I wake up every morning with this question: will she find us today?
My apologies for the lack of entries since, well, my last one. This blog served its purpose, to allow me to relate and explain and reason out loud (so to speak) all the various ideas chasing one another's tails inside my head in regards to our adoption. Having gotten them out, I didn't have anything to say for awhile.
Since then, things have moved right along. Long story short, we went "live" on April 5th. For anyone interested, here's the link to our profile:
http://www.iheartadoption.org/users/ericandchris
Spread it far and wide, friends. Don't be shy. Don't feel like you're invading or protecting our privacy. When in doubt, give it out. (I totally stole that line from an employee of the Sacramento Food Bank.)
The whole thing, the adoption, feels completely different now. The process leading up to going live, the background checks, the home study, writing that gosh darn letter, it all seems so far away, though just a month ago we were thoroughly wrapped in it. In its midst, we were surprised and frustrated, we were elated and we got angry, we got excited and we felt disappointed, the whole gamut of emotions.
Then it's over and I realize it's only just begun. While challenging, having overcome that challenge, it seems like small fry now. Of course we got through it. We can totally handle that stuff.
Or so we say now!
So now we wait. We have our profile on two sites. We have paper versions of those profiles in circulation with our agency's six offices and a few already among family and friends. We have an 800 number and an e-mail address. For now, that's enough.
For those families who wind up waiting a long time, I often hear about the difference between passive and active waiting. Active waiting means continually searching out ways to be more visible. It is sometimes effective (sometimes not) and often exhausting. In an attempt to learn from the trials of others, we've decided passive waiting is our modus operandi for the moment. Our agency is already doing its job to make us visible. For so many families, this works, so we decided to start there. We don't want to exhaust ourselves in incessant efforts to be noticed that might not work. This could take a long time. Best not to burn ourselves out so quickly.
Best not to run out of ideas, either. I sense in those long-waiting families a feeling of helplessness. They've tried everything and no baby, so what else can they do? They've already tried everything. We've decided to hold back on everything. Instead, once a month, on the 5th, we're planning to do one thing to make ourselves more visible, send our profile to one more place that might have dealings with women considering adoption.
This way, if it turns out we have a short wait, we don't make it unnecessarily painful or tiring. If it turns out we have a long wait, we build up our strategy to get noticed a little at a time, always leaving us more to do and gradually introducing us to the increased effort and anxiety of active waiting.
Believe me, every time I read the stringent words of an adoptive parent still waiting after many months, I wonder if that will be me. What could I do differently? Even with identical circumstances, how could I handle that differently? Can I?
I hear the stories of families with short waits, too. Like it or not, half the families with our agency wait less than a year. It puts me into an outright panic to think it could be so soon, though I know we're ready and am anxious to meet my son or daughter.
Which will be us?
Is today the day?
Is she dialing the phone right now?
I suppose this is something like what expectant parents go through. After all, there's no telling exactly when Junior will decide to make his entrance. Well, within a certain range.
For me, I wake every morning acutely aware that today could be an incredibly important day. Every evening closes with a tinge of disappointment that it wasn't today.
For anyone considering adoption themselves, when you hear that waiting will be anticlimactic after the hustle and bustle of preparation to get you there, believe it. Don't get me wrong, I feel really good and I still feel very lucky that this is just the beginning of our emotional wait and that we are not a family whose wait began years ago when they expected to get pregnant without any trouble. It's just a little surreal to know that the difference between this day and The Day is so very, very small.
Though I don't suppose most folks will read this, thank you to all who've been so supportive on Facebook. It really is heartwarming to post an update and see so many people wishing us well. Hopefully we'll have more to share soon.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
This Explains a Lot
I just finished reading Ann Fessler's The Girls Who Went Away this week. It's not what I'd planned for my next entry here, but I'm discovering that it's best to let the juices flow when they want to and to save the canned ideas for when the juices run dry.
It's hard for me to categorize Fessler's book. It's non-fiction. It's sociological. It has to do with adoption. Those are the things I can say with certainty.
Fessler is an artist and an adoptee. Her mother is also an adoptee. Fessler has used art, photography and film to capture the experience of adoption for many years. This book, she tells, began when a woman stopped her in an exhibition. She'd noticed that Fessler looked just like her. She had placed a daughter for adoption who would be about the same age. Was she that baby girl?
She wasn't, but, of course, she is someone's baby girl that they gave up decades ago. The more she snooped, the more women like the one in the art gallery she discovered.
In a nutshell, between the end of World War II and the legalization of abortion in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade case, an extraordinary number of women surrendered babies for adoption. They number over a million. To give you an idea of how large the scope was, these figures are from Fessler's book. In these decades, 40% of unmarried white women who became pregnant would surrender their child. By comparison, 1.5% of black women did the same, and that rate has remained the same for black women since. Today's surrender rate for unmarried white women is similar to that of black women. How did this happen?
Fessler chronicles the societal forces at work in The Girls Who Went Away. A growing number of white Americans were reaching middle class status after the war, a status they felt the need to reinforce constantly with appearances. Attitudes about sex were changing among young people, but the world they lived in was still that of their parents. There was no birth control for unmarried women, paltry sex education and no accountability for the men and boys who played their part. To keep up appearances, young women had to play the part of virgins even if they were not; no one would discuss sex with them. The stigma of an unwed mother was unbearable. The social work professionals of the time believed the young woman was to blame, that she was unfit to raise a child. Her parents sought to hide the problem. The girl or woman knew nothing of her options or her rights and were completely vulnerable.
Fessler's book features quotes and many lengthy stories told by the women who once went away as girls, to have their babies in secret and give them away. Some did not know sex would result in pregnancy. Many more did not know how the baby would leave their body. Most did not receive emotional support from their families. The vast majority were manipulated into surrendering their children. They were told by their families that they could not return home with their children; they were told by maternity homes that they would have to pay back their stay there if they did not surrender; they were told by agencies they had no rights, though this was a lie. (I was very surprised to discover revocation periods existed even then!)
Everyone told them to go home, go on and forget. No one would talk to them about what they'd lost.
You might be thinking, given my masochistic tendencies when it comes to reading adoption sob stories, that I would be crazy to read this book. I disagree. The reason I read this book was to help me understand the loss of a birth mother. No, our birth mother will not be coerced away from her child. If I even begin to suspect that might be the case, I'll be only too glad to walk away.
The women in The Girls Who Went Away, however, talk very openly about how surrendering their child affected their lives. Although the circumstances will not be the same, any one of them could be the woman whose child we adopt. Hearing their stories makes me feel a little more prepared to be someone she can talk to about it. I, being her child's new parent, might not be the best person, but it would be selfish of me not to try.
What I didn't expect to get from the book was the historical perspective I got. We so often hear about "returning to family values." We hear about "nuclear families." It's easy to forget that that is not how things always were. It was an ideal conceived during this same time period: perfect house, perfect car, perfect job, perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect life. Who wouldn't be happy?
Except, it doesn't sound like very many people were happy at all with trying to shove their size 12 lives into size 6 shoes.
For the older generation who came up with this ideal, it was just that, an ideal, something to strive for.
For their children, this was no "ideal." It was reality. That's why they're so desperate to go back to it, even if it's not really realistic and it never really existed. Life was different then. Nobody got divorced, right? So everybody who wanted to was unhappy and those who did disappeared. Nobody got pregnant out of wedlock, right? Those girls disappeared, too, and their babies with them. The Girls Who Went Away shows just how well that worked.
Now those same folks are in power. It explains a lot.
If they could history textbooks like Fessler has written this book, we might actually learn something.
This also explains a lot for me about attitudes toward adoption.
Couples were supposed to have children, and those who were "forced" to go the adoption route were to be pitied. Although it surely doesn't explain all the reticence, I think this attitude, either internally or externally, keeps a lot of couples striving for biological children long after they want to and rules out adoption for folks who would otherwise be open to it. Adoptive parents are touched on only briefly in Fessler's book, but it seems society was putting such pressure on the "family" model that folks were marrying who shouldn't have and having children who shouldn't have. Couples who couldn't have children turned to adoption in not a completely dissimilar way to that of the birth mothers of the children they would adopt. It's like supply and demand when neither side really wants to supply or demand, but feels like they have to.
Birth mothers were supposed to be irresponsible and dangerous. You might be surprised at how pervasive this idea still is. You might be surprised at the resistance we've encountered to the idea of an open adoption and contact with our child's birth parents. You might be one of those people who had that reaction . . . The truth is, I counted up the number of women I've known who I know for sure became pregnant out of wedlock. It was more than a dozen, just in my own life. I'm only 30. All those women chose to raise their children, but I can see how, for some, if circumstances had been just a little different(no birth father involvement, no family support, no job), they might have made a different choice. These women in my life are no different from those in Fessler's book. Are these women irresponsible and dangerous?
Most of all, I understand why adoption feels so ominous. Look at where it's coming from! Since the beginning of our adoption process, I've felt uneasy. It's so hazardous, so cloudy, it's so easy to go astray.
I think people knew. They knew what was going on. They thought it was right because they were told so, but deep down they knew it wasn't. Not everybody, no, but enough people to make it a phenomena that became a part of our culture. When I say "We're adopting . . . " people hear "We're stealing a girl's baby." I suddenly understand why there are people who oppose adoption altogether. I understand why adoptees are often hesitant to search or reunite. I understand why birth mothers are as rare as gold when panning for insight from all sides of adoption.
I can't tell you we won't do it that way. I'll simply have to prove it to you, to our child and his or her birth mother.
The legacy of these practices is that I feel like I've got something to prove, to prove I'm not one of Them.
For what it's worth, I'm definitely not a Them.
I highly recommend The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler. Even if you have zero connection to adoption, well, you probably do after all. There is almost certainly someone you know who was touched back then by this. I'm certain you'll learn about someone in your life from these women's stories.
It's hard for me to categorize Fessler's book. It's non-fiction. It's sociological. It has to do with adoption. Those are the things I can say with certainty.
Fessler is an artist and an adoptee. Her mother is also an adoptee. Fessler has used art, photography and film to capture the experience of adoption for many years. This book, she tells, began when a woman stopped her in an exhibition. She'd noticed that Fessler looked just like her. She had placed a daughter for adoption who would be about the same age. Was she that baby girl?
She wasn't, but, of course, she is someone's baby girl that they gave up decades ago. The more she snooped, the more women like the one in the art gallery she discovered.
In a nutshell, between the end of World War II and the legalization of abortion in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade case, an extraordinary number of women surrendered babies for adoption. They number over a million. To give you an idea of how large the scope was, these figures are from Fessler's book. In these decades, 40% of unmarried white women who became pregnant would surrender their child. By comparison, 1.5% of black women did the same, and that rate has remained the same for black women since. Today's surrender rate for unmarried white women is similar to that of black women. How did this happen?
Fessler chronicles the societal forces at work in The Girls Who Went Away. A growing number of white Americans were reaching middle class status after the war, a status they felt the need to reinforce constantly with appearances. Attitudes about sex were changing among young people, but the world they lived in was still that of their parents. There was no birth control for unmarried women, paltry sex education and no accountability for the men and boys who played their part. To keep up appearances, young women had to play the part of virgins even if they were not; no one would discuss sex with them. The stigma of an unwed mother was unbearable. The social work professionals of the time believed the young woman was to blame, that she was unfit to raise a child. Her parents sought to hide the problem. The girl or woman knew nothing of her options or her rights and were completely vulnerable.
Fessler's book features quotes and many lengthy stories told by the women who once went away as girls, to have their babies in secret and give them away. Some did not know sex would result in pregnancy. Many more did not know how the baby would leave their body. Most did not receive emotional support from their families. The vast majority were manipulated into surrendering their children. They were told by their families that they could not return home with their children; they were told by maternity homes that they would have to pay back their stay there if they did not surrender; they were told by agencies they had no rights, though this was a lie. (I was very surprised to discover revocation periods existed even then!)
Everyone told them to go home, go on and forget. No one would talk to them about what they'd lost.
You might be thinking, given my masochistic tendencies when it comes to reading adoption sob stories, that I would be crazy to read this book. I disagree. The reason I read this book was to help me understand the loss of a birth mother. No, our birth mother will not be coerced away from her child. If I even begin to suspect that might be the case, I'll be only too glad to walk away.
The women in The Girls Who Went Away, however, talk very openly about how surrendering their child affected their lives. Although the circumstances will not be the same, any one of them could be the woman whose child we adopt. Hearing their stories makes me feel a little more prepared to be someone she can talk to about it. I, being her child's new parent, might not be the best person, but it would be selfish of me not to try.
What I didn't expect to get from the book was the historical perspective I got. We so often hear about "returning to family values." We hear about "nuclear families." It's easy to forget that that is not how things always were. It was an ideal conceived during this same time period: perfect house, perfect car, perfect job, perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect life. Who wouldn't be happy?
Except, it doesn't sound like very many people were happy at all with trying to shove their size 12 lives into size 6 shoes.
For the older generation who came up with this ideal, it was just that, an ideal, something to strive for.
For their children, this was no "ideal." It was reality. That's why they're so desperate to go back to it, even if it's not really realistic and it never really existed. Life was different then. Nobody got divorced, right? So everybody who wanted to was unhappy and those who did disappeared. Nobody got pregnant out of wedlock, right? Those girls disappeared, too, and their babies with them. The Girls Who Went Away shows just how well that worked.
Now those same folks are in power. It explains a lot.
If they could history textbooks like Fessler has written this book, we might actually learn something.
This also explains a lot for me about attitudes toward adoption.
Couples were supposed to have children, and those who were "forced" to go the adoption route were to be pitied. Although it surely doesn't explain all the reticence, I think this attitude, either internally or externally, keeps a lot of couples striving for biological children long after they want to and rules out adoption for folks who would otherwise be open to it. Adoptive parents are touched on only briefly in Fessler's book, but it seems society was putting such pressure on the "family" model that folks were marrying who shouldn't have and having children who shouldn't have. Couples who couldn't have children turned to adoption in not a completely dissimilar way to that of the birth mothers of the children they would adopt. It's like supply and demand when neither side really wants to supply or demand, but feels like they have to.
Birth mothers were supposed to be irresponsible and dangerous. You might be surprised at how pervasive this idea still is. You might be surprised at the resistance we've encountered to the idea of an open adoption and contact with our child's birth parents. You might be one of those people who had that reaction . . . The truth is, I counted up the number of women I've known who I know for sure became pregnant out of wedlock. It was more than a dozen, just in my own life. I'm only 30. All those women chose to raise their children, but I can see how, for some, if circumstances had been just a little different(no birth father involvement, no family support, no job), they might have made a different choice. These women in my life are no different from those in Fessler's book. Are these women irresponsible and dangerous?
Most of all, I understand why adoption feels so ominous. Look at where it's coming from! Since the beginning of our adoption process, I've felt uneasy. It's so hazardous, so cloudy, it's so easy to go astray.
I think people knew. They knew what was going on. They thought it was right because they were told so, but deep down they knew it wasn't. Not everybody, no, but enough people to make it a phenomena that became a part of our culture. When I say "We're adopting . . . " people hear "We're stealing a girl's baby." I suddenly understand why there are people who oppose adoption altogether. I understand why adoptees are often hesitant to search or reunite. I understand why birth mothers are as rare as gold when panning for insight from all sides of adoption.
I can't tell you we won't do it that way. I'll simply have to prove it to you, to our child and his or her birth mother.
The legacy of these practices is that I feel like I've got something to prove, to prove I'm not one of Them.
For what it's worth, I'm definitely not a Them.
I highly recommend The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler. Even if you have zero connection to adoption, well, you probably do after all. There is almost certainly someone you know who was touched back then by this. I'm certain you'll learn about someone in your life from these women's stories.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Oh How the Time Goes By
It's been four weeks since I last posted an entry. This blog thing is still a little shaky for me. I was excited at first to find that I was ready to post weekly; then I was disappointed when that petered out. I can only chalk it up to one thing, though: I got what I needed. I really needed to put my thoughts out there and not keep them jumbled up in my head. I really wanted to have an entirely one-sided conversation, such as one has with a computer screen, where I got to say everything on my mind and the screen just listened. Once I got those thoughts out, I found I didn't feel the need to share quite so much. So, like so many, this will most likely be a every now and then kind of blog, rather than the weekly (or more frequent) stuff that good guys put out.
We're actually further from our goal that we were, so to speak.
Here's why.
We have to do fingerprints for background checks. We did these way back in September and sent them off. The week after Christmas our home study agency gets back to us to say they were done incorrectly and we'll need to do them again. They graciously send us new fingerprint cards free of charge and instructions.
When we received these instructions, it became very clear what had happened. Neither of us had set eyes on this sheet of paper before, but when we included it with the original packet of information from the agency, it became clear it was meant to have been included there. That omission meant we didn't receive any instructions as to how to do our fingerprints. No wonder we got it wrong.
As it turns out, we were supposed to mail the fingerprint cards to the agency, which would mail them where they needed them to go. Without that information, we turned to the information our primary agency had given us and mailed them directly to the FBI. Here I have to accept a little of the responsibility for this mix-up for ourselves: if we weren't sure, we should have asked. As with so many things in adoption, though, everybody does it a little differently.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty upset with our home study agency. It doesn't take a genius to put all the right pieces of paper in an envelope, and of all the items to omit, it had to be in regards to the process that took a long period of time to complete. Also, we told them it was coming, so when it didn't show up and continued to not show up for three months, you think someone might have said something, but nooooo. So I say we can take 25% of the blame and the agency deserves 75%.
I wish I could say this was atypical for them, but this has pretty much been how things have been with them since the start. I still have complete confidence in their ability to finish our home study, but I'm willing to bet this won't be our last trifling delay. Thankfully, this agency actually does very little itself. The social worker it has assigned to us is awesomesauce and definitely makes this as easy as possible. She and we do the work.
Still, this means that we will have to wait as much as another three months for this fingerprints to come back. We need them to complete our home study. I tell myself this is fine. With Eric's dissertation defense next week, it was probably a little ambitious to try to be in the books by then. This will give the both of us time to really finish things up together and really get ready.
Oh, and those second fingerprints? We mailed them off and forgot to sign them. 100% our bad. This time the agency was right on the ball, returned them to us immediately and we sent them back with signatures.
Oops.
Lest you think there has been no progress in four weeks, that isn't true. Along with the cover photo for our Dear Birth Parent letter, we also have completely approved text and supporting photos. Now just to design that letter and our website. A really good way to spend three months, if you ask me . . .
So that's where we are as we approach the date (Jan. 26) that we'd originally intended to be in the books. It's okay that we're not ready. Unlike so many others who are going through the same process, this is not the second half of a longer journey through infertility. For us, this is still very new and we still have lots of patience and energy. A few more months will only allow us more time to prepare. I've read of interims much longer than this between the beginning of the process and "in the books."
Something thought-provoking happened during our second fingerprint session. I think I'll make that the topic of my next entry. I hope everyone had a happy holiday and thanks for reading!
We're actually further from our goal that we were, so to speak.
Here's why.
We have to do fingerprints for background checks. We did these way back in September and sent them off. The week after Christmas our home study agency gets back to us to say they were done incorrectly and we'll need to do them again. They graciously send us new fingerprint cards free of charge and instructions.
When we received these instructions, it became very clear what had happened. Neither of us had set eyes on this sheet of paper before, but when we included it with the original packet of information from the agency, it became clear it was meant to have been included there. That omission meant we didn't receive any instructions as to how to do our fingerprints. No wonder we got it wrong.
As it turns out, we were supposed to mail the fingerprint cards to the agency, which would mail them where they needed them to go. Without that information, we turned to the information our primary agency had given us and mailed them directly to the FBI. Here I have to accept a little of the responsibility for this mix-up for ourselves: if we weren't sure, we should have asked. As with so many things in adoption, though, everybody does it a little differently.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty upset with our home study agency. It doesn't take a genius to put all the right pieces of paper in an envelope, and of all the items to omit, it had to be in regards to the process that took a long period of time to complete. Also, we told them it was coming, so when it didn't show up and continued to not show up for three months, you think someone might have said something, but nooooo. So I say we can take 25% of the blame and the agency deserves 75%.
I wish I could say this was atypical for them, but this has pretty much been how things have been with them since the start. I still have complete confidence in their ability to finish our home study, but I'm willing to bet this won't be our last trifling delay. Thankfully, this agency actually does very little itself. The social worker it has assigned to us is awesomesauce and definitely makes this as easy as possible. She and we do the work.
Still, this means that we will have to wait as much as another three months for this fingerprints to come back. We need them to complete our home study. I tell myself this is fine. With Eric's dissertation defense next week, it was probably a little ambitious to try to be in the books by then. This will give the both of us time to really finish things up together and really get ready.
Oh, and those second fingerprints? We mailed them off and forgot to sign them. 100% our bad. This time the agency was right on the ball, returned them to us immediately and we sent them back with signatures.
Oops.
Lest you think there has been no progress in four weeks, that isn't true. Along with the cover photo for our Dear Birth Parent letter, we also have completely approved text and supporting photos. Now just to design that letter and our website. A really good way to spend three months, if you ask me . . .
So that's where we are as we approach the date (Jan. 26) that we'd originally intended to be in the books. It's okay that we're not ready. Unlike so many others who are going through the same process, this is not the second half of a longer journey through infertility. For us, this is still very new and we still have lots of patience and energy. A few more months will only allow us more time to prepare. I've read of interims much longer than this between the beginning of the process and "in the books."
Something thought-provoking happened during our second fingerprint session. I think I'll make that the topic of my next entry. I hope everyone had a happy holiday and thanks for reading!
Monday, December 19, 2011
E-mom v. B-mom
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!
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 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.
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