Peter McDonald
speaker
265 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Mar 2025
Peter McDonald’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Tara Lee's email said she'd gone to Ghana with one of her daughters, carrying suitcases of school supplies for Ghanaian children. Mike and Teresa's contract would have to wait. But, Tara Lee added,
The Mathinis told me they didn't understand why Tara Lee didn't tell them she was going to Ghana while they were on that first call. Hoping for some answers, they sent Stephanie a message in the group text.
That made me wonder if it was normal for an adoption agency to monitor communication between the birth mother and adoptive parents. It seemed fishy. So I called up Rob Kirsch. Rob is a respected adoption attorney who handles adoptions in six states, including Michigan. I asked Rob if it was okay, or normal, for a birth mom to communicate directly with the parents adopting her baby.
And you and the agency aren't going to sort of shadow them and be there that whole time? No. No. No.
Yeah.
The Matheny said they didn't realize it was abnormal for Tara Lee to monitor their communication with Stephanie. But Tara Lee had made it seem like a necessity.
So you were struggling to get just basic information.
Tara Lee's scattered communication style drove Teresa nuts. She was rearranging their lives to be ready for the baby. She also needed to know when to take maternity leave. So Teresa put on her best face and called Tara Lee to finally pin down some dates and details.
So suddenly it went from the 11th of October to the end of October.
Getting the due date wrong by almost three weeks was a huge error. Except Tara Lee played it off with a shrug. Whoops. Teresa and Mike were exasperated. But they weren't about to rock the boat. Not with a baby in it. And Tara Lee had an explanation for the error. She said the reason the date was wrong was that Stephanie hadn't received any prenatal care until much later in the pregnancy.
No prenatal care? I asked Rob Kirsch, the adoption attorney, if that was normal. He said it was very unusual. In almost every adoption he's handled, the birth mother's insurance or Medicaid covered the cost. So I asked Mike and Teresa why they thought Stephanie hadn't gotten any care.
That was like saying Stephanie's lack of care was her own fault.
The Mathinis and other clients of Tara Lee, who I eventually spoke with, told me that many of the birth mothers did have substance use disorders, drug addictions. Part of Tara Lee's business model was to seek out pregnant women in vulnerable situations to give up their babies. She'd pass her business card out at methadone clinics and prisons.
But Tara Lee had a gritty authenticity that her clients liked, at least initially. And she seemed to genuinely care about helping the birth mothers. But one thing stuck out. I won't get into the weeds here, but Mike, who works in finance, was puzzled by why Tara Lee wanted $8,000 for Stephanie's expenses.
Stephanie's rent, utilities, cell phone, groceries, and transportation amounted to less than $2,000 per month. She was due in two weeks. And by law, they could only support her for six weeks after birth. That was a total of two months, or $4,000. But Tara Lee wanted twice that much. That was a big cushion. But she said she'd return whatever wasn't used. So Mike and Teresa didn't say anything.
They trusted Tara Lee knew what she was doing. She'd done it so many times. But they'd never adopted. What did they know? Stephanie wasn't due until the end of October. They had three more weeks. At the Metheny's home in Atlanta, Halloween decorations were coming out, leaves were turning, and the nights were growing colder.
Every day of those three weeks, Teresa and Mike passed by their son's nursery.
The nursery had been sitting ready for almost two years. But those last few weeks of October seemed to take forever.
Despite Tara Lee's dysfunction and idiosyncrasies, she was going to change their lives. For years, the Mathenys had watched as other couples started families with apparent ease. The Mathenys had tried to avoid the creeping worry that their nursery might remain empty, that at some sad point in the future, they'd have to take it down. But matching with Stephanie had changed everything.
They imagined, now, rocking their son in the nursery, reading to him, changing his diapers, putting him to bed, rushing into his room at 4 a.m. if he cried. cried for them. They were going to be parents. Teresa took maternity leave from her work as a lab tech in the animal sciences department at Georgia State. Mike, a loan officer, would work part-time from the road.
Showing 221–240 of 265 · page 12 of 14
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