A Grueling Journey to Parenthood : After Shari Rosen’s Many ‘Tests,’ a Young Daughter

Shari Rosen was not destined to become a mother. That she is was an act of pure will.

After three failed pregnancies, Rosen and her husband, Neil, took cash in hand and entered the murky world of private adoptions.

The experience was shattering.

After two potential adoptions fell through, the Rosens adopted a newborn baby boy in June 1995. But 10 weeks later, the birth mother changed her mind and the Rosens had to return the infant they had come to love as their son.

“This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I just had a pain inside me for a long time. We did a lot of crying on each other’s shoulders. I felt like we were being tested,” said Rosen, a 36-year-old Placentia resident.

Rosen’s odyssey began when she became pregnant with twins in 1991, but miscarried after four months. The Rosens then sought help from the UC Irvine Fertility Clinic, but two additional pregnancies ended unsuccessfully. They also tried in vitro fertilization without success.

“We went away to Palm Springs for the weekend, just to get away. We went into a restaurant and they put us at a table between a pregnant woman and a couple that had a newborn baby. And Neil and I just sat there and looked at each other. I said, ‘Well, this is just part of the test.’ ”

County adoption officials told them it could take years to adopt a healthy infant, so the Rosens contacted a private adoption agency in Los Angeles.

“They sent us literature. Neil and I went to a workshop and it was very impressive. They had a couple come in who had adopted a child through them to tell us how wonderful they were. So we decided to sign up.”

Agency representatives made no guarantees, but told them most couples adopted a baby within 16 months. The Rosens paid the agency $7,800.

“We never got a single lead from them. We got connected with a birth mother through our own networking. We sent out these ‘birth mother letters’ with pictures of Neil and I. We sent them to everybody and anybody we knew.”

After sending out 1,500 letters, they received a response from an unmarried woman in Ohio who was pregnant with her fourth child. They asked the adoption agency to investigate.

The Rosens ended up paying for the woman and her sister to fly to California after the woman said she was afraid to fly alone. They also paid her mother $100 to stay with her own grandchildren in Ohio during the trip. After she arrived in California, the woman confessed she would not be able to give up her baby.

The Rosens signed up with another private adoption agency and placed an ad in a national magazine, offering themselves as loving parents. After a few prank calls, they heard from a young pregnant woman who was serving time in a Norfolk, Va., prison. By the time the promised adoption fell apart--two weeks before the baby was due--they had discovered the woman was a prostitute and a cocaine addict.

“She was a con artist, and she was good. She was really good. She would send us these wonderful, wonderful letters. In all the letters, it was always, ‘your baby,’ not her baby. She got our money for six months.”

Rosen would not give up, despite her husband’s misgivings. After sending out another wave of letters, the Rosens were contacted by a rabbi who knew of a young unmarried Orange County woman who wanted to find a family for her baby.

The Rosens paid part of her living expenses for three months leading up to the baby boy’s birth. They took “Steven” home from the hospital a day after he was born and kept him for 10 weeks. The birth mother had 90 days to change her mind.

“We got a call from the attorney who was handling the adoption, saying that she changed her mind. Neil and I got on the computer and wrote her a letter, telling her how we felt and how much we loved him, and that our doors would always be open for him if things didn’t work out for her.

“We met her at the attorney’s office. . . . It was very tearful for everybody. When we got home, we packed up all of Steven’s things and put them away.”

After a local newspaper columnist told the story of the Rosen’s loss, the mother of a pregnant Costa Mesa teenager contacted the family. The two families met, they liked each other and another adoption was soon arranged.

“The first thing they said was, ‘We don’t want any money from you.’ I thought: ‘Oh gosh, here’s somebody who’s not just out for our money. These people actually care about what’s going to happen.’ ”

They took Julie home a day after she was born. “She’s worth everything we went through. I never gave up.”

As Julie, now 6 months old, grows up, the Rosens say there will be no secrets.

“Open adoption was sort of the farthest thing from my mind. I didn’t know if that was what I really wanted. But after meeting with them, we just felt very comfortable. I just want her to be brought up with a positive attitude toward adoption. She’ll grow up knowing her birth mother.”

Rosen’s “roller coaster” experience in trying to adopt a child has left her believing there is a need for stricter regulation of private adoption agencies to protect would-be parents. The Rosens figure they spent about $25,000 on their three-year search for a baby.

“There should be uniformity in all the states. There’s a lot of people who adopt from other states and the laws are totally different. . . . If a birth mother is not sure if she’s able to keep her child, the child should go into foster care until she can make a decision, and live with that decision, instead of placing a child with a family and then taking it away.

“I tell people not to give up and not to be discouraged by my experience. If you have a dream, if there’s something you want bad enough, just keep on going. It was a tough few years we went through, but it really was worth everything.”

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Profile:

Shari Rosen

Age: 36

Hometown: Utica, New York

Moved to Orange County: 1985

Residence: Placentia

Family: Married to Neil, a middle school counselor; a 6-month-old daughter, Julie

Education: An associate of arts degree in human services, with a specialty in developmentally disabled children, from Mohawk Valley College in Utica, New York

Occupation: Member services director for the East Orange County Assn. of Realtors

On adoption: “Because we had to give our baby back, it scares people away from adopting, because they’re afraid of having the same thing happen to them. I always tell them, ‘Don’t let what Neil and I went through deter you from adoption, because it’s the only way you’re going to get that child.’ ”