Photo: Sara Kalish Photography
Freelance journalist and lifestyle bloggerJeannine Morris Lombardihad wanted to pursueadoptionfor as long as she can remember. So when she marriedJoe Lombardiin 2014, the couple hoped it would be part of their love story. Five years later, the Lombardis got their wish: They welcomed daughterAmaya Jovia adoption this past April.
“The thing is, when you do a private adoption, you’re the ones dealing with the bulls—,” Jeannine says. “We went through six months of speaking to 16 different women — or so we thought — trying to figure out who was serious about it.”
Jeannine Morris Lombardi and family.Courtesy of Joseph Lombardi and Jeannine Morris Lombardi
The worst of these interactions started over Instagram direct messages, when a user claiming to be Ashley (@ashleymamabear2019) reached out.
“She contacted us saying she was 16 years old,” Jeannine tells PEOPLE. “She sent us pictures throughout her pregnancy of her and her bump. We knewabout the weight she gained, we knew that she craved ice cream.”
She adds, “[Ashley] was always crazy. But we thought we were dealing with a troubled, bipolar young girl who was in a really difficult situation, and we had compassion for her.”
For four months, Ashley and her boyfriend Chris took the Lombardis on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Although her Instagram account has since been disabled, Jeannine came across the familiar username in aBBCarticle published last month, which explained how Ashley had also deceived an adoptive mom named Samantha Stewart.
After reading the BBC story, Jeannine opened up about her relationship with Ashley in a blog post called“The Adoption Scam on the News Happened to Us.”
Asan adoptive parent, Jeannine explains to PEOPLE that it was her job to “form relationships with these women and really be there for them.” But Ashley took advantage of Jeannine and Joe, and led them on for months.
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Jeannine had been in contact with other fake potential birth mothers on Instagram before Ashley entered the picture, but she says Ashley was the only person who she and her husband became emotionally invested in — and the red flags surrounding Ashley’s situation weren’t nearly as obvious as the others.
“There’s one person whogot to our hearts and made us cryall the time and it was Ashley,” the journalist tells PEOPLE. “She told us her boyfriend was in jail and that he abused her. She told me that her mother committed suicide in front of her and that her father was never around. I felt bad and I just wanted to be there for her.”
“I stayed on the phone with her the first night for three to four hours,” she adds. “Not because I had time, not because I wanted to talk to her for three to four hours, but because she needed somebody [to talk to] so bad. When I tried to hang up, she would start screaming.”
Screenshotted text messages Jeannine received from Ashley.Courtesy of Joseph Lombardi and Jeannine Morris Lombardi
Ashley also managed to avoid private-adoption protocol, like a background check, which the lawyer handles to ensureadoptive parents aren’t beingtaken advantage of.
“She was 16 so she couldn’t call our lawyer,” Jeannine explains. “And she lived with her father who worked at Walmart, which was why [she said] he could never get on the phone with our lawyer. She just kept making up stories. She would lead us on.”
After months of harassment at the hands of Ashley and Chris, the New Jersey couple gave up on the process. They turned off their adoption phone and disabled their adoption email, website and Instagram account in April, even after connecting with an Arizona-based birth mother in February.
“We ended up flying from Miami to Arizona to go get our daughter that weekend,” Jeannine says. “It was insane that as soon as I let everything go and said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore,’ Amaya was born.”
While the journey was worth it in the end, Jeannine admits, “If we were to adopt again, wewould definitely go through an agency.”
“[Private adoption] is a 24/7 job,” the blogger adds. “It’s emotionally and mentally exhausting. If we went with an agency, we would’ve never met Ashley. The agency would’ve done all of this and said, ‘She’s not real.’ All that in-between bulls— that my husband and I had to deal with is cut out. If we were in that game a little bit longer, I definitely think we would’ve been scammed again.”
source: people.com
