Helping the Environment

It's the little things that raise the blood pressure

I went to drop off the profiles at the agency yesterday. As I hand them to the secretary she asks if I know about the profile fee. I am sure I did at some point, but it hadn't been mentioned recently, thus forgotten. There are a lot of fees, presented in a very long list given to you at the first meeting. This, of course, is a large one. $2,000. OK. Pay day is this week. It can wait a couple of days. No problem. However....
On top of that she also says we have to supply the plastic sleeves for the profile to go into. Wait.... What? For serious? We're shelling out 2,000 bucks to put our names in a book, and the agency can't spend the $0.25 for a plastic sleeve? That they can reuse?
Sigh.
Thus, I will be making yet another trip to the agency this week.
On the more informational side and less rant side.....
We have an appointment at 5 PM on June 10th for the videographer. Within a week or two after that we will officially be in the book and waiting.


3 hours later...
OK, I feel a little better and a tad sheepish. Here is a quote from an email I received from S today.
"There is no need to worry about the placstic sleeves."
Of course John already bought some. I will donate them to the agency or use them for school or something. Now it's just another big check. I think the only ones after this are the videographer and the BIG one for an actual baby.

Transracial Adoption News

Isn't this always the case? As soon as something comes into your life, it's all over the place? Transracial Adoption has hit the news lately. First, there was an article from the Associated Press: Major changes urged in transracial adoption. This article basically states that race and racial training should be an element of the adoption process, when said adoption crosses racial lines.

“The view that we can be colorblind is a wonderful, idealistic perspective, but we don’t live there,” said Adam Pertman, the Donaldson Institute’s executive director.

The crux of the problem may be that a disproportionately high number of black children are in foster care. U.S. laws require discounting race in placing those children, but some believe race, or at least race education, should be a major factor.

If you've been reading this blog for more than a day, I think you'd know that Duffy & I agree with that sentiment. The statement appears to be made more toward foster adoptions, though, as those are decisions made by the state.

Next is this story from National Public Radio: Transracial Adoption Insights. This is much more along the lines of what I believe Duffy & I are going to go through (perhaps I'm saying this with rose-colored glasses, but I really think I'm quite a realist). Here is the story of a well-adjusted adult African American who grew up with white parents.

"My dad was always my dad, and my mom was always my mom. The only time it became an issue was when I'd bring new friends home from school."

The story here is that we need to make the show the effort to bring cultural experiences to the child. I think it's a really well-written piece, and made me chuckle.

This brings us to the adoption books that we're reading. I remember hearing of a study while taking a psychology course about unhappy women in marriages (I have a point - stay with me). Apparently, some time before my time, a magazine found that something like 80% of all married women were involved in affairs - as this magazine sent out a questionnaire to a large number of women, and 80% of those that were returned stated that the participant was involved in an affair. Normally, this would be huge news. But, the questionnaire took several hours to fill out -- and only those people who were unhappy really had the time to write up everything. So, the "boring" responses would have been filled out by people who never would bother to fill out such paperwork. I think we're finding much the same in the books we're reading about transracial adoption. People who had bad experiences wrote books. People who had "boring" experiences either didn't bother to write a book or never thought that there was any reason to bother writing as nobody would ever want to read it.

In what we do read, there have been tons of cases where a "child of color" was raised "white". We get tons of anecdotes:

• African American boy trying to figure out why his hair doesn't work the way daddy's does
• Asian kid trying to get his eyes to "straighten out" so that he'll fit in with his friends
• African American girl using makeup to make her skin look lighter

We will not be hiding the fact of adoption (hence the term "Open Adoption"), and we will most certainly not be hiding the issue of race. This child will not "look like us", but it's going to be loved like no other. I'll fully admit that I'm looking forward to this challenge, and to celebrate a few new items (Kwanzaa (which I'll have you know is an African American cultural holiday and in no way "competes" with Christmas or Hanukkah), Juneteenth, and others as we discover them).

Wardrobe

I don't know about John, but I am finding that a lot of the adoption process is finding the right balance. Especially now that everything is starting to seem very real, (To keep up the pregnancy analogue, I think now that we are so close to the possibility, it is like hearing the heartbeat for the first time. Oh, my GOD there is a BABY in there! Well, oh my GOD there is a BABY out there! Or soon will be.) I find myself looking more and more at baby stuff. So at the moment balance means deciding what is a smart step to take or purchase to make, and what might be too much, too early. For instance, the social workers suggest having a car seat and stroller picked out for quick purchase, but not to buy yet. We are painting the nursery and doing the floors, but we will not furnish it yet for our own psyches' sakes. I won't baby proof yet, but Hudson and Grayson (the children of friends) have been gracious enough to give me the opportunity to take notes on what will need to be done. I plan on hiring the guy from City Wok to build a wall in front of my fireplace. (Don't worry if you don't get it.)
That being said, little things are happening. Both our mothers have been collecting baby things, which is awesome. People have also given us small presents, especially in the way of clothes, so I thought I would share some pictures, because it is all uber cute. Let's call it the beginning of the celebration.

This is everything together.

These are a handmade sweater, booties, and cap that my sister and I wore as babies. My mother gave them to me for Christmas. I guess she is hoping for a girl. Though she swears she put these on Wil. Alex and I cry foul. Neither of us would have let Wil out of the house in these.
Apparently my sister found this onesie a couple of years ago, and finally gave it to me for Mother's Day. With our baby, it fits on levels.

These onesies and caps were a special gift from our friends, Heather and Will. Heather and Will are raising two multiracial children of their own, so we have been doing a lot of discussing lately. We were just visiting them this weekend, and they presented these to us. I think they might be the perfect homecoming outfits. Also, I can wear the caps.

Oh, and here is a video of Wills. How precious is he?

Profile

So here it is! The profile that will hopefully attract a birthparent or parents quickly. No, that's not the right attitude. It is the profile that will attract the right birthparent(s) at the right time. Not many people get to see their hopes and dreams in paper form. I have to say that I worked really hard on it for the last two days, and I am pretty proud. I think it does a good job representing who we are in a very readable way. We look forward to feedback from everyone, even if you have something you think might make it better.
This is really happening!

The Profile Key

As Duffy alluded to, our next big step is filling out the profile key. Well, I guess the profile page (which I thank all that is holy that I have a very creative wife to do, as she has turned out a tremendous page in a bare minimum of time, with a minimal amount of cursing) is actually bigger - but we're partly looking forward to that.

So, what are we willing to "accept" in a baby? While we have no questions of race, there are questions about alcohol / drug abuse, imprisonment, etc. We'll be contacting many of you directly, but if you're reading this and can offer any advice, please let us know (you have our email addresses and/or can leave a comment).

We're not entirely sure how we're going to fill out everything, but we're leaning toward excluding a child if:

• There was a "serious" medical condition that would place the child into the "special needs" category (and, in the event that this happened, it doesn't necessarily exclude us from accepting the child - but we cannot legally back out of an adoption if we said that we would take a child in this category only to find out that the child needed care that we simply couldn't provide)
• The birthmother engaged in alcohol abuse, cocaine, crack, herion, PCP, or LSD, or Ecstacy at any point during the pregnancy
• The birthmother socially drank for the last two trimesters of the pregnancy
• The child was conceived through incest
• The birthmother was HIV-positive (see first bullet point)

This leaves on the "accept" list:

• The birthmother socially drank during the first trimester of the pregnancy (in theory, this is the "before she knew she was pregnant" option, but there is no way to specify this on the form)
• The birthmother smoked marijuana or received Methadone during the pregnancy
• The child, pre-birth, is known to have a minor/correctable medical condition (e.g. cleft pallet)
• The birthfather was HIV positive / drug user / mentally ill / violent criminal (basically, we don't care too much about the father in this -- which sucks from some point of view writing this as a male - but there are only genetic markers that he can give the child, and the birthmother's behavior during pregnancy is really the only issue)
• The child was conceived through stranger or acquaintance rape
• The birthmother was imprisoned for either a non-violent or violent offense

There are still tons things that we're still determining (how premature a child if the child is born prematurely, whether we want to be considered if the birthmother is being treated for mental illness, etc). These are straight-forward questions, but it's the truth of adoption. Duffy said things well in her post, in that if we got pregnant on our own, we wouldn't have to be worry about any of this (she would take care of things medically so questions of drug or alcohol abuse wouldn't come up -- then, any complications are just the work of a higher power), but we're not in that situation. We'll see how the next few days turn out as we complete our research.

The Home Study

Writer: Duffy, John was the entry from earlier today.

First we would like to say thank you to everyone who sent their thoughts and prayers. We love you guys.
The home study went very well. S, the social worker, was right when she said there was nothing to be really nervous about. Of course, no matter what, we were nervous. She said all parents are. You can't help it. It's like a review at work; even when you know it is a good one, it is the judgment of another person. However, S is so incredibly easy to talk to. We did a lot of laughing and chatting, some off topic. It really put us at our ease. I can see why she is so good at working will birthparents.
First we went over the profile key. This is a set of criteria that will be used to match our profile with prospective birthparents. It asks us under what conditions would we be willing to accept a child, such as mother's and father's medical histories, like chronic depression or bipolar, and drug use. This is the tough part. Here is where I still mourn our potential biological child as none of this would be an issue if I were giving birth. It also asks if we would be willing to take sibling groups or twins, Downs Syndrome or other conditions, etc.
Needless to say, it will take a lot of thought and discussion, some of which we already have done. And some calls to people who know more about medical things than us.
Next, we looked at other family profiles, and S went through what was good and bad about each of them. I showed her what I have currently written, and she approved. Once we have that finalized, I promise to post it.
That lead to the video. While we wanted to use the production services of our friend, Will, who has graciously offered, it seems that we will probably have to use the service the agency works with. And the guy sounds kinda like a jerk. But we will call and make an appointment. She also brought a video for us to watch. The couple was very nervous and rather stiff, but they were also very sincere and cute.
Finally, we went on a quick tour of the house. It's hard not to be defensive about the stained carpet and pile of chew toys, despite the fact that S is so not caring about that stuff at all.
All in all it was a good experience. We are officially approved. It felt like a very concrete step towards the completion of our family that we long for.
I would estimate that we will officially be waiting sometime in June.
Now we are going to celebrate with Chinese food.