To read Part One – click here.
August 2006
It was the first week of school. For those of you who are/might know teachers…this is a stressful time and nutty to say the least. My cell phone rang during the day and it was a call from my mom. My mom, RARELY calls me at work so I figured it had to do with her health – so alarm bells started sounding. She left a message that she read an article in our local paper about adoption and that there was a workshop about adoption being held THAT night. I called M and we met downtown and attended the workshop.
It was supposed to last 2 hours and we stayed for 5 hours!!
We were, by far, the youngest in the group. I was 29 at the time, and M was 28. There were three main speakers, an adoption facilitator, an adoption agency, and an adoption attorney.
The facilitator was very knowledgeable, but we decided for financial reasons – we weren’t going to use one. They basically help develop your profile (a book that tells prospective birth parents about you) and hold your hand. All for a whopping 2,500 bucks. Um…no thank you!
The Adoption agency spoke about the hardships of adoption and some of the pitfalls, cost, b-moms changing their minds, etc. They seemed pretty knowledgeable and would ultimately be the agency we went through. They walked us through a workbook on discovering the type of placement we would be willing to accept. We decided to pursue a full Caucasian newborn with no drug or alcohol exposure. The “no drug or alcohol exposure” came from years of working with exposed children in the classroom and seeing the ramifications of that drug/alcohol abuse. We wanted our child to have the best possible start. As a side note: most birthmom's smoke. All of the ones we came in contact with did, including S's birthmom. So excluding this wasn't an option.
As for adoption a full Caucasian child, we wanted a child that looked like us. Simple as that. We wanted the first comment out of people’s mouths to be “What a cute kid!” and not, “Where did you get him/her from?” Ultimately we ended up with S – who I could (and do) swear is genetically related to us. People NEVER ask if she is adopted and are ALWAYS surprised when they discover that she is.
We LOVED the adoption attorney. She was sassy and sarcastic and one of the reasons that we chose the agency – because she was their resident lawyer. She also is an adoptive mom, so she could relate. We didn’t end up meeting with her at all actually, until the finalization of the adoption months after we brought S home.
We had a lot to ponder after the workshop was over. M was apparently distracted as he tried to drive down a one way street the wrong way (in front of a COP no less!) I(N) was TOTALLY on board. M had some soul searching to do. Did I mention M was adopted?
Time passed. Then in October…
3 comments:
I didn't know about M, either. That's a great testimony!
I've always wondered how difficult it is to try and be specific you can be when adopting. I've always been under the impression that wanting a baby that was Caucasian was almost impossible.
Did you have a close adoption? I've heard of some of the foster-adopt programs that talk about how you will need to let your child know that they were adopted and provide them with details about their birth parent(s) when they're older.
More on this in a future post Mandy...but requesting a caucasian baby does mean a longer wait.
We have a semi-open adoption. We do know and have met S's b-mom and remain in contact through the agency. We have TONS of info on her and S's birthdad. I'll add this info in the next post.
Foster adopting is cheaper, but harder on the heart...
OK, I hope part 3 is coming tomorrow, can't wait!
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