NYT Blogger Writes about Terminating Adoption

August 26, 2009

A recent blog entry on the New York Times Web site, written by Anita Tedaldi, chronicled the author’s struggle as she decided to give her adopted child up for adoption again. The mother of five daughters and wife of a deployed military husband decided at a young age that she wanted to adopt a child as an addition to her large family.

The woman went through the process to adopt a child from South America- he had been left along the side of the road as an infant and was brought to an adoption agency in the United States. However, shortly after she brought him home, she realized that he suffered from several physical and developmental delays.

The boy had no strength in his legs, so he spent the majority of the time lying in a crib, flat on his back. He also had a disability, which caused him to eat his own feces. The boy was estimated to be under a year old.

After 18 months, the woman found that she could no longer care for the child and arranged for him to be re-adopted by a family of psychologists who had already adopted a child with a similar condition.