<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="13"> The birth parents had a change of heart and decided to keep the child.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="22"> For security reasons -- primarily a fear that a mother who gave up her child might try to make contact again -- adoptive parents asked that their home communities not be mentioned.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="53"> The woman kept her baby and the adoptive couple lost their money.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="58"> Luis and Lily Macias of AAG had two similar experiences in which the birth mothers decided to keep the children they had initially planned to put up for adoption.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="60"> "We've been advertising, networking, praying, doing anything we could.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="77"> Denice Baum's husband, David, 36, added: "We have a qualified person teach infant CPR, have guest medical speakers and guest lecturers who speak on everything from children's books to behavioral issues.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="78"> Groups like ours try and give constructive solutions, share what worked and what didn't work, and we're available to people".</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0131" num="79"> Besides support groups that generally appeal to couples adopting infants, other organizations, such as the Open Door Society, specialize in helping parents who want to adopt so-called "hard-to-place" children.</s>

<s docid="LA082090-0060" num="174"> There were complaints and lawsuits filed.</s>

<s docid="LA082090-0060" num="175"> But, Glad says, all of these "would just be dismissed by these local judges.</s>

<s docid="LA082090-0060" num="176"> The political machine was so entrenched, and so powerful".</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="25"> It is a story that has the ingredients of a Southern Gothic novel: a baby whose father dies five days before she is born and whose mother abandoned her; betrayal by relatives who placed her for adoption; a fight over an inheritance; the refusal of the legitimate son to recognize his illegitimate sibling; persistence in the face of great odds; a fortuitous discovery of a hidden document; and, for good measure, a love affair with and eventual marriage to the lawyer who helped right the wrongs.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="31"> If there is one thing Jett Williams has learned from her decision to get to the bottom of the truth about her past, it is that her efforts to establish herself as who she really is -- Hank Williams' daughter -- have been met with less than sentimental appreciation by many people, including relatives in her real and adoptive families.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="51"> In 1985, she and Adkinson had initiated legal action in Alabama and New York.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="58"> For five intense years, they have lived with the emotional repercussions of intra-family litigation.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="73"> Although her natural parents were not married, they never planned to put her up for adoption.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="74"> She was put up for adoption because of the action of her father's sister, contrary to wishes he had expressed in writing.</s>

<s docid="LA091790-0095" num="102"> Her adoptive mother found every part of her daughter's efforts toward her parents emotionally painful.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="18"> There was a time when reunions of adopted persons and their birth parents were a true novelty, a rarely publicized lost-and-found phenomenon in America.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="27"> But search advocates said the traditional stigmatic secrecy over adoptions remains massive, despite the growing acceptance of the full "open adoption" concept -- where birth parents are identified and remain in open contact with the child and the adoptive parents.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="29"> And many defenders of traditional "closed" adoptions still denounce searchers as militant malcontents who break the original pact of confidentiality, engage in extralegal search tactics and cruelly harass those who are contacted.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="32"> Fisher and other advocates conceded the potential does exist for "extreme traumatic reactions" from the persons contacted.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="33"> But, they noted, searchers themselves could also face shocking discoveries, such as finding people who are criminals or drug addicts.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="36"> In California, the advocates are backing an Assembly bill, now in committee, that would make the most vital adoption-case records -- such as original birth certificates -- available without court order to adult adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="107"> "She told me we shouldn't meet and that if we did, it would hurt her parents".</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="110"> The packet came back, the photographs and letter still in it, and with this tersely formal note from the daughter:</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="111"> Patricia: I want no further contact with you.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="112"> If I wanted contact with you, I would have done so years ago.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0168" num="120"> But basically, said McAleer, the daughter shut the door on her, indicating the adoptive parents strongly opposed any kind of contact.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="11"> The bill also would help parents find children whom they relinquished long ago and would give adoptive parents the same access to confidential records that their adopted children would be entitled to.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="25"> For many adults who were adopted, tracing their roots can be a nearly impossible task.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="34"> When Shacklett reached her child, she discovered that her daughter had been trying unsuccessfully to find her.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="41"> "Finding your birth parent allows you to become yourself, because it allows you to see where you come from," Burke said.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="43"> California judges have been reluctant to unseal adoption cases, even for medical reasons.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="44"> As a result, Burke said, adoptees are destined to uncertainty about their genetic pasts and medical futures.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="45"> The bill would make original birth certificates and court records open to the inspection of adoptees and their adoptive parents.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="48"> Opponents warn that the bill would allow an unwarranted intrusion into the lives of women and men who gave up their children years ago and do not intend to contact them.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="49"> They add that many adopted children may not want to meet their biological parents.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0124" num="54"> Parents would be allowed to sign a "reverse waiver" keeping their names confidential.</s>

<s docid="LA010690-0131" num="10"> An Aleut teen-ager lost a critical round in her unique custody battle against her native Alaskan tribe Friday when a Canadian judge ruled that she violated international law by smuggling her infant daughter to a British Columbia couple for adoption and ordered that the child be returned to Orange County.</s>

<s docid="LA010690-0131" num="12"> He said the matter should be worked out in California courts.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="17"> The pending legislation would allow records of adoptees between 1938 and 1984 to be open to adoptive parents, biological parents and, of course, themselves.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="34"> Our daughter had awakened to the fact that the answers she was giving on her doctors' questionnaires concerned her adopted parents and grandparents, but their genes and disabilities were not relevant.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="35"> Judi was having medical problems and she needed family history.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="36"> She hesitated to tell us that she wanted to find her biological mother, lest she hurt our feelings.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="64"> If I were a new adoptive parent today, I would need to know that no one could arrive at my doorstep to confuse my child, demand him or her back, or harass us.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="65"> I would also hope that biological parents could be protected from confrontation and embarrassment.</s>

<s docid="LA072290-0043" num="66"> Finally, I would wish that adopted children would be able to seek and receive the family medical histories of their birth parents.</s>

<s docid="LA061790-0048" num="14"> Author Lincoln Caplan, himself the adoptive father of a daughter, traces the saga of what is doubtless one of the most emotionally fraught of all human transactions: the transfer of a newborn from a woman whose life has no room for motherhood to a couple for whom a baby is a long-awaited miracle.</s>

<s docid="LA061790-0048" num="28"> Further, Massachusetts law requires that the mother wait four days after giving birth before signing adoption papers -- in order that she be able to change her mind.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="14"> He had been adopted by an Orange County couple who opposed her having any contact with the boy.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="27"> More than a year ago, in a letter to the attorney for Leroy's adoptive parents, she had asked if they could tell her what her son is like.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="28"> The response came back through the lawyer, an emotionless recitation of answers to her questions, numbered neatly on a page.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="52"> The chief mission of family-law courts is to create stable, loving environments for children.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="53"> But that can mean their natural parents never see them again.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="69"> In Orange County Superior Court, she filed suit against the boy's adoptive parents in a bid to see or write to her son.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="103"> One time, the adoptive mother telephoned the birth mother.</s>

<s docid="LA121089-0210" num="104"> But the call was painful.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0132" num="22"> Together, they represent a small but growing number of people involved over the last decade in the process known as cooperative adoption.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0132" num="24"> The degree of contact varies and is controlled by the adoptive parents, who have legal say over the situation.</s>

<s docid="LA052690-0132" num="30"> Supporters hail cooperative adoption as a healthy alternative to traditional adoption, a process seen as cruelly secretive and detrimental to everyone, particularly the child.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0173" num="16"> Some adoptees need to obtain vital genetic or medical background, including effects of drug abuse, for themselves and their children.</s>

<s docid="LA051890-0173" num="42"> And Tustin-based search consultant Patricia Sanders said studies have indicated that "unfavorable" reunions -- those involving total rejection -- may be no more than 5% to 10%.</s>

<s docid="LA082089-0089" num="12"> After she gave the boy up for adoption in April, her parents joined forces with the child's father, Michael Joseph Turner, in an attempt to get legal custody of him.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0096" num="7"> Two days ago a family was told they must give up their 17-month-old son to his birth mother.</s>

<s docid="LA070190-0096" num="16"> Why, after struggling for so many years and suffering disappointment after disappointment, must we be afraid that a birth mother can after six months' time (or in this instance 17 months) take our child away from us?</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0081" num="19"> He said he could not overcome opposition from adoption agencies that said many of the children for whom they have found parents have never been told they were adopted.</s>

<s docid="LA050689-0031" num="10"> A foster family that has grown attached to the boy they call Daniel is trying to block the county from placing him with another couple under a new speedy adoption program.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="42"> It started, Marci and Bob now believe, when Alyssa failed to live up to the "open adoption" visiting agreement: The first time she saw Timmy outside the hospital was when he was 5 months old.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="50"> Then, a few days later, their lawyer told them that Alyssa wanted Timmy back.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="88"> There were all sorts of red flags.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="89">. . . Alyssa wasn't ready to give the child up.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="90"> . . . And her inability to make a well-reasoned decision was just another red flag.</s>

<s docid="LA082490-0135" num="91"> There should have been better screening.</s>

<s docid="LA102390-0121" num="50"> Surrogate mothers should be accorded the same right as women who surrender children for adoption, Capron said: that is, they should have a guaranteed right to change their minds.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="12"> A battery of judges, lawyers and Los Angeles County social workers have all played a part in sorting out who will be able to call the boy their son.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="13"> Andy is the object of a bitter adoption fight that has pitted a San Fernando Valley couple, who have raised him since birth, against his 16-year-old biological mother, who lives in a group home in the Valley.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="18"> But the teen-ager, through her attorney, contends that she changed her mind about relinquishing her son just a few days after his birth.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="25"> If the unwed teen-ager succeeds in regaining her son, Andy will be placed in a foster home until she is able to care for him, court records indicate.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="29"> But taking the baby out of the only home he knows would be a travesty, said Van Deusen, who contended in a court brief that a child "cannot suddenly be transplanted like a dogwood tree".</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="30"> Further, he said, the boy could be endangered in the county's foster care network, which recently was criticized by the state for being incapable of protecting children from substandard conditions and sexual and verbal abuse.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="54"> On April 24, the distraught mother called Lindsay Kohut Slatter, the attorney who handled the placement for the couple, and said she wanted the baby back.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="73"> "On top of that, there is a need to maintain an equilibrium about the birth mother.</s>

<s docid="LA032590-0149" num="74"> It's important to maintain positive thoughts about the birth mother.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0123" num="10"> In an unprecedented case that raises new questions about the rights of surrogate mothers, an Orange County woman who agreed to carry another couple's child filed suit on Monday, claiming that she should keep the baby even though she has no genetic link to it.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0123" num="23"> But no law exists to assure the couple that they can claim the baby once it is born.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0123" num="26"> Johnson claims that their actions amount to "fetal neglect," and feels that she should keep the child.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0123" num="61"> Van Deusen said that regardless of who is deemed to be the baby's parent, custody will be awarded by a judge who must determine what is in the best interests of the baby.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0032" num="11"> In an unprecedented case that raises new questions about the rights of surrogate mothers, an Orange County woman who agreed to carry another couple's child filed suit on Monday claiming she should keep the baby even though she has no genetic link to it.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0032" num="24"> But no law exists to assure the couple that they can claim the baby once it is born.</s>

<s docid="LA081490-0032" num="62"> Van Deusen said that regardless of who is deemed to be the baby's parent, custody will be awarded by a judge who must determine what is in the best interests of the baby.</s>

<s docid="LA101090-0127" num="21"> Parslow Jr. is confronted with an unprecedented decision: does the baby have two parents -- the Calverts -- or three, including Johnson? A three-parent ruling could redefine prevailing legal definitions of parenthood.</s>

<s docid="LA092890-0154" num="37"> Harold F.</s>

<s docid="LA092890-0154" num="38"> LaFlamme, the baby's court-appointed lawyer, said even more profound civil rights questions would be broached if the judge rules that all three adults have parental rights.</s>

