Modern Family has to be one of the most incredible shows currently on television. It attacks so many social issues without the least little bit of seriousness whatsoever, pointing out amid the laughter that the labels we have are the least likely thing to make us totally weird. We're just totally weird, all of us, no matter who we love or where we live or what color our dog is.
On Mother's Day, Mitchell (played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson) surprised his partner Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) with breakfast in bed. Cam threw a fit, accusing Mitchell of seeing him as the "mother" of Lily, their young daughter. The couple proceeded to waltz their way through an episode that showed us that, however melodramatic, that Cam was absolutely right. Not only Mitchell, but everyone around them viewed Cam as Lily's "mother."
To be fair, Mitchell isn't the only one. Relationships often divide along unequal dichotomies. It's hard for any one person to be everything. When we become a unit with another person, we don't need to be everything. They can be half of everything, and we can be the other half. It helps us be a stronger unit because now the unit as a whole has many more strengths than either person might have individually.
Also to be fair, Mitchell made a very good point to Cam: our society just doesn't have the vocabulary yet to describe what we are. Eric and I have thought endlessly about what to have our child call us. Despite quite literally months of thinking, we have yet to come to satisfying monikers. I would love to come up with a cool new word that our child could use and that would catch on like wildfire among GLBT parents, but let's face it, I'm just not that cool.
But gay dads aren't the only thing society doesn't necessarily have the right words for.
Recently, I read a topic on an adoption forum expressing disdain of the adoption vocabulary used earlier that day in another topic. The original poster had used "birth mother" instead of "expectant mother."
Terrible, isn't it?
Actually, it's not terrible.
First off, they actually probably used "birthmother." I don't like that as a single word for two reasons. 1) I have yet to find a spell check that recognizes it, and 2) we don't write adoptiveparent. I'd rather separate the words to demonstrate on paper that this person is a parent (or a mother or a father) first and foremost. The "birth" or "adoptive" alters and further clarifies the relationship between the adult and the child. It clarifies it, but it doesn't define them. To use "birthmother" makes it seem as if this is a title like "sex offender" that the woman must always carry. Surely she's allowed to identify herself in other ways?
I do, however, support the use of the term birth mother in general, despite the popular adoption masses who now clamor for "expectant mother." I may not be very popular with my choice, but rest assured I'm not trying to be a jerk. As always, when you choose your words carefully, you'll convey your meaning with more accuracy, provided your listeners are not ostriches and stick their heads in the proverbial sand in their effort to drown out your outdated vocab.
I don't like the term "expectant mother." That she is, of course. But she won't always be. The "expectant" camp argues that she is just any other person, she hasn't yet made a permanent decision to place her child for adoption, and only if she does can she be a "birth mother." Here's my problem with that: she's considering adoption. She's not just considering it casually, either. If she's gotten to the point where someone, an adoptive parent or an agency or an attorney, is calling her an "expectant mother" and really referring to her consideration of adoption, she's much further along than a casual weighing of options. Adoption is part of her life, at least for the time being. Even if her decision is ultimately to parent, it will be an adoption decision.
"Expectant mother" treats her like any other pregnant woman. Believe me, she deserves just as much respect as any other pregnant woman, but like I said above, "e-mom" is still referring to her consideration of adoption, it's just trying to gloss over it. In an era of greater openness and transparency in adoption, why take a step backward and use a term that ignores the fact that this woman is considering adoption?
Why do I think "birth mother" is better? It identifies the relationship she will have with her child, always, whatever her final decision may be. We all have a birth mother. Every one of us. Most of us know her as our only mother, so the use of additional words isn't necessary. No other woman will ever be her child's birth mother. I can never be our child's birth father. She won't always be pregnant and "expectant." She will always have given birth to this child. Unlike other words (popular among the anti-adoption crowd), like "original" and "natural," birth mother is simply a statement of fact. You can have birth parents and be raised by them and they can be awful. You can have birth parents and be raised by someone else and your birth parents can be wonderful.
That they are birth parent doesn't make them less. When I hear "expectant mother," I feel like the person who uses it subscribes internally to the idea that birth parents are less important somehow, and probably disagrees with the statement and uses "e-mom" to compensate.
There are probably times when "e-mom" is appropriate. Her doctor, for example, is treating a pregnant woman and is concerned with her health and that of the baby. Her adoption decision (either way) is not primary there. Strangers out in public would call her "e-mom." But if she's been talking with me (or anyone else) about adopting her baby, for me she's not just another pregnant lady.
I choose to use birth mom because it recognizes both the reality of her situation and respects her importance in her child's life always at the same time. It's an imperfect term as well, however. Our society doesn't yet have the vocabulary for us.
And I still don't know what to have the baby call us!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Lives of Others
It took hours last night to fall asleep. My brain was latched on to something and wouldn't let go. This isn't really anything new for me. Since I was very small I've had difficulty falling asleep. This particular subject made it much worse than usual, though. What's worse is that it isn't really something I can just push away. I feel it deserves my attention.
We're really only still in the beginning of our adoption. With our home study halfway finished, we're closing in on the middle part, the waiting. So I'm not exactly an expert yet. But I'll tell you what I think is the hardest part of adoption: hearing about other adoptions.
What's the most helpful thing in an adoption? Hearing about other adoptions.
Yes, those are the same thing. It's like that.
A little over three months ago, as we were about to sign on with IAC, I got the itch to learn more. Up until that time, it had all been about Eric and I communicating with each other, it had been a personal search and a private decision. I know a handful of people who are adopted, and one adoptive parent. My friends who were adopted were born between 30 and 70 years ago, all of them adopted in closed adoptions. My friend who is an adoptive parent adopted internationally. The point being that while I very much value what they have to share, I also wanted to find people in situations like mine.
Ah, the internet. So much information. So much of it plain wrong. Some entirely irrelevant. Some of it occasionally correct. And it's really hard to tell which is which.
The truth is that the same adoptive family could adopt twice from the same birth parents and using the same agency. Everything about the two adoptions could be identical on paper, and yet the experiences of everyone involved could be completely different for each adoption.
So trying to find what's useful to you in a situation that's only somewhat similar to yours is kind of like seeing someone else winning the lottery and running out to buy tickets using the same numbers they chose. Those numbers will probably get you nowhere.
And yet . . . they played the lottery and they won. Few people know better.
And so I feel compelled to read about the lives of others.
IAC has its own forum just for clients who have officially signed on with them. It's awesome to have such a place. It's the only place I feel safe posting in addition to reading. On other sites, I feel like I have nothing to share because we're still so near the beginning. On the IAC forum, it's easy to see how each and every user was once in our shoes at the same point in the road. The other adoptive parents there are also exceptionally helpful and understanding.
Yet it would be unwise of me to ignore the experiences of those outside our agency. There are more than 300 families on the books with IAC; perhaps 15-20 post regularly. Its forum is a useful emotional and informational tool, but it certainly doesn't have all the answers.
On other sites, though, there exists the possibility of anyone coming along and saying anything they like. And believe me, if it can be said, they will say it. I had no idea there were anti-adoption people out there. They are insane. I still read their stuff, so I know what the worst case scenario might be with people I may come across in my life. Occasionally, I find small glimmers of a good point in their raving.
Most of what I find is helpful. Other adoptive parents, sometimes birth parents and occasionally adoptees chime in to inform others. I've gotten to experience vicariously the uncertainty of a contact and the elation of a match, the excitement of the birth and, yes, the bitter disappointment of a reclaim. Contrary to what you might think, these stories really help. I see others dealing more or less successfully with their disappointment and I discover their strategies for coping and learn which might help me most should we face that same disappointment. The fear of a birth mother reclaiming her child is diminishing. Should that happen, it will be disappointing, of course, but we don't want a child whose mother wants to parent him. At the end of the day, we'll know she will grieve, we'll know that she will probably wish things could happen differently, but at the end of the day I still want to know she feels she made a good choice. We can't know if it was the "right" choice, but if it was a good one, we will all be able to live with it.
There are some stories that are not helpful, however. Rather than contribute, these stories cause fear. I'm all about things that don't cause fear; if it causes fear, it's bound to be bad. A healthy skepticism is positive. It also works both ways. A story can cause me to use my healthy skepticism to re-examine our choices. It also makes me look close as hell at the stories themselves.
Strangely enough, both these stories that have impacted me the most in a negative way involved IAC. (Maybe that's why they had such an impact.)
The first story is about an adoptive couple. They were contacted by a birth mother and got to the point of having a match meeting between themselves, the birth mother and an agency counselor. All the parents thought the meeting went great. After the meeting, however, the counselor called Child Protective Services on behalf of the birth mother's older child. What was it about? I don't know. The adoptive parents, though they wrote extensively about their upset, did not say. They may not know. I have to do a fair bit of reading between the lines with these stories. They may not be willing to say. At any rate, the birth mother called off any contact with IAC and it can only be assumed that, although they say they left IAC as well, this couple did not adopt that baby.
They were furious that the agency's actions cost them their baby. I have to take a step back and think. I've been that mandatory reporter. I've made those phone calls. I didn't do it lightly, and I don't know any professional who does. It could have been a million things. It could have been someone in the home with the child who was unsafe. It could have been the home itself. She may have said she left her toddler unsupervised for this or that amount of time. I'm willing to believe it could have been something the birth mother didn't think of as wrong; no one likes being told she's endangering her child. It could have been something the adoptive parents, perhaps unversed in the social services climate, didn't even recognize. I'm willing to bet it's something they wanted to ignore.
And they wanted the agency to ignore it, too. They were willing to put the birth mother's child in continuing jeopardy so they could have her unborn child. It made me sick and angry. To know that they did successfully adopt a different child and, at the time of my reading, were trying to adopt again just disgusts me. I feel sorry for the birth mothers of their children. Those women will never have their respect.
That one was a bit easier to put behind me than the next one. After all, I know we're better people than that. I know that for us it will not be a baby at any cost.
This, however, threw me for a total loop.
This is a long story. If you'd like to read it all, you can message me and I'll be happy to provide you with the link to this woman's website. I'll try and share only the most important parts.
This woman is a birth mother. She was married with one child when she found herself unexpectedly pregnant again. In dire financial straits, she and her husband decided to place their daughter in an open adoption. They found a couple and the adoption went forward. Up until the adoption was finalized, everything went smoothly and nobody had any complaints (that they were willing to say out loud, anyway.) After finalization, the adoptive parents began to restrict the contact the birth family had with their daughter beyond what the birth mother could bear. Although the adoptive family lives in California where open adoption contact agreements are legally binding and not merely a tool for communication, she discovered theirs was not filed at the child's finalization. So she sued.
Every adoptive parent's worst nightmare, right? This is what they tell us can't happen. The birth parents cannot years later come back and change their minds. Even if they can't win a legal case, who wants birth parents who feel like that? Like I said, I want us all to be able to live with the decision.
Time for reading between the lines, boys and girls. The birth mother did not win. She was not suing to file the contact agreement and enforce it. She was actually suing to get the girl back. I can understand how she might feel betrayed as the adoptive parents closed her off from their daughter, but to try and win the girl back? There's more. For five years, up until she filed her suit, they still allowed her to visit the girl. It was on their terms, true, not hers, but it would have been entirely within their rights to say no altogether, since the contact agreement wasn't binding. Not until she filed her suit did they cut her off completely. Who wouldn't? There's still more. Ultimately, the birth mother and her husband had another child and then divorced. The adoptive family gave the birth father and the other children not only continuing visits after the birth mother filed her suit, they actually got more than the bare minimum. Although this birth mother publishes extensive quotes and often entire e-mails of what she says to the adoptive parents and how they respond, I have to give the adoptive parents a lot of credit. They never get nasty. I would be so tempted to tell this woman who also has not kept a promise (to allow these people to parent her child) where she could stick it. If anything, they try to be understanding while trying to maintain what's best for their daughter.
So here's my version of the story. The birth mother was never about the adoption. She says she would never have placed the girl if she had not been able to keep in contact. Later on, a judge actually tells her the contact she wanted from an adoptive family was just absurd. She wanted someone else to provide for her daughter while she couldn't, but in such a way that she could still be Mom. The adoptive parents may have picked up on this earlier or later. They may have thought her husband and other children would help in her grieving as their daily lives moved on without this child. They may have thought this was a part of the grief we all hear will happen. They may even, at first, have considered themselves lucky to have such an involved birth family when so many want so little contact.
At some point, however, the nature of the birth mother's motivation for contact became apparent. They had not been given by her that all too important permission to parent. That they kept it to themselves until after the adoption was finalized is understandable, if not exactly how you or I might have done it. Even if they had begun to close the adoption sooner, the birth mother would have had a difficult time, having signed relinquishments and with months gone by, blocking the adoption. After that, like I've said, they dealt with her as best they could. I would cut someone off for suing me, too!
The only thing on which I can fault the adoptive parents is accepting a match in the first place when they came to feel so uncomfortable. I don't really believe they didn't pick up on it sooner rather than later. I would have, and I would not be able to move forward. Once the baby arrives, it's so hard to say no. Not to mention it paints you as the bad guy for seeming to have misled someone in the one moment when you finally do the right thing. And these folks are downright covered in paint.
Really, this story isn't about what happened, which is pretty damn unfortunate for everyone involved. For me, this is about whether we'll be able to avoid this same situation. I think I'm a good judge of character, but I also know I've been wrong. If ever there were a time when it was important to get it right! I'm sure these folks thought they'd gotten it right at first, too.
I lay awake last night, reviewing this woman's story and responding to it in my head.
In 2009 I flew back to California and spent a week driving around all my favorite places. In the late afternoon, I went south from Point Reyes Station, a road I'd never taken before. There was nothing between me and San Francisco, and I thought to find a motel outside the city and stop for the night.
The road was nothing like I thought. It hugged the cliffs. The speed limit was 35 miles an hour, which, if you really went that fast, felt absolutely reckless. The fog was so thick it looked like my headlights weren't on. I was driving a car that was strange to me. And the road went on forever.
It felt like hours. I thought I would never get there. I was exhausted. Oh, and I had no cell signal. And I probably had to pee.
When I read this woman's story, I think of that drive. I think of how we don't know what's ahead, only that we're still on the road. At least, we think we're still on the road. The next curve can run up at any time, though, and we have to make a split second decision as to which way to go and hope like hell we haven't just driven off a cliff like the emotional and legal one those adoptive parents drove themselves off of. How to navigate?
I landed somewhere safe that night. I came down out of the hills above San Fran and the next thing I knew I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
Exquisite, huh?
I promptly got lost again. Three interstates later, I called Eric in tears and begged him to use the last bar on my cell phone to find a motel online and direct me to it. And he did.
And here ends the metaphor. Between Eric and I, we guided me to safety, got really scared, almost drove off 30 cliffs and suffered through some really intense awesomeness. Together, we might be able to do this.
For the record, he says I'm not allowed to go back to her website.
No problem.
We're really only still in the beginning of our adoption. With our home study halfway finished, we're closing in on the middle part, the waiting. So I'm not exactly an expert yet. But I'll tell you what I think is the hardest part of adoption: hearing about other adoptions.
What's the most helpful thing in an adoption? Hearing about other adoptions.
Yes, those are the same thing. It's like that.
A little over three months ago, as we were about to sign on with IAC, I got the itch to learn more. Up until that time, it had all been about Eric and I communicating with each other, it had been a personal search and a private decision. I know a handful of people who are adopted, and one adoptive parent. My friends who were adopted were born between 30 and 70 years ago, all of them adopted in closed adoptions. My friend who is an adoptive parent adopted internationally. The point being that while I very much value what they have to share, I also wanted to find people in situations like mine.
Ah, the internet. So much information. So much of it plain wrong. Some entirely irrelevant. Some of it occasionally correct. And it's really hard to tell which is which.
The truth is that the same adoptive family could adopt twice from the same birth parents and using the same agency. Everything about the two adoptions could be identical on paper, and yet the experiences of everyone involved could be completely different for each adoption.
So trying to find what's useful to you in a situation that's only somewhat similar to yours is kind of like seeing someone else winning the lottery and running out to buy tickets using the same numbers they chose. Those numbers will probably get you nowhere.
And yet . . . they played the lottery and they won. Few people know better.
And so I feel compelled to read about the lives of others.
IAC has its own forum just for clients who have officially signed on with them. It's awesome to have such a place. It's the only place I feel safe posting in addition to reading. On other sites, I feel like I have nothing to share because we're still so near the beginning. On the IAC forum, it's easy to see how each and every user was once in our shoes at the same point in the road. The other adoptive parents there are also exceptionally helpful and understanding.
Yet it would be unwise of me to ignore the experiences of those outside our agency. There are more than 300 families on the books with IAC; perhaps 15-20 post regularly. Its forum is a useful emotional and informational tool, but it certainly doesn't have all the answers.
On other sites, though, there exists the possibility of anyone coming along and saying anything they like. And believe me, if it can be said, they will say it. I had no idea there were anti-adoption people out there. They are insane. I still read their stuff, so I know what the worst case scenario might be with people I may come across in my life. Occasionally, I find small glimmers of a good point in their raving.
Most of what I find is helpful. Other adoptive parents, sometimes birth parents and occasionally adoptees chime in to inform others. I've gotten to experience vicariously the uncertainty of a contact and the elation of a match, the excitement of the birth and, yes, the bitter disappointment of a reclaim. Contrary to what you might think, these stories really help. I see others dealing more or less successfully with their disappointment and I discover their strategies for coping and learn which might help me most should we face that same disappointment. The fear of a birth mother reclaiming her child is diminishing. Should that happen, it will be disappointing, of course, but we don't want a child whose mother wants to parent him. At the end of the day, we'll know she will grieve, we'll know that she will probably wish things could happen differently, but at the end of the day I still want to know she feels she made a good choice. We can't know if it was the "right" choice, but if it was a good one, we will all be able to live with it.
There are some stories that are not helpful, however. Rather than contribute, these stories cause fear. I'm all about things that don't cause fear; if it causes fear, it's bound to be bad. A healthy skepticism is positive. It also works both ways. A story can cause me to use my healthy skepticism to re-examine our choices. It also makes me look close as hell at the stories themselves.
Strangely enough, both these stories that have impacted me the most in a negative way involved IAC. (Maybe that's why they had such an impact.)
The first story is about an adoptive couple. They were contacted by a birth mother and got to the point of having a match meeting between themselves, the birth mother and an agency counselor. All the parents thought the meeting went great. After the meeting, however, the counselor called Child Protective Services on behalf of the birth mother's older child. What was it about? I don't know. The adoptive parents, though they wrote extensively about their upset, did not say. They may not know. I have to do a fair bit of reading between the lines with these stories. They may not be willing to say. At any rate, the birth mother called off any contact with IAC and it can only be assumed that, although they say they left IAC as well, this couple did not adopt that baby.
They were furious that the agency's actions cost them their baby. I have to take a step back and think. I've been that mandatory reporter. I've made those phone calls. I didn't do it lightly, and I don't know any professional who does. It could have been a million things. It could have been someone in the home with the child who was unsafe. It could have been the home itself. She may have said she left her toddler unsupervised for this or that amount of time. I'm willing to believe it could have been something the birth mother didn't think of as wrong; no one likes being told she's endangering her child. It could have been something the adoptive parents, perhaps unversed in the social services climate, didn't even recognize. I'm willing to bet it's something they wanted to ignore.
And they wanted the agency to ignore it, too. They were willing to put the birth mother's child in continuing jeopardy so they could have her unborn child. It made me sick and angry. To know that they did successfully adopt a different child and, at the time of my reading, were trying to adopt again just disgusts me. I feel sorry for the birth mothers of their children. Those women will never have their respect.
That one was a bit easier to put behind me than the next one. After all, I know we're better people than that. I know that for us it will not be a baby at any cost.
This, however, threw me for a total loop.
This is a long story. If you'd like to read it all, you can message me and I'll be happy to provide you with the link to this woman's website. I'll try and share only the most important parts.
This woman is a birth mother. She was married with one child when she found herself unexpectedly pregnant again. In dire financial straits, she and her husband decided to place their daughter in an open adoption. They found a couple and the adoption went forward. Up until the adoption was finalized, everything went smoothly and nobody had any complaints (that they were willing to say out loud, anyway.) After finalization, the adoptive parents began to restrict the contact the birth family had with their daughter beyond what the birth mother could bear. Although the adoptive family lives in California where open adoption contact agreements are legally binding and not merely a tool for communication, she discovered theirs was not filed at the child's finalization. So she sued.
Every adoptive parent's worst nightmare, right? This is what they tell us can't happen. The birth parents cannot years later come back and change their minds. Even if they can't win a legal case, who wants birth parents who feel like that? Like I said, I want us all to be able to live with the decision.
Time for reading between the lines, boys and girls. The birth mother did not win. She was not suing to file the contact agreement and enforce it. She was actually suing to get the girl back. I can understand how she might feel betrayed as the adoptive parents closed her off from their daughter, but to try and win the girl back? There's more. For five years, up until she filed her suit, they still allowed her to visit the girl. It was on their terms, true, not hers, but it would have been entirely within their rights to say no altogether, since the contact agreement wasn't binding. Not until she filed her suit did they cut her off completely. Who wouldn't? There's still more. Ultimately, the birth mother and her husband had another child and then divorced. The adoptive family gave the birth father and the other children not only continuing visits after the birth mother filed her suit, they actually got more than the bare minimum. Although this birth mother publishes extensive quotes and often entire e-mails of what she says to the adoptive parents and how they respond, I have to give the adoptive parents a lot of credit. They never get nasty. I would be so tempted to tell this woman who also has not kept a promise (to allow these people to parent her child) where she could stick it. If anything, they try to be understanding while trying to maintain what's best for their daughter.
So here's my version of the story. The birth mother was never about the adoption. She says she would never have placed the girl if she had not been able to keep in contact. Later on, a judge actually tells her the contact she wanted from an adoptive family was just absurd. She wanted someone else to provide for her daughter while she couldn't, but in such a way that she could still be Mom. The adoptive parents may have picked up on this earlier or later. They may have thought her husband and other children would help in her grieving as their daily lives moved on without this child. They may have thought this was a part of the grief we all hear will happen. They may even, at first, have considered themselves lucky to have such an involved birth family when so many want so little contact.
At some point, however, the nature of the birth mother's motivation for contact became apparent. They had not been given by her that all too important permission to parent. That they kept it to themselves until after the adoption was finalized is understandable, if not exactly how you or I might have done it. Even if they had begun to close the adoption sooner, the birth mother would have had a difficult time, having signed relinquishments and with months gone by, blocking the adoption. After that, like I've said, they dealt with her as best they could. I would cut someone off for suing me, too!
The only thing on which I can fault the adoptive parents is accepting a match in the first place when they came to feel so uncomfortable. I don't really believe they didn't pick up on it sooner rather than later. I would have, and I would not be able to move forward. Once the baby arrives, it's so hard to say no. Not to mention it paints you as the bad guy for seeming to have misled someone in the one moment when you finally do the right thing. And these folks are downright covered in paint.
Really, this story isn't about what happened, which is pretty damn unfortunate for everyone involved. For me, this is about whether we'll be able to avoid this same situation. I think I'm a good judge of character, but I also know I've been wrong. If ever there were a time when it was important to get it right! I'm sure these folks thought they'd gotten it right at first, too.
I lay awake last night, reviewing this woman's story and responding to it in my head.
In 2009 I flew back to California and spent a week driving around all my favorite places. In the late afternoon, I went south from Point Reyes Station, a road I'd never taken before. There was nothing between me and San Francisco, and I thought to find a motel outside the city and stop for the night.
The road was nothing like I thought. It hugged the cliffs. The speed limit was 35 miles an hour, which, if you really went that fast, felt absolutely reckless. The fog was so thick it looked like my headlights weren't on. I was driving a car that was strange to me. And the road went on forever.
It felt like hours. I thought I would never get there. I was exhausted. Oh, and I had no cell signal. And I probably had to pee.
When I read this woman's story, I think of that drive. I think of how we don't know what's ahead, only that we're still on the road. At least, we think we're still on the road. The next curve can run up at any time, though, and we have to make a split second decision as to which way to go and hope like hell we haven't just driven off a cliff like the emotional and legal one those adoptive parents drove themselves off of. How to navigate?
I landed somewhere safe that night. I came down out of the hills above San Fran and the next thing I knew I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
Exquisite, huh?
I promptly got lost again. Three interstates later, I called Eric in tears and begged him to use the last bar on my cell phone to find a motel online and direct me to it. And he did.
And here ends the metaphor. Between Eric and I, we guided me to safety, got really scared, almost drove off 30 cliffs and suffered through some really intense awesomeness. Together, we might be able to do this.
For the record, he says I'm not allowed to go back to her website.
No problem.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Didn't See These Coming
Topics have been a little heavy so far as I try to catch up with real life here on the blog. This week, I thought I'd just throw out some tidbits you might or might not know about adoption and our experience so far.
We are required to obtain a background check through the FBI and a completely separate check done through Child Protective Services. We are required to have a physical and be tested for HIV and tuberculosis. We do not have to take a drug test.
Speaking of that physical, its purpose is simple: to establish whether we have a normal life expectancy and are free of communicable disease. Here's the catch: What if you're not? I have heard of one adoption that took place despite both parents (a same-sex couple) being HIV positive. I have heard of another adoption where finalization occurred the same day the adoptive father died of a long-term illness. Both adoptions happened anyway.
Did you know that it is not uncommon for newborn infants, boys and girls, to secrete milk from their own breasts after birth? This is very temporary and is due to the hormones still in the baby's body after sharing them for nine months with its mother.
The law in Virginia does not actually say two people of the same gender cannot adopt jointly. The law does say that if two people adopt jointly, they must be married. Now you get the catch. Since we can't legally marry (in Virginia), we can't legally adopt jointly.
The alternative? I will seek joint custody of our child once his or her adoption by Eric is finalized. What do I have to do? Ironically, neither the finalization nor the custody agreement will take place in court. Both are done by our attorney by mail. Anti-climactic, no?
The original plan was for me to be the adoptive parent, but I don't make enough. The agency's cut-off for a single parent home study? $25,000.
Until our adoption is finalized, from the time the baby is placed with us she or he actually legally belongs to the agency.
During that time, while the baby is in our physical custody but in the legal custody of the agency, they ask that we do not spank him or her. Most newborn adoptions are complete by the time the baby turns one year old. Who out there is spanking their tiny baby?!
Despite prejudices that say otherwise, 55% of the infants adopted through our agency are 100% Caucasian.
In some states, if the mother does not know the identity of the baby's father, or if she is unwilling to reveal his identity, for an adoption to take place his rights may be terminated by publishing in the newspaper that Jane Doe had a child on This Date, 2011, so anyone who had sex with her and thinks he may be the father of the child should come forward.
Simply because a birth father is not aware of the birth mother's pregnancy or the child's birth does not mean he can come around later and challenge the adoption. It does not absolve him of his responsibility to find out if their sex resulted in pregnancy. His rights can be terminated anyway.
If a woman is married and conceives a child with someone other than her husband, her husband is the legal father of the child and has more rights to the child than the biological father does. In this case, the legal father, the birth mother's husband, can block an adoption. It is unlikely that a biological father not married to the mother could do the same unless he has been supporting her through her pregnancy and continues to do so.
Adopted children are the only people who receive two original birth certificates. The first is not erased or altered; a second certificate is issued.
In the United States, you can name your child anything you'd like. The countries of northern Europe in particular have laws regarding naming, some of them quite strict. There are lists of approved names and most require a boy's name to be easily distinguishable from a girl's. The U.S. is more lax. The birth mother may choose anything she'd like to put on the birth certificate. The adoptive parents have 100% discretion to then change the child's name to anything they'd like. Mary Jones may have a child with John Johnson and then the child may be adopted by James Smith and Anne Thompson. They can name their child Joseph Michael Pearl Jam. Even if it's a girl.
If a child is known to be of Native American heritage, the relevant tribe or tribes must be contacted before an adoption may proceed. If the tribe finds that the child qualifies as a member, they may, at their discretion, block an adoption.
What's that, you say? That's heavy stuff, too? Okay, some of it is, so here's some fun stuff about us.
Eric's given first name is Eric-Gene. If you reverse those, it says Generic. Generic is our pet name for our unknown son or daughter.
The first time we went baby shopping, Eric ran over my foot with the stroller. A sign of things to come?
I'll admit that we've already chosen names. It's one thing we can control and decide upon right now. We're totally open to suggestions from our birth parents, however.
Barring a baby born in Hawaii, we're driving. I hate flying enough to know I'd hijack the plane if I were expected to take a newborn on a flight.
Eric bought me a guitar just so I can learn to play and sing songs for the baby.
We still can't decide what to have the baby call us. What will he or she call all those grandparents? Y'all are on your own.
We've already picked out a school for our son or daughter. Yes, we've already visited it.
The baby's room is the nicest in our home.
I refrain from throwing away old t-shirts because I think "Hey, those are free pajamas for Generic."
I asked Eric to fetch a box of super awesome wonderfully colored plastic hangers off the side of the road because I was too embarrassed to do it myself but I thought they would look awesome in the baby's room. Look awesome is all they'll do, though. Generic won't grow into clothes this size for another decade at the earliest.
My mother brings up the baby every time I speak with her.
I bring up the baby at least ten times more often than that.
Thanks for reading!
We are required to obtain a background check through the FBI and a completely separate check done through Child Protective Services. We are required to have a physical and be tested for HIV and tuberculosis. We do not have to take a drug test.
Speaking of that physical, its purpose is simple: to establish whether we have a normal life expectancy and are free of communicable disease. Here's the catch: What if you're not? I have heard of one adoption that took place despite both parents (a same-sex couple) being HIV positive. I have heard of another adoption where finalization occurred the same day the adoptive father died of a long-term illness. Both adoptions happened anyway.
Did you know that it is not uncommon for newborn infants, boys and girls, to secrete milk from their own breasts after birth? This is very temporary and is due to the hormones still in the baby's body after sharing them for nine months with its mother.
The law in Virginia does not actually say two people of the same gender cannot adopt jointly. The law does say that if two people adopt jointly, they must be married. Now you get the catch. Since we can't legally marry (in Virginia), we can't legally adopt jointly.
The alternative? I will seek joint custody of our child once his or her adoption by Eric is finalized. What do I have to do? Ironically, neither the finalization nor the custody agreement will take place in court. Both are done by our attorney by mail. Anti-climactic, no?
The original plan was for me to be the adoptive parent, but I don't make enough. The agency's cut-off for a single parent home study? $25,000.
Until our adoption is finalized, from the time the baby is placed with us she or he actually legally belongs to the agency.
During that time, while the baby is in our physical custody but in the legal custody of the agency, they ask that we do not spank him or her. Most newborn adoptions are complete by the time the baby turns one year old. Who out there is spanking their tiny baby?!
Despite prejudices that say otherwise, 55% of the infants adopted through our agency are 100% Caucasian.
In some states, if the mother does not know the identity of the baby's father, or if she is unwilling to reveal his identity, for an adoption to take place his rights may be terminated by publishing in the newspaper that Jane Doe had a child on This Date, 2011, so anyone who had sex with her and thinks he may be the father of the child should come forward.
Simply because a birth father is not aware of the birth mother's pregnancy or the child's birth does not mean he can come around later and challenge the adoption. It does not absolve him of his responsibility to find out if their sex resulted in pregnancy. His rights can be terminated anyway.
If a woman is married and conceives a child with someone other than her husband, her husband is the legal father of the child and has more rights to the child than the biological father does. In this case, the legal father, the birth mother's husband, can block an adoption. It is unlikely that a biological father not married to the mother could do the same unless he has been supporting her through her pregnancy and continues to do so.
Adopted children are the only people who receive two original birth certificates. The first is not erased or altered; a second certificate is issued.
In the United States, you can name your child anything you'd like. The countries of northern Europe in particular have laws regarding naming, some of them quite strict. There are lists of approved names and most require a boy's name to be easily distinguishable from a girl's. The U.S. is more lax. The birth mother may choose anything she'd like to put on the birth certificate. The adoptive parents have 100% discretion to then change the child's name to anything they'd like. Mary Jones may have a child with John Johnson and then the child may be adopted by James Smith and Anne Thompson. They can name their child Joseph Michael Pearl Jam. Even if it's a girl.
If a child is known to be of Native American heritage, the relevant tribe or tribes must be contacted before an adoption may proceed. If the tribe finds that the child qualifies as a member, they may, at their discretion, block an adoption.
What's that, you say? That's heavy stuff, too? Okay, some of it is, so here's some fun stuff about us.
Eric's given first name is Eric-Gene. If you reverse those, it says Generic. Generic is our pet name for our unknown son or daughter.
The first time we went baby shopping, Eric ran over my foot with the stroller. A sign of things to come?
I'll admit that we've already chosen names. It's one thing we can control and decide upon right now. We're totally open to suggestions from our birth parents, however.
Barring a baby born in Hawaii, we're driving. I hate flying enough to know I'd hijack the plane if I were expected to take a newborn on a flight.
Eric bought me a guitar just so I can learn to play and sing songs for the baby.
We still can't decide what to have the baby call us. What will he or she call all those grandparents? Y'all are on your own.
We've already picked out a school for our son or daughter. Yes, we've already visited it.
The baby's room is the nicest in our home.
I refrain from throwing away old t-shirts because I think "Hey, those are free pajamas for Generic."
I asked Eric to fetch a box of super awesome wonderfully colored plastic hangers off the side of the road because I was too embarrassed to do it myself but I thought they would look awesome in the baby's room. Look awesome is all they'll do, though. Generic won't grow into clothes this size for another decade at the earliest.
My mother brings up the baby every time I speak with her.
I bring up the baby at least ten times more often than that.
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Meant to Be
The chances of one single ancestor of yours not dying while growing up is one in several billion . . . you have been a millimeter from death billions of times, Hans Thomas . . . Each time an arrow has rained through the air, your chances of being born have been reduced to the minimum. But here you are, sitting talking to me, Hans Thomas!
. . .
What about the unlucky ones?
They don't exist! They were never born.
The Solitaire Mystery, Jostein Gaarder
There are reasons to choose open adoption, and then there are your reasons, as the person choosing it. There are pros and cons, and then there is what makes you feel good about it, what makes it feel right, a line of thinking that doesn't fall into the objective lists we make as we come to a decision. I first read the quote above when I was 17 years old. Earlier that same year, a boy at school, a casual friend, committed suicide. When I read those lines, the real tragedy of his death came to me. So much has come together in each of us, so much has been at stake, so many have fallen by the wayside or never existed to rise or fall at all. How could anyone not feel special just for existing? I recognize that there are mediating circumstances in the reality that belongs to each of us that can lead a person to end his own life, but I never fail to return to this passage where a father teaches his son how miraculous each of them really is.
What does all that have to do with adoption? To connect the dots, I have to go back even further than reading Gaarder's book to those afternoon talk shows that have given so many of us most, if not all, of what we know about adoption. As I listened to the stories of adopted children and birth parents, I wondered how each of their lives might have been different if the dice had not come up with adoption. I have read stories of both sides, adoptees and birth parents who feel that life would have been either significantly better or worse had adoption made only a cameo in their lives rather than taking center stage.
It's no wonder they imagine. I wonder if adoptive parents ever imagine those things. I hear all the time things like "This child was meant to be ours" and the like. Was he? For those of the religious persuasion, this is where faith conveniently swoops in to point out that whatever happens, good, bad and neutral, is part of a larger plan. In this way, I imagine lots of adoptive parents learn to feel entitled to their adopted children. It can never be forgotten that this child was born to someone else, that she could also have raised this child, that she will hurt as a result of your joy.
For those of us who don't adhere to the greater power story (and I know I'm in the minority here), how is it that we find ourselves with this child? In the MauryMontelSallyJessy story, a couple signed up to become adoptive parents. They may or may not have been able to specify certain things about the child they desired, like health, gender and race. They were put on a list. We (and they) can only assume the governor of that list did things the way he should and offered each available child to the next waiting couple with matching criteria. Eventually, our couple's turn came and they got their baby. Days, weeks, months later, we heard that familiar refrain "It was meant to be."
Ironically, this is also the refrain we sing when our attempts to have a family don't work.
Do they ever imagine, though, who the next child was? Or the previous one? What if the couple just ahead of them in line had dropped out a month prior? What if a couple who decided never to start the process had done so, a year ahead of them?
Children raised in their birth families have the advantage of knowing that no one else could have created them as they are. If they had a different mother or father, they would be a different person. It's a false sense of security (or, rather, a false sense of being made purposefully.) Indeed, if they had been conceived but a month later or earlier, they could have been a substantially different person. If their mother had not miscarried that earlier pregnancy, she would already have the baby she desired and not had another so soon. Or, if that older sibling that was born had not survived to delay the arrival of the next child, that next child would have been someone different.
Then you throw into the mix the reality of not just genetics, but of individuals' life choices.
My point with the quote from The Solitaire Mystery is not that we have no purpose. Rather, it's that each of us should feel special simply for being alive. An additional purpose is not necessary.
For children raised in their birth families, we already feel that specialness. For those of us creating families through adoption, knowing the heartache that goes hand in hand with realizing our dream of being parents, how do we feel that specialness ourselves and foster it in our adopted children? For me, the traditional process of closed adoption, waiting on a list and being bestowed a random child simply doesn't make me feel that specialness. Knowing that our child could have just as easily been the baby before or after this one doesn't make me feel like this is "meant to be."
This is where the birth parents' choice in open adoption plays such an important role for me. In a life full of near misses and unconscious choices, a conscious choice to place a child with us makes me feel that specialness.
When Eric and I were discussing whether we would be open to adopting a child who was not white (as we both are), Eric asked me what I would say if we adopted a black child and one day in public a black adult approached me and told me I had no business raising that child. My response was this: "This child's mother chose us. She didn't have to choose us. She could have raised her child herself, she could have placed her child with anyone else, but she chose us because she believes we can give her child what he needs. I believe that, too. Who else should have more of a say in who raises a child?"
It's not just about race, though. It's about all of parenting. Imagine if all parents, adoptive and biological, had to apply to become parents. Can you imagine the worry they would feel, and the sense of entitlement when they were approved? The agency has approved us, true, as will the social worker. The ultimate approval, however, comes from the birth parents. When they give their child to us, they give us the right and the permission we need to really create the family we all want. They believe in us, so we can believe in ourselves.
Okay, okay, so that's a rosy picture to paint. It is certainly an ideal, but since we haven't actually done this yet, the ideal and the worst case scenario are our new best friends. "She chooses us" has become one of my mantras for this adoption. Ultimately, it's very comforting. It's also comforting to know that we will, ideally, have some time to get to know her as well. We want her (and him, too) in our lives as well. All too often, I read outrageous true stories of adoptions where things did not go well. So often, in a desperate quest for a baby, any baby, adoptive parents do things that aren't legal or ethical. Those parents leave a bitter taste in my mouth. It turns the baby into an object and it's with these parents that, all joking aside, talk of "buying a baby" becomes a very real risk. I understand the impatience adoptive parents feel, especially those who have already "waited" through infertility only to wait again.
The thing is, I don't really think it's about the baby as much as the whole family. When a couple adopts, everyone in their family does, too. We want to find the right birth mother. When we meet her, when we connect with her and want to welcome her into our lives, then we'll know. When we find her, we'll know we've found our son or daughter.
Not every birth parent is someone with whom we'll want to be best friends. That really isn't what I envision. The truth is that when a couple adopts, not only does everyone in their family adopt, but the baby isn't the only one being adopted. Whether they're known or not, whether they're acknowledged or not, the birth parents become a part of our family, too. Their presence will always be felt. I would much rather know who they are and involve them to whatever degree we're all comfortable than to have only fantasies, good or bad, about who they might be. They don't just give their child a new family; they don't just give us a child; they make it meant to be. I'd like to be able to say thank you.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Flowers
I smell the flowers blooming,
opening for spring.
I'd like to be those flowers,
open to everything.
Wailin' Jennys "The Bird Song"
So how does this open adoption thing come to pass? Good question. Long answer.
A birth mother may contact IAC first. Many do. A counselor does an intake session with her. S/he will ask about pretty much everything. How far along is she? Who is the father and what's his involvement? How committed is she to her adoption decision? Does she have other children? What's her living situation? How does her family feel? Has she been to a doctor? Has she used drugs while pregnant? What is she hoping for from adoption? The answers to those questions can be all over the spectrum.
From there, the woman will be presented with a number of letters. During her intake session she will have indicated any preferences as to the type of family she would like for her child. She may choose only heterosexual couples, only Christian couples, only couples in states near her, etc. Before you freak out, each month a report is published as to the demographics of the women who did intake sessions that month and also the types of letter that were sent to them. There are those who just want straight, white, Christian parents. It's their baby; they get to decide. There are also those who ask specifically for gay families and non-Christian families. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard of birth mothers choosing a gay couple precisely because a) they or someone in their life is GLBT and they love them and/or b) gay people get a bad rap and they want to do something to "even the playing field," as one birth mother put it.
Okay, so that might not be my choice of why she would choose us, but I also know we'll make great parents for her child and she'll be happy with choosing us anyway.
Depending on just how many preferences she has, she may receive many (more than a hundred) or very few Dear Birth Parent Letters.
Ah, the Dear Birth Parent letter. Joy. (That's sarcasm.)
If anything about this process has been difficult, it's been this. Truthfully, very little else has been difficult at all. Worrisome, time-consuming, occasionally exasperating, but never hard. Except for this.
Technically, IAC calls it the Dear Birth Mother letter. I prefer to call it the Dear Birth Parent letter because I know that if I were a birth father and I saw these letters and didn't see myself included at least in principle, that would be an automatic turn-off. Only 25% of birth fathers are actively involved in their child's adoption, but if I could have what I want, I'd want one of those. Two people create a child; I'd want my child to know both.
Whenever I mention the Letter, I always hear a comment about marketing said in such a way as to seem just a little bit disapproving, a little too mean from someone who is supposed to be a friend. The truth is that it is marketing and that's not bad. It's necessary. There is tremendous power (for everyone involved) in knowing the birth parents chose us. How in the world are they supposed to choose us if they have nothing to go on?
The Letter is a brochure, really, written in the form of a personal letter. It includes information about Eric and I, how we met and how we think of our relationship. It includes our jobs, schedules and how we plan to fit a child into those. It includes tidbits about our families and how they are a part of our lives. There are pictures, too, all meant to give a birth parent a glimpse of that life might be like for their child should they place him or her with us.
Writing the Letter is really a challenge. My first attempt was far too wordy. I'm educated and it shows. That same education might alienate someone who is not as educated, however. At the same time, birth mothers are pregnant, not stupid, and dumbing the document down is offensive (I think) to her. The letter can't be just about what you want; you have to show her what her child will have the chance to do. It can't presume that she's even made a solid decision about adoption yet. It has to be warm, welcoming and supportive without assuming to know too much about her. And a balance has to be struck with being someone with whom a birth parent can identify and also being yourself. There are easy, cliche things to say, but then all the letters would sound alike. Big challenge.
Now imagine doing all that, with pictures. Twice as much thought goes into those. And it's driving me up a wall.
A birth mother may also choose a family or families prior to contacting the agency. All families' information is online, along with those pictures and that perfect text.
Before you think the process is said and done there, it's not. The Letter is important because it gets a birth parent's attention. We want her to open it, read it and call us. If our letter doesn't make a mark, it will be ignored. While not every birth mother is right for us, we want her to call us so we can both know that, not make that decision based on the Letter alone. Every letter also contains contact information, an 800 number and an e-mail address. In either format, we hope a birth mother contacts us. She may call several families. Through those conversations, both sides come to feel that they would be a good match (or not). Once that's decision's made, it's called a "match." (Catchy, huh?)
Technically, a birth mother initiates a match, though it's also up to the adoptive parents to accept it. Being matched means they've chosen one another and that birth mother's child, to everyone's best knowledge and intentions, will be adopted by that family. The birth mother will stop talking to other adoptive families; the adoptive family won't speak with other birth mothers. There will be at least one meeting together formally with a counselor where the plan for the hospital will be made, future contact arrangements discussed and any other concerns dealt with.
Parents do un-match. According to IAC, the initiation of an un-match is evenly distributed between adoptive parents and birth parents. It's unfortunate, but from what I understand (and I can see how this would be) it's much better to know that before the baby arrives. (No, baby's still not here yet.) Oftentimes the un-match is mutual. Although they may not be a huge part of the adoptive family's life, they will be important and it's important the two families be able to work together comfortably.
On to the baby!
So baby arrives. If baby is born in the same state as us, that's awesome. It means we can come home with baby as soon as baby is discharged from the hospital. Otherwise, it's more complicated.
The birth mother has to sign to relinquish her child to us (or the agency, depends on the state and the health of the baby.) The birth father can relinquish before the birth, but the birth mother cannot. (You'd be surprised at how few rights birth fathers really have.) Relinquishment typically takes place when both baby and birth mother are discharged, though any number of monkeys may throw any number of wrenches in that arrangement. Long story short, though, custody of the baby is legally (but temporarily) yours.
Most states have a revocation period. A few do not. None that I know of allow a birth mother to sign the relinquishment any sooner than when she or the baby leaves the hospital. Revocation periods are typically 7-10 days, though some states have them up to 30-45 days. Anytime during that period she can change her mind. It goes until midnight on the last day. If the last day is a weekend, it goes to the next week day.
Personally, this terrifies me. My biggest nightmare (and I'm choking up just thinking about it now) is to meet our child, then Eric goes back home to resume work while I stay in the baby's home state with him or her. Then the birth mother changes her mind and I have to hand the baby back on my own. We were told by IAC that the birth mother would call the agency to inform them of her choice and then the agency would contact us, but I've also heard personal testimonies to the contrary. As this becomes more of a reality, however, my fear grows less, at least a little bit. As I've said previously, doing what's right even though it's hard will make me a better parent. I don't want the child, not really, if she really wants him back.
Anyhow, onwards. There's also something called ICPC, um, Interstate Compact for the Protection of Children or something like that. Basically, if the baby is born in one state and is being adopted in another, before the baby leaves its home state both states have to agree that everything is in order according to their respective laws. Neither state wants a baby in one state when it should be in the other because this or that legal requirement wasn't met. ICPC is completely separate from the revocation period. You can actually leave the state of birth with your child before the revocation period ends. You'd just have to go back if the birth mother changed her mind. You cannot legally leave the state of birth before ICPC clearance is received. Each state has up to ten business days, though it's usually less and I've actually heard of some very quick ones. It's entirely normal to spend a couple weeks in another state with a newborn, however. You can travel from one end of California to the other, but you can't go to Reno.
Usually ICPC is a technicality and nothing comes of it. Once the revocation period has ended, the baby is legally yours, if not yet legally your son or daughter. Finalization, when the baby does legally become your child, can take months, depending on the situation. States require different post-placement visits (Virginia wants three.) If the birth father is not known, terminating his rights takes time (but can be done.) Finalization usually occurs when the baby is between six and twelve months. Then, finally, you're just a family.
Just a family. As if it were something small, rather than something you've been dreaming of.
Next time, I'd really like to discuss the real "marketing" and how I feel about it, and how important it is to me to find the "right" birth mother.
P.S. On a side note, I made an interesting discovery Friday during a meeting with our social worker. She gave us contact information for a lesbian couple nearby who adopted their daughter from foster care within the past couple years. I'm sure their situation is like ours, where only one of them could really adopt her, but that they passed a state home study is a surprise to me. It's not something I thought I was possible. I'm going to try to get Eric to call them and chat them up!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
When a Door Closes
First off, no, it's not a Chinese baby joke.
It is a real fortune I received at our favorite Chinese restaurant. It's kind of like adoption. You know you're going to get a cookie out of the deal (er, um, I mean a baby), but exactly what the fortune will say (how that baby will happen) is something of a matter of circumstances.
I will start this entry by saying making an observation: adoptive parents are never experts on adoption, they are only experts on their adoption(s). No matter whether a person adopts once, twice, ten times or 20 times, that person cannot tell you what your adoption will look like, and isn't that what you really want to know? He or she might be an expert on the laws in certain states (because they vary widely), might be an expert on parenting (his or her own kids, as those also vary widely), might be an expert on everything you might think might be important. That person could share with you everything they know, you could absorb all of it . . . and still you could have an entirely different experience.
Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because I'm about to describe briefly topics on which I don't have all the information. I did enough research to satisfy myself. No matter who swears what when it comes to adoption, always look it up for yourself.
So how did we come to open adoption? What does that even mean?
From my own reading, there are three large categories into which fall the vast majority of adoptions: international, domestic infant, and foster care. Some situations, like the adoption of a relative, don't fall into any of these categories, but most do. We considered them all.
I struggle to describe adoption from foster care. I have already stripped away so many stereotypes in regards to adoption in general, yet I wonder if my feelings regarding adoption from foster care are anything more than just more stereotypes. I can only tell you how it turned out.
I had my concerns about parenting a child who might have emotional or behavioral issues as a result of the treatment in their life (in and out of foster care) up to that point. I do not, even now, feel confident in my ability to parent an older child with those issues. Perhaps once I am already a parent, that will change. That we are pursuing one type of adoption this time does not mean that if we adopt again that we will automatically do things the same way. In the end, though, how I felt about it didn't matter. At just about the same time we were making a decision, the agencies involved in foster care expressed their support for allowing same-sex couples to be foster and adoptive parents. The state shot it down.
Our next option was international adoption. We all have the image in our heads, don't we, of Chinese orphanages overflowing with unwanted baby girls? Filthy, freezing Soviet bloc asylums with infants sitting in desperate need of touch? Starving children lying in the dirt in Africa? Given the chance to save a life and find a family, how could anyone not feel good about that? Even if you were just removing a child who was already safe, it would mean making room to save another. You could truly give a child opportunities they might never have.
This was one of the many images I had of international adoption, one of those ones that proved not to be entirely accurate. It probably was at one time. Since those images that fill our minds were made, however, things have changed. Some countries, following abuses of both children and power, will not work with the United States. Others require lengthy stays in the child's home country, not necessarily an obstacle to some, but to most, yes. Some have incredibly long waiting periods. The wait time you've no doubt heard, five years, eight years, those aren't necessarily the case anymore. When I did hear about waits like that, though, they were in relation to international adoption. The expense can easily approach that we discovered for surrogacy. After all that, we'd still have to find a country willing to work with a gay couple.
You can guess what conclusion we came to there.
This isn't to say that international adoption or adoption from foster care are bad. Those children do need families. There are families for whom one of those types of adoption are entirely suitable. As far as we can tell, we're not one of them.
What did that leave us? Domestic infant adoption. The first thing we had to do was not to decide upon this or that, but to simply find an agency that would work with us. It was Eric who stumbled across the Independent Adoption Center (IAC) during a Google search. We were stunned. On their website and in their literature (and we would discover at their office, also), gay and lesbian couples were represented anywhere from 10%-50% of the time. We did find another agency, one actually in Virginia, which would have made things a whole lot easier for us. They were also willing to work with us, but we had to ask them first. Why? Because their willingness to work with same-sex couples was buried in a paragraph at the bottom of a page of by-laws. Which would you choose? To be the accepted norm or to be the singular exception? We thought we might be treading shaky ground with a same-sex adoption. We went with the agency we thought would be best prepared for that.
Why use an agency at all? There are other ways to go about an adoption. For us, though, given how many preconceived notions we'd already been disabused of by this time, we thought we'd allow ourselves to be shepherded in the right direction by folks who had been there and done that, since we had no idea of where there was or what that might be whatsoever. Next time, should there be a next time, again, things might be different. We won't know until we arrive at that proverbial bridge.
It was only after we decided to use IAC that we discovered they did open adoptions. What does that mean? Here's my simple definition: an open adoption is an adoption in which the child's birth family and adoptive family have equal and identifying information and access to one another. In a traditional closed adoption, neither set of parents would be given any identifying info, and very little non-identifying info about one another. In our open adoption, we will (probably) know our child's birth parents' full names and how to contact them. That may mean an address, a phone number, e-mail addresses. It may mean even more information than that. It doesn't mean that info is always used. Despite the best intentions, some open adoptions wind up with little or no contact, though the vast majority will start out with the intention of some kind of contact.
Sounds scary, right? I envisioned a drunk and enraged birth mother, screaming profanities and pounding down our door in the wee hours of the morning, wanting her baby back. Pretty scary, yup.
And it is scary, but you have to be honest with yourself about the nature of your fear. It is scary to trust her when she says her baby will be yours. She can change her mind (up to a point). That is her power. She (and possibly him, too) will be someone in your life that matters, will always matter. They cannot simply be dismissed now that you got the baby you always wanted. If it's too scary, perhaps an open adoption is not for you. Ultimately, you will be the one who will have to feel happy or sad, satisfied or disappointed, in your adoption, so make the choice that's right for you. If you're not comfortable with something, that's okay, but I'm discovering that adoption in America is not for the faint of heart, no matter which road you take.
I'm totally aware of having left out some big practical considerations regarding open adoption in these last couple paragraphs. I'll talk about those next time. This entry will just be about the "why."
Why risk it? There were many reasons, but they all came down to one big reason: it's what I think is best for my child.
Have you seen the talk shows where adoptees search for their birth families? That's what started me thinking. Sometimes they find them, sometimes not. Sometimes they're dead. Sometimes they're horrible people. Even when they can reunite and establish a good relationship, remember why they're searching. They're searching because they felt something was missing, because they felt a need to know where they came from, who they look like, who they act like and, maybe biggest of all, why they were adopted. No, not all adoptees want to know, but how do you tell which baby won't care later in life?
Like it or not, birth parents will always be my child's parents. They will not be my child's only parents, of course. What the word "parent" means won't be the same, either. Open adoption isn't some weird communal co-parenting relationship. But they will be an undeniable part of my child (and they would be in a closed adoption, too). I can give my child everything I have, but I cannot give them what their birth parents can. Even if we never see one another again after they hand their child to us, by coming to know them even just a little, we will already have more to inform our child's questions later on than in a closed adoption, and that's worst case scenario there, folks. And there will be questions, even for the adoptees to whom adoption becomes less important.
I don't want to saddle my child with that uncertainty those talk show guests feel. I can't control everything, I can't promise everything, but by choosing an open adoption I can try and provide the most that I can. Isn't that every parent's responsibility?
There's also this: I don't think anyone finds adoption of any kind an automatic fit. There are always parts that makes us uncomfortable. If ever there were a better reason to grow as a person and forge new relationships even though it might be scary, to face your fears and do what you think is best even though it's hard, would it not be for your child?
Thanks for reading! This isn't really as thorough as I'd like, but it's also hard to separate feelings about X part of adoption from the feelings about Y part and write just about those. Hopefully the picture will come together as I share more. If I wrote everything I thought, it would also be 70 pages long! Next week I think I'll tackle the process, how open adoption works for us and our agency. Some things here will make more sense then.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Into the Woods
Welcome to my blog! I'll dive right in and hopefully you'll catch up as we go along if you've already fallen behind. (Not so hot for, like, the second sentence. Do try and keep up, dears.)
This blog is about the adoption I (Chris) and my partner (Eric) are undertaking. Someday it might be about something more, but for now, I think that's a sufficiently large mountain to disassemble brick by brick. I'll start out with the reasons why I'm even keeping a blog. I know I'm not the most interesting fellow to ever lay words to a page, but there is method to my madness.
Reasons toemotionally unload start a blog:
1) Facebook just isn't cutting it. Seriously, considering this is, like, the super biggest thing that's ever happened in my life, I really think some folks have just missed it among all the flotsam on Facebook. Not that everyone is required to follow along or anything, but if you blink and don't log on for a day, you might miss the baby.
2) Since we "began" our adoption process (I'll talk about that next time), I've already had three people approach me wanting to know more for their own personal benefit. Those are long notes to write. I'm stoked to share all I know and experience, but writing a personal manifesto to every person who looks in my direction isn't going to be possible. One day I'll actually be a parent. I've heard it's time-consuming.
And I do want to inform others, especially same-sex couples like ourselves. 90% of what I thought I knew about adoption and its possibilities for us was wrong. Furthermore, if you're anything like us, you might start to think that since you don't know anyone who's done it before, that you might be the first people ever. You're not, and neither are we.
3) I introduced my mother to Facebook and now everything I post there comes back to bite me in the butt when she brings it up. Let's see her master this! Ha!
4) Really, though, a blog seems like a great way to keep everybody updated at their own pace without missing out on anything. Including my mother.
5) Okay, this is to be an emotional dumping ground, too. These are big feelings. I need a place to explore my thoughts. I'd keep a journal, but I'd just be writing for an audience anyway. I want to tell someone what I'm thinking. Nobody wants to be that person who can only talk about their baby, (okay, I don't want to be that person); here I can rant and rave if I want to without being a conversation killer in person. Plus, I think people want to know more, but think it's impolite to ask. (It's not.)
6) Maybe most importantly, I don't want to forget any of it. I want to remember every moment, so I can share it later on and hopefully instill in my son or daughter the sense that we wanted him or her so badly that we become professional hoop-jumpers to bring a child home. Having grown up with that sense of emotional security as a child, I can think of no greater gift for a parent to give.
So I promised the beginning of the story and here it is.
At first, I was pro-adoption and Eric was pro-surrogacy. Eric had encountered a lot more prejudice in his life than I. He felt it was "safer" if one of us were the child's biological father. Then, at least, it would be that much more difficult for anyone to try and take our child away from us. (Hetero parents: be thankful you don't have to think about that.) We thought the whole world would be against us, so we had to be as close to what everyone else was as possible. We flip-flopped opinions several times before we finally got on the same page.
Eric and I compliment one another in a variety of ways. I can be too serious; Eric balances me out with his enthusiasm. Occasionally, this can run away with us both. Eric had gotten excited; reassured by his enthusiasm, I got excited, too. At more or less the same time, though, it hit us: this wasn't what we wanted.
This blog is about the adoption I (Chris) and my partner (Eric) are undertaking. Someday it might be about something more, but for now, I think that's a sufficiently large mountain to disassemble brick by brick. I'll start out with the reasons why I'm even keeping a blog. I know I'm not the most interesting fellow to ever lay words to a page, but there is method to my madness.
Reasons to
1) Facebook just isn't cutting it. Seriously, considering this is, like, the super biggest thing that's ever happened in my life, I really think some folks have just missed it among all the flotsam on Facebook. Not that everyone is required to follow along or anything, but if you blink and don't log on for a day, you might miss the baby.
2) Since we "began" our adoption process (I'll talk about that next time), I've already had three people approach me wanting to know more for their own personal benefit. Those are long notes to write. I'm stoked to share all I know and experience, but writing a personal manifesto to every person who looks in my direction isn't going to be possible. One day I'll actually be a parent. I've heard it's time-consuming.
And I do want to inform others, especially same-sex couples like ourselves. 90% of what I thought I knew about adoption and its possibilities for us was wrong. Furthermore, if you're anything like us, you might start to think that since you don't know anyone who's done it before, that you might be the first people ever. You're not, and neither are we.
3) I introduced my mother to Facebook and now everything I post there comes back to bite me in the butt when she brings it up. Let's see her master this! Ha!
4) Really, though, a blog seems like a great way to keep everybody updated at their own pace without missing out on anything. Including my mother.
5) Okay, this is to be an emotional dumping ground, too. These are big feelings. I need a place to explore my thoughts. I'd keep a journal, but I'd just be writing for an audience anyway. I want to tell someone what I'm thinking. Nobody wants to be that person who can only talk about their baby, (okay, I don't want to be that person); here I can rant and rave if I want to without being a conversation killer in person. Plus, I think people want to know more, but think it's impolite to ask. (It's not.)
6) Maybe most importantly, I don't want to forget any of it. I want to remember every moment, so I can share it later on and hopefully instill in my son or daughter the sense that we wanted him or her so badly that we become professional hoop-jumpers to bring a child home. Having grown up with that sense of emotional security as a child, I can think of no greater gift for a parent to give.
So I promised the beginning of the story and here it is.
The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
No no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there
The light is good,
I have no fear,
No no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there
Into the woods
Without regret,
The choice is made,
The task is set.
Into the woods,
But not forget-
Ting why I'm on the journey.
Without regret,
The choice is made,
The task is set.
Into the woods,
But not forget-
Ting why I'm on the journey.
Sondheim's Into the Woods. Hysterical, by the way.
Eric and I met in March 2007. Check that: we actually met once before that. I worked at the Banfield vet at Petsmart. Apparently, Eric used to come in and check me out. Any of you who know me well know that Jake Gyllenhaal could be on my front porch ringing the bell and I'd never notice. I didn't notice Eric. He even said hi to me once outside while I was walking a dog. I didn't notice. I definitely didn't ignore him purposefully. Anyhow, he found me anyway, on (gasp!) MySpace. He didn't even realize I was the same fellow at first. We went out and the rest is history.
We moved in together in June 2010. For those of you straight folks who aren't that familiar with gay relationships, for us, this was kind of like getting married. A quick aside: yes, we could get married in a handful of states, or have our own ceremony at home. For what it's worth, that's not good enough for me. When I can go to the courthouse in my own town and get a marriage license just like anyone else, then it will be the same. Hurrah to Vermont and all them for making it possible for their residents; there's still work to do.
Maybe it was the moving in together. Maybe it was turning 29 and realizing 30 was soon upon me and there were things I had meant to have done. Maybe it was just finding the right person. I started thinking babies. I had always wanted to be a parent. I think most folks do. When I was a teenager and coming out, I thought being gay meant I'd never have kids. Slowly, as gay rights became more visible to me, I realized that wasn't the case. Still, I thought having a family was one of those dreams like writing a novel: sure, I could do it, if I put my mind to it, but it wasn't likely to happen.
Fast forward to 2010. Just after Eric and I moved in together, I opened a bank account to start saving money. Baby wasn't going to happen all by itself. However we did it, it was going to be expensive. And if it never happened, if Eric didn't want a family after all, or if we weren't ready, then hey, I've just saved a little extra cash for a rainy day. I even tried to keep the account a secret at first. It had taken us three years to move in together; could we possibly be ready for a baby after just a couple months?
Yes, as it turns out.
My secret didn't last long. Still, we sat on our thoughts for a few months. Then, just before Christmas 2010 Eric gave me the best present ever: he said "Let's do it." I don't think I've ever been so excited.
At first, I was pro-adoption and Eric was pro-surrogacy. Eric had encountered a lot more prejudice in his life than I. He felt it was "safer" if one of us were the child's biological father. Then, at least, it would be that much more difficult for anyone to try and take our child away from us. (Hetero parents: be thankful you don't have to think about that.) We thought the whole world would be against us, so we had to be as close to what everyone else was as possible. We flip-flopped opinions several times before we finally got on the same page.
There were a few other positives to surrogacy, too. It did actually make us as close to everyone else as we could get. We'd choose the person with whom we'd be having a child, we'd know when the pregnancy test came back positive, we'd be waiting nine months and at the end we'd have a child in whose face we'd search for our own features. If we chose, the chance for multiples could be increased and there was even the potential for us to have two children, one fathered by each of us.
We found a clinic to help us. We requested literature. We almost made an appointment. I won't lie: the cost was prohibitive, and it kept rising. It seems pretty classless to talk exact figures, but as the cost of having a child approached the cost of purchasing a house, we got cold feet. We could never eat out again. No vacations. No new clothes. No new vehicles, ever. What kind of life was this?!
Eric and I compliment one another in a variety of ways. I can be too serious; Eric balances me out with his enthusiasm. Occasionally, this can run away with us both. Eric had gotten excited; reassured by his enthusiasm, I got excited, too. At more or less the same time, though, it hit us: this wasn't what we wanted.
I lay in bed one night and imagined my biological daughter. I'd always pictured a girl with my sister's light eyes and my thick, straight brown hair. She would be too serious for her own good, smart but ambitious, she would take no prisoners. She would have an opinion on everything and would tell them all to you. That night, I bid her farewell. I didn't think about what we would do that night. I tucked us both in and resolved to be okay with this decision in the morning.
And I was. I surprised myself. It was apparent to me immediately that I'd made the right choice. I'd returned to what I believed anyway. This had been my plan all along. I hadn't realized how much I'd tried to force the surrogacy to happen.
I thought of the money. I thought that we'd still have a child, we'd still love him or her just as much and with all that money we didn't spend just bringing him or her into the world, we'd be able to do so much more for him or her. Vacations. Private school. College. All the things my parents had given to me.
I thought, too, of the example adoption would set. Which was the better example to give to my children? To insist on a biological child at an extreme cost, or to form a family from disparate lives where a family was needed? I thought of our values, our desire to make the world a better place to live in. Adoption fit in so much more easily than surrogacy. To build a family based on love where no family had existed before. To teach that love to a child so he or she could take it out into the world and share it with others. That was what I wanted.
I thought of my legacy. What would it be? No, I wouldn't see my appearance repeated in children and grandchildren, but might there not be other things you pass to your descendants that are more important than biology?
Besides, it's not like I'm Jake Gyllenhaal. No guarantee of gorgeous, wildly talented babies with perfect smiles and endless charm here.
This is quite long enough, so I'll cut it short here for this time. I'll go ahead and throw this in: please understand that this is our personal journey and that our decisions and their description here are not meant to criticize anyone who might choose differently; like I said at the beginning, this is really just me sharing what's going on in my head.
I hope to update weekly on Sunday or Monday until I can eventually bring the whole story up to speed with reality. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll check back in with me next time.
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