Adoption Q&A

I'm answering the questions from GIMH's Adoption Q&A post.  I hope this is beneficial to anyone considering adoption!

When did you let family/friends know you were starting the process of adoption like starting your home study and working with an agency? 

We kept our families informed right from the beginning.  We tend to be open books about things and our family knew of our infertility struggles and our interest in adoption.  So they've know from the very beginning and been huge supporters the entire time.

Any tips on how to share the news?

I think it's important to know your facts when sharing about your decision.  People are generally uninformed or misinformed (the media contributes to this hugely) about adoption, in our experience at least.  It's important to be able to answer questions.

How many agencies did you look at before you decided on one?

We looked at two different agencies.  They're the only two we really knew of and we knew people who had used both agencies.  We did less research into the agency and more questioning the people we knew that had adopted from both.  Their experiences were incredibly helpful in our decision and it was great to have insights from people who had walked that path.

Did you have the funding saved prior or did you do loans/fundraising?

We had a lot of the funding saved prior.  However, we live in one of the least expensive areas to adopt from and our costs were 1/3 to 1/4 of what I hear other people pay outside of our area.  Our agency has us pay it in thirds, paying 1/3 when we begin our homestudy, 1/3 when a child is placed and 1/3 when the adoption is finalized (5-6 months after placement usually).  So we had time to come up with the rest of the money.  Our families helped out some as well.  Don't forget about additional costs.  Our agency's costs don't include extras like licensing fees, lawyer fees, and the homestudy is a separate fee.

I also will say that in most places, adopting from foster care is virtually cost-free.  If this is an option through your agency, ask about that as well.  You can often get placed with babies through this avenue, although not nearly as common in our area.  We are currently pursuing this avenue for a sibling group and hoping for infants/toddlers.

How did you prepare yourself emotionally for the process? Any special prayers/novenas that were helpful to you at that time?

Prayer.  We asked for the intercession of St. Anne and St. Joseph mostly.  I'm one of those people that prepares by learning as much as I can.  I read books (Dr. Ray Guarendi's "Adoption: Living it, Loving it, Choosing it" was my favorite).  I read articles, looked up DCFS laws, asked our case worker a billion questions and tried to learn as much as I could.  It was also helpful for me to prepare our nursery and make our home baby-ready (although, I know for some people this is not the case).  And after our first fallthrough, it was incredibly hard emotionally.

Did you go with a social worker from your agency to do the home study or did you find your own?

We went through our social worker with our agency.  She did a wonderful job and has helped us with both of our adoptions and we continue to work with her now in our current "Adopting Waiting Children" journey.

How did you go about deciding the degree of open adoption that was best for your family?

We were pretty much open to whatever.  We're pretty open people and personally knowing people who have current open adoptions, it didn't scare us.  Our agency stresses openness, although many birthparents continue to want closed adoptions.  Our daughter's adoption is technically "open" (we have birthmom's information and she expressed a desire to contact Anna at some point in the future) however, we have never had contact with her at this point.  Our son's adoptions is completely open, we see his birthmom once a month.  Both present their challenges and their rewards.  It is beautiful that our son will grow up understanding his adoption and never having doubts about which life would have been "better".  And on the other hand, it definitely takes effort and patience on our part to work with his birthmom who can be somewhat of a challenge at times.  Anna may have questions that we can't answer at some point and for that I am sad.

Were you excited when you started the process of adoption?

We were beyond excited.  For one, we were excited to finally be doing something towards having a family.  Infertility can seem like such a hopeless journey and we finally felt hope that we would one day welcome children into our home.  We wanted to get the paperwork and homestudy done as quickly as possible and we were incredibly eager to learn as much as we could.  It was nice to finally feel like something was working the way it was supposed to.  We had our reservations of course.  A fallthrough adoption being the biggest on that list.  It happened and we got through it and our excitement at trying again was stronger than ever.

Do you find that others are sad for you when you tell them you are adopting?

I've never experienced this.  We have received nothing but support and encouragement.  Most people go the other extreme and say what a noble thing it is and how lucky are kids are.  What I always respond with is that we are the lucky ones.  We didn't do it to be noble.  We did it to have children in our home and to give those kids a family.  We knew God was calling us to adoption and people understood that.  We also made it a point to educate people, taking away fears and misunderstanding and replacing it with understanding and hope.  We have had people tell us that we inspired them to look into adoption and for that, I am incredibly thrilled.  Adoption is a beautiful way to begin or expand a family and I will wholeheartedly support anyone who embarks on that journey!

She also posted a similar Q&A a few years ago.   Here is that post.  And here are my answers to those questions.