Farai Chideya endures 3 adoption failures: NPR

Farai Chideya wanted to become a mother. Five years and $ 50,000 after starting this quest, Chideya still has no children, but has learned a hard lesson about the ills of the American adoption system.

Three times, Chideya was paired with a child and three times the mother changed her mind.

The journalist, author and presenter of News & Notes for NPR, wrote a personal essay in Zora, Medium's platform for women of color, recounting her pain in the journey to motherhood.

For nearly a week, Chideya thought her dream had come true, but six days after the birth of her first twinned child, Chideya remembers the anxiety of returning the baby to her mother.

"So to the baby, I called Oliver and the other two boys, I told them," Good God and sleep well, "writes Chideya in the essay entitled" Excuse me, can I raise your child? "

"Your mothers are all women who have chosen not only to love you, but to take care of you, layer after layer, night after night, night after night, salary between paychecks." Keep them as close as possible because they made a difficult decision in a very rich country that does not take care of their families. "

Highlights of the interview

By making his first child matched

It was a beautiful little boy. I called Oliver for my grandfather. And I really started to know him. It was so healthy and robust and we then received a call informing us that the family had changed in opinion, which is absolutely their right. Each state has a different revocation period. I was in a state where there were 30 days and I had the baby for six days.

And so, two social workers introduce themselves – I have all these outfits, people had bought gifts for the baby and I cried like a banshee. I handed it to the agents and my mother was crying. And I was completely emptied, and then I felt very deeply my own pain, which is normal … But I was not the only one to have pain. We will just express it that way. I mean, I learned that in this system, when it does not work, there is a lot of emotional blood on the floor.

Reforming the American system for the protection of the family

Contracts must be transparent to agencies. There must be a national database on failure rates … It's the only developed country in the world to have no federally mandated leave policy, which means that women like me, who are career women, delay procreation because we are like "OK, it's not the right time." Reality: It's never a good time. And younger, low-income women are incredibly vulnerable.

On the question of whether Chideya will continue his research through a formal adoption system

Part of my family comes from a farming community in Virginia. … when needed, someone received a child from someone else 's family … there was no formal adoption system & It was like "OK, we are really bankrupt or someone is dead and we need someone to help with this family …" L ' universe moves in all kinds of ways. So I can not say what will happen. I am ready to go back to a formal adoption system or to a host family, but I also hope that the universe can provide and we will see.

Why she chose to share her story

I think we have just started to think of a lot of the psychic consequences of infertility on American women. Again, partly because of the lack of support from the family and the late motherhood of many people. But we do not hear as much about the agonies of adoption when things are not going well. And I think adoption is beautiful. I've adopted people in my family, adopted adults who are friends, so I'm not against adopting in any way whatsoever. I am talking about making sure everything is done right and ethically.

And so, I had to make peace with that. But I also believe that we are at some point in this country where it becomes unsustainable to continue to have no paid parental leave and to not have child care to support healthy families. This is not good for America and for the world.

Monika Evstatieva and Barrie Hardymon have produced and edited this story for the radio, and Josh Axelrod has adapted it for the Web.