Um... That's new.

Saturday was our all-day adoption parenting workshop/seminar at Barker. Let me tell you: I was exhausted afterward. The seminar was essentially a day-long discussion of all the different topics and issues surrounding adoption. We got a really great perspective on the feelings from the other sides of the adoption triad, the adopted person and the birth family. It's very easy to get caught up in our own journey, as the adopting parents, but there are two other perspectives to consider and hearing what they had to say really allayed a lot of my fears about adopting.

As a parent, the natural instinct is to protect your child. I already feel fiercely protective of our children, so I've been thinking a lot about what I need to prepare for in terms of having an open relationship with the birth family. I've mentioned before that the trend in domestic adoptions is towards at least some degree of openness, generally dictated by the birth family. Having said that, the idea is still in it's infancy (or maybe toddler-hood), so there is still a lot of growing and figuring out how to make these "blended" families work in the best interests of the children. It's a fine line to walk: maintaining your child's sense of identity, maintaining an appropriate level of contact and interaction with the birth family, keeping your child safe from potentially harmful situations... There are a lot of variables. But after hearing the other two perspectives, I felt totally reassured about my place in my child's life. There was no question in the mind of the adopted woman about who her parents are. None. And the birth mother who made an adoption plan for her daughter said something that was such a relief to me. I'm paraphrasing, but she essentially said: "My baby is 7 lbs and a newborn in the hospital. The 8 year old girl I see once a year is Bob and Karen's daughter." (Names made up, of course.)

We talked about many of the potential issues surrounding adoption, but the overall message was that we should be a bit more open and understanding, as parents, than we originally thought we would need be. We have to work hard to insure that our child knows how loved and wanted they are, and we especially have to be respectful of the birth parents. Finding the good and decent and loving aspects of the birth parents, regardless of the good or bad choices they may have made in life is the best way to help your child find the good and decent and loving aspects in themselves. Acting, or worse, thinking, that the birth parents are lazy or irresponsible or bad people conveys an attitude to your child that you find aspects of their character distasteful. Never a good thing in a parent/child relationship. I could go on and on about this, but the short version is that the workshop helped me to resolve some of my own fears about this process and I feel like I came to a place where I can integrate not just a child, but an entire family into my life.

It's a really peaceful and hopeful feeling.

With all the "ups", you knew there had to be a "down", right? One of the (many, many) reasons we chose Barker is because at the information meeting we went to in December, the director told us (the room full of prospective parents) that Barker had never had a birth family (mother) rescind or revoke an adoption during the "legal risk" period. (The period of time - 10 days in VA and DC, 30 days in MD - they have to change their mind after signing away parental rights.) The director explained that Barker had many counseling services in place to make sure the birth mother had thought through and was committed to her decision, and if there were any red flags or warnings that she might change her mind, Barker had foster families that took care of the child until the matter was decided. This was a big relief - we could take our baby home from the hospital and not have to worry about losing that baby in the next 2 weeks.

As I am fond of saying, if it looks to good to be true, it is.

The woman who ran the workshop on Saturday, the former director of the domestic program at Barker and currently an advisor to the director, said something completely different. She said that revocations happen, though not frequently. She said she remembered times when it was only once per year and times when there were 3 per year. Now, granted, when you are talking about 50-60 adoptions per year, 3 isn't bad in terms of a statistical percentage of birth mothers who change their mind. But it's devastating to the adopting parents. It seems to me to be almost like miscarrying. You bring home your child, fall in love, start to bond, and BAM! "Sorry. Changed my mind!"

I want to make it clear that I respect any woman's right to change her mind. Knowing how badly I want to be a parent, I can certainly understand making a plan in your head and then facing a very different reality once the baby is born. I get that. But I really feel like Barker needed to be more explicit about that in the info meeting. Here we've been going blithely along thinking that as soon as we have babe-in-arms, the heavens will part, angels will sing and we'll go off on our happy lives. So finding out that there is a potential for things to go wrong was kind of a punch in the gut to me. The shock of it has worn off somewhat, so I'm feeling okay about it in terms of our plan. We're moving forward and we will handle whatever comes our way. I'm worried about falling in love with someone who will be then taken away, but I know that Barker will try very hard to make sure that doesn't happen. We can all only do our best, so that's what we'll all do. I did mention the discrepancy to them at the workshop, so hopefully they'll have a discussion internally about the dissemination of information. (Also, it wasn't just me. Allen had a distinct memory of the same thing from the info meeting, so I'm confident I didn't mis-hear.)

Adoption requires an enormous amount of trust. Trust in your fellow man, trust in yourself, trust in the system. We trust Barker completely, even given this small bump in the road. We are confident that things will unfold as they should, and are working toward that end. With fingers crossed, just in case.

Interesting final note: out of all the families at the workshop, Allen and I are the farthest along in our journey. We have all our medical forms and other paperwork in, and our last reference is posting today. I also found out today that our FBI and police clearances came in so we are only waiting on Child Protective Services clearances before we schedule the social worker visits. I really need to get moving on the scrapbook. It's hard to sum up yourself, your husband and your marriage in a few pages of photos!