Chapter
Eleven:
A
Conversation with Rob And Sue Corrigan
Daniel visited with
his mother and stepfather downstairs, while I went upstairs and made the
telephone call to Illinois.
Little did I know that it would be a conversation that had more implications for
our future relationship with BBAS and how Denise Hubbard really treated her
clients. It was a two-hour
telephone conversation.
Rob spoke with me first, and he was a soft-spoken, honest-sounding man.
He seemed very upset about BBAS. He shared with me he and his wife’s struggle with secondary infertility treatments after their biological son, their state of mind, and their hope that they would be able to adopt a little girl from Bulgaria.
They
had originally contacted Building Blocks about Russia, but had been swayed by
Denise’s arguments that the children in the Bulgarian orphanages were
healthier and better taken care of than those in Russia. She presented Bulgaria to them as a newer program, but
promised them a four-month timeline from first travel day to pick up. The
Corrigans were swayed and signed on up under those assurances from Denise.
At the time I spoke with them, they were still waiting on a referral for a
little girl. I agreed with them
about the health of the children, after having seen and spent the hour with
Anguel.
However, he asked if we had had any negative dealings with Wendy Stamper. I told him that, no, I hadn’t that Wendy had always been okay with me, and that I had never had any problems with her.
Then what he told me next was something that shocked me — or should I
say should have shocked me — into consciousness.
Sue and Rob and wanted answers to some questions about the paperwork and adoption process. They had emailed and called the agency and Wendy Stamper several times looking for answers.
Unfortunately, Wendy Stamper got angry about this and, instead of sending a
private email message to Denise calling Sue Corrigan a profane term. As too
often happens in the Information Age, the
message with this profane term was sent to Sue Corrigan instead (got to watch
when you hit reply and send!)
Obviously, the Corrigans were very, very angry and hurt by this treatment. It was unprofessional and uncalled for.
They got on the telephone with Denise immediately and read her the riot act. Denise managed to handle the situation. She told Sue and Rob that Wendy was awfully sorry for her silly blunder and that their case would, in the future, be handled by Denise directly and not through any intermediaries at BBAS.
Denise
repeatedly said to Mrs. Corrigan “Well, let’s get past that. We’ve got to get past that” to her (which, we later learned, is
Denise’s strategy for everything). Sue
told me, “You know, this is not something I am going to get past! That woman is so unprofessional! We
are very mad about this.”
I listened in silence. These did not sound like the same people I had been dealing with for the past 10 months.
At no time had I been treated like that by Wendy, but a kernel of doubt
began to enter into my mind after hearing this. We were, after all, using BBAS
to adopt two children from two different countries.
I apologized profusely for having steered them towards BBAS with my original glowing recommendation. “Blame me!” I said.
I also said that perhaps they should think about switching agencies if
they were receiving that sort of insensitive treatment.
However, that was out of the question as they had already sunk a few
thousand dollars in for their adoption with BBAS and were awaiting their
referral with some hope — but still felt even that was taking too long.
We ended the conversation with my telling them that I would be in touch when we got back from Russia. Little did I know that this conversation was going to be the key to the rest of our dealings with respect to Denise Hubbard and Building Blocks Adoption Services, Inc.