the story of how a family is created

Because I Loved You by Patricia Dreschler
This is a story of open adoption written by the birthmother.  I have to confess that I skipped through and only read her story (it’s
interspersed with essays about how she recommends that other people in her situation might deal with similar situations) and found it to be a
very touching and encouraging story about how two families related to each other and became closer through their shared relationship with
[their] son.  An interesting insight for one way to approach this situation with a healthy attitude towards all involved parties.

The Adoption Decision by Laura Christianson
While I didn’t find a lot of NEW information in this book, I really enjoyed reading it and related to a lot of the things she says in the
book.  This one is a little newer than some of the other books we  read and I kind of wish we’d found this one sooner.  But, like I said, not
a lot of things I hadn’t read before.  Some of the chapters would be good for families and friends to read if they’d like to get a better
understanding of the process we’re going through.  This book DOES have a strong Christian focus and each chapter ends with a reflection on
how the chapter’s topic relates to faith issues.  If that turns you off, just skip past those sections.

we got a big envelope in the mail today letting us know that our initial inquiry was approved by the placement agency and they’ve invited us to fill out the BIG application. Hooray!  One hurdle down!   The only problem?  The envelope arrived at our house unsealed.  And the big application itself is missing.  And it’s a holiday weekend, so I can’t contact the office until Tuesday.  We could have worked on the application all weekend.  Maybe even have had it FINISHED by Tuesday so that we could mail it in.  But …. nope.     SO FRUSTRATING!!!

This is compounded into a bigger-than-normal deal when you take into account that in order to participate in this particular agency’s program, you must first attend an orientation weekend in San Antonio.  These weekends happen about once every 8 weeks or so.  The next weekend is supposed to be “either the first or second weekend of June.” (and yes, it’s the end of May and you’d think they’d have the date set by now, but not when I called last week.)  We were on a tight schedule already to maybe possibly make it into this orientation, but with this unfortunate glitch, i don’t know how possible that will be after all.  If we miss the June orientation, we likely won’t be able to go to one until … August?  Oh, and the June one was supposed to be a May one but they’ve postponed it because they didn’t have enough childless applicants to reach their quota.  So…. if they are short again in August, it could be September before we can even start!

I realize that I should be practicing patience.  I know that I will need to dig deep into patience reserves many times throughout this process.  But argh.  Grumblegrumblegrrr…

—

Okay, J just came upstairs and saw me getting all upset and reminded me that a) this response from them is already at least a week earlier than the minimum they’d quoted on their website (they’d said 2-4 weeks) and b) even if they have to snail mail (not fax) a second copy of the application, we’ll still receive it before we were originally anticipating that it would arrive in the first place.  maybe they need US to fill up their orientation quota and will schedule it in such a way that it will be possible for us to attend?  and if they don’t need us and if the orientation weekend is full, then no matter when we return the paperwork we might not be able to get into the June orientation anyway.  I’m guessing that a lot of their paperwork will be similar to the things we’ve already completed for our homestudy agency, so maybe we can just use the information from those forms to fill out their forms.

I have to trust that God has a plan here.   I have to remind myself that usually, things work out for the best in the end if I just ride along with the current and stop trying to bash my way upstream.  Or at least, if I go along with the current I’m less anxious and less frustrated with the outcomes because I didn’t rage against them for so long.

And if I end up with a lot of waiting time on my hands, there’s always my big secret quilting project.  I’ll tell you all about that once it gets a little closer to being reality instead of just being a germ of an idea in my head.

we get to jump through lots of hoops in this process.  while my initial reaction to the list of required paperwork was indignation (biological parents never have to do any of this!), I’ve made peace with the fact that this is all in place to protect the children involved and, in some cases, to get to know us better so that a better match can be made.  We’ve already signed lots of agreements, requests for background checks, and two, multiple-page agency applications (all pretty easy).  today we also both went to get fingerprinted at the police station, made photocopies of our birth certificates and marriage license, and requested signed forms from our insurance agencies to prove that we were covered for both auto and homeowner’s insurance.

We still need to get letters of reference from our employers (oh, we’ve also already requested a few personal references from non-relatives), proof of health insurance, a summary of our financial situation, a printout of our most recent 1040, and visit a doctor and get physicals and some bloodwork tests done.

Not to mention the 16 hours of adoption and parenting classes we each have to take.  And the 5-8 page autobiography we each have to write.  And we have to write up (and post somewhere in the house!) a fire escape plan for our home.

I love that our homestudy agent gave us a neat little checklist of all of this stuff.  I do love me some lists.  Especially the ones that have things that I can mark DONE!

We met again with our local agency yesterday evening.  one of the things I learned was that the more accurate terms for these two different agencies are “home study agency” (that’s the one here) and “placement agency” (that’s the one far away).  a friend that I was explaining this to likened it to a “buyer’s agent” and “seller’s agent” sort of arrangement, except way more touchy-feely AND the “seller’s agent” in this situation actually handles both sides of the adoption transaction if both parties are local, but because we’re adopting out-of-state, we need a local “buyer’s agent” to help us.  Please don’t think that I’m insinuating here that we are in the process of buying or selling children, but I just need an analogy that is familiar to people outside of adoption circles.

ANYWAY, we met with our social worker (“agent”) on Thursday and officially signed on with her and paid the application fee.  We’re truly on the path, now.  Woo hoo!  A few posts back, I’d mentioned that I didn’t understand the relief that some adoptive parents feel once they’ve made the decision to adopt–or at least that i wasn’t there yet.  well, i’m there now.  I feel very hopeful and optimistic at this point (despite the pile of homework she handed over to us during our meeting.  maybe at some point i’ll list all of the hoops we get to jump through with this round of paperwork.) and it is such a relief to know that any frustrations that I might feel during THIS process will most likely be directed externally–frustration at the system, at laws, possibly at agency staff (hopefully not that too often) or maybe even birthparents–but I won’t have to be mad at my own body and that will be a relief.

I also feel like that ocean that I’ve been staring at finally is at low tide and I can see the next set of stepping stones that will eventually lead me across.  I realize that our path might change while we’re walking through, but at least for now, I have homework!  and other productive things that I can do to move this process forward!  And really, you COULD say that we’re halfway through!  the title of this post refers to the fact that our homestudy agency told us in our first meeting that we would meet with her a total of four times and that the information meeting was the first of four.  Now, we’ve completed two of four, so…. we’re almost there, right?  (hahahahahahahaha)

Once again, our meeting with the homestudy agency affirmed our decision that we’ve made the right choice.  Our agent manages to balance quite nicely on that fine line between being completely relaxed, friendly and approachable and being professional, knowledgeable and organized.  She’s not afraid to tell us the truth and we very much like that about her.  Gotta go tackle some of those assignments!

we decided back in march that we would wait to tell people about our decision to adopt until we had chosen an agency.  It seemed like a good idea to wait to talk about it until we actually had some “answers.”  now that we’ve picked an agency, I’ve been so excited all week to finally talk about this process with friends and family (welcome, new readers!).  i’ve been hesitant to just blab all of this information to everyone we know for a number of reasons, but it’s been hard not to talk about something that is such a big part of our lives right now.  ahhhhh…… it feels good to share.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t even have a calendar to mark the slow passage of time until familyhood by.  Life will take its own pace and eventually we’ll get there, by one method or another.  I have to say that this past week, the timelines that I’ve heard quoted by some of the agencies that we’re “shopping” have been very encouraging and i’ve even occasionally gotten that “oh crap!  a baby will really change my lifestyle!  Maybe I don’t want to do this after all….” flash of thoughts that I used to get way back when we first started “not-trying-not-to.”  It doesn’t mean that I want a child any less or that I should reconsider this plan of action, I find it to be a reassuring similarity between the two processes.  At one point, my sister said something to me about how us having to try so hard would mean that we’d be so much more sure of our decision.  And while, yes, we’ve had more time to consider our options than people who get pregnant accidentally or the first time that they try on purpose…. I still have moments of doubt just like they do.  I just maybe have had longer to come up with my own list of reasons that this IS the direction we want to go.  But I’m still treasuring my free time as a childless person.

We had our first “paperwork party” last night and filled out application forms for agency #4.  woo hoo!

our decision was affirmed when j got an e-mail yesterday from agency #2.  it was a reply to a message we had sent them on april 20 asking about how to start the adoption process with them.  that’s right.  two and a half week e-mail turnaround time.  that reminded me that agency #1 had actually NEVER responded to a similar inquiry e-mail i’d sent and I’d eventually called to set up our appointment. (in our meeting, she confessed that she never really checks her e-mail and that the phone is more reliable for her.

conversely, i got a reply from the lovely agency 4 this morning in less than an hour.

yep, we’re on the right track for us.

I called four “away” agencies today and asked them a looooong list of questions (many were suggested questions from our local agency who kindly e-mailed them to me when I asked).  On my social worker’s suggestion, I asked questions even if I knew the answers to them, because the tone of the reply gave me a feel for the general “mood” of the agency.  It was amazing to me how some of the answers were pretty much the same across the board  and some were radically different–at least in tone if not in content.  One agency was really rushed (they had a client coming in for a meeting in three minutes), one agency felt very large and impersonal (funnily enough, they were the one website that claimed, “Don’t get lost in a BIG AGENCY”), others felt very homey and sensible.  Gotta go mull over these answers…..

more explanation about why we have to choose TWO agencies:

Basically, the agency here will do our home study and education classes and will “hold our hand” on this end, guiding us to the best choices.  But this local agency doesn’t deal with the birthmother side of things.  (Agency #3, which only does in-state adoptions would handle both ends of the adoption, but the social worker at #4 pointed out that in our state, the birthmother has SIX MONTHS to change her mind and she is required to  go to court and state, on the witness stand, multiple times, that she understands what she’s doing and that it’s forever and yes, she does want to relinquish her child into the care of these other people and…. understandably a lot of birthmothers apparently sort of break down at that point and change their minds.  #4 had seen this happen way too often, and she’s decided not to do in-state adoptions because of that.)  The “away” agency will deal with the birthmothers, with the “matching” process (and yes, generally the birthmother chooses the adoptive parents from a pool of applicants, so we’ll have to craft a very careful letter of introduction and perhaps even a scrap-book style photo album about ourselves.  at first, this seemed sort of creepy and advertise-y, but since i tend to enjoy packaging and branding and stuff, this will be the ultimate “packaging” quest–to package our lives in hopes of finding the best birthmother match.), and will, in some cases help handle some of the legal aspects.  My understanding is that SOME local agencies might strongly suggest a particular agency once they’re familiar with your specific case, but this agency seems to want to give us more control.  Which, like I said, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I mean, we’ll be working with the “away” agency at LEAST as much as the local agency if not more.

[i respond:]  we’re actually doing pretty good on that front.  in some ways, this is less personally stressful than the infertility stuff–I mean, we don’t have to get shot up with hormones galore, or ride the monthly emotional roller coaster.  Maybe it’s just because we haven’t actually started the paperwork part of the process, but so far, we’ve been following our guts and whenever we both agree about something, that’s the direction we go.  I’m sure it will get intense and frustrating at some point, but right now, since we have clear (ish) steps to follow and since there’s a good chance that when this ordeal is all over we’ll have a baby to bring home…. i’m finding myself doing a better job of relaxing and remembering that my child-free days are numbered (granted, it might be a BIG number) and I’m going to take full advantage of them for as long as i can.

[my friend writes:]   Thanks for writing about where you are in the decision making process. Is it helpful for you to write this down and put it out there?

[I respond:]  It IS helpful, if for no other reason than that if I want to share this story with someone, I can just give them the briefest summary and if they want more details, I can send them to my blog for “catch-up.” Plus, I’ve read so many other blogs of people going through this and I
find it helpful.  Hopefully, someday, someone will find what I’ve written to be helpful.  And if not, well, maybe someday our kid(s) will want to read it?

i just realized that this blog doesn’t have details about some of the decisions we’ve made so far–like the fact that we’re currently pursuing domestic adoption (not international) because we’d like as close to a newborn as we can get and because the idea of having our adoption process halted because some country’s government decides to lock down their borders to adoption seems extremely frustrating.  (not that domestic gov’t roadblocks wouldn’t be frustrating too, but…  i think they’re slightly less likely to just say “there will be no more adoptions coming out of Florida until we can figure out what we want our laws to say.”)  Apparently, if you go the international adoption route, the youngest child you can expect to bring home is about 8 months old.  At this point, I don’t want to miss any of the earliest stages.

Anyway, that got me thinking about all of the other (sometimes awkward) decisions that we, as prospective adoptive parents get to make that biologically built families never have to consider.*

1.  what country (or state) your child will come from.

2.  how old your child will be when they join your family.

3.  what race your child will be.

4.  what health conditions you’re willing to accept (is down’s syndrome okay?  how about cleft palate?  how about babies with cocaine in their system?).

5.  whether you’re willing to accept sibling groups (say, an infant plus a 2-year-old).

6.  what agency (or agencies!) you’re going to work with or whether you’re going to try to pursue independent adoption (i suppose this is SORT OF like choosing a delivery doctor vs. home birth….).

7.  what gender your child will be (granted, i know that biological parents wonder about this, but we could, if we wanted to, actually limit our pool of options to only one gender or the other).

During the process of adoption, you are also asked to spell out things like:

1.  your childcare plan (granted, i’ve been trying to figure this out ever since the “not trying not to” phase, but I know some people don’t worry about this until they actually have their child.  Also, the nice thing about pregnancy is you have SOME idea of your timeline when planning childcare.  Not so much with adoption.)

2.  your discipline strategies (and I’m not certain that “well, we’ll figure it out as we go along.” will cut it)

3.  how (and how soon) you plan to share your child’s adoption story with them

And I haven’t even gotten into all of the “hoops” that we’ll have to jump through.  I’ll save that for another post.  whee!

*earlier this week, I was talking to my sister and, in reference to the onslaught of decision-making, she commiserated by saying, “we can’t even decide whether to get a new battery for the lawn mower or switch to a gas-powered motor!”  I agreed with “we can’t even decide what to have for dinner!”  Although thinking about it now, sometimes the bigger, one-time type decisions (what couch to buy, what city to live in) seem to be easier, more go-with-your-gut types of decisions.  so, hopefully that’s what we’ll be able to do with most of the decisions listed above.  hopefully.