Thoughts of Adopting

I have always thought of adopting in the back of my mind since somewhere in middle school. In January, Jesse learned how serious I was about this idea and although more cautious about the topic than me, he was fully supportive when we decided to look into it.

We looked into foreign adoption and domestic adoption and were quickly overwhelmed by all of the choices. I truly think deciding to adopt a child is more difficult than deciding to try for your own biological child. Pre-natal care is completely out of your control. Early environmental factors are completely out of your control. But there are so many choices that you can make when you are literally trying to choose a child. Maybe it was easier a few decades ago, but here are several of the decisions we found ourselves confronting.

Foreign adoption or domestic? If foreign, which country? If that country, what agency? How many times would we have to fly there? How much are the fees? How could you get siblings if you wanted them? Which gender do they have most readily available? How long would the process take? What sorts of cultural issues could we be facing? What sorts of medical issues could we be facing?

If domestic, which agency would we go through? Which gender, race, and ethnicity would we prefer to have? What age groups would we be open to adopting? Would we want siblings? Would we want to foster first and then adopt? Would we be able to afford this? What sorts of medical conditions might we be facing? Would we be up for an open adoption?

These are just some of them.

In the end, we would had to consider our own children as well and what we might be bringing them into, especially with a domestic adoption. We went to an orientation in January to learn more about our local foster care and adoption services. It made me want to adopt every child I could. It also showed me that they would try to get me to adopt every child I could. They would also try to have us foster children as well, which is not something that we really wanted to do, mostly because we have small children in our house already. One of our main jobs as parents is to protect them. Bringing in older children, some with possible behavior and psychological issues, and having to openly work with their biological parents was not something we were willing, in the end, to expose our children to.

The way it would have worked here is, we would have had to complete a six week course, a fire inspection, a fingerprint clearance and background check, and first aid and CPR training. There really was minimal cost to this.  Although the county representatives said that closed adoptions were possible, most of what they were saying led us to believe that their largest need was to have placements available for children and families in crisis. Meaning, foster care. The training was centered around doing this openly with the birth parents, as in meeting face to face and having visits, sometimes in your home. In the end if the ultimate goal of reuniting the child with their parents could not be met, then they would ask you as the foster parent if you would like to adopt that child. Well, by then the parent already knows who we are, where we live, and more than I would care for them to know about us.

It seemed to be a rarity that a parent would deem themselves incapable for whatever reason to raise their child and seek the Department of Social Services out to put their baby up for adoption. Unfortunately, most cases seemed to initiate from CPS having to step in and remove a child or children from their home. Things just aren't as they were a handful of decades ago, I guess.

One of our large concerns was medical issues we may be left to handle, along with their consequences and cost. Another was the cost of bringing up more children, when we find it difficult to currently reach our financial goals with just two!

Well, aside from the consequences of medical issues, the other portions of these concerns...money matters...would have likely been taken care of. I knew that you were given a supplement for fostering a child, but I had no idea that the government actually paid you if you adopted a child! First off, an adopted child receives medicaid through the age of 18. Secondly, you get paid a stipend each month to assist you in the expenses of having a child. I thought this was more than enough money for each child, but maybe that is just me. My jaw dropped when I read this. Every month for ages 0-5, we would have gotten a check for $475 for each child in that age group. Ages 6-12, $581 for each child. Ages 13 and up, $634 for each child. And they told me that it wouldn't have anything to do with our socioeconomic status. The amount would be based on the age of the child.

I had only heard how expensive adoption was. I never knew you could actually get paid to adopt. Needless to say, I wasn't looking into this as a form of extra income! Sad to say, I think other people might. And that thought makes me just want to step in and adopt all the children first!

Before starting this process, I would have told you that I would have adopted any child out there that needed a home. I wouldn't care about race, gender, age, disabilities...none of it. Well, that did not turn out to be the case. When we were actually confronted with the choices and stopped to consider what we thought might be best for integrating more children into our house, we did decide that some of these choices have to be made. And that control all but gave me an ulcer over the weeks we were contemplating starting this process.

I talked to everyone I knew that had adopted or fostered about how the process worked for them, things to consider, and how in the end they narrowed down all their choices to who they adopted. I also talked to friends that struggled to conceive and went through much of this process to gain more clarity on the topic. Finally, I talked endlessly it seemed with a friend that works in foster care and adoption who made me think about things I would have never imagined. Like these questions: What reasons would you want to give that child back to the system? If you adopted from overseas, have you thought about this? or that? What sorts of things could you not handle in your house? Like smearing feces or hurting your dog or having a pyromaniac living under your roof.

I was distraught thinking of all the possible scenarios and unknowns and was in tears almost every day or night, wondering if we were doing the right thing. We finally came to the conclusion that no matter how much we would love for this to happen one day, it just didn't feel right to force the issue right now. We have two small, healthy boys under the age of 39 months and they need to be, and completely are, our focus. Down the road maybe we'll look into fostering or adopting again or even helping through programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters, but the topic of adoption will always have a special place in my heart.

If you're the same, I encourage you to look into it even if it's only to learn more about it.