http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070425/METRO/704250424/1003Couple look for baby on MySpace
Hundreds answer Taylor pair's online plea for a girl, but adoption experts urge caution.
Christine Ferretti / The Detroit News
Advertisement
Get free headlines by e-mail
Get text alerts on your cell phone
Get The Detroit News on your PDA
Family photo
Sherry and Karl Dittmar, parents of 3 boys, hope to find a baby daughter through MySpace.com. See full image
Steve Perez / The Detroit News
Karl Dittmar speaks with son Joseph, 9, left, about a new skateboard at the family's home in Taylor. At right is son Ronald, 11, and behind them is the boys' mother, Sherry. The Dittmars also have a 5-year-old boy. See full image
Printer friendly version
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
TAYLOR -- Sherry and Karl Dittmar have an empty crib, baby clothes, three sons, and a 21st century approach to adopting the little girl for whom they've prayed.
The couple has posted a plea for a baby on the popular Web networking site MySpace.com after five years of unsuccessful attempts at conception and delays in becoming state-registered foster parents.
By Tuesday, their Web page, "Looking for a birthmother. Please help," had no solid leads, but it did have more than 900 hits and 400 posts of encouragement in less than a week.
"I didn't expect this" outpouring, said Sherry Dittmar.
The approach speaks both to the phenomenon of the Web site that boasts some 100 million accounts and the lengths that families will go to circumvent an adoption process that's notoriously costly and time-consuming.
Dittmar, 31, is a stay-at-home mother who has polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormone imbalance that complicates conception.
"I am a strong Christian and haven't had a bad attitude about (fertility problems). God closed this door for a reason."
Dittmar acknowledged she created the site in part because she doesn't have the $18,000 that average adoptions cost, but has faith in God and technology. That may not be enough, caution adoption experts such as Kathleen Luz of Family Adoption Consultants in Utica.
While there's nothing illegal about the approach -- prospective adoptive parents find each other in any number of ways -- the family could be opening themselves up to scams, Luz said. The popularity of the site -- especially among young people -- that drew Dittmar to it also could attract undesirables, she said.
Agencies are required by the state to interview and educate both parties before families can be legally certified to adopt. A preliminary screening alone can take four months, she said.
"It's not easy pulling everything together and (in the meantime) where's the child going to go?" Luz said. "Adoption is something both parties and the child will live with forever. Everyone needs help to make the right decision for the child and themselves."
Others aren't so skeptical. Dittmar and her husband, a truck driver, said they eventually will enlist an agency when they find a birth mother. The process can take two years, and Paula Springer of Adoption Associates said their quest is a testament to its difficulty.
Nationwide, the number of annual adoptions has remained steady at about 52,000 since 2000, while the number of children in foster care has fallen from 811,000 to 800,000 during that time, according to federal statistics.
"People are taking any new and creative ideas they can think of and that's why we are seeing this on MySpace.com," said Springer, eastern Michigan director of Adoption Associates.
The Dittmars took guardianship of their two eldest sons seven years ago and took eight years to conceive their youngest, a 5-year-old. They're open to any race or medical background, except a child born to an alcoholic mother, Sherry Dittmar said.
"We desperately wish to add a girl to our family," reads the site. "Due to fertility problems, this is not possible. We would be thrilled to welcome a baby girl ... to our home. We hope you feel our family is the right family for your child."
Messages on the site,
www.myspace.com/skateboardersmom, have trickled in from nationwide and close to home. Heather McCracken, 19, of Lincoln Park offered kind words Tuesday.
"It may seem odd to some people to put their story on a MySpace page, but in today's world it's actually a very smart way to reach people," she wrote in an e-mail to The Detroit News. "They really inspire me to be a good person."
Robert Ennis of the Ennis Center for Children, a Metro Detroit nonprofit that places special-needs children with adoptive families, said he admires the couple's creativity but warns of heartbreak.
"A desperate couple may pay a ton of money and have a birth parent change their mind. All parents who give up children aren't like that, but professional help for screening is important," Ennis said.
You can reach Christine Ferretti at (734) 462-2289 or
cferretti@detnews.com.