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Adoption
New here... Half-intro, half-rant
Hi everyone. Okay, I'm going to just put everything out right now because I want to know if anyone has advice. So warning: this is going to be long.
I am a 21-year-old (22 in Aug) Army wife, with a deployed (22-yr-old) husband and a 17-month-old baby. I am openly bisexual, fairly liberal politically, and not religious in any sense of the word. I am in school full-time, and next November our world will change completely as we leave the Army. I will be working as an actuarial analyst and my husband plans on being an at-home dad. In short, we're not the most "traditional" family, and we are living in Tennessee, where you can't drive more than a mile without a sign reminding you that "HELL IS REAL," "Keep Christ in Christmas," or "Without the bread, you're toast" (yes, real signs in my area, and the Christmas one is up all yr, sponsored by a legal firm).
DH and I have known each other since we were 13 and 14, in 2003. We got married in June 2008, and decided to get pg 8 months later, the next time we saw each other. We knew then that we wanted our kids fairly close together, and I have always wanted to adopt. When he'd started liking the idea, I started looking at adoption, but was overwhelmed by how religious every agency I can find here is, and I will not lie about something like that. In the end we decided that we would wait to adopt later, probably through FA, and have another bio baby first. We wanted 2-2.5 years between them, but with school schedule and deployment the age that would've worked was 21 months. Again we had one chance to get pg, and again it worked-- except this time, our baby boy didn't make it. I had a stillbirth at 22 weeks.
We recently found out we are getting life insurance for him. Turns out, the policy DH has for me through the Army also applies to our children. We had no idea until he had to sign paperwork saying we'd be getting $10K in the mail. Suddenly we're faced with enough money to pay for a large portion of DA, and the knowledge that if we spend it on something stupid we'll feel horrible about it. My first thought was donating it to a milk bank, which I still like the idea of, but as my mind cleared a little I realized that we could use it for our family still. I feel like going for adoption is a dream come true, and we've already paid the horrible price for it whether we decide to or not.
I am not in any hurry to make this decision, and even if I were it will be another 3+ months before DH is home and we can really do anything. But it is something I've always wanted to do, and when I brought it up to him he said he really liked the idea too. I have lurked here some before, but I am really just looking for advice on where I would even start. Does anyone know of an agency that would even consider such a young couple? My biggest fear is that even if we find an agency or lawyer who will work with us, who in the world would choose us as an adoptive family? We are the same age as half the people who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy, and around here especially it seems like religion is going to be a huge issue.
If you have any advice or thoughts I'd appreciate it.
~Julie
This discussion has been closed.
Re: New here... Half-intro, half-rant
Welcome!
1. Don't make assumptions about the ages of birthparents...they come in all ages, shapes, sizes, religions, beliefs, etc. We were shown to birthmothers from age 14 to age 46.
2. The is a birthmother out there for every family. We weren't chosen for a variety of reason...too young, too old, not Catholic, not rich enough, not poor enough, etc etc etc.
3. I think the biggest hurdle you'll be up against is your age and how long you've been married. Lots of agencies require you to be a certain age and married for 3-5 years.
I think the only time your lifestyle will come into play will be during your homestudy and when being chosen by a birthmother. We had to answer some very deep and digging questions during our homestudy (as most adoptive parents do) and you will likely be asked about your lifestyle and how it will impact a child -- are you having relationships within or outside of your marriage, what will your children be exposed to, etc etc etc. I think a birthmother will also be concerned about this aspect if it's revealed to her in some way (I'm not sure how this would work or if you would want it revealead or want to include it in your profile)...I don't know since it's not something that is easily seen on the surface b/c you appear to be a heterosexual married couple. Just some things to think about -- you could probably call around in your area and talk to some private social workers who do adoption homestudies to get their take on it.
ETA: You will probably have the easiest time going straight FA or through a private agency who does FA -- in those situations, you're not chosen by a birthmother, the children are placed with you by the county/state. But DA certainly is a possibility if you can find an agency that matches your beliefs.
Best of luck to you!
You might be better off going with a national open adoption agency. I'm not sure if all of them are like this, but ours doesn't discriminate on basis of age, religion, or time spent married--they let the birth parents choose the parents that fit best with them. I do hate how some agencies act in the best interests of their own beliefs rather than letting mothers make those decisions. With a national agency, you will also be shown to families from all the place, not just Kentucky.
I wouldn't worry too much about age either. It seems to me your youth may even be a positive to some birthmothers.
I'm not sure what your lifestyle would have to do with anything, any more than it would with anyone else. The only thing I'd be concerned about was if your husband would still be active service with possibility of deployment. To be honest, I'm a bit offended at MrsB2007's insinuation of extra-marital affairs and what your "children would be exposed to," presumably because of your bisexuality. Still, I wouldn't necessarily tell the social worker doing the homestudy about it either.
Hi, I'm a military wife going through a deployment too. I also used to do foster care homestudies and my agency did domestic adoption as well.
Obviously you can't really do anything till your husband gets home and you see how he adjusts to being back. Also, if he's getting out of the military, will you be moving at that time? If you are then you don't want to start anything where you currently are. Your age and length of marriage may be an issue for a lot of agencies. From the foster care side my agency would have told you to come back in a few years, the straight adoption side would have considered you. My agency wasn't affiliated with religion at all so we only cared about how you would handle the child's religious preferences, if they had any.
You mentioned being openly bi-sexual. As an evaluator I never asked anyone what their orientation was. But since you put it out there be prepared for questions about it. Some people may jump to the conclusion that you still date women and therefore your marriage is not stable. I'm by no means saying hide it, it's much better to be up front about everything, just be prepared.
As PP mentioned there is a huge range in the age of birth parents, and I agree with her. I have seen a happily married couple in their 30's put their child up for adoption because they did not want children.
The adoption side of my old agency had a ton of adoptive families where one spouse was active duty military. The only "issue" was that they had to be present for all of the education sessions and homestudy visits. Once they were approved there was no issue at all from our point of view. Some birth mothers may have been put off by it but that's a risk you take with every aspect of your life when it comes to a birth mother.
I wasn't aware of that, and it's great to hear. Military families already have it tough enough, I'm sure. Thanks for the info!
Apology accepted.
FWIW, my sister is bi and my brother is gay. I answered those same questions, but in relation to how my sister/brother would interact with my child and how their lifestyles would affect my child. My brother and his partner are also currently going through the homestudy process, so my playing devil's advocate comes from a place of experience not disapproval of the OP.
https://journeysoftheheart.net/
We are strongly considering the agency listed above for their domestic adoption program (disclaimer: I don't work for them, haven't adopted with them, etc. We're just considering them). They specifically state that their birthmothers ?often choose youthful, active families?. I really like that they don?t have a lot of the restrictions that other agencies have and seem very open minded and accepting.
They are in the North West but do adoptions country-wide and seem to have great statistics for adoption rates and the speed with which those adoptions take place. Their website doesn?t list their costs but I previously requested a packet of info and the costs are about $28,000 including what goes to them as well as what they estimate the costs will be for your attorney, the local home study, etc. Sounds like a lot but keep in mind that there is an adoption tax credit (between $13-$14k) and with your $10k that puts you pretty close. Check them out and also check out other national adoption agencies. I ran into the same issue you did with religion. I don?t have any and agencies that are religion based aren?t interested in talking to me. But there is an agency out there for you.
History of IF and 2.5 years TTC. The day we were to start our first IUI we received a call that changed our lives forever and 10 month old Olivia joined our family. Shortly thereafter we got a surprise BFP and baby 2 is due July 5, 2012
I am gay and if our homestudy social worker had asked us questions about extra-marital affairs I would have dropped them immediately. I can't imagine straight couples ever get asked a question like that!
I just fail to see what your brother being gay has to do with how he would interact with your child?
We were asked questions about extra-marital affairs. We were asked if we felt like our sex-life was healthy, how we communicated, how we fight, how we solve issues, etc.
And as far as the questions about my brother, I didn't feel like any of it was asked in a way that was discriminatory and obviously it didn't affect our homestudy in a negative way!
Homestudies are meant to thoroughly look at you as a parent and what defines you as a person...so there is an emotional, social, physical and financial history compiled. There were many questions in our autobiographies about our families, how we interact with them, holidays, etc. No one asked outright if anyone in our family was LGBT, but it came out in our answers to the questions...I couldn't talk about them without talking about their partners. I didn't know what to expect when we had our individual and couple interviews (we had already written our autobiographies), and there was definetly a lot of digging and there were just as many questions asked about how we planned to address our children's questions about my brother/sister, as there were about how we planned to discipline our children, or any issues we had in our marriage. None of it was done in a judgy way...and in fact, we pulled out our copy of a Todd Parr adoption book to illustrate how we would answer some questions (all families look different).
I could tell it wasn't done in a way to rule us out, but to make sure that we had thought about ways to talk about it compassionately and address anything that might come up vs. sweeping it under the rug and ignoring it. Kids grow up and ask lots of questions, and social workers aren't out just to approve you to parent a newborn or a small child, but to parent for a lifetime. And that includes thinking about issues from all angles and addressing things that might not be fun. I think it's perfectly acceptable to ask you about your relationship with extended family and how you will interact with them and answer any questions that might arise. In the same vein, I know my brother and his partner had to answer lots of questions about how they would talk to their foster/adopted children about their relationship and what sort of support system they have in place, etc. Homestudies are fun that way...they ask all kinds of uncomfortable questions.
Wow. Lots of info at once! Thanks everyone for your input. I'm glad I have something to look at for now, and reassuring to even hear from people who have experience with adopting.
And MrsB, I wasn't offended by the bi comments at all. The reason I brought it up is because, if it is asked for whatever reason, I won't lie about it, and from past experience I know that as soon as I say "bisexual" people assume that means that I have multiple relationships. I don't know why, really, but it seems like it's assumed a lot faster if you don't identify as either straight or gay.
I am not as young as you and your DH (I am 26) but our agency was happy with my youth (if you want to call it that). They said in the last five years the average age of BMs has gone from 50% being in their 20s-30s to 1/3 being 14-19 years old. These moms want to choose people they think are old enough to parent, but not "old" like their parents (30s, defiantly not old!). Just a little hope for you!
I also wanted to chime in that my agency is a local state agency and they are not a Christian organization. I believe they would still work with DH and I if we were atheist and I was never asked my orientation, so I don't consider it an issue.
I was wondering why you think bisexuality is a potential issue? Considering you are married, and appear to be part of a heterosexual couple, how would your bisexuality affect your children? The only think I can think is that you would encourage your children to be open to other people's lifestyles (which I think is a good thing and can/should be done by people of all sexual orientations).
Anyway, WELCOME!!! I hope you stick around.
)
First, I am so sorry about your loss.
I can't add much to this conversation except:
1- There's an agency for everyone (or a lawyer). Don't be turned off by what you are finding locally.
2- Most financial experts will tell you to wait a year after a loss to make a decision on what to do with a chunk of money. You are young... and even if you weren't, don't let the timelines around you rush you into any decision.
Best of luck