S/O Adoption Myths Post
CaptainSerious
member
In the post below, fred said:
The idea that there's a "waiting list" you go on seems to be pretty prevalent, and sometimes along with it the idea that you should apply before you're really ready to adopt because by the time your number comes up, you don't want to wait 2-3 (i've even heard 5-10!) years before you can have your baby.
Granted some agencies do have a waiting list of sorts before they can begin your home study (particularly those with lower fees) because they have so many families and so few social workers. Or they don't want to overwhelm expectant mothers by giving them 300 profiles; instead they'd rather limit their number of active families to a more reasonable number, and thus to go active there may be a "waiting list" of sorts. But it's far, far, far from a first-come-first-served situation and you should NEVER apply before you're really ready to adopt (i get a few months before going active, but i mean don't apply 3 years before you're going to want to adopt because you think it might be difficult to TTC and you haven't even started TTC yet, as some people think).
I get where you're coming from, fred, but I don't entirely agree. I think what you offered is good advice for domestic adoptions, because you never know how quickly you'll get picked. But if you are financially ready and stable in all other aspects of your life/relationship, and just want to have a little more "fun, selfish" time before children, and you are applying to a program in which there is definitely a built-in wait (such as many international programs), I think it's okay to apply before you are "ready."
My husband and I waited until I felt ready to have a child in the home at a moments notice, and I can see why it might have been an okay strategy to begin a little earlier (like 6 months to a year before). I think the wait would have been much easier. We were fully prepared and capable of loving and caring for a child then, we just wanted a little more time as "just us."
Re: S/O Adoption Myths Post
I agree in some respects with your reasoning, only in the "wow, would have been nice to be further ahead now that we are really ready" sense. But, emotionally I think the process would have been entirely different for us if we started before we wanted to be parents. I think we would have made different decisions, and I don't even know what those decisions would have been, but I know we would have been more cavalier about it. I think we are putting ourselves in a position to be better parents because we are very emotionally invested in it, whereas I might not have been so invested a few years ago. Does that make sense?
Yes, and now I agree wholeheartedly.
Interesting thread. I find that I agree with both of you (especially now since you've agreed to agree--LOL!). I've seen a number of posts on this board where someone says, "I'm looking into adoption now because I know it can take 2-3 years to get a baby" and I wonder where they're getting their #s from. Because we all know of situations like jacks who only took 5 months from application to placement.
But of course you want to be emotionally, financially ready to take the plunge, which I think you both agreed is a different story altogether.
It makes sense, but to be honest, I think waiting has made us almost desperate. What I mean by this is that now we are much more likely to throw caution to the wind and consider a situation which we wouldn't have otherwise. I've seen several families take on more than they could handle because they made their decisions based on emotions rather than rational thought/planning. It results in failed/disrupted adoptions, and I'm terrified of making a similar mistake. I think we would have been less likely to act emotionally if we weren't so anxious from the wait.
That's interesting, and a good point. I think it's had the opposite effect on us though, now that we are emotionally there, we are being careful to really understand the dynamics of a situation. whereas before I would have been more cavalier about saying "oh sure, we'll take any situation, that sounds fun! Might be hard, but I'm sure we'll adjust!!", now we're making decisions more carefully because we have emotionally put ourselves in the shoes of different situations and we have more information about what we can / can't handle as a family so I think we're a little more honest now.