Open Adoption

Another great class this week! Tuesday night’s topic was open adoption. When we first started discussing adoption, we felt nervous about the idea of an open adoption. It just seemed like a closed adoption would be so much safer. What happens if the birth family wants the baby back? What happens if our birth family becomes too clingy? What if we just don’t like them? All of these questions and fears were really put to rest this week.

Actually, we are really excited about the prospect of an open adoption. This woman is going to be giving us a tremendous gift, why wouldn’t we want her to be a part of our lives? There is a great deal of research out there that supports the idea that an adopted child benefits greatly from contact with his/her birth family. It makes sense!

CFCA (our agency) has the adoptive family and birth family create a Covenant (Adoption Agreement). This document lays out what both parties are comfortable with, regarding future contact and communication. In reviewing a “standard” Covenant, it sounds like our ideal situation is pretty normal. There are usually four visits per year (birthday, Christmas, and two others) along with monthly or bimonthly phone calls and fairly regular e-mail exchanges. During the first year, the interaction is a lot more frequent, and it will taper off as the child gets older. According to the Pregnancy Counselor who taught the class, many birth families will disappear after the first year or two. They simply want to see that their child is being cared for, and then they are able to move on in their lives. We truly hope that is not the case for us.

It is really funny how we’ve completely changed our views on open vs. closed adoption. I think we would actually be disappointed if they disappeared or showed little interest in getting together. We would like to have a relationship that allows us to invite the birth family to our child’s baptism, sporting events, dance recitals, graduations, etc. This family will become part of our family, and that is pretty cool! We just pray that the birth family is open to having that level of relationship with us.

Having a Positive Adoption Experience

Our class this week was awesome! We took so much of the discussion to heart; God was really working on us Tuesday night! It helped us to see the process from perspective of the birth family, which we had not considered. The biggest realization that we had was how selfish we had been in our thinking about this process. We were so focused on the impact and feelings that were involved for us, that we forgot that other people are part of this equation.

While I could probably write a lot more about the class, there were a few things in particular that really hit us:

Most adoptive families are jealous of the birth mother because she gets to experience pregnancy, and the bonding that goes along with it. I'll admit that I have experienced those feelings. We were reminded that we are not the only people involved, and that the birth mother will probably be jealous of our ability to raise the child for the rest of his/her life. This whole time, we'd been making it about ourselves, without even considering how our birth mother was going to feel.

A big fear that we have, along with most adoptive families, is that the birth mother will select us and then back out. Obviously, this is a possibility (if we have the right to opt out at any time, why shouldn't she have the same right?). We worried about the sense of loss we would feel if this did happen. How would we handle it? The adoption counselor who led Tuesday night's class reminded us that regardless of how the adoption placement goes, someone will experience a loss. Yes, if the birth mother backs out, we will feel as though we have lost a child. While we knew that she was making a conscious decision to place her baby with an adoptive family, we didn't really consider how great a loss that would be for her. No matter what, someone is going to grieve once the decision is finalized.

I pray that we are always able to keep the birth family at the forefront of our thinking, remembering that they are going to feel a great impact as we move forward. I pray that we can empathize with the birth family and their experience. This process cannot be solely about us. I hope that even if we experience a worst-case scenario, that we can move forward knowing that God is in control and has a wonderful plan for our lives.

Adoption 101

We attended our first adoption class on Tuesday night. We'll admit that we expected most of it to be repeat information. We have already attended two orientations, hosted by another agency, and a day long conference. How much more information could there possibly be? A lot. We walked through the process, step by step. While we had a basic understanding, we still had a lot of questions.

Do we get to name the baby? How does that work?
How much time will we spend with the birth mother before and after the adoption?
What does an open adoption really look like?
Are there any issues that tend to pop up in the process?

We got all of our questions answered. For most of them, the answer was "it all depends." Each adoption experience is unique, and so there aren't firm answers. The only set answer was about naming the baby. If you're curious...the birth mother will name the baby when he/she is born, and a birth certificate will be generated based on that. Once we go to court to finalize the placement, we are able to change the name and a new birth certificate will be printed with our information on it. Ideally, we can agree up front on a name, so the birth certificate will not change much. We'll see. We already have ideas for names (no, we're not going to share them), so we have a feeling we'll end up needing to changing the certificate.

We were really looking forward to meeting the other couples in the class. Our adoption counselor told us that many of the couples become close friends, and stay in touch long after their adoptions are finalized. Being the first night, I think everyone felt a little nervous and awkward. We're am excited to get to know them better over the next seven weeks. We are definitely the youngest couple in the class. There was one couple that looked close in age, but the rest are at least 5 - 10 years older.

If you have any questions about the process, please let us know. We're very open about it.

As you pray for us, please begin to pray for the birth mother who will eventually select us to parent her child.

Paperwork and Preferences

When I said that we received a lot of paperwork to complete, we didn't realize exactly how much was going to be involved. As we flipped through the packet last week, we got a little overwhelmed. It isn't really the amount of paper; it is more the questions that we need to answer. By the time we finish this process, we will have a very detailed plan for our children. While there is a lot to do, we've realized that it this is our opportunity to really prepare for having kids. These are questions that we would not have talked about if we had conceived naturally. Over the next few weeks, there should be some interesting conversations in our house!

Quite a few people have asked us questions about our adoption preferences, so I thought I would share them with you...in case you're curious.

It will be a domestic adoption; most likely the baby will be from Arizona. We considered international adoption, but the cost and amount of red tape was a little intimidating to us. We've requested a child between 0 - 6 mos. We don't have a preference with boy v. girl. Since we would not have a choice naturally, we felt it was appropriate to let God decide that for us. We are pretty open about race/ethnicity. We are trying to keep our options open because it should help the process move faster. We've had to decide how comfortable we are with various disabilities and medical conditions. Again, we are trying to be open although we have set some limits.

Tuesday night is our first class: Introduction to the Adoption Experience. We'll let you know how it goes.