Adoption update

All has been quiet on the adoption front these days. It started as a whirlwind and flurry of excitement, research, discussion, reading, talking to people, sleepless nights (for me anyway), and just lots and lots of thinking.

So, are we any closer to making a final decision?

We decided foreign adoption. Then we decided domestic. Then we decided foreign, but a different country. Then we decided domestic. Then we decided we didn't know what to decide. Then we started flipping coins (really). Then we quit deciding. That felt better.

Here is our quandary. The avenues of adoption that we feel would most fit in with our family at this point are not necessarily where the greatest need is. Yes, it is always important to have good families wanting to do private domestic adoption. And yes, there is a need to adopt foreign babies, but there is a waiting list for the babies. As soon as they enter the system they are adopted. So.....we are not sure where the need really is in those circumstances. From my research, I have found, that there are more waiting parents than there are babies needing parents (at least in the above avenues). So, the real need is foster to adopt, or foreign non-infants. And we don't think our family is ready for either of those options.

So, we wait. For now anyway. It may change again next week. But our current plan is, don't spend the $35,000 that we don't have. Wait a few years. Maybe have another baby biologically in the meantime because we really want to have two kids close to the same age. Then we feel that we might be ready for the relatively scary and unknown process of foster to adopt. Or we might want to adopt a child around 3 years old from a foreign country. But not now. We don't want to adopt a child older than Ella, and we don't want to invest time, energy, love, into a foster to adopt baby and then have it returned to it's family. We are not ready for that yet. But we might be later. There are just too many unknowns right now. So, the best thing for us to do is wait. And hope the adoption tax credit continues so that we may be able to take advantage of it in the future.

So that is the update. Thanks for reading.

Varying opinions

I have a great friend that challenges my views and decisions. A friend like this is great because it really makes you stop for a moment and look into your mind and into your heart. When you come up for air after such a look, often the result is a clearer, more conscious decision. Sometimes the result may not even be what you thought. I think this is important. If we were not challenged to look into our hearts and our motives, we may not know what is truly in our hearts and/or behind our motives.

I have copied below a recent email from this friend. He is challenging our current decision to most like pursue international adoption. I will post my response below.  I am posting this to my blog, as I feel like after examining motives and intentions, there is a clearer reasoning behind our decision. So, I thought I would share.

From my friend,

So I read a bit about your adoption thoughts on your blog.  So I am going to weigh in.  I think the most noble thing to do is adopt an unwanted older child from this country.  However, most of our actions are not noble, and there is no point in fooling ourselves into thinking they are.  For example, I have some very well off friends who are very environmentally conscious and have adopted two babies from China.  They are wonderful people and some of my best friends, but in no way do I think their actions are noble.  Take environment first.  They buy all the most environmentally conscious products they can, but they live in a 5,000 plus square foot house and have all the comforts modern life has to offer.  I am sure their energy consumption is much much more than yours and Eli's little West Asheville house, and I am sure there are many many others who live simpler, and thus more environmentally friendly than you guys.  They can state they saved a couple of babies from China, but I have to say it is much much more stylish in the "upper crust" to adopt from China than a multiracial child here.  Anyway, I just have to call bullshit on the their life choices being "noble" but hey they live a great life.  Others have great lives by buying big V-10 trucks, the fastest boat on the lake, and having sex with lots of women and having illegitimate children all over the place.  They are just real, they are having fun, not living "noble" lives.  Though I am all for making some selfish decisions to enhance one's life, I think everyone should make a large number of noble decisions.  Take jobs in this country (which I think parallels foreign adoption to some degree).  I enhances our lives to buy a whole lot of inexpensive stuff made in China.  How about if you were a manufacturer life me.  It could greatly enhance my life to have I9 wheels made in China.  I would be able to enjoy a whole lot more profit, and many suggest I do just that.  However, I refuse to.  Partially because I am noble and I realize people need jobs in this country to, so I employ them.  Partially, I am selfish, I just enjoy manufacturing.  Partially I am just smart.  I realize that innovation comes from making the stuff, not having someone else do it, thus I will have a stronger, more cutting edge and innovative company by manufacturing in the States.  We all need to support our communities more.  Partially because it is the right thing to do, partially because it is smart.  Do you want a bunch of unwanted babies growing up in your community to one day become criminals and thus reduce the quality of your life.  I would not bring a problem older child into my home and possibly greatly reduce the quality of my natural children's lives, but I just cannot see a valid concern with adopting an infant multi-racial child.  It might be ever so slightly uncomfortable in the community, but there are so so so many other things that can tarnish lives, that this one seems insignificant to the point of being absurdly insignificant.  I mean you could worry about raising a kid that was not as athletic as the most athletic kids, or as smart, or how about not as good looking?  I just think there is a need in our community to adopt these children, and from a selfish standpoint, which we all possess, I just don't think it is very bad at all.

So, I took a couple days to think about everything he said. He made some points, but I felt like he did not have all the needed information to make a truly educated opinion.
Here is my response. Sorry it is so long, but it was a good way for me to organize my thoughts on this matter as I have spent a lot of time contemplating this adoption decision.

First, I believe you are right. The most noble thing to do would be adopt an older child, maybe one with special needs. But, as you said, I am not wanting to bring a potential harmful thing into our lives. I want to be as "safe as possible", while knowing that nothing is "safe", their are risks in everything. Having your own baby, adopting a baby, adopting an older child. There is absolutely no guarantee. But we now have a beautiful and perfect baby, and I don't want to take on a known challenge as large as that and quite possibly disrupt our lives and her life in that manner. So, that is our decision, we will not adopt an older child. At least not at this point in our lives.

Now, let me address your point about your friends that adopted the children from China. I agree, it seems to be a popular "upper crust" thing to do, to adopt internationally. And even more so recently with Angelina and Brad's adoptions and I think Madonna too, right? I have struggled with this one, because typically that is what I see. Well off people, living wealthy, maybe not very "noble" lives in other manners, and adopting babies from other countries. A "make your own family" if you will. But not all people adopt from other countries with those circumstances. There are many other reasons why people choose international. They may not qualify for domestic adoption, they may have been burned by domestic (I know quite a few people who have tried to adopt domestically and had their heart broken numerous times before deciding on foreign, because it was "safer." No birth mom to change their mind.) They may feel very strongly about adopting a child from a country where the alternatives would be starvation, or prostitution, or worse. That seems pretty noble.

There is the idea, that we should take care of our own first. And that is something that Eli and I are still in the process of contemplating, researching, and thinking about. I see your argument about adopting a multiracial child " Do you want a bunch of unwanted babies growing up in your community to one day become criminals and thus reduce the quality of your life". But I am not so sure there is a 1:1 correlation here. If we adopt a domestic "other race" baby, I am not sure that means that there will be one less criminal out on the streets. I have been doing a lot of research on where the need is for adopting. While there is more need for adoptive parents to adopt an African American infant, or a mixed race infant, there are still waiting hopeful parents out there. We would still write out a dear birth mother letter and be put on a waiting list until someone chose us. Those babies getting ready to be born have waiting parents, they are not ending up on the streets. The real need is for African American couples to adopt these babies. There are birth mothers who will not place their baby with a white family. The problem is not really that we need more people to adopt the black babies, we need the system to support and reach out to potential adoptive African American families. There are enough black homes for the black babies, but the adoption criteria and the ways the agencies are run, often exclude the potential adoptive black families due to poor advertising, financial matters, etc. Maybe our energies need to go to finding ways to enable African American families to adopt these infants.

Another point you brought up was relating international adoption to international production. I can see why you made that argument, but there are some very important differences. One, international adoption is not cheaper by any stretch of the imagination. The average cost of adoptions is about the same either domestic or international. It is also not necessarily out of convenience either as it is quite a complicated and stressful process to adopt internationally. As far as enhancing one's life. I think it could be argued that either would enhance one's life. I don't think my life would be more enhanced by a foreign baby than a domestic or vice versa. My concern is for the happiness and future of the child.

"  but I just cannot see a valid concern with adopting an infant multi-racial child.  It might be ever so slightly uncomfortable in the community, but there are so so so many other things that can tarnish lives, that this one seems insignificant to the point of being absurdly insignificant"

As far as your above statement goes, I again see your point. But I will tell you that I have been doing a lot of reading, research, and talking to transracial adoptees about this issue. I am in the process of reading a book that is totally interviews of African American and biracial adults that were adopted by white parents and what it was like growing up like that. I also read a memoir of an African American man who was adopted by white parents. What I have been reading, and what I have been finding, is there may be a valid concern with adopting an infant multi-racial child. But not a valid concern for what we might go through as parents or what the community might think. That I don't care about. But the happiness and identity of the child is of utmost concern to me. You and I are white people. We have had white privileges our whole lives. We don't know what it is like to be a different color in America. That in and of itself I think can be worked around. Meaning, I think that love can transcend and can supply a supportive environment of a child dealing with racial issues. Sure, there will be issues coming up, and we may not be the best people to relate, but we sure would supply as much support and give all the love we can. But what would be hard, is supplying the child with a good "black identity". If we lived in a culturally diverse area (Asheville is pretty darn white bread), this would be much easier to come by. But when I look around me, I see white. Almost exclusively. I am not sure that Eli and I could supply an African American child with the opportunities to develop that much needed black identity. As I have been doing my reading and research, I am finding out how important this really is. And we might not be the best people for the job.
Now, if we wanted to do the easiest, cheapest thing, we would adopt an African American domestic infant. The tax benefits are greater, in this instance the total cost is less, and we wouldn't have to travel far distances. It would be the easier, cheaper thing to do. And yes, you might argue we would be helping our community.

Of course the real help would be foster to adopt. But, we are too afraid of falling in love with a baby and then having it taken from us and returned to a less than ideal situation. I am not sure I could handle that at this point in my life. I have also heard stories about people trying to go this route and having their hearts broken when at the last minute in the adoption process, a relative of the child comes along and takes the baby away. Total devastation, especially when you feel that they are going to a less than ideal situation. We might not be that noble.

Now a small, deeper look into international adoption. China, I am not so sure about. But the countries we have been looking into really need people to adopt their babies. I also just finished a book about the AIDS crisis in Africa and the millions and millions of AIDS orphans. Also, there is a good argument that the US had a pretty big role in the possible origin of AIDS, so in a way, we might be partly responsible. But millions and millions of babies in Africa without parents. With very poor alternatives. I will spare you the details, but it is not a good outlook for a girl growing up in Africa without parents. And not just Africa, other countries too.

So, yes, we need to support our community, but we also need to support our larger community - the human race, and do what we feel is best for all involved. At least that is what we are trying to do. Make the best decision for us, for Ella, for the adopted baby, and on a larger level, for the world.

Now, that being said, we haven't completely decided what avenue we are going to take. Still reading, talking, researching. Trying to make the smartest decision for our family.
I can honestly say that there has been no lack of learning, researching and soul searching on my part. We will be making the best decision that we know how to make. 

Is international adoption a form of consumerism?

This is an idea I have wrestling around with in my head. Is international adoption some form of imperialistic, American consumerism? We want to "buy" a baby? We want to choose the gender, we want to choose the skin color, we want to choose certain physical qualities. We want our family to look a certain way. We want to be exotic and have a "different" family. We want others to look at us and think, "wow, they have done such a great thing, taking a poor child with no other alternatives and raising them in our superior society."

This is a touchy and difficult subject I think. And this is a question that I do not have a great answer to at the moment. What drives us to look outside our borders to grow our families? Do we feel that is is "safer"? The child won't be taken from us by a birth parent who has changed her mind. We are also "safe" from having to deal with an open adoption. We don't want to share our child with another mother. We will feel better about ourselves, considering that we have performed something so "noble" as to adopt a child in need.

I can only examine my own heart and hope that my intentions are pure. Although I know there is some selfish aspects to our decision. As I said, this idea I have been wrestling around in my head for a while. What is driving me to want to look to another country to grow our family? At this point, here are my thoughts on the matter after serious contemplation.

We want to help a child in need. Are there children in need in this country? Yes. Many. But here comes the self admittedly selfish part. We want an infant so that we won't miss out on so much infant and baby fun and development. We want to minimize the amount of trauma and attachment issues that might come about from adopting an older child. Most of the need in the USA is adopting from the foster care system and likely we will be dealing with the before-mentioned issues. So, maybe a little bit selfish in that reasoning. Now, there is a need for families to adopt African American or biracial infants. Many of the adoption agencies actually offer decreased fees for these babies. But at this time, we are not certain that we are the best two people to raise an African American. There would be inherent issues that would arise, and issues to deal with concerning race and racism in America and that in and of itself is not much of a concern for us. But the problem is that we live in a predominantly white city and a predominantly white neighborhood and when we look around at our friends and neighbors, there is not much in the way of diversity of color. It is becoming much more common for white folks to adopt black babies and I am sure that once we went down that road, we would find ourselves drawn to and searching out support in our community. But at this point it is hard to see it around us.

So, that points us in the direction of international adoption. No one will argue with the fact that there are millions of babies and children around the globe that are in need of loving parents. The reasons are many, death and disease of parents, poverty and not being able to afford to feed another mouth, population control....

Yes, you can somewhat pick what you want your family to look like by deciding what country/ethnicity you wish to adopt from. There are Asian babies, African babies, Russian babies, Central American babies, the list goes on. It is almost like shopping for a baby. American consumerism? Or just leading with your heart? I think it is important to choose what you are drawn to. Is it wrong to be drawn to a certain look or characteristics? I think giving yourself every opportunity for complete and thorough bonding with the baby trumps the possible superficiality of desiring a certain look. If we weren't drawn to them, then we probably wouldn't adopt, maybe having more of our own babies to use more of the world's resources, or waiting in line to adopt a little white baby in the US. And there would be that many more babies and children suffering in the world without parents. There are so many variables to consider and ponder, but what it really boils down to is where is your heart leading you? And I think the answer lies there.

I would love any thoughts or comments on this from anyone out there that might be reading my blog.

Adoption cost

Do you know how much adoption costs?

A lot.

A whole lot.

Like, think of a number and then double it. Maybe triple it.

We are talking more money than I currently make in a year.

The average cost of adoption is about $20-25,000 either domestic or international. Some people end up paying $40-50,000! yowzahs! Ouch!

The current option we are pursuing is going to cost us about $35,000. Pocket change, right?

I am starting to wonder if people with our income do this. I guess I know that they do, but ouch! Where does that money come from? The federal tax credit will help. Hopefully end up paying for almost half, but we still have to front the money until we get the tax credit. And then there is the other half....
It just doesn't seem right to charge a baby on a credit card. The American way? Not for us. Eli would kill me. :) We are trying to get out of debt, not drown ourselves in more.

Grants? There are quite a few organizations that offer grant money for those in need. Here is a good list. We cannot apply until we have our home study though.... Well along our way into the process.... already committed to paying the exorbitant amount of money. How do you commit to something when you don't know where the money is going to come from? But you can't apply for the grants until you commit....What is up with that?
And then when you really start looking at the grant programs, there are quite a few that have pretty narrow eligibility criteria i.e. certain religious affiliations. Same with low/no interest loan programs.
Other options: home equity loans (what home equity?), borrowing against your 401K (not much there either), employee benefits (already checked that one - no), savings accounts (hm, that won't get us very far), fund raisers....now maybe that is an option. More thoughts on that one coming soon.

But really, one wonders, can we really afford to adopt? Why are we trying to do this when we can have our own? The answer is pretty simple to both questions. We can't afford to adopt a baby on our own. We need help. Be it grants, help from friends and family, low interest loans. Us adopting a baby is not just about us building our own immediate family. It is about helping out the world (I think, at least in my small view of things), and it is about bringing another person into our large family, including friends and extended family. We all benefit, right? And the answer to the second question is, it is just in our hearts, it is what we really, really want to do and it just feels right. But we can't do it on our own. We need help. Be it advice, contacts, emotional support, financial support, we need it all.
Thanks.

Adoption sex

Eli and I just had the equivalent of adoption sex. We sent off our first application.

When contemplating having a baby, it takes a lot of mental energy. It is a huge decision. It changes the course of your whole life. It is not to be taken lightly. It is scary, it is exciting. When the decision is made to pursue it, then something must be done to start the process. In the case of biological children, it is of course the special time between the husband and wife. The next thing you know, you are pregnant (at least in our case), and then you have the next 9 (really 10) months to figure out how to deal with the fact that a baby is coming and how to wrap your brain around it. The fact that the baby is coming is so real. You might be sick to your stomach, you might blow up like the Michelin man, you might get acne, you definitely get a big belly, you might get swollen feet, you can feel the baby moving, you can see it on ultrasound. All these little things to prepare you mentally for a baby. But the first step to start the ball a rollin is getting jiggy wid it in the bedroom. Then the ball just keeps a rollin and you are just along for the ride.

Not so with adoption. You have to really, really, really know what you want to do. It is not a spur of the moment tumble in the sack. But there is a moment when you decide, "Let's do it. Let's start this process moving." And that is what we did last night. We had adoption sex. We sent in the application. The ball has started rolling.

And we will have plenty of months to wrap our little brains around the idea that a baby is coming. The reminders will not be coming from the often uncomfortable and obvious physical changes that go along with pregnancy (thank God), but will be coming in the form of much paperwork, waiting, phone calls, waiting, court and lawyers, waiting, fingerprinting, waiting, more paperwork, waiting, traveling and lots and lots of money.  I won't be suffering physically from the pregnancy, I won't be waiting, terrified of the coming labor and potential second c-section, but we will be suffering fiscally, making sacrifices, trying to figure out how we are going to pay for this.... But I keep coming back to George Michael, "I got to have faith..." God love him.

Faith - Studio 99

Domestic or International Adoption

Now that I have put it out there that we are planning on adopting, I can start to post about the journey. The heart journey, the mental journey, the paperwork journey, the financial journey, The Journey.

Right now we are in the stages of research and contemplation. One of the most important decisions, and one that is not easy is "from where do we want to adopt?" The broadest category being, domestic or international? There are pages and pages and oodles (yes, I said oodles) of information on the topic.

One of my questions and one that I feel like will push us in one direction or another is, where is the greatest need? Here is my quandary. We are not barren. We can have biological children, and so I do not want to be a person who "beats" someone out of the game that cannot have their own children. When contemplating domestic adoption, I take that into consideration. There are oodles (there is that word again), of organizations in the good ol' US of A that we could probably sign up with. We pay them an exorbitant amount of money, create a "dear mother" letter trying to sell ourselves as good potential parents, and then we wait until an expecting mother chooses us among other waiting, hopeful adoptive parents. I am just not sure that is for us. We want to adopt, we don't "need" to adopt. We want more kids because frankly, we are having a blast with Ella. We want a home full of laughing, happy, screaming, crying children. Not only do we want to help out a baby/child in need, we want to help ourselves out.

So, where is the need? From my current research and findings, there is a need for families wanting to adopt African American or biracial babies here in our home country. We don't want to turn our backs on our own country if it is in need. But upon further research, the need is really much greater for African American families or biracial families wanting to adopt. It makes sense, expecting mothers of African American descent often only want to place their newborns with others of the same color/race. They want to give their unborn child all the chance in the world to have as normal a life as possible. I am sure it is not easy to grow up as a minority in an interracial family. Although there is still a need for people of all colors wanting to adopt a minority child, it just doesn't seem like there is as great a need as we might find elsewhere. But, we haven't completely ruled it out yet. There are many great benefits to domestic adoption - mainly, you get the infant usually fresh out of the oven, so there will probably be less attachment issues, and you get a better idea of the medical condition of the baby and prenatal care of the birth mother. Big plusses.


And then you have a large variety of international options. It does seem like there is such a great need for adoptive parents in many places in the world. Maybe a greater need than domestic adoption. But one has to weigh the options. A baby from another country will be older, having already undergone possible and probable traumas, a good medical history is most likely unknown, and we would be taking a baby from their culture. I feel there is definite value in being raised in one's own culture, but I am not blinded to the honest truth that there are some countries that just cannot support and feed all of their population, sad as it is. The need is definitely there, and it would help ease the burden on the country as well as provide financial support to the orphanages to purchase food, formula, diapers, etc for the orphans. It seems a "noble" cause.

Which actually, may I digress for a quick moment? We are not considering adoption to be "noble". It is in no way a sacrifice on our parts, or is it altruistic in any way. Babies and children make us happy. We want more so that we can have more happiness and hopefully to be able to share some happiness with a child that needs some in their life as well. We want a large family, I don't want to give birth,  be pregnant many more times. We want to adopt a child that needs us, so we can feel good about ourselves and the fact that we are helping someone already born and not bringing more people into the world to use it's resources. The need goes both ways. We need/want a baby to adopt, hopefully a baby will be out there in need of a home, and the four of us (Eli, I, baby Ella and unknown baby) will come together and create a larger, more loving, happier, more fulfilled life because we are all in it together.

I think I will wrap up this post because I have realized it is starting to get kind of long. There is plenty more to discuss/ blog about on this subject and I will save it for another day.

Thanks for reading.

Adoption Tax Credit

 As I have been researching adoption, I have found that it is very, very expensive. No matter what route you take, international or infant domestic adoption. Like $20,000 at the least to $45,000 at the top end! Who can afford that? Not us, that is for sure. But right now there is something called the Federal Adoption Tax Credit that allows people like Eli and I to get a $12,000+ tax credit if we adopt. This would take a huge chunk out of the financial burden. But there is a problem. 

THE ADOPTION TAX CREDIT IS SUPPOSED TO EXPIRE AT THE END OF THIS YEAR!

That is extremely unfortunate as it has been around for the last 10 years and has increased with inflation. Right now there are bills in the Senate and the House of Representatives to help save the tax credit.

SAVE THE TAX CREDIT!  SAVE THE TAX CREDIT!

Not only for our benefit, but it will help SO MANY others be able to adopt that couldn't otherwise and will keep more kids out of the social system!

Here is what you can do. Find your representatives by going here. You can EMAIL THEM! And then EMAIL YOUR LEGISLATORS AND CALL THEM AS WELL. Please, it only takes a moment of you time. 

This is what I wrote to them, very short and sweet. Feel free to copy and paste.

Please support the extension of the adoption tax credit to help make it more affordable for people to adopt children and to keep more children out of the social services system. Please support and vote in favor of bill H.R. 213 in the House and bill S.2816 in the Senate. Thank you!-- 

Thinking about adoption

Eli and I are thinking about adoption. Yep, if this is news to you, you heard right. We are giving serious consideration to adopting our second child.

You might wonder, or ask why. So for you, I will create a numbered list.

1. Being pregnant was hard for an athletic person like myself.
2. Labor was really, really, hard. And I don't much like the idea of possibly having my abdomen cut open again anytime real soon.
3. Even though I had a c-section, I still am dealing with the after effects of very strong pushing for 5 hours.
4. We think we want a pretty big family (by today's standards), but don't feel good about bringing more babies into the world than would take to replace us (so for those who have trouble with math, that would be 2)
5. We feel blessed and lucky to have such a wonderful life and would love to share our life with a child in need of a good family. 
6. Adopting the second child would give my body more time to recover before getting pregnant again.
7. It would bring diversity to our family. 
8. Why not?
9. There are thousands and thousands of orphans around the world that need parents to love them and care for them. 
10. Just because we want to.