Académie des avocats spécialisés dans l'adoption et la procréation assistée

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Nouvelles de l'AAAA

One Of My Best Adoption Experiences

A lot of people focus on adoption as involving infants or small children, but one of my most rewarding experiences was working with clients who adopted three young men who had aged out of foster care, never having had found their “forever families.” My clients were a married couple who worked in the financial sector. Through their work, they joined a company-wide effort to mentor young people who had aged out of foster care. They met three young men of different racial and cultural backgrounds from them. These young men and my clients bonded after months of working together to assist them with college and work goals. My clients adopted two of them first, each of them having had absolutely no contact with their birth families since they were young children. The third came about two years later after he and his birth mother, with whom he had some relationship, agreed that the adoption would be a formal recognition of his chosen family and would provide him with the security he had not known as a child. Adoption, for them, was about legal and societal recognition of family, no matter how it was formed or when it was formed. There were a lot of tears of love and joy on both of these adoption days.

— Deb Guston is the Adoption Director and a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys practicing both adoption and ART law in New Jersey

The Guts to Become a Parent During COVID

Becoming a parent during the Covid-19 pandemic takes guts. No wonder the U.S. birth rate is the lowest it’s been in over a century! Those committing to become parents through adoption and assisted reproduction have inspired me for over thirty years, but they have truly been my heroes during the past eighteen months.

Some I have met only via video conference, yet the intensity of our work on their adoption journey makes it seem impossible that we have not been in the same room together. I finally “met” the adorable babies on my computer screen at final adoption hearings before courts in New York and New Jersey held virtually. My desktop even crashed last month and I needed to replace it – talk about pandemic fatigue!

Some, like LGBTQ parents, are particularly vulnerable, a vulnerability which the pandemic exacerbated. In one of the most tumultuous adoptions of the Covid era, steadfast hopeful adoptive dads, who had already been through a failed adoption, received a text from their birth mother containing a photo of a newborn baby and claiming an unplanned home birth. Two tortuous days later, during which we did not know whether this was a scam, the birth mother finally took the baby to the hospital, and he is where he belongs – in his adoring dads’ arms. Phew!

Some bravely became parents using assisted reproduction. My lesbian clients used reciprocal IVF for their pregnancy. They created an embryo with the ova of one of them and donor sperm, which was transferred to the other, who gave birth to their child. Under an exemplary, forward-thinking New York statute which was only enacted in February 2021, the Child Parent Security Act, I filed a proceeding for an Order of Parentage, declaring my clients both as the legal parents of the child. In (what else) a virtual hearing before the New York court a couple of weeks ago, the judge entered the Order of Parentage, declaring: “This is only my second hearing under the new statute and I am moved to be able to recognize you as the parents of your child.”

I look forward to the day that the pandemic is behind us, but until then, guts, resilience, and strength will trump the hardships of those becoming parents through adoption and assisted reproduction during Covid.

–Robin Fleischner is a AAAA Fellow practicing adoption and ART law in New York. Learn more about her practice on her website, www.adoptsurrogatelaw.com.

A Month-long Celebration of Adoption

Continuing our month-long celebration of National Adoption Month, here is our second inspiring story.

Four years ago my husband and I decided that we wanted to adopt. When we were researching adoption, we came across an adoption agency that specializes in special needs adoptions. We both have had quite a bit of experience with people who have disabilities and decided we felt comfortable going this route. After two years of hoping and praying, we connected with an incredible set of birth parents who were working with an amazing agency in Florida. Their baby had a muscular disease that was very debilitating. A few months later, we jumped on a plane and flew to Florida. Meeting our sweet little girl for the first time was so special. Meeting her birth parents was equally special. They weren’t quite sure what level of openness they were ready for. We talked through things together and decided on what would work best for them and our little girl.

Over the past two years, we have grown very close to these birth parents. We decided to talk to our daughter about her adoption and her birth parents since day one. She will never remember us telling her she was adopted. It will be something she grew up knowing. We have their pictures on her dresser. We are able to fly out to meet them once a year. We do video calls at least once a month. Open adoption has been such a blessing, especially for our sweet two year old.

Adopting a child with special needs has been a beautiful, hard, and rewarding experience. It is heart wrenching to see her struggle with basic things like running and jumping. But it is so exciting to see her hit milestones and we all cheer as she conquers hard things. Adoption has changed our life for the better. We are huge advocates for special needs adoption.

— Submitted on behalf of adoptive parents by Robert C. Lamarche, a Fellow of AAAA practicing in the area of adoption law in Florida

Welcome to National Adoption Month!

Welcome to National Adoption Month! For the entire month of November, the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA) is going to fill your social media feeds with positive stories of adoption. To kick things off, here are a few of mine.

I did my first adoption for AG several years ago. She contacted me to assist her with adopting an older teenager through the Illinois foster care system. The child she was hoping to adopt had been in multiple other placements prior to joining A’s home, but A was determined to be his last, forever home. As someone who has handled adoptions of all kinds, including children in foster care, for more than 27 years, I was very impressed with A’s willingness to adopt a child most others would have shied away from. This adoption, however, went so smoothly, that I have now helped A adopt three other older teenage boys, the most recent of which had been in thirteen (13!) different placements prior to joining A’s family. All of these children are thriving in A’s care. The oldest ones have gone on to college and trade schools, and the younger ones are doing well in school and getting excited about their futures. A is truly an amazing person and one of my all-time favorite clients.

Another amazing family I have worked with are the B Family who over the past several years have adopted five children from the same family to ensure the siblings would all be raised together. These children, by coincidence, shared the same last name as the adoptive parents prior to the adoptions, although they are not related, and this family’s positive attitude and the incredible support they provide to these children is wonderful to watch.

In addition to adoptions from foster care, I love all the other adoptions I do, including newborns, but have developed a special fondness for my adult adoptions as well. A few months ago, I was able to help four brothers, ranging in age from 44-52 be adopted by the stepfather who had raised them. It was truly a moving experience to witness – what a fabulous family.

We hope you enjoy these stories and encourage you to share your own positive adoption experiences this month and beyond.

— Genie Miller Gillespie is the current President of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys and a Fellow practicing both adoption and ART law in Illinois

Combattre la stigmatisation de l'infertilité

L'AAAA est fière de s'associer à Mediaplanet pour sa L'avenir de la fertilité campagne ! Bien qu'un couple américain sur huit ait du mal à concevoir un enfant, l'infertilité est encore fortement stigmatisée. Cette campagne vise à briser cette stigmatisation et à partager les ressources, les outils éducatifs et les innovations qui font progresser les soins de santé reproductive. Pour en savoir plus, consultez la campagne dans USA Today et en ligne ici : bit.ly/3qZJuQX

L'AAAA a contribué à cet effort par deux articles. L'un sur l'adoption et l'autre sur la reproduction assistée. Le lien direct vers ces articles se trouve ci-dessous :

Les voies de la parentalité par la procréation assistée

Votre guide complet de l'adoption

La maternité de substitution légalisée à New York !

Les gens sont souvent choqués d'apprendre que New York, connue pour ses lois éclairées et ses cliniques de FIV de classe mondiale, a interdit la maternité de substitution pendant plus de trente ans. À partir du 15 février 2021, la maternité de substitution sera légalisée à New York, grâce à une nouvelle loi historique, la Child Parent Security Act (CPSA), la législation la plus progressiste du pays en matière de procréation assistée. La loi new-yorkaise reconnaît enfin la technologie médicale du21e siècle qui fait de la gestation pour autrui une voie de plus en plus efficace vers la parentalité pour les familles infertiles et LGBTQ.

Voici comment cela fonctionne. Seule la gestation pour autrui est autorisée, c'est-à-dire qu'un embryon qui n'est pas génétiquement lié à la mère porteuse est transféré dans son utérus et qu'elle porte la grossesse pour les parents légitimes de l'enfant. Avant le transfert de l'embryon, la mère porteuse et les parents intentionnels concluent un accord exécutoire de gestation pour autrui garantissant la filiation légale de l'enfant créé. Les participants peuvent obtenir une ordonnance du tribunal avant la naissance de l'enfant, déclarant les parents intentionnels comme les seuls parents légaux. Après la naissance, le département de la santé de New York délivrera un certificat de naissance mentionnant les parents établis dans l'ordonnance de filiation.

La LSPC ne s'applique pas seulement à la maternité de substitution, mais traite de façon exhaustive de la filiation de tous les enfants nés par reproduction par un tiers au moyen d'un don d'ovules, de sperme ou d'embryons. L'objectif primordial de la loi est de fournir un cadre juridique et éthique prévisible qui permettra d'établir la filiation des enfants créés et de protéger les droits de toutes les parties concernées par la procréation par un tiers : les parents intentionnels, les mères porteuses et les donneurs.

RobinFleischner a consacré sa carrière juridique à la formation de familles par l'adoption, la maternité de substitution et la reproduction assistée. Lu par des centaines de parents adoptifs, de parents d'intention et de parents en attente, le blog de Robin apporte une dimension personnelle aux aspects juridiques de l'adoption et de la reproduction assistée.

Pour lire d'autres articles de Robin Fleischner, visitez son site sur l'adoption et la reproduction assistée. blog!

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