OPEN ADOPTION

Live chat: between two families

 

After three failed marriages and trouble finding work that paid enough to support two children as a single mother, Patti Sheets joined the Army and became a Patriot Missile operator at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas. As Patti sought to resume a relationship with Kendall, 12, she sent a photograph of herself in uniform.

Transcript: Adoptive mother Dorothea McArthur, daughter Kendall McArthur, and Kendall's birth mother Patti Dick took readers' questions in a live chat Monday, August 6.
Times Staff Writer

2007-08-06 15:04:08.0 Administrator: Hello and welcome to our chat on open adoption. We have with us subjects of Sonia Nazario's story; adoptive mother Dorrie and adopted daughter Kendall McArthur and birth mother, Patti Dick

2007-08-06 15:04:27.0 Administrator: Sonia Nazario is also here to take questions. Here we go!

 
2007-08-06 15:04:30.0 jeni: Kendall, this is Jeni from the barn in high school. So ild to see a story about you! I'm in Scotland and 8 hours ahead, so I'll need to get to sleep before this chat actually opens. I lost all your contact info in the move, but I'll probably look up Dorrie and try to contact you that way. Woot!

2007-08-06 15:05:51.0 Kendall McArthur: Hi Jeni. Great to hear from you.

2007-08-06 15:05:56.0 Richard Whittier 2 boys 17 20 open adop: when challeneges are present with adolescents how do we balance tough love and the adoption seperation issues

2007-08-06 15:06:05.0 Richard Whittier 2 boys 17 20 open adop: the story is so REAL and TRUE for all of us in the middle of open adotions THANKS for sharing

2007-08-06 15:07:14.0 Dorothea McArthur: Tough love really helps an adoptee to know that they are cared about by the adoptive family.

2007-08-06 15:07:42.0 Steven: Kendall - As an adolescent growing up in the open adoption situation, did you worry about "who am I" and how did you accept that you belonged to two families?

2007-08-06 15:08:38.0 Kendall McArthur: No, I didn't worry about who I am. I liked belonging to two different families. I got to be part of two different worlds.

2007-08-06 15:08:42.0 Wendy and Stan Levin: I read the open adoption story with much interest. In 1985, with the assistance with Sharon Roszia, we entered into an open adoption with the birthparents of our newborn daughter. Unlilke the story in the LA Times, our open adoption went very smoothly and greatly benefitted our now 22 year old daughter, and provided her daughter and us with an extended family of relatives who were very special to us.

2007-08-06 15:09:36.0 Dorothea McArthur: Adolescense is also a time to find out about birth family so they can consolidate a sense of self. Sometimes this feels paiful which is different from adolescent rebellion

2007-08-06 15:09:43.0 Jesse: In reading through your story Patti, if you had the wisdom and foresight that you currenly have now, would you have adopted given the emotional upheaval that you and your husband endured?

2007-08-06 15:11:24.0 Patti Dick: If I was in the same financial situation I was in then, then yes, I would do it all over again. Any adoption emotional in its own way, whether or not it is open or closed.

2007-08-06 15:11:32.0 susan g: Hi,Kendall. I read your story ,.I am glad things are finally going better and Dorie is a good father.

2007-08-06 15:11:37.0 Ken Herman: Hello - I enjoyed reading the article and hearing about all your lives and how each was touched. I too am adopted which took place in 1946 - when as you referred - things were closed and hard to discover. I had a private investigator find my birth parents at the age of 52 - 1998. What was interesting was that it gave me a much greater appreciation of who I am and of my adopted parents - in what they provided for me (not that I never appreciated them). What was interesting was that it gave me a looke at who I COULD have become and who I might in the future become. What I specifically mean is: my birth father had a horrible temper, and this gave me a wake up call. The story was so interewsting of finding my birth parents, that the LA Times did a complete story in So Cal Living Section on 10-10-99. Thanks again.....

2007-08-06 15:13:29.0 Dorothea McArthur: i am glad that you were able to seacch and find out about your birth family.

2007-08-06 15:13:31.0 Brandy: Hi Doretha, Patti and Kendall, thank you so much for sharing yuor Open Adoption story with the world. As an adoptee and a first mother in Open Adoption, I wonder if you could share with us what this journey has taught you and what you might do different now, with the benifit of hind sight?

2007-08-06 15:14:11.0 Interested Adopter: Way to go Kendall, Patti and Dorrie...I find your story very educational and important. I too am interested in hearing the answer to Brandy's question.

2007-08-06 15:14:31.0 Kendall McArthur: Devin is doing well now. He is a personal trainer. He is the best father I could have hoped for.

2007-08-06 15:15:25.0 Dorothea McArthur: I think that our adoption would have been much easier if Patti and I were able to communicte better. Then Patti would not have had to leave in a way that made kendall feel relinquished again. A counselor could have helped us more.





More...
About this story
SUNDAY: An experiment called open adoption

 MONDAY: Negotiating the difficulties of a delicate pact

 LIVE CHAT: Reporter Sonia Nazario, Kendall McArthur, Patti Dick and Dorrie McArthur took readers' questions about open adoption in a live chat Aug. 6. Read the transcript here.

 Interviews and a journal:
This story is drawn from more than 195 hours of interviews with Kendall McArthur; her adoptive parents, Dorothea and David McArthur; her birth mother, Patti Dick; Patti's husband, George Dick; Kendall's half-siblings, Bryhannah Fife and Jed Pool; her birth father, Leo Tremblay; her fiance, Devin Coury; and her friend, Donna Simons. Most of the quotations are taken from a 700-page adoption journal in which Dorothea McArthur contemporaneously recorded dialogue, intending to write an adoption book. Both Kendall and Patti said Dorothea accurately recorded their quotes, if not always their intentions.

Records:
Documentation for this story includes hospital birth records, adoption applications, court records, Kendall's academic and psychological evaluations, her report cards and Patti's Army records. Information is also drawn from letters between Kendall and Patti and between Dorothea and Patti, as well as from records in a shoe box that Patti kept of belongings relating to Kendall's adoption. Additional material is based upon 15 studies and books about adoption. The survey showing that nearly two-thirds of Americans have encountered adoptions in their families or with friends was conducted in 2002 by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

Adoption experts:
Other information is drawn from interviews and consultations with Sharon Roszia, program manager at the Kinship Center in Santa Ana, who introduced Dorothea McArthur to the idea of open adoption and provided her and Patti with adoption counseling. It also is based upon consultations with other experts, including Suzanne Arms, author of the adoption book "To Love and Let Go" and a close friend of Dorothea; Eileen Mayers Pasztor, a child welfare professor at Cal State Long Beach; Brenda Romanchik, a birth mother advocate and director of Insight: Open Adoption Resources and Support; Fred Riley, commissioner of Latter-day Saints Family Services; Heidi Cox, executive vice president and general counsel of the Gladney Center for Adoption, an early opponent of open adoption; Jim Gritter, child welfare supervisor of Catholic Human Services in Traverse City, Mich., an early proponent of open adoption and author of several books about open adoption; Kathleen Silber, associate executive director of the Independent Adoption Center; Thomas Atwood, president and chief executive of the National Council for Adoption; and Susan Smith, program and project director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

Reporter Sonia Nazario can be contacted at sonia.nazario@latimes.com.

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