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Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water


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Often, mothers who are planning for adoption find fierce opposition to their plans from well-meaning biological relatives, who insist that it's important to "keep the child in the family" at all costs. Relatives come out of the woodwork, begging to adopt the child who's potentially being placed outside the family, for the sake of keeping "blood with blood." But at what cost? How is an overwhelmed mom to know when what's best for the clan may not necessarily be in her child's best interests?

Out of Boston, a tragic real-life tale of one such child, who suffered traumatic brain injury at the hands of her adoptive mom, who also happened to be her biological aunt... then lost both her adoptive mom and her birthgrandmother, to a murder-suicide involving both women: The Sad Saga of Haleigh Poutre.

Haleigh was born to Allison Avrett, a sixteen-year-old with a substance abuse problem. At the age of four, Haleigh was taken into the custody of the Department of Social Services, upon allegations that a boyfriend of Allison's had sexually-abused her child. Haleigh's half-sister, Holli, stepped forward and her decision to adopt the child was widely hailed as a magnaminous act on behalf of the child, despite recurrent injuries that followed and repeated rulings by the State that the child was just accident-prone.

Allison Avrett is now suing DSS for failing to adequately protect her child and is seeking to regain legal access to the Haleigh, although parental rights were terminated years ago.

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Another horrific tale, this one about an Austrian man who legally adopted three of the children that he'd actually fathered, unbeknownst to his wife, who thought their daughter had run off to join a cult: Real-Life Adoption Horror Story in Austra. The wife apparently had no idea that her daughter and three more children borne of incest had been hidden away in the cellar of their home over the past 24 years!

Obviously, these are extreme examples, but "keeping the family together at all costs" is not always the best option, ncessarily...?!?

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  • 11 months later...

Another sad story, out of Detroit, where a relative who adopted and was raising 8 children is standing trial for the starvation death of her niece: Shylae's Tragic End.

Obviously, any single parent raising four of her own children, two nieces and two grandbabies on her own is trying veryhard to hold a family together, but at what cost?

Sometimes, it's healthier for everyone to look outside the family for help; open adoption truly can be an act of family preservation in itself.

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Another sad story, out of Detroit, where a relative who adopted and was raising 8 children is standing trial for the starvation death of her niece: Shylae's Tragic End.

Obviously, any single parent raising four of her own children, two nieces and two grandbabies on her own is trying veryhard to hold a family together, but at what cost?

Sometimes, it's healthier for everyone to look outside the family for help; open adoption truly can be an act of family preservation in itself.

That is terrible. We had a bad situation happen to one of our former foster babies. The family wanted to keep the baby in the family so we lost her at 6 months. It is now two years later and she is not adopted. The aunt is raising 6 children on her own. She has been unemployed for a year. We have visited during the summer to find no electricity or food in the house. No one at CPS will listen to us. I have had to feed and put new shoes and clothes on this child three times this year. This aunt called me 20 days after the child was placed in her home asking for money for diapers and to pay her "light" bill! I just don't understand when CPS choices a family member that is not fit just to keep the child with family!!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sad case, out of Michigan, where a 17-year-old is standing trial for the attempted murder of his grandparents, who had adopted him as a very young child: Michael Anderson's Near-Fatal Error in Judgement.

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  • 2 years later...

How we wish seven-year-old Abby Robbins had been adopted by one of Abrazo's loving families, who could have enabled her to have a healthy, ongoing relationship with both her birthmom and her late father's mother, but who would have spared her the sorrow of being slain by her depressed grandmother, who had adopted her just last year.

Rest in Peace, sweet Abby... and your troubled grand/mother, too.

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What a tragedy this is. Sounds like Abby's biological mother was not around either so you wonder what this little girl had been through in her short life. I know depression can really weigh on you and cause you to think irrationally but its just sad that the grandmother went as far as thinking no one could take care of Abby so she had to take her life too.

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