Adoption (AustinMimi and anyone else interested)

austxgrl

Austinmimi sent me this question and I thought it would be good to answer it on here as well in case anyone else is wondering the same thing. 

I am not sure if this is an inappropriate question, but it's one that has been on my mind. Forgive me if this is offensive and know that you don't have to answer. I read your blog post about so many adoptions happening by word of mouth and that made me wonder if you could share a little more about what might be your optimal adoption situation? Or, more accurately, would you be willing to tell us if there are things you would not want in an adoptive child? I ask because I know that some people would not want to adopt a child with a different ethnicity, a physical or mental handicap, or over a certain age. Or, for example, would you say no to a possible adoption situation if you knew the mother had used drugs or alcohol during pregnancy? I don't know - maybe there are other factors I'm not considering. Oh, like what about open adoption?

I ask because, if I were to discover a possible adoption situation (ex. one of my college students got pg, which has happened before), I would want to be able to act on the situation on your behalf as quickly as possible. I think all of the other Nesties would feel the same way, but I wonder if it might ease any potential stress if you were able to say if there were a situation (or situations) in which case you would not adopt. It's totally up to you whether or not to share that on the boards, of course, but I think it might be helpful since so many of us are "on the lookout" for you.

First off, please ask any questions that you have.  I am an open book and very little offends me. 

When we signed up with our agency we were faced with all of these decisions so I can answer this very easily.  Bottom line is we are not looking for a designer baby, just a healthy baby.  We are open to any and all races.  Drug/alcohol abuse really depends on what drugs/alcohol and how much.  Not all drugs are tranfered to the baby so while cocain sounds horrible, it is does not have lthe ong term effects that say meth does.  And pot is acutally better than cigarettes.  So that really depends.  We have narrowed down exactly what drugs we are ok with and which ones we arent after many many many hours of discussions with Dr. Seeker but I can tell you that there are very few that we will out right say no to.  Physical and mental disabilities are tricky and something that we would just have to take with each case.  We want to be able to give any child the best home that it needs for its individual needs and I we know our limitations as far as our eduction, etc.  We are very open to open adoption and our agency only did open adoptions.  However, we certainly would not turn down a birth mom that wanted a closed adoption.  This is a very long answer for saying that we are very open to almost all situations.  We are not trying to get a baby that looks like us or has my hair or D's eyes.  We just want to be parent's to a healthy baby. 

AustinMimi

Thanks for answering!

AustinAggie

Thank you for sharing.  I read the blog too and had already "put it out there" and sent some info to my SIL asking her to keep her eyes/ears open.  She knows a bunch of people, works in the school system, and you never know...

And, I love that you called your upcoming appt the wtf appointment!

abbysmom1005

thank you for sharing.  Can I ask one more question?  Do you have an age limit, does it have to be an infant? 

I mainly ask because a good friend of DH's adopted an African American older baby/toddler (I believe he was around a year at the time of the adoption).  They did it through the state, I believe, for very little cost and fairly quickly.  They were basically like you open to most everything whihc helped speed things along. 

I am sure I could get more info from him if you are interested.  

kiarox2002

I wanted to thank you for being so open and sharing your story with us.  We had some difficulties with IF as well and I often felt so alone.  I think of you and your husband often.

ETA: Have you looked into fostering to adopt?  We started looking into adoption, but private adoption is so expensive.  My DH wanted to foster to adopt if we were unable to get pg.  I was hesitant because there is no guarantee that you will be able to adopt in the end as sometimes the child is returned to their biological parent, but he did some research on it.  If I am remembering correctly, you can get placed with a child more quickly than with a private adoption.  You do not always get placed with an infant though.  This was important to me, but less important to him.

mcgee

Thanks for sharing. Your openness in terms of gender, ethnicity, post-placement contact, drug/alcohol exposure and health issues will hopefully result in a relatively quick placement, if adoption ends up being your route to parenthood.

Another option to consider, if you're open to an older infant or toddler with some potential special needs would be to adopt a "waiting child" through international adoption. Requirements and costs vary depending on the program, but from what I've heard, it's definitely possible to adopt a child under 2 with only minor special needs. Rainbowkids.com is a good resource for international SNs adoption.

Taytee

I personally couldn't do "foster to adopt", it would tear my heart out. I get attached really quickly. I would cry at Daycare when kids would move to another school!

It's good that you already have gone through the process of what you're willing to accept for medical history and medications. A friend of a friend recently had a difficult decision to make given the birth mom's history of severe schizophrenia and more importantly, all the medications she takes to control it. I'm not sure the exact circumstances but I don't get the impression it was something they were prepared to deal with.