Creating familiesApr 23 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Sport and Outdoor
The Bottom Line There are good ways to build a family through adoption. Research and choose wisely. You'll need to feel good about your choice when you explain it to your children.
There are three ways to build a family: o Marriage o Birth o Adoption Our oldest son knows this and explained it to his preschool class one day, unprompted by adults. His teacher told me that our son was responding to a classmate, making fun of a girl in his class who is adopted. How did my son have such a great spiel, at his young age? It turned out to be part of the education our adoption counselor had done with him. Before marrying, both my husband and I had always had a sense that we would adopt children. We entered the adoption world through the foster system in Ohio. Fostering a teenage girl wasn't easy but it was very rewarding in many ways. When we moved to Oregon, we took the foster/adoption classes offered by the state. I was working too many high tech hours at the time so we decided to hold off. Nature had other plans, and our son was born. Soon, enjoying parenting a young child, our thoughts turned to adoption again. Our research showed us three basic ways to adopt - privately through a lawyer, through the state's foster/adoption system or through an agency. We chose an agency for several reasons. Lawyers appear to be a good choice for people who want absolute privacy. Bound by client privilege, they won't reveal any secrets. Also, lawyers can often get couples the "highly desirable" infants, for a price. Expenses which can be reimbursed to birth families are regulated but somewhat flexible. There is no requirement that lawyers spend any of the adoption fee on counseling for the birth family. Although many lawyers undoubtedly do a wonderful job for both the birth families and adoptive parents, we had no guarantees that the one we chose would. My husband and I didn't feel comfortable with this option. It seemed too much like buying a child for us. We also don't believe in the secrecy as it leads to shame within adoption. State systems can be the least expensive way to go. In Oregon, the state often asks you to foster a child, then decides whether to proceed with an adoption. I didn't want to go through the bonding process and then say goodbye so we decided not to go with the state. Also, I really wanted another infant. Our state typically handles older children which are removed from homes after birth parents run into difficulties. What we were looking for was a system where children who needed homes were given the best possible one for their situation. Subtly perhaps, but it is definitely different than finding children for those who needed to parent. When we looked into Oregon non-profit adoption agencies, we found a couple which fit the bill. They were really aggressively looking out for the childrens' rights while placing them as carefully and quickly as possible. Agencies come in many flavors. Some are for profit, some are non-profit. In the state of Oregon, if an agency is licensed by the state, birth parent relinquishments (when the birth parents sign papers giving up their parental rights) are final. There is no waiting period. With private lawyer adoptions, there is an at-risk waiting period when birth parents can regain their parental rights. When we adopted, the time period when birth parents could seek to regain their rights was 6 months in Oregon private adoptions. All states have different time periods and regulations pertaining to birth parent rights. I should also point out that in no state can any potential birth parent sign away their rights prior to the actual arrival of their child. Any papers they sign prior to the birth are not binding in any way. Zero at risk waiting period with Oregon licensed agencies is very favorable toward adoptive parents. Think of having a child, loving it, caring for it, and finding out 6 months later that you need to say goodbye. That is a very difficult situation for the child, as well as those who have cared for the baby. What about the birth parents' rights? Having no waiting period means that birth parents really NEED to be sure of what they are doing before signing off on their rights. The agencies which attracted our favorable attention seemed to do a great job of educating potential birth parents and their families. Counseling sessions (multiple) were required before papers could be signed. Other alternatives were exhaustively researched before adoption was settled on as a last resort. If there were short term financial problems or a possibility of the baby staying with extended family, that was explored. WIC (food aid), food stamps, clothing donations and other charitable help was offered. The agencies wanted to feel sure that adoption was the right solution for a troubled family before involving potential adoptive parents. Most comfortable for us was our fit with Boys and Girls Aid Society. The oldest agency in Portland, Oregon, it was founded to take care of orphans from the Oregon Trail. We liked the fact that at least 2 counselors were assigned to each case - one for the birth family and one for the adoptive family. The waiting adoptive family needs education and counseling, just as the birth family does. We took classes, filled out tons of paperwork including a 77 question essay paper with very in-depth questions about marriage, how we were raised, our extended families and boxers or briefs. (Just kidding, although it was very personal!) Each half of the couple fills one out and my husband and I clicked dual computers for many late nights. (Think "Dueling Banjos" - we used to hum it!) There were separate psychological interviews for each of us, observations of us interacting with our son, who acted up the most EVER on the days the social worker saw him, home visits, and plenty of phone calls. I think the social workers at the agency know us better than we do! There were also criminal, job, personal reference and financial checks. One of our training sessions involved sensitivity to the birth family's plight. It is a strange dichotomy in adoption. You pair a family who wants to parent with a family who is in a crisis where they feel they can't parent. The birth family's crisis doesn't mean that they don't desire to parent though. The fact that they are at the agency means that they have no choices which are ideal. They are just trying to make a decision which will be best when they don't like any of the options available. We talked to an adoption triad - the birth mother, adoptive family and the daughter who was adopted. They each told their story and how they came to educate adoption classes as a group. That brings me to open adoption. Obviously, the triad at our class was involved in an open adoption. That means the participants all know each other and keep in touch. This is becoming a common adoption practice. Adoptive families which desire secrecy are more frequently needing to go the private lawyer adoption route as agencies make more open adoption plans. Birth families have been requesting more contact, which has blossomed into an openness trend. A good book for learning more about open adoption is "The Open Adoption Experience" by Melina and Roszia. I learned quite a bit from reading it, including the invaluable advice I reiterated in my epinion about "Handling the nosiest questions" at http://nwinston.epinions.com/kifm-review-4D21-3637BAC-39805A6E-prod3 Boys and Girls Aid Society has birth families choose the adoptive family for their child. Once a potential adoptive family is approved, they prepare a photo album of family pictures. Ours was filled with photos of our son and our dogs, doing activities in our back yard and in parks. Birth families are shown books which match their requirements for religion, race or anything that's important to them. From those books, they choose a family. They may choose to meet or not, it's up to them. We were chosen fairly quickly. Actually, the whole thing went much faster than having a child biologically. Cost can be a factor for some in adoption. The agency we chose had a sliding fee scale based on income. The top fee was less than $15,000. Because I said I would take at least a 9 month leave of absence and hoped to stay home permanently, they didn't consider my income in our fee. The adoptive family we met in our class was out of work when they adopted, so they had a very low fee adoption. Because it was a non-profit agency, the money paid went for unreimbursed medical expenses, counseling and other financial aid, as well as salaries and overhead. Before closing out this long winded editorial, I feel I need to add to it's length. Yes, I hear you patient readers groaning! There have been a few VERY HIGH publicity cases where adoptions have gone terribly wrong. I need to note that they were at-risk adoptions. Most agencies either don't do at-risk adoptions or are very cautious in calling out the risks before becoming involved. At-risk adoptions include those where a birth father is not known, not named or has not given permission for the adoption, those where some interested party is questioning the adoption or those where the competence of the parties is in question. If you are contemplating an adoption where any of those factors is present, you may have an adoption disruption, where the child ends up being removed from your home. Keep in mind that reputable agencies have very few if any disruptions in their history because they steer clear of these circumstances. Ask your agency their history pertaining to disruptions and at-risk placements before giving them any fees. We are very pleased with our experience (and our son) and keep in touch with the agency regularly. We are getting ready to attend our third of the annual adoption parties at the agency. I told the guys we were going soon and Jacob remembered the clown from last year. We are looking forward to going next week! Adoption can be a great way to make a family. My advice to those considering it is to do plenty of research and reading before selecting a course of action. There are good options out there. Make sure you choose one you'll feel good about now and also later, when you explain your choices to your children. Note: We don't believe in keeping information about adoption secret from adoptees. In Oregon, Alaska, Kansas & Alabama, people who know they are adopted can get unrestricted access to their original birth certificate at age 21. However, if they are never told they are adopted, they don't know to look. The law in Oregon is recent and was hard fought. Thanks Helen Hill and all others who perservered! Funny aside about our home visit - everyone always jokes about impressing the social worker with "homemaker skills." Our home visit occurred the same day as my play group did a cookie exchange for the holidays. When the social worker arrived, our home smelled like fresh baked cookies. On the table, awaiting her palate, were 20 or so tempting varieties of freshly baked cookies! She remarked that I was one of the few to actually go this far! I cracked up and 'fessed up that it might be the only time that year to find fresh cookies in my home - due to the cookie exchange. When I saw her a year later, we laughed about it again.  |
| Read all comments (9)|Write your own comment |
|
Ads by Google
|
