recap of meeting with adoption attorney
hubby and I met with the adoption attorney, G., for the first time yesterday. We were sitting in this small chinese restaurant off of a highway. It looked pretty grungy. When we sat down with her, I was thinking “Now, when I tell my kids about their adoption story, I’m going to have to start with explaining this weird little chinese restaurant…”
It was a good talk. I cried (because I cry easily) while talking about adoption and what made us decide to adopt. It’s interesting how it’s done. The birth mother looks at books you’ve made with your history and family photos, etc., and then the birth mother decides if she wants to meet you. You then meet with her (or her and the birth father if he’s involved) and if you feel it’s a good match then you move towards adopting their child.
In addition to making copies of a few life books that perspective birth mothers can read, we have to have a social worker do a home study. We’ll get physicals done, have folks write recommendations for us, and fill out paperwork. I have called one social work but we’ve been playing phone tag, and there is another one I’m going to try to reach tomorrow. We don’t have our new house yet, so we’re going to get the paperwork started and wait to do the rest of it when we have our new house.
The attorney, G., told us the social worker will check out our house just to make sure it’s got room for a baby, they aren’t there to critique and make sure we have a really ritzy house, so that was encouraging. We did tell her we’re open to a baby of any race and we’re open to considering a baby that may have any type of disability. I guess I feel as if most parents don’t get to chose, and all babies need homes. That’s how we feel right now, but I guess when we get further down the road we’ll have to see where God leads us.
We really liked G. and I think she is the way we want to go. She only takes clients by referral of other people, and she only handles 6 cases at a time. We will need to send out letters to doctors, friends, relatives, letting them know that we’re adopting in case they know someone in a situation where they’re having a baby they can’t raise.
It seems weird, I keep thinking of organ donation (isn’t that odd?). Someone has a great tragedy, which is death, which leads to other people being joyful and getting organs and hearts and getting to make a new life. I am excited about adoption and being able to be a mom and have children, but the birth mothers will be going through a very difficult time and very scary circumstances. I pray that I will be sensitive to the birth mother/father and their family, because this will be a very brave decision and a scary decision for them. I also must be willing to accept if we go down the road and someone choses not to give their baby up for adoption, even if it’s at the very last minute. I am so very glad that God promises that all things work out for the good of those that love Him, because all of this is very scary and it seems overwhelming. It seems strange that some young girl could be in a terrible circumstance, but yet this terrible circumstance could lead us to become parents.
It’s almost 11pm. I need some sleep! I have continued to run around with my realtor looking at more houses, and we’ve found a few more that are really nice. I’ll have to blog about those sometime this weekend.
Posted by: DramaQueen | 05-31-2007 | 09:05 PM
Posted in: Adoption Decisions
Being sensitive to the potential birth mother/father and their families is one of the most honorable things you can do.
When the time comes and you are matched, you’ll be surprised at how emotional things will be for everyone involved. We made a point to NOT invite our extended family members to be at the hospital with us when our son was born for 2 reasons:
1) We know our son’s birth mother would have to remake her decision after he was born and we didn’t want added pressure on her by having our family there.
2) We felt it was inappropriate to have our family there celebrating our son’s birth when we knew that his birth family would be grieving the loss of this little boy.
The day the termination papers were signed (our son was a mere 5 days old) I spoke with his birthmother over the phone and we both cried together. I felt so horrible that my happiness had to come at the expense of her sorrow. These are difficult emotions to handle so be prepared.
Now, almost 3 years later, we’re still in contact with Snuggle Bug’s birth mother via email. I mail her pictures/updates every 6 months and she loves that! We are very careful to treat her with the respect and kindness that she deserves.
From what I’m reading on your blog, I think you’re going to do just fine in this area. The fact that you are aware of the complicated nature of adoption and the need for sensitivity towards the birth parents/families says a lot about your good character!