My automatic response

Lately, many people have made comments to me.  They tell me how lucky I am that I don’t have children.   Children are expensive, they suck up all your time and you’re better off not having them.  Obviously, these people have no idea what I’ve been through.  They are making a joke.  I laugh with them.  Hahaha, who could want children?  I want a life with more money and time instead. You’re right.

Then there is always a pause, and I tell them we are adopting.  I automatically laugh at first.  I don’t know why.  I guess I don’t want them to feel awkward.  Then I remember that if I don’t say something, they will make those little jokes to others and those others might be infertile as well.  So I tell them we are adopting.  Usually people are very excited and realize that if we are adopting, there was an issue.  Sometimes someone doesn’t get it and they say oh yes, I would avoid the trauma on my body too.  Then I have to explain that I’m not adopting because I don’t want stretch marks, I already had stretch marks from my pregnancy from my baby that never made it home.

Mother’s Day sucks this year. Again.  I’m praying this will be last without a baby in my home.

Adoption Agencies

Since we last talked about adoption, we met with two more agencies.

Actually, met might be a little strong for one of the agencies.  The one agency is a large national agency.  They have a lot of experience and they’re nationwide so that means they have experience in every state where a birth mother would be.  However, they’re nationwide, which means they don’t have an office near us so our social worker would be several states away.  I liked them and thought they had a great deal of experience.  It’s the part where our social worker would be several states away and a disembodied voice on the phone thing that kind of puts me off.  We spoke with a couple that used them and they didn’t have a great experience but they said that friends of theirs have had great experiences.  So it’s a mixed bag.

We also met with a very small agency in the area.  They only take on 20 couples at a time so they are very personalized.  Their average wait time is about the same as other agencies.  My fear is that they are too small though.  For example,  after you are matched with a birth mom, you make a visit to her home and meet her.  This visit is entirely unmediated.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.  The other agencies we’ve spoken with have had a mediator at all meetings between the birth parents and adoptive parents.  The lawyer that this agency uses is excellent however.

We have a lot to think about.  I thought there would be an obvious choice.  I thought we would meet with an agency and I would know that it was the right place for us.  It’s not the case however.  We liked all the agencies and each of them had their own pros and cons.  I guess now it’s just a matter of weighing those pros and cons and making a choice to move forward.

Domestic Adoption Informational Seminar

We’ve decided we want to pursue domestic adoption.   I’m not going to get into the reasons why.  I don’t want to justify my reasoning.  For right now, I think it’s the right choice and I hope you’ll allow me to leave it at that.

An agency in our area had an informational seminar.  It was a little earlier than we had planned on starting but I figured who was I to pass up an opportunity to learn more about their program.  We registered and attended and while we’re not sure it’s exactly what we are looking for, I’m happy we went.

The agency is licensed in six states.  They require you to be done with infertility treatment before they will allow you to proceed with the adoption process.  They only do open adoptions.  They require the adoptive parents to meet the birth mother twice.  They require pictures and letters to be sent to the birth mother once a month for the first six months, and the once a year until the child is 18.  This can be done through the agency, no need for direct contact with the birth parents.  We don’t even have to know each other’s last names.

That is what is required.

An optional choice is allowing a visit with the birth parents once or twice a year.  They have a yearly picnic and you can use that for your one visit a year and most people do.  It’s neutral territory and you’re with a bunch of families doing the same thing.  We still have the option of keeping our last name, address, and contact information private and coordinate our visit through the agency.  They tell you repeatedly that this choice is entirely optional.  However, they recommend you do it because most birth moms want to reserve the right to have a yearly visit.  Even if they don’t want to do it right away, they don’t want to rule it out for the future.  So most birth moms want to look at profiles of parents that are open to a visit.  Essentially, if you aren’t willing to agree to a visit, your pool of moms looking at your profile is much smaller.

My husband wasn’t comfortable with this.  He wasn’t uncomfortable with it, either.  It just was not his first choice to have a yearly visit with the birth mom but he’s not entirely closed off to it.  I was more open to it than he was.  However, I am definitely the more gullible of the two of us.  I can be sold pretty much anything.  It’s one of the things I have to remember.   While the adoption agencies are doing an amazing thing, they are also a business and what we were sitting through was, in essence, a sales pitch.  They’re going to sell their way as the best way so that you choose them.

I think I need to more research about the psychology of adoption and figure out what we think the best philosophy is and choose an adoption agency that we like and shares that philosophy.  It may include a visit from the birth mom once a year or it may not.  We’re going to have to decide what is right for us.

We have two other agencies that we are currently looking into.  There are others that we want to research further before contacting them.  We also got information about an adoption support group, which might be helpful to go to. It would be great to hear about people’s experiences with different agencies.  It’s going to be a long process, but if it’s what to takes to become a mother, it’s what I’ll do.