you
paranoid. Don't look for every little thing he stutters, or he does whatever that
you're actively looking for problems. I don't want you to do that, but I do want
you to be aware. And if you see symptoms, get help and get help early. Now,
I want to also now talk about what I think is probably the underlying thing that's
propelling your question, and that is that feeling of being betrayed. And that
feeling of being betrayed will lead you to resentment. It just does. The first step
I think you do need to acknowledge, which you did in there, is acknowledge your
blessings. Your son sounds pretty darn perfect. He's like what I like to call a
Mary Poppins baby, practically perfect in every way. He seems to be doing well. He
seems to have thrived in pregnancy from all the things that we can can determine
birth weight, head size, apcar scores, things like that. But I get why you're
feeling resentment. And one thing to consider is talking with a therapist about it,
of which I am not. But if it were me, I would want to address this issue with
both the agency as well as the birth carrots because resentment will build if you're
feeling this, feeling this feeling of betrayal or feeling like you were lied to.
Let's start with the agency because honestly, that's easier. Depending on your
relationship with the agency, you could do it in writing or in person. You could
tell them that you should have been notified that this was important information and
that how you feel about the situation. You could also file a complaint with whatever
agency they are accredited under and they should be accredited. So those are the
things you could do with the agency. Now with the parents, if it were me, I would
tread more carefully. You want to preserve a long -term relationship with them.
And the reason you are approaching them, I think it's important for you to think
through, so why am I even raising it to begin with? To me, there would be two
reasons that if it were me, I might raise it. One is to air the issue so that it
doesn't fester. And it sounds to me like it's festering, so I think you will want
to raise the issue there. And the second reason you want to raise this issue with
the parents would be to get more information about the exposure, what else he might
have been exposed to, and the things that might not have been shown up in testing
a limbicone or anything else, umbilical cord blood or anything else. For example,
alcohol would not show up in those things. So those would be the two reasons that
you would want to approach the parents. And I would do it in person. I wouldn't do
it over the phone. I wouldn't do it over Zoom. You don't mention having contact
with them, but it sounds like hopefully you live close enough that you can do it.
If you can't do it in person, I guess doing something like FaceTime, but I would
really try to do it in person. And as hard as this might be, you really do need
to ditch your resentment and your anger. I understand why you have it. You were
lied to, and that is frustrating, and it's scary, and I get why you have it. But
here's the thing. You know why they lied. Number one, they were embarrassed. Parents
know that they're not supposed to use drugs in pregnancy, and they were embarrassed
and didn't want to admit it. And also, They were probably fearful that if they
acknowledged meth use, or if she had acknowledged meth use, that you would reject
the match, you would reject the placement, which you've already said you would have
done. So they were trying to protect their baby. Now, in fact, you and I could
both say, better way to protect the baby would have been to be honest, and we may
be right. But it's not like you don't know why they didn't tell you the truth. And
what you want to do is be able to say that say that what you know now and if
you feel like you have to say I'm hurt that I wasn't told the truth. But the
reason that you want to get to is I want you to know that you can trust me with
this information. You can trust that I'm not going to judge you. You're going to,
you can trust me that you could tell me things that I, it's hard information,
things that I may not want to hear because you want them to be able to be honest
with you about what was he exposed to and how often. And the reason you want this
information, you can stress to them is that this will help me be a better parent
to our son. And please share this, please, you're trying to create trust with the
parents so they will share. All right, well, good luck with this. I appreciate where
you're at and I appreciate how it is hard for you. And also congrats on your
beautiful son. So Brittany, thanks for submitting the question. I really appreciate
that too. And before everyone leaves, let me remind you that it would be very
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