Seeking God Knows What

We had our home visit on Friday night.  Since our social worker is our agency director, we don’t have to wait for anyone else’s approval. So now, despite not having it in written form yet, we are homestudy approved, though we are waiting on a couple references and our background check/fingerprint results.  As she said, “If we need your written homestudy in a hurry, I’ll get it done.” I’d love it if we needed it in a hurry but I’m also content to wait for a bit.  This is the same social worker who ended up matching us the day we were approved with her agency, although we had been waiting two years with another agency prior to that.

It turned out to be a rather comical home visit.   The church across the street from our house had vacation bible school last week with their big finale on Friday night.  This finale included a petting zoo, located in the sideyard directly across from our house, meaning the street is essentially blocked off.  Widget, upon noticing the animals across the street, snuck out the front door and, of course, I notice this JUST as our social worker is pulling around the corner and into the driveway, where Widget proceeds to stand in the middle of the driveway not moving, until I called to her to get out of the way.  Good thing our social worker knows us and that we don’t just let Widget run wild through the neighborhood!

But that isn’t the last of it.  In order to understand this next part, I have to preface with the layout and location of our house.  We are renting a small ranch on a corner lot, with the house facing a street that ends in a cul-de-sac.  Behind our house is actually a lot and a half- the half belonging to the people behind us.  The whole backyard is open with very few trees and a half-driveway located in our neighbor’s part of the yard.  I’d like to have some sort of fence protection because I feel very exposed to the cross street, which is a busier residential road but I digress. 

Anyway, we are sitting at the dining room table, which looks out over the backyard, going over paperwork, when we see not one but TWO cars driving through our backyard to our next door neighbor’s yard.  Apparently since the road in front of our house and our neighbor’s was blocked by this time with the petting zoo, and our neighbors were having some sort of gathering that evening too, they just decided to DRIVE through our yard using the half-driveway to access it.  Shortly thereafter, we notice two little kids, probably 2 and 5, fully-clothed, playing in Widget’s wading pool still full of water from our afternoon playtime.

By this time, we are cracking up, wondering if we should go outside and charge parking plus pool fees since our yard is apparently a free-for-all.

I’m trying to pull together the pictures for our adoption profile.  At first, I thought I’d do it digitally but I think I’m going to go through my albums and pick out photos to use, then find the digital versions.  I just have too many and they aren’t organized well enough on this computer to sort through them.

I don’t really like the idea of having to do a profile.  I know why we need to do one but to me it just makes me feel icky and like I’m promoting why “my family is better than all the others” to parent a baby.  It is why I don’t like networking to adopt or agency marketing/trolling for expectant parents. 

It is one of the main reasons why we chose the very small agency we are using.  Right now, she doesn’t do much marketing or advertising.  She mostly works on referrals, though she would like to figure out a way to advertise without feeling like she is ”marketing for babies” because she believes that most expectant parents who use the “crisis pregnancy” options in the area are being underserved since most of them are of the “ADOPTION IS THE BEST OPTION” philosophy.  It is an option but not necessarily the best

I know it sounds contradictory to not want to market ourselves/network and to choose an agency that deliberately doesn’t do such stuff since we do want to adopt again, sooner rather than later. I believe that there are situations where adoption is a good option, and we do desire to build our family this way but I also believe people experiencing a crisis pregnancy shouldn’t be looked at as a way to make money for an agency or fill MY need to be a parent. 

This last week flew by, which is good because T was gone for two separate overnights for work and drove about 1500 miles plus was on-call and had more phone calls than he has had in a LONG LONG time.  This upcoming week is much “calmer” and he has Friday off!

We had our annual friends weekend at one of our friend’s family cottage north of here this weekend.  Weather was not so great for hanging out by the water with the kids, except for a couple hours yesterday afternoon.  Massive severe weather in our neck of the woods this weekend did not make for a completely relaxing weekend.  It was good to see everyone and the three 3-year-olds managed to get along very well but still 8 adults and 5 kids (and we were minus 1 baby who stayed with a grandparent) makes for a crowded two bedroom cottage.

And I agreed to work for two days a week for the next few weeks to “help out” at my former job.  It all started when I e-mailed to let my former supervisor know she would be getting an adoption reference, because I’m technically still an employee of Thermoblah.  Needless to say, I got this long e-mail back about how the new person they want to hire is still in the hiring process, how she was going to be in and out because her husband is having some severe health issues (I knew he was having some medical problems but it has gone downhill in the last few weeks), how someone left in the sales team and now she is sharing one of her staff to help cover that position until someone gets hired in.  In short, she was feeling overwhelmed and if I might be able to come in at all, she would be thrilled.  When I called my daycare person, she still had Widget’s slots open, so now I’m back to work for a few weeks.  It isn’t that big of a deal but sometimes I wish I had a little more “stick-to-it”-tiveness about my decisions. 

And the paperwork for adoption #2 is really started now!  I’ve got a post brewing about how happy I am with the agency we chose to work with and their efforts to do this process right.  We had a really interesting “support group” meeting last week Wednesday that I want to share about, partially because I need some ideas from people about a couple of different things related to adoption #2 and the agency itself.

Last night we went to one of the required adoption classes for adoption #2.  It was about open adoption from an adoptive mother’s perspective.  They really had a roller coaster ride with the natural father contesting, then the natural mother wanting the baby back after 10 weeks while still in the legal risk period, then both of them changing their minds after another 2 weeks and letting the adoption go through.  They now have a very open adoption with both sides of their son’s biological family.  The talk itself was interesting but that wasn’t where I learned something.

It was at the end after the other couples attending the class had left.  You see, the adoptive mother was (and still is) the pregnancy counselor at Catholic Social Services that worked with L.  She also does some homestudies for the agency we are using this time since she has a connection with our social worker.  Needless to say, they adopted through a third agency because of conflict of interest using either of the other two.  Anyhow, we were standing there talking with her afterwards and she was amazed at how big Widget is now.  She didn’t know we were going to be there although we did know she was the speaker.  We talked a little bit about L and how things have been going.  And then she told us she would never forget Widget’s birth and placement because L didn’t want to hold or see her right after birth. So she was the first person to hold her.  Then after the nurses cleaned her up and did her newborn check, she gave Widget her first bottle.  She said she had never had that happen before, nor has she since then.  We had no idea.  We knew L didn’t hold her or see her right away, in fact it was several hours later before she actually did decide to see her.  We just assumed that the nurses took care of Widget right after birth until we got there.  I thought it was cool to hear that part of Widget’s story, something we might never have heard if we didn’t happen to go to that meeting last night.

In fact, I wish I had taken a picture last night of Widget with her to put in her “First Years” scrapbook, which is no where near finished

We got the application today from the agency we decided to use to adopt from.  It is run by the social worker who coordinated Widget’s adoption while she worked at Catholic Social Services.  She has always done homestudies on her own for international adoptions from China but began to have an increase in referrals of women who were experiencing unplanned pregnancies and were considering adoption.  Part of the problem she felt was that the counseling the women were getting was not what they needed, so she decided to start her own program.  I had an interesting dialogue over e-mail with her earlier this spring, particularly after we met with Bethany Christian Services, and it really just confirmed my instinct that she really has a strong heart for women experiencing unplanned pregnancies and helping them get good counseling- not just the usual pro-adoption slant.  She is a single mom herself and knows it can be done.

Here are some snippets (my comments are in italics and hers in caps)

On the decision making side, can I ask what kind of placement rate do you have or been having?

SLOW FOR ABOUT THE LAST YEAR.  ONLY TWO IN 2007, AND ONE SO FAR IN 2008.  WE HAVE 8 RESOURCE FAMILIES WE CAN SHOW, AND 2 BACK UP FAMILIES.

I know placement is definitely subject to a lot of different things, so ballpark numbers are fine.  I’d also love to know how many women that come in decide to parent in the end and I mean that in a good way.  I just think that knowing the expectant moms are getting a good chance to consider parenting as a real option makes it easier to feel confident that a mom is making the decision to place out of more than just “it is the right thing to do” or pressure.  I have gotten involved in the online adoption community and learned some less than desireable things about what can happen during the process.

MOST OF THE MOMS WE COUNSELED LAST YEAR DECIDED TO PARENT.  THEY WERE REFERRED BY OUTSIDE SOURCES FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT, BUT AFTER MEETING WE FOUND EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID—THEY FELT PRESSURED TO PLACE AND REALLY DID NOT WANT TO.

HOW DID THE MEETING WITH BETHANY GO?

All I have to say about our meeting with Bethany was that both Tim and I left knowing that we would not adopt through them again.  Not just because their fees were marginally more expensive but because we both had the feeling that counseling was skewed completely towards “placement good, parenting bad” and we don’t want any part of that.

THAT IS JUST ONE REASON I HOPE YOU END UP IN OUR PROGRAM!

I am glad to hear that the majority of expectant moms/parents coming your way choose to parent.  I know it could mean a long wait for us but I’m okay with that….

*****************************

I’m excited we get to start the process sooner rather than later.  Getting a financial gift from my in-laws has been a huge blessing for us and one we never expected, which is part of the reason we decided to earmark it mainly for adoption costs.  It is enough to cover all the fees we should have barring anything unforeseen.  Obviously, if T lost his job or we had a situation where we needed to use it, we would but right now, there is nothing keeping us from allocating it to our next adoption.  Plus with tax credit, we will eventually get much of it back over 5 years.  Part of the reason, we chose this agency was because she does everything she can to keep costs down.  She doesn’t think adoption should costs huge sums of money for the adoptive families and she wants families experiencing unplanned pregnancies to get good counseling in considering their options, something she has found lacking. 

We might have a possible contact in a young twentysomething woman who is experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.  She is an acquaintance of a friend of ours.  Our mutual friend hinted around that we might be interested in talking to her about adoption.  And while, yes, I would be interested, I absolutely do NOT want her to feel any pressure from me or our friends that adoption is the answer to her situation.  If she can parent, and I think she probably could, though it would mean an adjustment to her “lifestyle”, she should.  Then again, if she really doesn’t want to parent, we would obviously be interested in adopting her child as long as she has good counseling about the ramifications and possible long-term effects of placement on her life.  Too tricky.  It would probably be best to just stay out of it unless I get contacted by her.  Even then, I will probably just refer her to one of the counselors at our agency.

Gosh.  It has been nearly two weeks with no posts! 

You would think since I’m not working at all, I might post more often but we’ve been busy taking advantage of the days with warmer weather.  We are still having cool windy days on occasion here, but Widget and I have been trying to walk to the park in the afternoon when it is sunny and warm enough.

I’ve had blog post ideas running through my mind but honestly, I just haven’t sat down to take them to more than just ideas. 

Post ideas like:

What I’m trying to change to live a greener life.

A possibility about adoption #2 (very, very remote but yet still a possibility).

What’s happening in our relationship with L and the future of it, particularly as Widget gets older.

The detritus of my parents’ life together.

How I feel like a round peg in a square hole when it comes to our church and its denomination: I fit but not exactly.  Whether I should be striving to be a square peg or should I be looking for a round hole?

My overall emotional wellbeing and how it has changed (for the better!).

So there’s few ideas running around

1.  We are STILL waiting for the official word on whether we are going to be able to rent the house.  I left a message yesterday on her cell phone (it was turned off as it went straight to voicemail) but haven’t gotten a return call.  The ad is no longer in the paper, so I’m thinking that is a good sign.  I just want to know cause we either need to get a move-in date from them or find someplace else.

2.  My sister (the one rubbing off on me) and I were talking on Thursday about how impossible it is to find any of the kinds of products we want to buy for our kids in our area and how we can’t be the only ones looking for natural toys, cloth diapering supplies, babywearing products, BPA-free bottles and organic cotton clothing in our area.  Yeah, there is the internet but I personally have a hard time deciding on what to buy without actually holding the product in my hand.  There are a few stores here and there that carry little bits and pieces but not one that carries all this stuff in one place. 

Then, we had a brainstorm.  Between the two of us, we have 14 years of retail sales and management, business, marketing, basic business accounting and internet skills.  Why shouldn’t WE pursue the idea of opening our own store?  Both of us made the comment we wouldn’t be in it for the money but because we want to provide a well-made, safe, natural children’s product to the public.  Granted, it means a lot of work at developing a business plan, pursuing some sort of financial backing, set-up and running a business for little or no money in income for the two of us for a few years as we got the store off the ground but we could do it.  I think of all the crazy stores in our area that somehow stay in business year after year and I really don’t see how, if we do it right, we couldn’t make it work. 

And I have been thinking a lot about us actually doing it.  Ever since I managed the small specialty toy store, I have had this desire to have my own children’s store.  In fact, if I had stayed there instead of quitting after college, I might have been the one owning that store now because I would have been first on the list when the owner decided to retire a couple years ago.  I know this because I was first on the list when I left and I had a hard time deciding whether to leave or stay because I knew I would likely lose my chance at owning it.  So, this just might be it: the job I’ve been wandering about trying to find for the last 7-8 years and it has me excited about the whole idea!

3.  And on a work-related note, I’m almost done with my job.  Two more days :-P  T and I were going over our money/budget and we realized that we are, in fact, losing money on me working.  Yes, I make enough to cover daycare and contribute a little to our finances but we are also paying for a car for me to drive, car insurance, work clothes, going out to eat once in a while because we both worked and neither of us wanted to make dinner.  So, we decided to surrender one of our cars in our bankruptcy (because we can do it now and not be stuck with the balance after it sells) and be a one car family for a while.  There is no way I can work without a second car because T’s job requires him to be on the road nearly every day, so I can’t take him to work nor can he drop me off at work and pick me up as he never really knows where he is going to be and when each day. 

It actually won’t be too long before we could go back to having two cars because we will have freed up enough money in six months to either pay off T’s car, meaning we could conceivably get another short-term car payment, or buy an inexpensive car for me to run around town in.  It does mean I really want this house with a yard, a park nearby, and our friends living about 2 1/2 blocks away, so being home all day every day won’t drive me totally insane over the summer.

4.  Last but definitely not least, we know how we are going to be able to afford the majority of our next adoption.  Let’s just say that some property worth a substantial sum of money due to its location owned by T’s family has been sold.  Once our bankruptcy is completed and we are six months past everything, we will get our share of it.  They don’t want to mess up our bankruptcy because it won’t be anywhere near enough to make a dent in the debt we had but it will be enough to let us focus on saving for a house and building a real emergency fund instead of trying to save for those and another adoption.  We hemmed and hawed about what to do with it but we decided to use it for the adoption fees because we know we won’t be able to buy a house for at least two years anyway and we already have a small emergency fund built up from our tax refund this year.

Late yesterday afternoon, T and I had a meeting with the adoption coordinator at Bethany, where we had originally started the adoption process back in 2002.  The adoption coordinator was the former pregnancy counselor when we were there before.  She is a very nice woman, friendly and open to sharing with us some additional particulars from the failed placement we had (amazing that she remembered it from over 4 years ago!).  We talked some about what has changed in the program: they do direct consent now instead of the agency placement, which is good since it means that the agency doesn’t have overriding guardianship during the time between placement and termination of rights or finalization.  I feel that gives the natural mother/father a better chance at ensuring their child goes to the family they desire rather than the possibility of the agency picking a different family for some reason.  I have no idea how often it happens but it could, therefore I like direct consent better.  They do facilitate adoptions to be more open than before, another good thing, although she did reference the idea of being semi-open at first with the ability to be more open.  Both T and I said, “Oh, no.  We are just fine with being fully open unless there is some sort of obvious safety issue.”  We talked about our bankruptcy and how that might affect the homestudy process, which she said she would have to run it by their director but she thought it might only mean we would need to meet with a financial counselor to show we’ve learned from our mistakes and that we are planning well for the future.  I was feeling less ambivalent about using them again.

And then I brought up my questions about their pregnancy counseling.  Now their current pregnancy counselor is birthmom herself with a kinship placement (her child is with I would guess either a sister or a brother).  I thought okay, this should help make sure things are done better than I have heard from other situations.  I then asked about parenting counseling and tried to relay that I wanted to know they weren’t just saying parenting is hard, expensive, choose adoption.  Instead I got exactly that, “We do go over parenting.  They do homework to understand what the expenses would be, where they would live, health care and so on.”  Valid things to do, but there was no indication that they were not using it to enforce the idea that adoption is better.  The kicker was this and I don’t remember what my question was to her that brought her to say this, but she said “[The pregnancy counselor] and I willingly work nights and weekends to make sure a placement happens.” 

And that statement has been gnawing at me ever since.  I did wonder if I was making a mountain out of molehill, something I have been known to do, so I called my older sister, M, whom I love, though sometimes I’m not sure she “gets” what I’m saying when I talk about adoption, and I knew she would tell me what she thought plus she’s a psychology major.  I didn’t tell her what I thought, I just asked her opinion on something adoption coordinator said.  When I told her, M promptly said, “Well, that sounds to me like they are trying to pressure some poor girl into giving up their baby because they have a list of waiting people.”  I have not talked to M much about my feelings on ethics in adoption, so I was greatly relieved that someone fairly outside the debate would feel the same way I did.  She also told me she felt Bethany’s practices may not have been the greatest when we had our failed placement and she was surprised we were even considering them again.

So we won’t be using them again and I urge anyone using them to really find out what kind of counseling practices are going on in their office.

T and I are in the process of discussing when we are going to start the process to adopt again.  Yes, I know we are in the middle of bankruptcy and yes, I do plan to wait until we have at least 75% of the costs saved.  We won’t/can’t do it as haphazardly as last time with saving, then using the savings, then paying with credit because we won’t have credit to use and it was a BIG mistake last time.  The good thing about bankruptcy is that it will, once all is said and done, actually give us a chance to save the money we will need to adopt again and build our emergency fund.  Otherwise, unless we were given an inheritance or won the lottery, it would have taken us about 10 years to reach the point where we could save a decent amount of money a month. 

Anyway, enough about the money aspect.  On to agencies.

I’ve started gathering information about our various options and I sent an e-mail to the woman who was at Catholic Social Services when we adopted Widget but is now on her own.  She was doing some domestic placements but I don’t know if she still is or not.  My preference would be to use her again since I am very sure that she is pro-family, pro-openness, practices ethically and has true options counseling available but I don’t know if she can do placements here since we are not in the same county anymore.

There is the agency we used to start the process last time but I’m hesitant to use them, even if I feel confident that the local branch is doing things ethically, because of the overall agency attitude and connections.  I don’t know whether I can justify using them, and contributing to the finances of practices I absolutely do not agree with: closed records, biased counseling, adoption is a “win-win” attitude prevalent in so much of their literature.

There is one agency I know we won’t be using.  See this post here for a good example as to why.  I cannot and will not give them a single dime.  Besides they are outrageously expensive compared to most of the other agencies in the area.  All that money going to lure unsuspecting expectant women into their trap, I don’t think so!

Otherwise, I’m not sure what our other choices are.  There are a couple other agencies here and in GR where we used to live.  I guess I’m going to have to do some extra research to find out what they are like. T and I both want this to be done as ethically as possible and want to feel sure that our future child’s first parents went into this knowing what the possible ramifications of adoption are to them, to their child as well as having explored parenting to its fullest.   

We probably won’t go the route of using an attorney and adopting privately unless a situation came our way, mainly because the state requires an agency to do the homestudy and follow-up visits and because I don’t really like the idea of “networking” to adopt, which I know goes against using an agency too since they do advertise.  I kind of wish something would just fall in our laps, where we could avoid having to network or advertising for expectant mothers, either on our own or through an agency.  It just makes it feel so commercialized and like we are after a commodity instead of hoping to parent a child whose biological family is not able to.

I’ve toyed with foster-to-adopt in my head but we really don’t want to disrupt the birth order with Widget.  It is something I would like to do in the future, when Widget and her next sibling are in school full time and I can devote myself to nurturing children who will likely have some different needs and backgrounds.  Whether T is up for it, I don’t know.  I have always envisioned myself with several kids but I know he has some reservations about more than two.  He never really comments much when I throw it out there but I’m hoping over time, he’ll come around to the idea

And to be honest, I miss the baby stage and want to do go through it again.  So, yeah, I’m going to admit to some selfishness on my part.  I love being mommy to a baby and watching all those beginnings.

This is an amazing story I just ran across on our local news website

Son finds birth mom as co-worker

Posted: Dec 18, 2007 05:34 PM EST

Updated: Dec 18, 2007 06:31 PM EST