Adoption Scammer Alert

This was a hard post to write and an even harder post to post.  And I’ve put it off for a few reasons, but I finally decided to share our experience so I can hopefully prevent what happened to us from happening to one of my friends. 

As you know, a few weeks ago, our adoption plan fell through.  What you don’t know is that we were scammed. 

Natasha was never pregnant.
 
I know it is mind boggling that someone could trick us into believing that they were nine months pregnant.  For her part, Natasha was very convincing.  We weren’t the only ones fooled.  Natasha’s parents, her bishop, her caseworker, and even the birthfather all believed she was really pregnant.  Of course, so did we. 

I mean, we spent time with her in person!  She looked pregnant.  She walked the walk (literally) and talked the talk.  I don’t know that I have ever met anyone more convincingly deceitful.

Many of the red flags that usually accompany scammers simply weren’t there.  She wasn’t after money or resources.  It was a purely emotional scam.  

Unlike most scammers, Natasha was closely involved with an adoption agency (ours).  She even had a caseworker that she was working with.  The agency failed to get medical confirmation of a pregnancy.  My advice for any of you who are adopting would be to not assume anything.  We simply trusted that the contact that we had made through our agency was legitimate.  Since we live several states away from this girl, it would be difficult for us to verify for ourselves what was truly going on.  We took for granted that since caseworkers were so heavily involved, the pregnancy was real.  It was not until after everything had blown up that we were told that medical proof of pregnancy is NOT an agency requirement to service an “expectant mother.”

It makes me sad that what happened to us is completely preventable. 

I would suggest that you make sure that your agency has verifiable proof of pregnancy.  I know it should seem like a given, but I cannot emphasize enough that YOU need to be the one pushing for this.  Follow up, even if you feel silly doing so. 

It has been interesting the spectrum of emotions that I have experienced throughout this struggle.
Sadness, of course.  We had to mourn the loss of our baby.  And believe me, the loss was very real, even though the baby wasn’t.  It is a strange pain to deal with. 

What makes me more upset than anything is that she not only hurt us, but others as well.  It has been really sad for me to see what Natasha’s actions did to my parents.  They were so excited for us!  It was hard to tell them that everything had come crashing down.  It was difficult and embarrassing to tell everyone. 

To be honest, I don’t think our adoption was general knowledge until literally THE DAY before everything fell apart (only a couple of weeks before her “due date”).  We had told some friends and family about the baby, and I talked about it here on my little blog, but most of our ward really didn’t know what was going on.  How ironic that the day after we finally decide to share our good news, the good news disappears.  But at some point you have to live for what you believe to be true.  We believed she was pregnant, so we acted accordingly.  We have waited too long and hoped too hard to not get excited!  The anticipation is part of the fun of the experience! 

It is sad for me that Natasha robbed us of the unrestrained joy we felt before.  Don’t get me wrong, we will always be over the moon excited for any baby that comes into our home.  If anything, this experience has made me appreciate our future babies even more.  I am trying really hard not to let what happened to us in the past spoil our excitement for the future.  And I really do think I am doing pretty well!  I am just saying it is hard to get burned.   

Confusion.  It is hard to understand why someone would do something so cruel to honest people.  We freely loved her and supported her all while she was manipulating us.  Part of the reason I hesitated to write all this was because for even though Natasha deeply hurt us, I feel sorry for her.  You have to be very psychologically sick to do what she did.  I don’t want to exploit someone mentally ill. 

However, I equally don’t want her to do what she did to us to someone else.  I want to warn all of you.  It has recently come to light that she is a repeat offender.  I have removed the posts I have written about her for the time being.  But if you suspect that she is trying to scam you, please send me an e-mail and I can give you details and photos. 

Fear.  I admit that after this experience, learning to trust has been hard at times.  I thought I knew her, but more importantly I thought I knew myself.  I have generally been a good judge of character.  How could I not see through her act?  I know I shouldn’t internalize it, and to be honest I have come a long way.  It has been a process to lift the blame from my shoulders and rest it on hers, where it belongs.  It is not my fault that we were deceived.  Yes, there are things I have learned and things I could have done differently, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t do anything wrong.

All in all, Spencer and I are doing amazingly well!  We are so happy right now and aren’t trying to drudge up sympathy or attention.  Please know that I did not write any of this out of bitterness.  It really is with a sincere desire to hopefully help someone else.  It was a vulnerable thing for me to share, but it will be worth it to spare some other couple the horrors we went through.