If you can, please help out my friends. They are lovely people who are having a hard time trying to adopt a child, and I can think of few people in this world who'd make better parents. You can make a contribution to their fund on their website. - jody
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Contribute to Two Moms
...and help prevent what happened to Frances and Gaynor from happening to someone else
Frances & Gaynor
Two Moms was set up by friends of Gaynor McCaslin and Frances MacKinnon in their home town of Vancouver, B.C. and throughout the Lower Mainland, to raise money to help recover the costs they incurred as a result of being defrauded while attempting to adopt a child.
Please take just a few moments to read their story...
Gaynor and Frances have been trying to become parents for a long time. When both were unable to become pregnant, they decided to try to adopt. Since they began the process in March 2005, they’ve faced many obstacles.
First, as a same sex couple, they faced restrictions on international adoption. Canada and the United States are the only countries that allow same sex couples to adopt. When Frances and Gaynor signed up with an agency in Vancouver, they were told their chances of adopting a local child were slim. Few babies are adopted locally and the agency had never before placed a child with a lesbian couple.
When they decided to try to adopt from the United States, they met their second obstacle. Many agencies and lawyers do not work with Canadian same sex couples because it can be hard to find a woman who will choose to place her baby with them. Finally, though, they found a Los Angeles lawyer who had had success placing babies with same sex couples and began to work with him.
The Journey So Far
Frances and Gaynor spend a day at the beach with their adopted son, Ezra, whose mom defrauded Frances and Gaynor by lying about the birth father’s consent. The father is now arranging to take custody of little Ezra.
After several months, the L.A. lawyer matched Frances and Gaynor with a birth mother from the Eastern U.S. They met with her in July 2005 and she told them that she wanted them to be the parents of her baby. Unlike Canada, in the U.S. adoptive parents pay the birth mother's living expenses for a few months before the baby is born. Gaynor and Frances gladly did this.
Tragically, this woman lied to Frances and Gaynor. She lied to four other couples as well, telling them all she would place her child with them, and accepting money to cover living expenses all the while. (She has since been convicted of fraud.)
As you can imagine, Frances and Gaynor were devastated. So were their families and many friends, all of whom had been ecstatic to hear that they had found a child to adopt.
A year of healing
It took over a year for Frances and Gaynor to rebuild their trust and confidence in the system. It also took that long for another suitable birth mother to contact their lawyer...
On August 8, 2006, Frances and Gaynor traveled to Los Angeles to meet the mother of a five-week old baby boy. After trying for over a month, the mother realized she could not parent her son and decided to place him for adoption.
Gaynor and Frances spent two days with the birth mother and son, getting to know her and her story. On August 11, the woman decided she wanted Frances and Gaynor to parent the baby. The birth mother signed the consent forms and Gaynor and Frances became the baby’s legal guardians. They returned to Vancouver -- exhausted and joyful.
Their long journey was over. They were moms!
But in a cruel twist of fate, their precious joy was short lived.
It lasted less than two days.
Just as they were settling into their new roles as parents, their lawyer phoned to tell them that the birth mother had lied about the birth father’s consent to the adoption.
They had been defrauded a second time.
The birth father has since filed for sole custody of the baby and the process has begun to have him returned. While the red tape is untangled, Frances and Gaynor have been caring for the baby, and needless to say, have bonded with him. Their hearts are breaking at the prospect of losing him. The emotional distress has taken a severe toll. Frances and Gaynor are exhausted, heartbroken, and wondering if they can even try again, for fear of more heartbreak and financial loss.
How you can help
Adopting a child is an expensive undertaking even under the best circumstances. For most couples, the end result of a child to love and nurture makes the cost worth it. For Frances and Gaynor, however, they have had to pay the cost for two full adoptions, despite the fact that they have been the victims of fraud both times and will soon lose the child they have cherished these past weeks.
Tens of thousands of dollars have been lost because of lies.
On behalf of Frances and Gaynor, we ask for your support. These are two wonderful women who are trying to do the right thing even as the costs and stress increase. We, their friends and families, had been feeling frustrated by their situation and were not sure how to help. We do, however, feel that one way is to offset their increasing costs, if only to help alleviate some of their stress.
There are two ways you can make a financial gift to Frances and Gaynor. We have a Paypal account set up for this purpose, or you can donate to them directly. If you would like to send a cheque by mail please email address@twomoms.ca to get their mailing address, and make your cheque out to either Frances MacKinnon or Gaynor McCaslin. Of course, there is no expectation of a large financial contribution.
Even $20 would be a great help.
Frances and Gaynor have given permission to have this website passed on to those who do not know them. If you like, please pass it on to those you know who may want to support Frances and Gaynor. In fact, even if all you do is pass this story on, you may help to prevent this type of madness from happening to someone else.
Sincerely,
Friends of the “Two Moms”
P.S. Frances is a teacher for deaf and hard of hearing students and Gaynor works at a daycare. As it would be for most of us, tens of thousands of dollars is a great deal of money. Their finances have sustained a real blow. If you can, please help them recoup some of their loses with a financial gift today. Thank you!