It sounds so forlorn when you say "childless." There have been a million and one articles written about this, so I won't belabor the point, but so many couples are choosing to not have kids, which comes with its own guilt and societal pressure. But occasionally I have had the thought that maybe I waited too long to have kids. That I'm too selfish now to pull it off.
The reality is that because we have no kids and two incomes, we have a lot of freedom. A lot. We can travel on a whim and not worry about packing a diaper bag or whether everyone on the plane will hate us for bringing our baby to Japan. We can decide to go out for dinner in the city with no ramifications, no babysitter. I have a lot of disposable income to spend on yarn. Allen can buy video games, and actually find time to play them. (Well, kind of... We still seem to be pretty busy.)
We also have free time that vanishes once you become a parent. And we get as much sleep each night as we want. No interruptions. I think that's why I don't look my age. (At least, I hope I don't look my age.)
So, with all of these benefits, why is the drive so strong to have children? It's not even that the need is for biological children. Neither of us need our child to be biological. We just need to care for a child and help it grow to be the best person it can be, and then watch it do the same thing - have kids, raise them, ad infinitum. Clearly there is some ingrained biological urge to insure a continuing generation, and though I know this from a scientific standpoint, I am constantly amazed by the ramifications in practice. It's a kind of miracle, really. That a set of instructions encoded into your DNA can make you feel like you will burst if you can't share the love in your heart.
I love Christmas time - the traveling, the family and friends, the spirit of the season, the lights, trees, decorations, hot cocoa (with or without Frangelico...). All of it. But never in my life have I been so anxious for Christmas to be over. Because as soon as we get home, we start our home study paper work. I. Can't. Wait.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
When do you prepare?
I think most women of a certain age range notice babies and baby things. I think it's safe to say I've been a little bit baby crazy lately. I read baby/mommy blogs, I see adorable kids' stuff everywhere, and I'm designing a nursery - in my head. This is something I've discussed with others in similar situations... When do you start actually preparing for a new addition?
I know some people decide to start a family and immediately register for baby stuff, paint the nursery and buy a crib. Then, when they get pregnant, they feel like they always "just knew it would happen!" But what about the people who do all of that and... nothing? Those people "knew" it would happen too.
I didn't know what to expect (and still don't for that matter), so it didn't occur to me to start prepping for a baby without evidence of one. Now that we're further down the road, I look at our second bedroom and imagine how I'm going to paint and decorate, and wonder where my sewing machine will live, but it's tinged with a bit of melancholy. I buy baby things, but only for friends who are expecting. I just can't imagine walking past a fully prepped nursery every day knowing that there is no one to use it yet. That's got to be so heartbreaking. This whole thing is stressful enough without the added pressure of filling an empty room.
Having said that, I will cop to one indulgence. I saw a onesie at a craft fair in Baltimore last weekend. It was adorable and I bought it. It's tucked away in our closet - deep in our closet - I don't want it taunting me. No more baby purchases until we have someone to buy for, but that little gem? Honestly, I don't know if we'll even adopt someone small enough to wear it ever (it's a 3-6 mos. size), and maybe it will eventually be gifted to someone else. But I love it and it's now the first official piece of baby gear we own. I know it won't be the last, but I feel a bit like I'm jumping the gun. I'm not superstitious, but I'm really hoping I didn't jinx myself.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
An apology? Or maybe just an explanation.
I feel like I should issue a bit of an explanation regarding yesterday's post. I didn't intend for anyone to feel bad or hurt by my post, nor did I want to make anyone feel like this is somehow a taboo subject. We are guarded about how much information we post publicly on the Internet, but we are more than willing to discuss with our friends and family in person.
This can be such an emotionally fraught issue, so my post yesterday was intended only to give a perspective on "the other side of the coin" and not, in any way, to suggest that you (royal you) should walk on eggshells or anything like that. I also recognize that when we hear stories about the friend who started adoption paperwork and then got pregnant, it is intended as a hopeful anecdote. To give us a glimmer of hope that maybe it will happen to us too. My point in bringing it up is that anyone who has been down the infertility road has to shut those hopeful thoughts down to avoid the inevitable emotional fallout that comes when you find out you are not pregnant. Again.
As I have (briefly) mentioned before, we aren't going too far down the medical treatment path, so "infertility" is not something we are necessarily dealing with as a diagnosis. It is a functional fact at this point, but that's kind of the end of it right now. Having said that, however, it is also a functional fact that we are dealing with a fundamental failure of my body to function in the way that I think it should, and as such, I work fairly diligently at shutting out the "if I do xyz, maybe I'll get pregnant!" thoughts. It's just not conducive to a functional, healthy existence. Having the tangible reality of adoptions goes a long way in that regard, as does having the support of our friends and families. And ultimately, I am not offended when people offer up those hopeful anecdotes, but occasionally it does make me flinch. It would be disingenuous to deny that.
The point is, no matter what happens, we know we will have a new Baby P (or VP - vegan Parker - as a friend started saying!) in the foreseeable future. There is no reason to mourn or be sad! In fact, we don't have time for that - we have to much work to do to get ready!
Much love to everyone for following our journey and for supporting us through it. We'll be leaning on you all a lot more in the coming months, and we are so thankful to have you with us on this journey.
This can be such an emotionally fraught issue, so my post yesterday was intended only to give a perspective on "the other side of the coin" and not, in any way, to suggest that you (royal you) should walk on eggshells or anything like that. I also recognize that when we hear stories about the friend who started adoption paperwork and then got pregnant, it is intended as a hopeful anecdote. To give us a glimmer of hope that maybe it will happen to us too. My point in bringing it up is that anyone who has been down the infertility road has to shut those hopeful thoughts down to avoid the inevitable emotional fallout that comes when you find out you are not pregnant. Again.
As I have (briefly) mentioned before, we aren't going too far down the medical treatment path, so "infertility" is not something we are necessarily dealing with as a diagnosis. It is a functional fact at this point, but that's kind of the end of it right now. Having said that, however, it is also a functional fact that we are dealing with a fundamental failure of my body to function in the way that I think it should, and as such, I work fairly diligently at shutting out the "if I do xyz, maybe I'll get pregnant!" thoughts. It's just not conducive to a functional, healthy existence. Having the tangible reality of adoptions goes a long way in that regard, as does having the support of our friends and families. And ultimately, I am not offended when people offer up those hopeful anecdotes, but occasionally it does make me flinch. It would be disingenuous to deny that.
The point is, no matter what happens, we know we will have a new Baby P (or VP - vegan Parker - as a friend started saying!) in the foreseeable future. There is no reason to mourn or be sad! In fact, we don't have time for that - we have to much work to do to get ready!
Much love to everyone for following our journey and for supporting us through it. We'll be leaning on you all a lot more in the coming months, and we are so thankful to have you with us on this journey.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
It's funny what people will tell you about adoption.
The interesting thing about adoption is strangers will tell you the story of their friend/co-worker/cousin/insert-acquaintance-here who adopted. Normally this is great because you realize how prevalent and wonderful this is and how, even though you are at the beginning of a lot of paperwork, there is a wonderful outcome waiting for you on the other side. However, occasionally you hear disturbing stories - like the person who had to give back their adopted child or whatever.
Fast forward to today where I'm pretty sure a woman just told me about her friend buying a baby from Russia.
:: Blink, blink ::
"All they wanted was $100 US and some souvenirs from Washington, D.C.!" That, my friends, is troubling. Very troubling. Reason number 37,981 why I will not be adopting from Russia. I'm sorry, Russia. I'm sure you are a lovely country, but it just won't work out between us.
I can't tell you the number of times someone has said, "Just wait! As soon as you fill out that paperwork, you'll get pregnant!" While we would (obviously) welcome that scenario, these kinds of statements are just fundamentally unhelpful. I try not to get outright offended by them, because I know they are not meant maliciously, but there are a few underlying assumptions to these statements that I feel like I should address.
First: we are choosing to adopt. Not because we have to. Not because we have no other biological alternatives. Not because we think that filling out paperwork will magically lead to pregnancy. Adoption is not some kind of magic anti-birth control, and anyone who would treat it as such will fail their home study. We want to open our homes and hearts to a child, and there are plenty in the world who need love and good homes. It's as simple as that.
Second: Anyone who has had fertility issues will tell you that spouting "grandmother's wisdom" is not only insulting, it can be downright hurtful. Again, this is not to malign anyone. We are being a bit private about the nature and extent of our troubles, so I don't want to go too far into this topic, but please believe me when I tell you, we have done our homework! We know the potential causes and fixes of our issues, and saying "just relax" or "it'll happen when you least expect it!" either, at best, unwittingly gets my hopes up each month (which is not fun to deal with), or, at worst, displays a serious lack of social grace. We are certainly not precluding biological children. But we aren't putting all of our energy into that avenue any more. It's emotionally exhausting and not productive right now.
I have heard these types of statements from literally everyone imaginable - from well meaning friends to my own doctor! (Yes, really.) On good days I can laugh it off as well meant if fumbling. On bad days it makes me cry. Thankfully, there aren't that many bad days. It's kind of amazing to me how such a simple biological task - reproducing the species - can so quickly become an emotional quagmire. That's another strong reason to adopt, it shifts your focus and turns the whole thing back into what it should be from the start: an incredible act of love.
Fast forward to today where I'm pretty sure a woman just told me about her friend buying a baby from Russia.
:: Blink, blink ::
"All they wanted was $100 US and some souvenirs from Washington, D.C.!" That, my friends, is troubling. Very troubling. Reason number 37,981 why I will not be adopting from Russia. I'm sorry, Russia. I'm sure you are a lovely country, but it just won't work out between us.
I can't tell you the number of times someone has said, "Just wait! As soon as you fill out that paperwork, you'll get pregnant!" While we would (obviously) welcome that scenario, these kinds of statements are just fundamentally unhelpful. I try not to get outright offended by them, because I know they are not meant maliciously, but there are a few underlying assumptions to these statements that I feel like I should address.
First: we are choosing to adopt. Not because we have to. Not because we have no other biological alternatives. Not because we think that filling out paperwork will magically lead to pregnancy. Adoption is not some kind of magic anti-birth control, and anyone who would treat it as such will fail their home study. We want to open our homes and hearts to a child, and there are plenty in the world who need love and good homes. It's as simple as that.
Second: Anyone who has had fertility issues will tell you that spouting "grandmother's wisdom" is not only insulting, it can be downright hurtful. Again, this is not to malign anyone. We are being a bit private about the nature and extent of our troubles, so I don't want to go too far into this topic, but please believe me when I tell you, we have done our homework! We know the potential causes and fixes of our issues, and saying "just relax" or "it'll happen when you least expect it!" either, at best, unwittingly gets my hopes up each month (which is not fun to deal with), or, at worst, displays a serious lack of social grace. We are certainly not precluding biological children. But we aren't putting all of our energy into that avenue any more. It's emotionally exhausting and not productive right now.
I have heard these types of statements from literally everyone imaginable - from well meaning friends to my own doctor! (Yes, really.) On good days I can laugh it off as well meant if fumbling. On bad days it makes me cry. Thankfully, there aren't that many bad days. It's kind of amazing to me how such a simple biological task - reproducing the species - can so quickly become an emotional quagmire. That's another strong reason to adopt, it shifts your focus and turns the whole thing back into what it should be from the start: an incredible act of love.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Agency #3: The Datz Foundation
Lesson number 479 on why you can't judge a book by its cover. This was the third (and likely final) adoption agency information session we attended. A few minutes in to the presentation, I thought to myself, "Well, we're definitely going with Barker." By the end of the session, I was pretty sure we were going with Datz. I'll get into why in a bit.
In the last post, I gave an overview of what Datz considers to be the six main adoption criteria. I think these are a great summary of the things you should (and will) consider before adopting. Allen and I have been discussing these things at great length. Most of them are unimportant - gender, race, background info - but we are fairly certain that we'd like to adopt a young infant, or "as young as possible". We'd also like a shorter wait time. We have been ready for a family for a while now, and now that we've decided to adopt, we're waiting with open arms. "Insert baby here" essentially. We also feel like we aren't ready to take on extreme special needs, but I'll get into that shortly.
If you had asked me two weeks ago what I thought we'd be doing, adoption-wise, I'd have told you, unequivocally, that we would be adopting, through an agency, domestically. Basically, going in to a profile pool, getting matched with a birth mother and taking a healthy newborn home from the hospital. Two weeks later and my mind is completely changed. Completely. The funniest part is, the director of the Barker Foundation totally predicted this. She looked out at the sea of couples in the information session and said, "I can guarantee you, based on my years of experience, that two couples in this room who swear they are adopting domestically will adopt internationally. And two couples who think they are adopting internationally will, in fact, adopt domestically." While we haven't adopted yet (yet), she was totally right about us. I wonder who the other couple will turn out to be?
But back to Datz. Datz is a very small non-profit adoption agency. They are kind of opposite to Barker. Barker is large, has a profile pool and charges a sliding scale fee based on your income. Datz is small, has no profile pool and charges fixed rates for services. Datz explained that they have very few infants relinquished to them for placement each year, so they just don't maintain a pool of potential adoptive families. If you are adopting domestically through Datz, you can either find your own birth family through websites like Parent Profiles, or they will help connect you with larger agencies around the country. If we were dead set on only adopting domestically, I'd probably go with Barker, but Datz does offer services for domestic adoption.
The programs I was most interested in at Datz were the international programs. Datz works with many of the same countries as Barker, but also works with Russia. Russia is probably last on my list for adoption options, so that isn't important other than to just give background info on Datz. What I was most interested in was the Waiting Child program in China. We met a woman who recently adopted her daughter from this program in China. It fulfilled all of the "requirements" that I have for adoption: it's fast, you can adopt very young children, and it's not super expensive.
The Waiting Child program is basically China's "special needs" children that are available for adoption. Remember how, just a few paragraphs ago, I said we didn't feel ready to take on severe special needs? Well, "special needs" is defined very differently in China. "Special needs" can run the gamut, all the way to severe Down's syndrome requiring extended medical care, but for most cases, "special needs" means a birthmark (sometimes a small one, sometimes an extensive one, but cosmetic nonetheless), or a small hole in the heart (common in infants and frequently self corrected without medical intervention, though I don't want to downplay the potential seriousness of the condition), cleft lip palate (maybe the most frequent condition)... I can't list them all, because I don't know all the possibilities, but the main point is that most of these children have minor, correctable, or cosmetic "imperfections" and as a result of being designated "special needs", are considered to be less "adoptable" than normal, healthy, "perfect" children. The wait times for these children are much, much shorter than typical international wait times - six months to a year in most cases! - and there are over 2,000 children on the list. Also, sometimes the "special need" is that the child is simply older. Say over the age of 4. There are literally thousands of kids on this list waiting for a loving home, and contrary to the infant adoption program in China, where most of the babies are girls (overwhelmingly girls), there are a large number of boys awaiting adoption in this program. I am having daydreams of adopting a little boy from China right now... But.
You knew there had to be a caveat, right? The "but" is that Chinese adoption laws require that both parents be over the age of 30. :: facepalm :: Allen fails this requirement. However, this works in our favor because it can take a year to assemble your international dossier to submit to the Waiting Child program, so we can do all the leg work now and be ready to go the day Allen turns 30. I'm not sure what all goes in to the dossier - we'll find out in a month or so, I guess - but I know you need things like certified copies of birth certificates and such. You also need to file applications with the state department for a visa for your new child, and get travel authorization and those kinds of things. Also, the home study for an international, Hague accredited adoption is much more extensive than a domestic home study. I'll be getting in to the details of what's required for the home study as we get further in to the process, but I do know you need a background and criminal record check from everywhere you've ever lived, ever. It's a lot of paperwork.
I'm positive that Barker participates in the Waiting Child program as well. The reason that I'm leaning heavily towards Datz is two-fold. First, and most importantly, we can still search for a domestic adoption through Parent Profiles (or similar) while we are preparing our international dossier. If we were to adopt or have a biological child in the interim between now and when Allen turns 30, we'd need to update our home study, but otherwise we would still stay on track for adopting a Waiting Child. Second, and this is less important, but still a consideration, is the fees charged by each agency. Datz charges a flat fee. Barker has a sliding scale, but it has never been directly stated that there is an upper or lower limit to this scale. I have heard anecdotal evidence that there is not necessarily an upper limit, which could mean a significant expense for us as DINKs (double income, no kids). We are very lucky to have the jobs and income we have, but the reality of the situation is that it won't always be this way. We are seriously considering dropping down to one salary when we have kids, at least short term, so we need to maximize our savings now in preparation for that eventuality.
As long as we've been discussing adoption, I've been hoping that we would one day have a multi-cultural house. I'm not actually sure what the correct terminology is, and I don't want to offend, but I think it's so important for kids to have exposure to different races, cultures, creeds, etc., whether it's through school or travel or family. I just envisioned that our kids would be exposed to it closer to home. I really feel like we are on our way to realizing that dream. We'll be doing a lot of discussing in the next few weeks, as a couple, but also with our families and friends, before we make our final decision. I expect we'll be starting paperwork, whether with Datz or Barker in early January. In the mean time, I'll be investigating what exactly "sliding scale" means, and gathering up addresses from every place either of us have ever lived. I feel a little bit like Dorothy at the very beginning of the Yellow Brick Road as it spirals out into the unknown. I do know that there is a new Baby P waiting in the Emerald City!
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -Lao Tzu
We're stepping.
In the last post, I gave an overview of what Datz considers to be the six main adoption criteria. I think these are a great summary of the things you should (and will) consider before adopting. Allen and I have been discussing these things at great length. Most of them are unimportant - gender, race, background info - but we are fairly certain that we'd like to adopt a young infant, or "as young as possible". We'd also like a shorter wait time. We have been ready for a family for a while now, and now that we've decided to adopt, we're waiting with open arms. "Insert baby here" essentially. We also feel like we aren't ready to take on extreme special needs, but I'll get into that shortly.
If you had asked me two weeks ago what I thought we'd be doing, adoption-wise, I'd have told you, unequivocally, that we would be adopting, through an agency, domestically. Basically, going in to a profile pool, getting matched with a birth mother and taking a healthy newborn home from the hospital. Two weeks later and my mind is completely changed. Completely. The funniest part is, the director of the Barker Foundation totally predicted this. She looked out at the sea of couples in the information session and said, "I can guarantee you, based on my years of experience, that two couples in this room who swear they are adopting domestically will adopt internationally. And two couples who think they are adopting internationally will, in fact, adopt domestically." While we haven't adopted yet (yet), she was totally right about us. I wonder who the other couple will turn out to be?
But back to Datz. Datz is a very small non-profit adoption agency. They are kind of opposite to Barker. Barker is large, has a profile pool and charges a sliding scale fee based on your income. Datz is small, has no profile pool and charges fixed rates for services. Datz explained that they have very few infants relinquished to them for placement each year, so they just don't maintain a pool of potential adoptive families. If you are adopting domestically through Datz, you can either find your own birth family through websites like Parent Profiles, or they will help connect you with larger agencies around the country. If we were dead set on only adopting domestically, I'd probably go with Barker, but Datz does offer services for domestic adoption.
The programs I was most interested in at Datz were the international programs. Datz works with many of the same countries as Barker, but also works with Russia. Russia is probably last on my list for adoption options, so that isn't important other than to just give background info on Datz. What I was most interested in was the Waiting Child program in China. We met a woman who recently adopted her daughter from this program in China. It fulfilled all of the "requirements" that I have for adoption: it's fast, you can adopt very young children, and it's not super expensive.
The Waiting Child program is basically China's "special needs" children that are available for adoption. Remember how, just a few paragraphs ago, I said we didn't feel ready to take on severe special needs? Well, "special needs" is defined very differently in China. "Special needs" can run the gamut, all the way to severe Down's syndrome requiring extended medical care, but for most cases, "special needs" means a birthmark (sometimes a small one, sometimes an extensive one, but cosmetic nonetheless), or a small hole in the heart (common in infants and frequently self corrected without medical intervention, though I don't want to downplay the potential seriousness of the condition), cleft lip palate (maybe the most frequent condition)... I can't list them all, because I don't know all the possibilities, but the main point is that most of these children have minor, correctable, or cosmetic "imperfections" and as a result of being designated "special needs", are considered to be less "adoptable" than normal, healthy, "perfect" children. The wait times for these children are much, much shorter than typical international wait times - six months to a year in most cases! - and there are over 2,000 children on the list. Also, sometimes the "special need" is that the child is simply older. Say over the age of 4. There are literally thousands of kids on this list waiting for a loving home, and contrary to the infant adoption program in China, where most of the babies are girls (overwhelmingly girls), there are a large number of boys awaiting adoption in this program. I am having daydreams of adopting a little boy from China right now... But.
You knew there had to be a caveat, right? The "but" is that Chinese adoption laws require that both parents be over the age of 30. :: facepalm :: Allen fails this requirement. However, this works in our favor because it can take a year to assemble your international dossier to submit to the Waiting Child program, so we can do all the leg work now and be ready to go the day Allen turns 30. I'm not sure what all goes in to the dossier - we'll find out in a month or so, I guess - but I know you need things like certified copies of birth certificates and such. You also need to file applications with the state department for a visa for your new child, and get travel authorization and those kinds of things. Also, the home study for an international, Hague accredited adoption is much more extensive than a domestic home study. I'll be getting in to the details of what's required for the home study as we get further in to the process, but I do know you need a background and criminal record check from everywhere you've ever lived, ever. It's a lot of paperwork.
I'm positive that Barker participates in the Waiting Child program as well. The reason that I'm leaning heavily towards Datz is two-fold. First, and most importantly, we can still search for a domestic adoption through Parent Profiles (or similar) while we are preparing our international dossier. If we were to adopt or have a biological child in the interim between now and when Allen turns 30, we'd need to update our home study, but otherwise we would still stay on track for adopting a Waiting Child. Second, and this is less important, but still a consideration, is the fees charged by each agency. Datz charges a flat fee. Barker has a sliding scale, but it has never been directly stated that there is an upper or lower limit to this scale. I have heard anecdotal evidence that there is not necessarily an upper limit, which could mean a significant expense for us as DINKs (double income, no kids). We are very lucky to have the jobs and income we have, but the reality of the situation is that it won't always be this way. We are seriously considering dropping down to one salary when we have kids, at least short term, so we need to maximize our savings now in preparation for that eventuality.
As long as we've been discussing adoption, I've been hoping that we would one day have a multi-cultural house. I'm not actually sure what the correct terminology is, and I don't want to offend, but I think it's so important for kids to have exposure to different races, cultures, creeds, etc., whether it's through school or travel or family. I just envisioned that our kids would be exposed to it closer to home. I really feel like we are on our way to realizing that dream. We'll be doing a lot of discussing in the next few weeks, as a couple, but also with our families and friends, before we make our final decision. I expect we'll be starting paperwork, whether with Datz or Barker in early January. In the mean time, I'll be investigating what exactly "sliding scale" means, and gathering up addresses from every place either of us have ever lived. I feel a little bit like Dorothy at the very beginning of the Yellow Brick Road as it spirals out into the unknown. I do know that there is a new Baby P waiting in the Emerald City!
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -Lao Tzu
We're stepping.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The six adoption criteria.
I'll get in to the particulars of the Datz agency in the next post, but I wanted to touch on this topic first.
The info session was run by the director of the foundation and the person who runs the Russian and Haitian programs for the agency. He started the meeting with a list of what Datz considers to be the six adoption criteria or considerations. I'll run through them because while we have heard similar things from other agencies, this is the first time I've heard it laid out so concisely.
1. Appearance.
How important is it to you to have a child that looks like you? If you adopt a child of a different race, will you be offended by strangers asking you questions? How important this first criteria is will inform your decision of adoption location. If you really want a child that looks like you and you are white, you are going to look at Russia or possibly the U.S. for adoptions. If it doesn't matter, you can look anywhere.
2. Background Information.
How much do you want or need to know about the child's background? Even in the most intimate private adoptions, you aren't going to know everything about your child's background. How much family medical history do you want? How much do you want to know about where the biological family came from or how many cousins, possible siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.? In the U.S., you can run the gamut for how much information you get about the birth parents. It's really dependent on how much the birth parents are willing (or able) to divulge. In a country like China, in almost all cases, you will have no knowledge of who the parents are. Most of these babies are abandoned (because of draconian Chinese child-bearing laws, but that's another post) in places where they will be quickly found, but other than where they are found and what clothes they were wearing at the time, you have no information about their biological beginnings. However, Chinese orphanages keep very detailed medical records. So you will know about how many colds your child has had, any abnormalities (medically speaking), things of that nature. Russia has spotty (at best) medical records, and frequently there are exaggerated or completely fabricated details. In Ethiopia, you will frequently get to meet the birth mother (or parents), which is unusual in the International adoption community. So how much information you want will be a big factor in where you adopt from.
3. Age.
A frequent saying you hear in adoption is "as young as possible". If you want to adopt a baby, it is easier to do domestically, because frequently, babies will come to your home directly from the hospital. Babies are also available internationally, but they are older babies, say 18 months, give or take. Older children are available in all open adoption countries, including the U.S., so if you are interested in an older child, that is generally the absolute easiest way to go.
4. Gender.
Is it important to you? Apparently - and this statistic has been repeated frequently - the majority of adoptive families, around 90% or more, express a preference for adopting girls. I'm not sure the reason for this, and one social worker challenged us to discuss it at home and really explore it, but if you are set on one sex over the other, you could choose your adoption locale based on that. (Generally speaking, setting a preference in stone could mean a longer wait time.)
5. Wait.
How long are you willing to wait for your adoption to go through? Do you want to go through a domestic "lottery" type system or an international "queue" system? The estimates given by agencies are 1-1.5 years for domestic, 1-4.5 years international. We met a woman who adopted from China and she said that realistically speaking, the wait time for a healthy, "normal" Chinese baby is 8 years. Eight years. There are a number of factors contributing to this - a lengthy paperwork system, more Chinese families adopting, a relaxation of the single child policy, etc. - but this is a significant length of time to wait to adopt a child.
6. Cost.
The fact of the matter is that adoptions cost money. You are not - I repeat NOT - paying for a child. You are paying for the infrastructure, legal fees and paperwork involved in adopting. Domestic adoptions tend to be less expensive than international adoptions, but realistically speaking, you can expect to spend anywhere from $3000 (for an adoption of an older child out of the foster system) domestically to $40,000 (or more!) internationally. These are not just administration fees, though. This also includes things like travel to and from the adoptive country and other ancillary expenses. There a lot of great adoption tax credits and things like that aimed at making adoption affordable for most families.
The short answer for us is that we are not really particular about most of these categories. We don't require a specific gender or racial background (I'm actually excited about the prospect of a multiracial family). Background information and medical histories would be nice, but if we don't have it, we're not going to be too upset about it. We'd prefer "as young as possible", and while we haven't had any specific discussions about it, I think we'd be willing to adopt a bit older - say toddler age or so - maybe up to age 4? We'll worry about that when we complete our home study. Cost is an issue, but we are lucky that it isn't a major deciding factor for us. I feel pretty confident that we can afford whichever path we choose, with the understanding that these fees are meted out over a period of time and not all paid at once. That may change - who knows what the future holds? But for now, cost is not our deciding factor. We will be doing a lot of discussing and soul searching in the next few weeks as we decide which agency to apply with and which path to take to adopting our child. I'll get into the specifics of the Datz Foundation in the next post, but we're definitely forming more of an opinion on the matter, and it's turning out very differently from what I expected. I will say though, for anyone ever considering adoption, put down the computer and go to an information meeting. It has been such a revelation for us, and a really great way to wade through the information overload that is a Google search for "adoption".
More to come!
The info session was run by the director of the foundation and the person who runs the Russian and Haitian programs for the agency. He started the meeting with a list of what Datz considers to be the six adoption criteria or considerations. I'll run through them because while we have heard similar things from other agencies, this is the first time I've heard it laid out so concisely.
1. Appearance.
How important is it to you to have a child that looks like you? If you adopt a child of a different race, will you be offended by strangers asking you questions? How important this first criteria is will inform your decision of adoption location. If you really want a child that looks like you and you are white, you are going to look at Russia or possibly the U.S. for adoptions. If it doesn't matter, you can look anywhere.
2. Background Information.
How much do you want or need to know about the child's background? Even in the most intimate private adoptions, you aren't going to know everything about your child's background. How much family medical history do you want? How much do you want to know about where the biological family came from or how many cousins, possible siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.? In the U.S., you can run the gamut for how much information you get about the birth parents. It's really dependent on how much the birth parents are willing (or able) to divulge. In a country like China, in almost all cases, you will have no knowledge of who the parents are. Most of these babies are abandoned (because of draconian Chinese child-bearing laws, but that's another post) in places where they will be quickly found, but other than where they are found and what clothes they were wearing at the time, you have no information about their biological beginnings. However, Chinese orphanages keep very detailed medical records. So you will know about how many colds your child has had, any abnormalities (medically speaking), things of that nature. Russia has spotty (at best) medical records, and frequently there are exaggerated or completely fabricated details. In Ethiopia, you will frequently get to meet the birth mother (or parents), which is unusual in the International adoption community. So how much information you want will be a big factor in where you adopt from.
3. Age.
A frequent saying you hear in adoption is "as young as possible". If you want to adopt a baby, it is easier to do domestically, because frequently, babies will come to your home directly from the hospital. Babies are also available internationally, but they are older babies, say 18 months, give or take. Older children are available in all open adoption countries, including the U.S., so if you are interested in an older child, that is generally the absolute easiest way to go.
4. Gender.
Is it important to you? Apparently - and this statistic has been repeated frequently - the majority of adoptive families, around 90% or more, express a preference for adopting girls. I'm not sure the reason for this, and one social worker challenged us to discuss it at home and really explore it, but if you are set on one sex over the other, you could choose your adoption locale based on that. (Generally speaking, setting a preference in stone could mean a longer wait time.)
5. Wait.
How long are you willing to wait for your adoption to go through? Do you want to go through a domestic "lottery" type system or an international "queue" system? The estimates given by agencies are 1-1.5 years for domestic, 1-4.5 years international. We met a woman who adopted from China and she said that realistically speaking, the wait time for a healthy, "normal" Chinese baby is 8 years. Eight years. There are a number of factors contributing to this - a lengthy paperwork system, more Chinese families adopting, a relaxation of the single child policy, etc. - but this is a significant length of time to wait to adopt a child.
6. Cost.
The fact of the matter is that adoptions cost money. You are not - I repeat NOT - paying for a child. You are paying for the infrastructure, legal fees and paperwork involved in adopting. Domestic adoptions tend to be less expensive than international adoptions, but realistically speaking, you can expect to spend anywhere from $3000 (for an adoption of an older child out of the foster system) domestically to $40,000 (or more!) internationally. These are not just administration fees, though. This also includes things like travel to and from the adoptive country and other ancillary expenses. There a lot of great adoption tax credits and things like that aimed at making adoption affordable for most families.
The short answer for us is that we are not really particular about most of these categories. We don't require a specific gender or racial background (I'm actually excited about the prospect of a multiracial family). Background information and medical histories would be nice, but if we don't have it, we're not going to be too upset about it. We'd prefer "as young as possible", and while we haven't had any specific discussions about it, I think we'd be willing to adopt a bit older - say toddler age or so - maybe up to age 4? We'll worry about that when we complete our home study. Cost is an issue, but we are lucky that it isn't a major deciding factor for us. I feel pretty confident that we can afford whichever path we choose, with the understanding that these fees are meted out over a period of time and not all paid at once. That may change - who knows what the future holds? But for now, cost is not our deciding factor. We will be doing a lot of discussing and soul searching in the next few weeks as we decide which agency to apply with and which path to take to adopting our child. I'll get into the specifics of the Datz Foundation in the next post, but we're definitely forming more of an opinion on the matter, and it's turning out very differently from what I expected. I will say though, for anyone ever considering adoption, put down the computer and go to an information meeting. It has been such a revelation for us, and a really great way to wade through the information overload that is a Google search for "adoption".
More to come!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Birth order.
There has been quite a bit of discussion about the age of the child we will eventually adopt. A domestic agency or private adoptions means, broadly speaking, that we would be adopting an infant. An international adoption, broadly speaking, means we would be adopting an older baby - say under 18 months of age (most of the stories I read seem to indicate that you are united with your child before they reach one year old, but that can vary). Project Wait No Longer is specific to older children who are free and clear to adopt and waiting in foster care. These are (generally speaking) kids who are between 6 and 17 years old and either have no living parents or whose parental rights have already been terminated by the government.
There are, of course, exceptions to these generic age groupings. Occasionally you will finding children younger than 6 in the Wait No Longer group as part of a sibling group. Similarly with International adoptions, some countries, like Ethiopia, have more sibling groups to place, so you will find stories of people who adopted, say an 18 month old and a three year old pair of siblings, or a 6 year old and a 10 year old. Something along those lines.
Adoption is such an emotionally charged issue, but one thing we heard early on, at Catholic Charities, that really stuck with me was this: Well adjusted, happy people don't relinquish their children for adoption. I mean, I think everyone recognizes that on some level before starting this process, but hearing it out loud and digesting it for a moment was a revelation to me. These children aren't coming from a happy circumstance, and there are ramifications to that. You can certainly minimize those things - adopting an infant is, arguably, "easier" by some measurement rubric than adopting a 5 year old who has been exposed to varying degrees of traumatic circumstances.
One of the great things about going through an agency is all of the support you receive along the way. They have (occasionally mandatory) training classes, parenting classes, counseling sessions, meetings with other parents in a similar stage or situation, and myriad other resources that you didn't know you needed until, well, you need them. The other thing we have learned is that, in the case where a family is adopting multiple times, or already has children in the home, the agency prefers to place children in birth order. Essentially, this means that if you have a 5 year old, you aren't, typically speaking, going to bring in a 7 year old after that. Your next adoption would be a child who was under 5 years of age. And most agencies like to see a minimum age gap between children, say a year or 18 months. There are always exceptions, naturally. Each family and each adoption circumstance is different so there are no hard and fast rules in terms of welcoming a child into your home. There are hard and fast legal rules, make no mistake! But the rest of it seems to be firm guidelines that are reviewed for the minute details of your particular case.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on providing the best match between families. You aren't doing anyone any favors by adopting the one who "needs" it most, rather than the one that will fit in best with your family. There are hundreds, if not thousands of stories out there of parents who had to rescind the adoption ("give back" the child) because of severe issues. The most famous, recently, being the woman who sent her son back to Russia with a note pinned to his chest. I don't want to pass judgment on this woman or this story. My personal opinion is that it was an extreme reaction - to say the least - but I don't know what other factors prompted this action. At the very least it should serve as a warning to use reputable, Hague accredited adoption agencies and countries (Russia is not Hague signatory as far as I know) and to practice due diligence. Do the appropriate research, find out as much as possible about potential medical complications, and above all else, be honest with yourself about what your limits are.
There are inherent risks to adopting. You have no idea if your child is going to grow up to be the next president or is going to succumb to drug addictions. That isn't even really the issue though. The issue is that we have the illusion that if we birth a child ourselves, we have ultimate say in how they will turn out, when, in fact, nothing can be further from the truth. Without getting too deep into the nature vs. nurture argument, I think that it's a bit of both. Is it 50/50? 70/30? Who knows? There is risk in parenting in general, and adoption is not necessarily more or less risky than biological offspring. But if you avail yourself of the resources available to you as an adoptive parent, you will have a much easier time of it in the long run.
I want to stress that while not everything is unicorns and rainbows, the majority of stories I have heard have been nothing but joyous on both ends. I know adopters and adoptees and have spent way more time than is probably healthy on adoption forums and websites reading stories of adoption. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's fun and joy, but I think, in almost all cases, it's extremely rewarding. The adoptions gone bad are the ones that make the most scandalous headlines and the most salacious gossip, so everyone knows a friend of a friend who had to "give back" their child. I'm sure it happens. But we feel like, whichever path we choose, we will be as best prepared for the outcome as is possible, through a combination of honest discussions about what we feel we can handle, discussions with our agency and social worker about the best match for our circumstances and just plain, old fashioned research.
There are, of course, exceptions to these generic age groupings. Occasionally you will finding children younger than 6 in the Wait No Longer group as part of a sibling group. Similarly with International adoptions, some countries, like Ethiopia, have more sibling groups to place, so you will find stories of people who adopted, say an 18 month old and a three year old pair of siblings, or a 6 year old and a 10 year old. Something along those lines.
Adoption is such an emotionally charged issue, but one thing we heard early on, at Catholic Charities, that really stuck with me was this: Well adjusted, happy people don't relinquish their children for adoption. I mean, I think everyone recognizes that on some level before starting this process, but hearing it out loud and digesting it for a moment was a revelation to me. These children aren't coming from a happy circumstance, and there are ramifications to that. You can certainly minimize those things - adopting an infant is, arguably, "easier" by some measurement rubric than adopting a 5 year old who has been exposed to varying degrees of traumatic circumstances.
One of the great things about going through an agency is all of the support you receive along the way. They have (occasionally mandatory) training classes, parenting classes, counseling sessions, meetings with other parents in a similar stage or situation, and myriad other resources that you didn't know you needed until, well, you need them. The other thing we have learned is that, in the case where a family is adopting multiple times, or already has children in the home, the agency prefers to place children in birth order. Essentially, this means that if you have a 5 year old, you aren't, typically speaking, going to bring in a 7 year old after that. Your next adoption would be a child who was under 5 years of age. And most agencies like to see a minimum age gap between children, say a year or 18 months. There are always exceptions, naturally. Each family and each adoption circumstance is different so there are no hard and fast rules in terms of welcoming a child into your home. There are hard and fast legal rules, make no mistake! But the rest of it seems to be firm guidelines that are reviewed for the minute details of your particular case.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on providing the best match between families. You aren't doing anyone any favors by adopting the one who "needs" it most, rather than the one that will fit in best with your family. There are hundreds, if not thousands of stories out there of parents who had to rescind the adoption ("give back" the child) because of severe issues. The most famous, recently, being the woman who sent her son back to Russia with a note pinned to his chest. I don't want to pass judgment on this woman or this story. My personal opinion is that it was an extreme reaction - to say the least - but I don't know what other factors prompted this action. At the very least it should serve as a warning to use reputable, Hague accredited adoption agencies and countries (Russia is not Hague signatory as far as I know) and to practice due diligence. Do the appropriate research, find out as much as possible about potential medical complications, and above all else, be honest with yourself about what your limits are.
There are inherent risks to adopting. You have no idea if your child is going to grow up to be the next president or is going to succumb to drug addictions. That isn't even really the issue though. The issue is that we have the illusion that if we birth a child ourselves, we have ultimate say in how they will turn out, when, in fact, nothing can be further from the truth. Without getting too deep into the nature vs. nurture argument, I think that it's a bit of both. Is it 50/50? 70/30? Who knows? There is risk in parenting in general, and adoption is not necessarily more or less risky than biological offspring. But if you avail yourself of the resources available to you as an adoptive parent, you will have a much easier time of it in the long run.
I want to stress that while not everything is unicorns and rainbows, the majority of stories I have heard have been nothing but joyous on both ends. I know adopters and adoptees and have spent way more time than is probably healthy on adoption forums and websites reading stories of adoption. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's fun and joy, but I think, in almost all cases, it's extremely rewarding. The adoptions gone bad are the ones that make the most scandalous headlines and the most salacious gossip, so everyone knows a friend of a friend who had to "give back" their child. I'm sure it happens. But we feel like, whichever path we choose, we will be as best prepared for the outcome as is possible, through a combination of honest discussions about what we feel we can handle, discussions with our agency and social worker about the best match for our circumstances and just plain, old fashioned research.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Agency #2: The Barker Foundation
Move over Catholic Charities... We've now met Barker. I think you can tell already that we liked Barker a lot.
The Barker Foundation was founded in 1945 by the Barkers in Washington, D.C., at the request of the Department of the Navy, who was finding that it had female Naval officers who had gotten unexpectedly pregnant. It started in their home, where the top two floors were dormitories for young pregnant women, and they had information meetings in their living room every Sunday. Apparently, Barker (a tax attorney) is responsible for some of the current policy on adoption.
Barker, like all ethical adoption agencies, is Hague accredited, and has a ton of experience in all aspects of adoption. There agency is broken up into different departments for each type of adoption path - International, Domestic and an older child adoption program called Project Wait No Longer. We met with the director of the International program and with the director of the Wait no Longer program. We will likely schedule a second meeting with the director of the Domestic program as she was not available yesterday for questions.
We also got more information on the key differences between International and Domestic adoption. Basically, International adoption is a queue. You file your paperwork, pay your fees, wait in line, and the governing body in the foreign country matches you with a child. The birth mother has very little say in the placement, but also, frequently, the birth mother may not even be known. Domestic adoption tends to be more of a lottery system. The birth mother has a lot more say in which family she wants to raise the child, and your wait time can be very unpredictable. One of the directors said something very interesting. She said that you shouldn't go in to it until you are absolutely, positively ready to take home a child. Yes, average wait times are long - say 12 to 18 months. But there are plenty of cases where the prospective parents get a phone call three days after they turn in a completed profile book. You just never know.
One of the really interesting things about Barker is that they allow you to pursue several adoption paths concurrently. You can prepare a dossier for the Domestic and International program simultaneously and either terminate both when you get matched with a child, or keep the second application alive even as you finalize your first adoption. I doubt we'll go this route, but it's nice to have the option. For me, I am looking for the path with the shortest wait time, and while that can be unpredictable, I think, overall, Domestic adoptions tend to be faster. They gave us really great information on the countries they specialize in for International adoption. China, for example, used to have a wait time of 6 months (in the beginning), but now they are seeing waits as long as 4.5 years. I think the average is around 2 years, but the adoptions out of China are slowing considerably. There are also rules specific to each country that you have to take in to account, and Barker laid all of those out quite nicely. For example, some countries require both parents to be over 30 (which cuts us out), and some go so far as to require that both parents have a certain body mass index. (Yes, really.) It seems weird to us to require something like that, but, hey, I don't make the rules. And what is important in the U.S. is not necessarily what's important to China or Korea or Ethiopia.
Barker also gave us our first glimpse into parent profile books. The ones we saw are basically Snapfish photo books with a lot of text explaining the couples background and various aspects of their lives that they find important. I'm sure we'll get more insight into how to prepare these books when we finish our home study, but I've been imagining ours as a scrapbook with quilt scraps and knit swatches and other little tactile embellishments.
Barker is similar to Catholic Charities in that they have a pool of families who are ready to adopt. The difference is that Barker's pool is much larger. There are between 50-60 families with completed home studies and profile books currently on file. Though that's quite a bit larger than the Catholic Charities pool, with Barker there is no waiting list. Once you have finished your profile book, it goes straight into the pool. I think the overall wait times for actually receiving your child are similar between the agencies, but at Catholic Charities they want you to wait with no expectations for a while. I really like the idea of going straight into the pool. It gives the birth parent(s) more choice for placement, and it makes us feel like we are being considered a lot more frequently than if we were languishing on a waiting list.
We have another info session next weekend, but if we were to choose right now, we'd pick Barker over Catholic Charities. Both are ethical, reputable agencies, but Barker seems to be a better fit for us in terms of our goals and how to best go about achieving those goals. The only thing we'll have to guard against is not letting our hopes get too high once we get in to the Barker pool!
The Barker Foundation was founded in 1945 by the Barkers in Washington, D.C., at the request of the Department of the Navy, who was finding that it had female Naval officers who had gotten unexpectedly pregnant. It started in their home, where the top two floors were dormitories for young pregnant women, and they had information meetings in their living room every Sunday. Apparently, Barker (a tax attorney) is responsible for some of the current policy on adoption.
Barker, like all ethical adoption agencies, is Hague accredited, and has a ton of experience in all aspects of adoption. There agency is broken up into different departments for each type of adoption path - International, Domestic and an older child adoption program called Project Wait No Longer. We met with the director of the International program and with the director of the Wait no Longer program. We will likely schedule a second meeting with the director of the Domestic program as she was not available yesterday for questions.
We also got more information on the key differences between International and Domestic adoption. Basically, International adoption is a queue. You file your paperwork, pay your fees, wait in line, and the governing body in the foreign country matches you with a child. The birth mother has very little say in the placement, but also, frequently, the birth mother may not even be known. Domestic adoption tends to be more of a lottery system. The birth mother has a lot more say in which family she wants to raise the child, and your wait time can be very unpredictable. One of the directors said something very interesting. She said that you shouldn't go in to it until you are absolutely, positively ready to take home a child. Yes, average wait times are long - say 12 to 18 months. But there are plenty of cases where the prospective parents get a phone call three days after they turn in a completed profile book. You just never know.
One of the really interesting things about Barker is that they allow you to pursue several adoption paths concurrently. You can prepare a dossier for the Domestic and International program simultaneously and either terminate both when you get matched with a child, or keep the second application alive even as you finalize your first adoption. I doubt we'll go this route, but it's nice to have the option. For me, I am looking for the path with the shortest wait time, and while that can be unpredictable, I think, overall, Domestic adoptions tend to be faster. They gave us really great information on the countries they specialize in for International adoption. China, for example, used to have a wait time of 6 months (in the beginning), but now they are seeing waits as long as 4.5 years. I think the average is around 2 years, but the adoptions out of China are slowing considerably. There are also rules specific to each country that you have to take in to account, and Barker laid all of those out quite nicely. For example, some countries require both parents to be over 30 (which cuts us out), and some go so far as to require that both parents have a certain body mass index. (Yes, really.) It seems weird to us to require something like that, but, hey, I don't make the rules. And what is important in the U.S. is not necessarily what's important to China or Korea or Ethiopia.
Barker also gave us our first glimpse into parent profile books. The ones we saw are basically Snapfish photo books with a lot of text explaining the couples background and various aspects of their lives that they find important. I'm sure we'll get more insight into how to prepare these books when we finish our home study, but I've been imagining ours as a scrapbook with quilt scraps and knit swatches and other little tactile embellishments.
Barker is similar to Catholic Charities in that they have a pool of families who are ready to adopt. The difference is that Barker's pool is much larger. There are between 50-60 families with completed home studies and profile books currently on file. Though that's quite a bit larger than the Catholic Charities pool, with Barker there is no waiting list. Once you have finished your profile book, it goes straight into the pool. I think the overall wait times for actually receiving your child are similar between the agencies, but at Catholic Charities they want you to wait with no expectations for a while. I really like the idea of going straight into the pool. It gives the birth parent(s) more choice for placement, and it makes us feel like we are being considered a lot more frequently than if we were languishing on a waiting list.
We have another info session next weekend, but if we were to choose right now, we'd pick Barker over Catholic Charities. Both are ethical, reputable agencies, but Barker seems to be a better fit for us in terms of our goals and how to best go about achieving those goals. The only thing we'll have to guard against is not letting our hopes get too high once we get in to the Barker pool!
Saturday, December 4, 2010
A word on the whys.
Everyone has their own reasons for adopting. It's a deeply personal decision, but I want to iterate very strongly that adopting is not something that happens by accident. It is a long road, with a lot of literal and emotional expense, and the people who become adoptive parents do so explicitly on purpose.
Having said that, it would be disingenuous to deny that there is a component of philanthropy involved in the decision. We want to expand our family, true enough, but we also want to provide a stable and loving home to a child who would otherwise not have the opportunity. It's a very fine line to walk between "saving" someone, a.k.a. making them a charity case, and becoming parents.
I think that caring for children, whether they are our biological offspring or not, is something innate in the human animal. We want to nurture and love and prepare the next generation to take our place, and whether that generation shares our DNA seems, to me, to be an inconsequential detail in the grand scheme. This is not to belittle biological children in any way, but rather to express awe and wonder at the human capacity for love and kindness.
We decided very early in our marriage (in our relationship in general, even) that, ideally, we'd like a blended family. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that we shouldn't be having children (as a species) or that we should be having fewer because of limited resources or because there are "plenty" of kids out there that already need homes. I understand the point people are making with regard to that philosophy, but it's never been a tenet of my belief system. Having said that, I should point out that Allen subscribes to that belief somewhat - possibly as a result of his philosophy training? I'm not sure - you'll have to ask him his reasons. So for me, adoption is not something I feel a moral obligation to instead of biological children.
The plain and simple reason for me (for us) is that we have so much love between us, we feel that the next logical step is to share it with another. There are times when I feel as though the love I feel when I look at Allen is literally seeping out of cracks in my skin. As though my body isn't big enough to contain it. I want a baby to pass that love on to - someone to absorb the excess in love between me and my husband, and maybe, just maybe, reflect a little bit of it back. I have all of the other usual cravings too: someone to pass on our Christmas night lasagna dinner to, someone to teach all manner of crafting techniques, someone to bake silly birthday cakes for, someone cuddle on the couch with while reading, someone to make our lives light up from the inside in a way that only children can.
I don't want to go into too much medical detail here - it's a very private subject - but I will say that we are not precluding the possibility of biological children. That endeavor has not been, um, successful for us in the past year and a half, and while there are options to explore on that front, I don't feel comfortable with a host of medical interventions of increasing severity, at this point. For the time being, we are taking an "if it happens, it happens" approach to biological children.
Since adoption is something we always planned for anyway, and we are "ready" to have kids, we thought this was a great way to add to our family without putting a medical strain on our relationship. Treatment for infertility can be stressful both emotionally and physically, not to mention costly. Much of the available medical intervention may not be covered under our existing medical insurance, but more importantly, I don't want to put the strain on my physical and mental resources. We want children, but neither of us need that child to be biological.
From the information we have gathered thus far, it would seem that there is a great deal of emphasis placed on grieving for your own lost fertility before pursuing adoption. While we have confronted grief in our journey thus far, I don't think grieving over a lost opportunity, in terms of fertility, is something that either of us has felt is necessary. Even if it turns out that we can never have biological children, we know that we will be parents. It may not be the way we thought it would happen, but we will, sometime in the foreseeable future, be parents to our son and/or daughter, and the circumstances of how that came to be will not dictate how much love we have for our child. We anticipate loving our kid(s) beyond the boundaries of what we conceived of as possible, and then a bit more after that. I see no reason to grieve for a perceived (or even real) fertility loss when we have so much to celebrate and look forward to in our adoption journey.
I'm not sure why this is so important for me to say, but it is: this is in no way a "last resort" for us. We are consciously choosing this for a variety of reasons, first and foremost being that we have a lot of love to share. We are not doing this because we have no other options or because we "have" to or for any other reason that would make it seem like we didn't want to do this but had no other choice. Choice is so key to our journey. We are choosing to adopt. Maybe we are helping someone have a better life than they would have otherwise, maybe we are giving a woman peace of mind knowing that even though she could not care for her child, she gave that baby to a family that could - a family who would love them to the ends of the earth. But really, at the end of the day, we want to share our love and our lives with a child. (Well, several children, actually, but we'll start with one.) Our admittedly hippy philosophical bent makes adoption a natural choice for us. We've got a lot of love to give, and we can't wait to get started!
Having said that, it would be disingenuous to deny that there is a component of philanthropy involved in the decision. We want to expand our family, true enough, but we also want to provide a stable and loving home to a child who would otherwise not have the opportunity. It's a very fine line to walk between "saving" someone, a.k.a. making them a charity case, and becoming parents.
I think that caring for children, whether they are our biological offspring or not, is something innate in the human animal. We want to nurture and love and prepare the next generation to take our place, and whether that generation shares our DNA seems, to me, to be an inconsequential detail in the grand scheme. This is not to belittle biological children in any way, but rather to express awe and wonder at the human capacity for love and kindness.
We decided very early in our marriage (in our relationship in general, even) that, ideally, we'd like a blended family. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that we shouldn't be having children (as a species) or that we should be having fewer because of limited resources or because there are "plenty" of kids out there that already need homes. I understand the point people are making with regard to that philosophy, but it's never been a tenet of my belief system. Having said that, I should point out that Allen subscribes to that belief somewhat - possibly as a result of his philosophy training? I'm not sure - you'll have to ask him his reasons. So for me, adoption is not something I feel a moral obligation to instead of biological children.
The plain and simple reason for me (for us) is that we have so much love between us, we feel that the next logical step is to share it with another. There are times when I feel as though the love I feel when I look at Allen is literally seeping out of cracks in my skin. As though my body isn't big enough to contain it. I want a baby to pass that love on to - someone to absorb the excess in love between me and my husband, and maybe, just maybe, reflect a little bit of it back. I have all of the other usual cravings too: someone to pass on our Christmas night lasagna dinner to, someone to teach all manner of crafting techniques, someone to bake silly birthday cakes for, someone cuddle on the couch with while reading, someone to make our lives light up from the inside in a way that only children can.
I don't want to go into too much medical detail here - it's a very private subject - but I will say that we are not precluding the possibility of biological children. That endeavor has not been, um, successful for us in the past year and a half, and while there are options to explore on that front, I don't feel comfortable with a host of medical interventions of increasing severity, at this point. For the time being, we are taking an "if it happens, it happens" approach to biological children.
Since adoption is something we always planned for anyway, and we are "ready" to have kids, we thought this was a great way to add to our family without putting a medical strain on our relationship. Treatment for infertility can be stressful both emotionally and physically, not to mention costly. Much of the available medical intervention may not be covered under our existing medical insurance, but more importantly, I don't want to put the strain on my physical and mental resources. We want children, but neither of us need that child to be biological.
From the information we have gathered thus far, it would seem that there is a great deal of emphasis placed on grieving for your own lost fertility before pursuing adoption. While we have confronted grief in our journey thus far, I don't think grieving over a lost opportunity, in terms of fertility, is something that either of us has felt is necessary. Even if it turns out that we can never have biological children, we know that we will be parents. It may not be the way we thought it would happen, but we will, sometime in the foreseeable future, be parents to our son and/or daughter, and the circumstances of how that came to be will not dictate how much love we have for our child. We anticipate loving our kid(s) beyond the boundaries of what we conceived of as possible, and then a bit more after that. I see no reason to grieve for a perceived (or even real) fertility loss when we have so much to celebrate and look forward to in our adoption journey.
I'm not sure why this is so important for me to say, but it is: this is in no way a "last resort" for us. We are consciously choosing this for a variety of reasons, first and foremost being that we have a lot of love to share. We are not doing this because we have no other options or because we "have" to or for any other reason that would make it seem like we didn't want to do this but had no other choice. Choice is so key to our journey. We are choosing to adopt. Maybe we are helping someone have a better life than they would have otherwise, maybe we are giving a woman peace of mind knowing that even though she could not care for her child, she gave that baby to a family that could - a family who would love them to the ends of the earth. But really, at the end of the day, we want to share our love and our lives with a child. (Well, several children, actually, but we'll start with one.) Our admittedly hippy philosophical bent makes adoption a natural choice for us. We've got a lot of love to give, and we can't wait to get started!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Agency #1: Catholic Charities
The "#1" is not intended to be a qualitative measurement, it's just the first agency we met with.
When we started this journey, I spent a lot of time online, looking up adoption resources, reading articles written about good and bad adoption experiences (which is the main reason I'd never adopt from Russia, but that's a story for another post), and in general, trying to wade through the absolute overload of information out there. It became quickly obvious that we were going to need help sorting all this out, so I started looking up adoption agencies in our area. The first one that came up in the search was Catholic Charities.
To be honest, I was skeptical, at best, of the information we would get there. The website claims that the adoption portion of the group is non-denominational, meaning you don't have to be Catholic to avail yourself of the agency services. My Mom's side of the family is Catholic, and there is definitely a "good works" component to Catholicism that I've always appreciated, so I decided it was as good a place to start as any. As a bonus, they had an info meeting coming up soon, so it felt very "instant gratification". We packed up our doubts and off we went.
What an eye opener that first meeting was! First, they are very well organized and *very* experienced. I have read that the Catholic Church is essentially responsible for modern adoption, and it really seemed so at that meeting. They really have their act together in terms of the myriad aspects of adoption. What I really liked most is the start-to-finish counseling services they provide. They counsel prospective birth parents, to be sure, but they also provide comprehensive support to everyone in the process, including adult adoptees and adoptive families.
I had a few concerns as the meeting progressed. Namely, that they work with "Pregnancy Crisis Centers". I don't know how much you may have heard about these types of places, but many of them have been getting in serious trouble with women's rights groups (and possibly with local and state laws, though our legal system tends to not punish these types of infractions) for giving out misleading, false, and often dangerous information to women who are pregnant and have no where to turn. They are billed as medical centers when, if fact, they aren't. And many of the staff at these places have told women blatantly false and misleading "facts" about the options they have during pregnancy. Whatever your opinion on abortion may be, and believe me when I say you are entitled to whatever opinion you want, it is harmful and just downright wrong to tell a women that having an abortion means she can never have children again. This is the level of misinformation some of these places have been accused of giving out. So, ranting about women's rights aside, I was very concerned when Catholic Charities said they "worked with" these centers. I actually stepped outside with one of the social workers to discuss it privately as I didn't want it to devolve into a debate over abortion. Because that's not what it is.
I don't have enough good words in my vocabulary to convey how great this social worker was at allaying my fears. First, she was very willing to have a lengthy discussion and address every one of my concerns. Second, she assured me that Catholic Charities receives phone calls from these types of places and sends a licensed social worker out to discuss adoption options at the request of the pregnant woman. She said that Catholic Charities is in no way affiliated with those centers, does not give them money or participate in their operation. They merely answer the phone and send someone to help a woman in need. She did say that Catholic Charities is not going to be involved with any organization that offers abortions - they are run by the Catholic Church after all. I didn't think to ask, but I wonder now if that means they don't accept referrals from places like Planned Parenthood? I'll ask next time. My feeling is that they aren't going to turn anyone away, regardless of the referral, but I also think Catholic Charities may not be high on the list of places Planned Parenthood calls about potential adoptions. Maybe I'm being too biased towards both of these entities and should be more fair to them, but they don't seem like organizations that would normally be natural allies...
What I was most impressed with, aside from the individual care and attention they give everyone, is their "success" rate. There is a 'legal risk' window in infant adoptions. In general, infants go straight from the hospital to the adoptive parents, but there is still a period of time, which (naturally) varies from state to state, in which the birth parents can change their minds about the adoption. I believe that time period is 10 days in our state, but I'll need to double check that. The social worker at Catholic Charities told us they have never had anyone rescind the adoption during that time period. She explained that they had numerous experienced and trained counselors and social workers who look for early warning signs that the birth parent(s) may be wavering in their decision. She said they usually catch these things very early and arrange for foster care instead of allowing these women to choose an adoptive family. It makes it emotionally easier for everyone involved in the process, and as this is such an emotional thing, I really appreciated that.
Catholic Charities uses profile books and a "pool" of available families. Once you complete your home study and various other paperwork, you make a profile book that they keep on record in their offices. The nice thing is that their pool of available families is relatively small. They keep around 15 profile books in the pool at any given time, and there are about 20 families on a waiting list to get into the pool, in various stages of completing paperwork. I really liked that they keep the pool small. Theoretically it means less "choice" for birth parents, but realistically it means less wait time (potentially) for prospective adoptive families. Having said that, wait times are extremely subjective in domestic adoptions. Your time will vary based on criteria you select - things like gender, race, health and family background - but having a smaller pool increases your chances of being chosen in general.
Catholic Charities is recently Hague accredited, but I got the impression that they were pretty new to the International adoption game. If we were seriously considering International adoption, I don't think Catholic Charities would be our first choice. Also, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I don't know if it's unique to Catholic Charities or not, but if you become pregnant during the adoption process, you get put "on hold". Their belief is that each child deserves it's own special introduction and integration into your family, and birthing a biological child and adopting one at the same time is not an ideal situation, in their opinion. They also ask that you wait until your infant (adopted or biological) is at least 18 months old before you start paperwork to adopt again. The good news is that you go back in to the process at the point you left, instead of having to start all over again, with the exception of needing to update your home study if your family has changed (by having a child). I understand their position, though I'm not terribly excited by it. Since we are not precluding a biological child, this could potentially be an issue for us. If all agencies have this policy, it won't affect our decision. But if other agencies don't have this policy, it could sway us in one direction or the other.
All in all, we were favorably impressed by Catholic Charities and went from assuming that they wouldn't work for us to strongly considering them as our agency of choice. We have two more info meetings to attend before we make our final choice - one this Saturday! - but we really liked what we heard at Catholic Charities. As I said before, I was very impressed with how much care and attention they are willing to give to each person, and how well trained and knowledgeable their staff is. I get the feeling that if we chose them, it will be a very intimate and personal experience. I'm really curious to see if the other agencies have a similar vibe...
When we started this journey, I spent a lot of time online, looking up adoption resources, reading articles written about good and bad adoption experiences (which is the main reason I'd never adopt from Russia, but that's a story for another post), and in general, trying to wade through the absolute overload of information out there. It became quickly obvious that we were going to need help sorting all this out, so I started looking up adoption agencies in our area. The first one that came up in the search was Catholic Charities.
To be honest, I was skeptical, at best, of the information we would get there. The website claims that the adoption portion of the group is non-denominational, meaning you don't have to be Catholic to avail yourself of the agency services. My Mom's side of the family is Catholic, and there is definitely a "good works" component to Catholicism that I've always appreciated, so I decided it was as good a place to start as any. As a bonus, they had an info meeting coming up soon, so it felt very "instant gratification". We packed up our doubts and off we went.
What an eye opener that first meeting was! First, they are very well organized and *very* experienced. I have read that the Catholic Church is essentially responsible for modern adoption, and it really seemed so at that meeting. They really have their act together in terms of the myriad aspects of adoption. What I really liked most is the start-to-finish counseling services they provide. They counsel prospective birth parents, to be sure, but they also provide comprehensive support to everyone in the process, including adult adoptees and adoptive families.
I had a few concerns as the meeting progressed. Namely, that they work with "Pregnancy Crisis Centers". I don't know how much you may have heard about these types of places, but many of them have been getting in serious trouble with women's rights groups (and possibly with local and state laws, though our legal system tends to not punish these types of infractions) for giving out misleading, false, and often dangerous information to women who are pregnant and have no where to turn. They are billed as medical centers when, if fact, they aren't. And many of the staff at these places have told women blatantly false and misleading "facts" about the options they have during pregnancy. Whatever your opinion on abortion may be, and believe me when I say you are entitled to whatever opinion you want, it is harmful and just downright wrong to tell a women that having an abortion means she can never have children again. This is the level of misinformation some of these places have been accused of giving out. So, ranting about women's rights aside, I was very concerned when Catholic Charities said they "worked with" these centers. I actually stepped outside with one of the social workers to discuss it privately as I didn't want it to devolve into a debate over abortion. Because that's not what it is.
I don't have enough good words in my vocabulary to convey how great this social worker was at allaying my fears. First, she was very willing to have a lengthy discussion and address every one of my concerns. Second, she assured me that Catholic Charities receives phone calls from these types of places and sends a licensed social worker out to discuss adoption options at the request of the pregnant woman. She said that Catholic Charities is in no way affiliated with those centers, does not give them money or participate in their operation. They merely answer the phone and send someone to help a woman in need. She did say that Catholic Charities is not going to be involved with any organization that offers abortions - they are run by the Catholic Church after all. I didn't think to ask, but I wonder now if that means they don't accept referrals from places like Planned Parenthood? I'll ask next time. My feeling is that they aren't going to turn anyone away, regardless of the referral, but I also think Catholic Charities may not be high on the list of places Planned Parenthood calls about potential adoptions. Maybe I'm being too biased towards both of these entities and should be more fair to them, but they don't seem like organizations that would normally be natural allies...
What I was most impressed with, aside from the individual care and attention they give everyone, is their "success" rate. There is a 'legal risk' window in infant adoptions. In general, infants go straight from the hospital to the adoptive parents, but there is still a period of time, which (naturally) varies from state to state, in which the birth parents can change their minds about the adoption. I believe that time period is 10 days in our state, but I'll need to double check that. The social worker at Catholic Charities told us they have never had anyone rescind the adoption during that time period. She explained that they had numerous experienced and trained counselors and social workers who look for early warning signs that the birth parent(s) may be wavering in their decision. She said they usually catch these things very early and arrange for foster care instead of allowing these women to choose an adoptive family. It makes it emotionally easier for everyone involved in the process, and as this is such an emotional thing, I really appreciated that.
Catholic Charities uses profile books and a "pool" of available families. Once you complete your home study and various other paperwork, you make a profile book that they keep on record in their offices. The nice thing is that their pool of available families is relatively small. They keep around 15 profile books in the pool at any given time, and there are about 20 families on a waiting list to get into the pool, in various stages of completing paperwork. I really liked that they keep the pool small. Theoretically it means less "choice" for birth parents, but realistically it means less wait time (potentially) for prospective adoptive families. Having said that, wait times are extremely subjective in domestic adoptions. Your time will vary based on criteria you select - things like gender, race, health and family background - but having a smaller pool increases your chances of being chosen in general.
Catholic Charities is recently Hague accredited, but I got the impression that they were pretty new to the International adoption game. If we were seriously considering International adoption, I don't think Catholic Charities would be our first choice. Also, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I don't know if it's unique to Catholic Charities or not, but if you become pregnant during the adoption process, you get put "on hold". Their belief is that each child deserves it's own special introduction and integration into your family, and birthing a biological child and adopting one at the same time is not an ideal situation, in their opinion. They also ask that you wait until your infant (adopted or biological) is at least 18 months old before you start paperwork to adopt again. The good news is that you go back in to the process at the point you left, instead of having to start all over again, with the exception of needing to update your home study if your family has changed (by having a child). I understand their position, though I'm not terribly excited by it. Since we are not precluding a biological child, this could potentially be an issue for us. If all agencies have this policy, it won't affect our decision. But if other agencies don't have this policy, it could sway us in one direction or the other.
All in all, we were favorably impressed by Catholic Charities and went from assuming that they wouldn't work for us to strongly considering them as our agency of choice. We have two more info meetings to attend before we make our final choice - one this Saturday! - but we really liked what we heard at Catholic Charities. As I said before, I was very impressed with how much care and attention they are willing to give to each person, and how well trained and knowledgeable their staff is. I get the feeling that if we chose them, it will be a very intimate and personal experience. I'm really curious to see if the other agencies have a similar vibe...
Hmm. Didn't think of that.
Before I started this blog, I asked a friend who is also adopting - though much farther along in the process - about whether or not it was a good idea. As I mentioned before, when you are pursuing private adoption, you are encouraged to tell everyone (and I mean everyone) that you are adopting because "you just never know where that phone call is going to come from". My friend said that she thought it was a great way to share the journey and to "get the word out" that we are interested in and looking for a private adoption as well as pursuing the agency path.
I gave some thought to potential legal issues, but could not see any. This is the part where you shake your head at my naivete...
According to another friend, adoption agencies are ultra concerned about privacy issues. Ultra. So, it's possible that once we actually apply with an agency, I'll have to shut this little experiment down. Apparently, one agency was so concerned, it banned even twitter updates on the matter, so I'd infer from that reaction that blogs are maybe frowned upon. It's was never our intention to post super personal or intimate details, nor to give out any identifying information about potential birth parents, so, for now, we'll keep posting about the generic information we gather. I will ask about the legal ramifications at the next two information meetings we're attending in the next few weeks, and I'll get back to you with an update on the matter.
Fingers crossed! It'd be terrible if they said, "Well, your FBI clearance checked out perfectly, but you wrote a blog about it so you are banned for life." :-)
I gave some thought to potential legal issues, but could not see any. This is the part where you shake your head at my naivete...
According to another friend, adoption agencies are ultra concerned about privacy issues. Ultra. So, it's possible that once we actually apply with an agency, I'll have to shut this little experiment down. Apparently, one agency was so concerned, it banned even twitter updates on the matter, so I'd infer from that reaction that blogs are maybe frowned upon. It's was never our intention to post super personal or intimate details, nor to give out any identifying information about potential birth parents, so, for now, we'll keep posting about the generic information we gather. I will ask about the legal ramifications at the next two information meetings we're attending in the next few weeks, and I'll get back to you with an update on the matter.
Fingers crossed! It'd be terrible if they said, "Well, your FBI clearance checked out perfectly, but you wrote a blog about it so you are banned for life." :-)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Ways and means.
Let me preface this with the following disclaimer: I am not an expert on adoption. Far, far from it, in fact. The process is long and complicated and this post is not intended to be an all-inclusive synopsis of the myriad ways in which to welcome a child in to your home. These are just the three main ways we are investigating.
First: International adoption.
Adoption in general can be a highly emotionally charged subject, and international adoption is no exception. The Hague Convention is the international legal standard which covers adoption, and countries can be signatory to, or not signatory to, that law. The U.S. is signatory to the Hague, and adoptive parents (and children) have more protection, legally speaking, under Hague than they do outside it. The State Department is the governing body for International adoptions in the U.S. and they maintain a database of who is signatory to the Hague, who is in compliance and whether countries are open or closed for International adoption.
When discussing International adoption, there is a lot of "but there are kids that need parents right here in the U.S. Why would you go to another country when American kids need help?" My feelings on the matter are that you can't get in to a game of "who needs the most help". Every child needs and deserves a home and good parents. Every child. We can't go in to this trying to save anyone. First, it won't work. There are too many that need help and we have limited resources. Second, we are trying to grow our family and starting with the premise that there are kids who need homes is a good one, but ultimately, we aren't trying to "save" anyone. We want a child, not a permanent charity case. I don't know if I'm making my point effectively, but what I'm trying to say is that we are looking at our new child as our new child, not as someone we "rescued".
Having said all of this, International adoption is not at the top of our list. That may change, depending on our circumstances, but for now it's not something we're investigating heavily. There are many reasons, but length of time to complete the process and expense are two major factors. It can take two plus years (easily) to complete an International adoption, sometimes requiring several trips to the adoptive country. Though we have the financial resources to accomplish this, I'm not sure we have the emotional resources. To be perfectly frank, I don't know if I can handle multiple trips to foreign orphanages. It's heartbreaking to even think of all the children out there waiting for new homes and new parents, and I think that seeing their faces and not being able to give each of them that love and stability would be emotionally crippling. For me, maintaining an emotional distance is difficult, so I have to mitigate that tendency. Having said that, if an International adoption "fell into our laps" (so to speak), we'd go for it in a heartbeat. We have no preconceived ideas about the gender or race of our child.
Second: Domestic (agency) adoption.
Domestic adoption falls into two categories, as far as I can tell. There is local adoption and interstate adoption. Adoption laws vary from state to state (as does everything else...), so there can be different requirements in terms of fees, length of time needed to terminate parental rights, expenses paid by the adoptive parents to cover the birth parents medical/housing/food expenses, length of time your home study is valid, etc., etc., ad nauseum. When I discuss "domestic adoption", I mean adoption through an accredited agency. This means that the birth parent(s) have contacted and agency about help placing their child in a home. The basic flow is that we (the potential adoptive parents) apply with an agency, complete a home study with that agency and create a profile book (or website in some cases) to keep on record with that agency. There is a pool of potential adoptive families on record that the birth parent(s) can choose from for placement. I'll get into the details of home studies and profile books when we start those processes, but how quickly you are chosen to adopt is a function of a million different variables, including requirements or restrictions that we can choose ourselves. We could say we wanted a specific gender or a specific racial profile, but those things aren't important to us, and not specifying makes the likelihood of being chosen by birth parents much higher.
Third: Private adoption.
Private adoption is handled outside of an agency. An example of private adoption would be your neighbor's teenage daughter accidentally gets pregnant and decides to place the baby for adoption. Your neighbor knows you are looking to adopt and approaches you about the possibility. Private adoption is handled between the birth and adoptive parents and their lawyers. Many of the rules are the same as for an agency adoption - you still need a home study and those kinds of formalities - but the parties generally know each other, or know people in common, beforehand. It is also required that each party be represented by an attorney, rather than one attorney handling both sides, presumably to insure that no one is taken advantage of in the process. It is required (I believe) that the adoptive parents cover the legal expenses for both parties.
Right now we are tending towards private and/or domestic adoption. We are planning (for now) to go on record at an agency, but we are also prepared and definitely willing to go with private adoption as well. We are in the process of choosing an adoption agency and will meet with an adoption lawyer in the next few weeks to discuss the requirements of private adoption as well. We basically want to cover all of our bases so as to make this as fast and painless a process as possible. You can only (generally) be in the "pool" at one agency, so choosing one that is going to fit our needs is pretty important. Each agency has different methods for placing children, or different "pool" sizes, or different fees, or a million other small things. Choosing the "right" one is a pretty important task, but ultimately, they are all in the business of finding homes for children. So we're going down the same path, regardless of the vehicle we choose to take us.
I want to point out that this overview is like the Cliff Notes version of adoption. There are many more subtleties that we don't know yet or haven't discussed here. More (much more) to come!
First: International adoption.
Adoption in general can be a highly emotionally charged subject, and international adoption is no exception. The Hague Convention is the international legal standard which covers adoption, and countries can be signatory to, or not signatory to, that law. The U.S. is signatory to the Hague, and adoptive parents (and children) have more protection, legally speaking, under Hague than they do outside it. The State Department is the governing body for International adoptions in the U.S. and they maintain a database of who is signatory to the Hague, who is in compliance and whether countries are open or closed for International adoption.
When discussing International adoption, there is a lot of "but there are kids that need parents right here in the U.S. Why would you go to another country when American kids need help?" My feelings on the matter are that you can't get in to a game of "who needs the most help". Every child needs and deserves a home and good parents. Every child. We can't go in to this trying to save anyone. First, it won't work. There are too many that need help and we have limited resources. Second, we are trying to grow our family and starting with the premise that there are kids who need homes is a good one, but ultimately, we aren't trying to "save" anyone. We want a child, not a permanent charity case. I don't know if I'm making my point effectively, but what I'm trying to say is that we are looking at our new child as our new child, not as someone we "rescued".
Having said all of this, International adoption is not at the top of our list. That may change, depending on our circumstances, but for now it's not something we're investigating heavily. There are many reasons, but length of time to complete the process and expense are two major factors. It can take two plus years (easily) to complete an International adoption, sometimes requiring several trips to the adoptive country. Though we have the financial resources to accomplish this, I'm not sure we have the emotional resources. To be perfectly frank, I don't know if I can handle multiple trips to foreign orphanages. It's heartbreaking to even think of all the children out there waiting for new homes and new parents, and I think that seeing their faces and not being able to give each of them that love and stability would be emotionally crippling. For me, maintaining an emotional distance is difficult, so I have to mitigate that tendency. Having said that, if an International adoption "fell into our laps" (so to speak), we'd go for it in a heartbeat. We have no preconceived ideas about the gender or race of our child.
Second: Domestic (agency) adoption.
Domestic adoption falls into two categories, as far as I can tell. There is local adoption and interstate adoption. Adoption laws vary from state to state (as does everything else...), so there can be different requirements in terms of fees, length of time needed to terminate parental rights, expenses paid by the adoptive parents to cover the birth parents medical/housing/food expenses, length of time your home study is valid, etc., etc., ad nauseum. When I discuss "domestic adoption", I mean adoption through an accredited agency. This means that the birth parent(s) have contacted and agency about help placing their child in a home. The basic flow is that we (the potential adoptive parents) apply with an agency, complete a home study with that agency and create a profile book (or website in some cases) to keep on record with that agency. There is a pool of potential adoptive families on record that the birth parent(s) can choose from for placement. I'll get into the details of home studies and profile books when we start those processes, but how quickly you are chosen to adopt is a function of a million different variables, including requirements or restrictions that we can choose ourselves. We could say we wanted a specific gender or a specific racial profile, but those things aren't important to us, and not specifying makes the likelihood of being chosen by birth parents much higher.
Third: Private adoption.
Private adoption is handled outside of an agency. An example of private adoption would be your neighbor's teenage daughter accidentally gets pregnant and decides to place the baby for adoption. Your neighbor knows you are looking to adopt and approaches you about the possibility. Private adoption is handled between the birth and adoptive parents and their lawyers. Many of the rules are the same as for an agency adoption - you still need a home study and those kinds of formalities - but the parties generally know each other, or know people in common, beforehand. It is also required that each party be represented by an attorney, rather than one attorney handling both sides, presumably to insure that no one is taken advantage of in the process. It is required (I believe) that the adoptive parents cover the legal expenses for both parties.
Right now we are tending towards private and/or domestic adoption. We are planning (for now) to go on record at an agency, but we are also prepared and definitely willing to go with private adoption as well. We are in the process of choosing an adoption agency and will meet with an adoption lawyer in the next few weeks to discuss the requirements of private adoption as well. We basically want to cover all of our bases so as to make this as fast and painless a process as possible. You can only (generally) be in the "pool" at one agency, so choosing one that is going to fit our needs is pretty important. Each agency has different methods for placing children, or different "pool" sizes, or different fees, or a million other small things. Choosing the "right" one is a pretty important task, but ultimately, they are all in the business of finding homes for children. So we're going down the same path, regardless of the vehicle we choose to take us.
I want to point out that this overview is like the Cliff Notes version of adoption. There are many more subtleties that we don't know yet or haven't discussed here. More (much more) to come!
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