A Mother of 8 Explains the Adoption Decision Nobody Talks About
Eight children. Three lost to foster care. Two abused in state placements. And one mother who decided the system would never choose for her again. In this episode of Choosing Adoption with host Donna Pope, birth parents Malena and Chuck share how they turned to open adoption to protect their younger children and keep siblings together.
When the System Took the Choice Away
Malena did everything CPS demanded and still had her son taken at birth. The federal 15-of-22-month rule terminated her parental rights, and her lawyer told her she would have kept them if she had surrendered sooner. That loss, and the abuse her older boys suffered in care, drove every decision that followed.
Choosing the Family and Keeping Brothers Together
Malena and Chuck chose Heart to Heart Adoptions and found a family committed to keeping birth parents involved. When their eighth child arrived five months early after a life-threatening pregnancy, they asked the same family to take him too. Today, they receive monthly updates through Our Hearts Connect, and the adoptive family recently visited on their own, something Malena says is better than anything she has gotten from family members who adopted her older children.
Discover what becomes possible when birth parents take the lead in choosing their child's future. Subscribe to Choosing Adoption for stories that show what open adoption looks like when families build it together.
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