Family Seeks to Add Baby Girl through MySpace

By Anastacia Mott Austin

The stork has arrived…at the information age. Add baby-making to the growing list of what can be found on the Internet.

Hopeful parents Karl Dittmar, 33, and his wife Sherry, 31, already have three boys, but say they’ve always wanted to add a girl to the family. The couple tried for many years to conceive before adopting their two older sons, who are now aged 11 and 9. They also have one biological son who is five years old.

Knowing full well the costly and time-consuming process of adoption, the Dittmars felt they could reach out to a potentially large number of young women on MySpace by posting their story and hopes for a baby girl. The popular website is a huge hit among teens and twenty-somethings, a prime age bracket for women who experience unwanted pregnancies.

So far nobody has offered them a baby, but their post, entitled "Looking for a birthmother – please help," has gotten over 1,700 hits in less than a week, including many messages of hope and support.

Paula Springer, the director of Adoption Associates in Michigan, told The Detroit News reporter Christine Ferretti, "People are taking any new and creative ideas they can think of and that’s why we are seeing this on MySpace.com."

Others are not quite as encouraging. Kathleen Luz works for Family Adoption Consultants in Utica, Michigan. She told reporters that there are legal hurdles families must overcome before an adoption can be finalized, and that takes time. "It’s not easy pulling everything together and where’s the child going to go? Adoption is something that both parties and the child will live with forever. Everyone needs help to make the right decision for the child and themselves," Luz told The Detroit News.

Another adoption consultant, Robert Ennis from the Ennis Center for Children in Detroit, cautioned that "professional help for screening is important."

The family remains hopeful, and overwhelmed at the volume of responses they’ve gotten. Sherry Hicks relies on her strong Christian faith and feels they’ve gone this route for a reason: "I have faith in God and technology."