[chrisandaaron]

I was just wondering how many failed matches you all had before successfully adopting? We have had 2 since last December. In both we were basically ready to pick up the baby when we found out that their mother's changed their minds. I know failed matches happen all the time, but I just wonder how long it took everyone else.

Thanks,
Chris

[jheald]

Chris,

It really just varies. Some people never experience a fail. Personally we had four and our agency said we went through more than most families. Only one of them was a situation where we were really attached emotionally. Thank goodness because it was just heart wrenching. The others were definite disappointments, but nothing like that first one!

Good luck!

Janet

[LisaCA]

hi,

we didn't have any failed matches, but we were prepared (somewhat) for at least one. We were matched with a teen, and they have higher decide-to-parent rates.

the rates are as individual as paparents and pbparents. it doesn't have anything to do with you, I suspect it just sometimes feels like it. Any parent can look at their newborn child and, whatever decisions they'd made in the past, all disappear. that decision to place has to be made several times, including in the hospital.

we've made some decisions to protect ourselves emotionally with adoption number two (that we hope takes place next year), but at some point you have to just jump in and take the risk. I think, for example, that we'll just ask for a short match, that is only match with a mom who's at least 7 months. that way we won't have that major emotional investment. that said, there is an emotional investment that happens no matter what, and that can be hard to deal with. by the luck of the draw we missed a failed match this time, but each adoption is different, and each match is diff. a little has to do with pbmom's counseling, whether all her options were explored with her, etc, but there's that time in hospital when she looks at her newborn and has to make that final decision.

i've heard of folks on this board with up to four failed matches, but for every one of them there are several like us who had no failed matches (so far). I think it's just something that's out of our hands and up to the pbirthparents.

I wish for you a successful match and placement soon,

Lisa

[chrisandaaron]

At this point I'm really not discouraged by our failed matches. I know the right one will work out at the right time. I just wondered what everyone elses experience has been. I'm curious as to how many people adopt without failed matches and how many experience more than one.

Thanks for sharing,
Chris

[tobeafamily]

We didn't have any like yours, our friends though had four failed connections, all after birth, the last one being a little girl they brought their son in to see at the hospital.

Their second son "C" is now one year old. He came to them three months' after the last failed placement.

BTW "C" is a testimonial to answering the phone if you advertise. Our friends' had an ad in the local paper. They were the fifth ad in the paper that day. C's bmom had given birth on a Saturday. Sunday morning she called every single ad in order to see if they wanted to parent her child. Our friends - holders of the LAST ad in the paper that day - were the only ones who answered their telephone.

Regina

[SadieAnn]

We had a failed placement (parented for several wks) before we brought home our son.

In our counseling group I know of one other couple who also parented a baby for @ 10 days before it failed (2nd placement was successful). And there were 3 other couples who had at 1 or 2 failed matches and are still waiting. Then 1 other couple is in a long drawn out battle with bdad for their daughter who is now @ 9 mos old. So from "MY" personal experience and exposure to other couples, failed matches seem frequent. But I believe ultimately if you stick in there, your baby will find you.

[Casey677]

Hi! We had two failed matches. One failed long before birth and the other failed in the hospital after we had spent three days loving him. After that experience, our vulnerability let us walk right into a situation with an emotional scammer. Yuck!

After 13 months, dd was born

Casey

[sugarbabysmommy]

We only had one match and it was with babe's birthparents. It took us 2.5 years to match. We had maybe twelve solid contacts in those years, and yes we did our own networking/outreach in addition to our agency's advertising/outreach. We came close to matching a few times, in some cases the eparents chose other couples and in one case we declined a match.