Monday, May 30, 2016

Managing Details

Last week's post was an attempt to answer some of the most common questions we've gotten throughout this entire process, but especially now that we've become active with our agency. After reading through it several times, neither of us could think of many questions that we left out. After thinking about this all some more, though, I think we missed one. A big one. An important one. You see, we are asked fairly frequently why it costs so much to adopt a child. 

I understand the curiosity, I do. I especially understand it when it seems like every other day there are news stories of foster children sleeping in DCS offices across the country for lack of a home, or babies being abandoned (hopefully using their state's Safe Haven Laws), or babies and children being abused. The shortest, easiest answer I can provide is that those children will be adopted through the foster care system. When a family adopts a child through the foster care system, they should not face financial expenses. Of course, we have seen families go far above and beyond the stipend provided for fostering a child, thus incurring expenses that they "choose" to incur. Case in point, paying for a foster child to play soccer on their high school team may be beyond the monthly allowance that a couple receives for taking that child into their home. We've seen friends pay for this (and more) for their foster kids, and are constantly in awe of the courage and grace that it takes to welcome a foster child into their home.

We are not adopting from foster care, however. We are pursuing a private domestic infant adoption, meaning that our birth mother will terminate her parental rights around 48 hours postpartum, the birth father will terminate his rights no more than 30 days postpartum (hopefully, he'll terminate while she's still pregnant), and we will take the baby home from the hospital. We'll be legal guardians for 4-5 months, until we go to court to finalize the adoption. We have many reasons for pursuing this type of adoption instead of foster-to-adopt, but that's a topic for another post. In this post, I want to give you all a glimpse of why we are happy to pay our agency for the incredible work they do. These women work hard for the babies, birth parents, and adoptive parents they see, and we are happy to pay for their services.

When we posted the blog last week, I mentioned in the Facebook post that we knew that our profile book was out to one birth mother. We were super excited to hear that, but that knowledge also brought with it a slew of anxiety. Every beep or buzz of our cells made us jump. What if that was “the call?” What if it was our Adoption Coordinator on the other end saying that this birth mom wanted to choose us? It’s now been a week, and our phones have only been buzzing with normal activity, so we’ve calmed down a lot, but it’s good to know that we’re being shown.

We’re allowed to check in with the agency once a month to see what our “activity” is. At first, we thought that meant they would be able to tell us how many times our profile book had been shown to different women. In reality, all we’ll be able to know how many women have copies of our profile book at the moment that we ask. It’s an incredibly complicated, but fascinating, process. The agency representative explains it like this:

We update our active birthmother list once a week. Within that week a lot can change! We add new women and take women off. We typically add about 3-7 women every week from new birthmother intakes. Women can get taken off the list due to placing their child for adoption, choosing to parent, birthfather risk has stopped the adoption, no phone minutes on her phone leading to extended period of no contact, or family steps in to save the day and help. These same women that we take off the list cold go back on due to losing her job so parenting is not a solid option any longer, birthfather is not so much a risk any longer (for many reasons), family broke promises again and aren't helping after all, or simply getting minutes back on her phone. Women that get taken off the list one week could be added back on the very next week or even several months down the line. So when you check in for an update I will only be able to let you know how many women you are out to in that given week. That will not mean that you have only ever gone out to 1 woman since activation, again, it is just this week. That doesn't mean that last week you were out to different women, it could have been all the same, or maybe 1 of the same, etc. This also doesn't account for when a coordinator is in the field and shows or shares your bio to a new woman that she was just popping in to say hello to.

I can't even begin to imagine the level of detail that her job entails with updating this list and all the varied reasons women jump on and off the list at any given time. That's what we're paying for when we fork over our checks to this agency. That, and so much more! We're paying for the social worker's time as she evaluates our home and paperwork to make sure that we're able to provide for this little one. We're paying for the director's time as she explains the process to us in our meetings and (13 hour!) home study class. We're paying for the Adoption Coordinators' time as they take calls from women at 3am in a crisis situation. Perhaps most importantly, we're paying for counseling and support for our birth mother, as she prepares to make a decision that takes a level of strength and courage that I cannot even fathom. It's so fascinating to me to get even a small glimpse into these women's lives. I hope that these little glimpses can help us to better empathize with whomever is on the other end of the line when we do get "the call."

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

FAQ Round 2

Well, we’ve been officially “active” in our agency for a month. That means that we’ve been up on their website for a month and that any birth mothers who are potential matches have been shown our profile book. We thought we’d take a minute and answer some FAQs that we’ve been getting over the last month, so that you all know what’s happening:

How much longer?

The short answer to this is: we have no idea, but we hope not long. The longer answer is much more complicated. One key piece of paperwork in the mountain of forms that we filled out was what I’ve been affectionately describing as something similar to an online dating profile. We listed out different things we were open to, in regards to how open this adoption will be, levels of alcohol/tobacco/drug use during pregnancy, and various health issues that we’re able to accept. When a birth mother comes to the agency, she’ll fill out similar paperwork. The agency staff matches her needs to our needs, and she’s shows profile books of hopeful parents who may be a good fit. On average, she’ll see 3-5 books. She can then ask to meet any of those people who she wants to get to know further. Once that happens, you hope to build a relationship with her spanning the remainder of her pregnancy, and ideally, beyond birth.

So, our wait time is really twofold: we wait until we have a good lead on a birth mother, and then we’ll wait out the remainder of her pregnancy. Some of the women come to the agency after their first positive pregnancy test, some come later during their pregnancy, and others wait to call the agency until they have given birth. All of these are distinct possibilities that we have to prepare for. On average, we can expect to wait 9 months from date of activation to date of birth. Our agency’s goal is 12 months maximum, but a lot of that depends on how many birth mothers walk through the door. For those keeping count, we activated in April, so 9 months puts us around a January birthday. Of course, nothing is guaranteed!

So, you’re just…waiting?

Well, yes and no. We’re waiting for a good lead and a match with a birth mother, and then we’ll wait out whatever remains of her pregnancy. But we’re not just sitting idly by. The first few months of working with the agency were so filled with activity and movement that it’s hard to imagine just sitting still now. We have a list of baby prep things to keep us busy while we wait. There are pediatricians to interview, daycare options to tour, grants to apply for, wills to set up, parenting books to read, and many other things. We’re slowly crossing things off that list.
We are also still living our lives! We can’t put our entire lives on hold while we wait. We went on vacation earlier this month, and we’ll be spending a LOT of time in Michigan this summer with our families. We get to celebrate a bridal shower, wedding, and two graduation parties this year. We have concert and baseball game tickets for this summer, plans with friends, and weekends to go to the farmer’s market with the dogs. It’s hard to plan around an unknown time frame, so we’ll just make plans as best we can for the time being.

Where will the baby be from? How old will your child be?

Our agency is based in Indiana and works with women mostly from Indiana. They get a few birth mothers from towns on the border of other states, but that’s pretty rare. It’s also a lot harder in those cases, because you have to balance the laws between Indiana and whatever neighboring state you’re working with. Yes, each of the 50 states has different laws surrounding adoption.

Our agency also works almost exclusively with expectant mothers, meaning that we will more than likely take our child home from the hospital a few days after they are born. Sometimes the agency will get sibling groups, and even more rarely will they get an older child being placed, but these situations almost never happen, since most older children are placed for adoption through the foster care system, not through a private agency.

What will your relationship with the birth mother look like?

In an ideal world, we’ll share letters and photos pretty frequently with our child’s birth mother. We’d even visit a few times a year. I know this sounds scary. It took us a long time to really discover how we felt about this level of openness. When you think about it, though, it’s really what’s best for everyone in the long term. Our child will know where they come from, we’ll have access to as much medical and social history as possible, and our birth mother will get to see her biological child thriving and happy. Eliminating the mystery helps to reduce adolescent rebellion (“you’re not my REAL parents”) and keeping in touch helps her heal from her grief.

That said, it’s really up to her how much interaction we have with her after all the papers are signed. Some birth mothers send cards and letters monthly, others visit yearly, and still others fade away after a few years, especially if we or she moves out of Indiana. We will set limits based on our family’s needs, but we hope that she is an active part of our child’s life. After all, the more people loving this little kid, the better!

I think it’s so important to note here that openness in adoption is not the same thing as co-parenting. When I think of co-parenting, I think of a couple who has divorced or separated, but are working together to raise their children. Both parties in a co-parenting relationship have some level of say in the day-to-day lives of the kids. This is not at all what happens in open adoption. Once the papers are signed in the hospital (24-48 hours postpartum), the birth mother has no legal rights to the child. We will be our child’s parents in everything except DNA.

And last, but not least, the most common question we’ve been asked over the last month:

Are you getting a boy or a girl?

We don’t know! We don’t get to choose the baby’s sex (really, what parents do?), and we’re matched with a birth mother, not her baby. She is making the decision to place her child with us because she feels we are the best people to care for this child. Let that sink in for a minute, and experience just how humbling this whole process is for us!