ElizabethAnn
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It raises all sorts of interesting questions. As this prospective adopter asks in the first comment of this blog: is it cheating for a family to fundraise to adopt if they're financially secure?
How many couples perhaps use "their own money" to pay for pricey infertility treatments, yet later "fundraise" for money with which to adopt?
What would the public response be if expectant parents engaged in fundraising to help them parent? Would that be more or less acceptable than adoption fundraising, and why?
The perspectives on the subject are widely varied, as demonstrated here: http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2011/07/dear-abby-fund-raising-for-adoption.html. "Pore chilluns"? (Gulp!)
Yet it seems significant that most adoptees appear uncomfortable with the prospect. Here's another adoptee's take on the subject: http://theadoptedones.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/fundraising-thoughts/. This may be something adopting couples want to explore before going public with efforts to solicit funds for their adoption-- how will you feel explaining this to your child, someday?
I'm hesitant to broach this subject for obvious reasons (because admittedly, I work in an industry that contributes more to the problem than the solution, and because the reality is that I would likely have to pursue an adoption from the state foster system, were I to financially undertake the adoption process, myself.) Abrazo requires couples submit all their financial records in the application process because we want to be sure that the families whom we accept are capable of managing the costs of adopting and raising a child-- without incurring unmanageable debts in the process.
Yet the debate over adoption fundraising troubles me. Is there any possibility the concept derives from that old "martyrdom myth" that suggested good upstanding citizens who selflessly rescued an unwanted urchin deserved monetary rewards for "taking in" a child not their own? It wasn't that long ago that the State of Texas paid out one-time "adoption subsidies" (some folks saw them as "cash bonuses") to any adopters who took placement of perfectly healthy infants or children who just happened to be born of a particular minority race. Was that really "adoption assistance," or something else, like a bounty prize? (I flinch, just typing those words.)
Many people question the true intent of "birthparent maternity assistance," as well. Is it really to help pregnant women have a healthier pregnancy, or to ultimately indebt them to the giver, to induce them to place? I know what the State of Texas has to say about why this support is permitted, but sometimes, when I hear from birthmoms about the "cash offers" made to them by out-of-state baby brokers, I'm not too sure it's really about the babies' best interests anymore.
Perhaps the propriety of birthparent financial support, adoption fundraising and/or adoption subsidy lies in the eye of the beholder.
The problem, though, is that ultimately, it matters not whether the birthparent or adoptive parent can justify their financial decisions (what they paid, what they collected) but rather, how the child involved comes to perceive it? As Stephen Covey says, effective people have to "begin with the end in mind" and the end isn't actually the giving or getting of a child but accounting to any child who was once adopted for how he/she came to be who and where he/she is-- answers that should never, ever be financially-driven.
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A special word of thanks to Abrazo's Angel Account donors, whose gracious generosity is helping Abrazo provide needed professional grief therapy in this time of great loss. Those who wish to do so may also contribute directly to Arya's Kids, the nonprofit organization Arya's adoptive parents established in his memory.
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I think it's probably a less-than-optimal arrangement if the parent and child are both in diapers at the same time... just sayin'!
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One of my secret regrets from when I opened Abrazo and first established our criteria for the sort of adopting families we would accept is that I implemented no expectation for religious affiliation or church attendance. As a preacher's daughter opening a private, nonprofit organization, I fully intended for Abrazo's adoptees to grow up in homes in which they would be raised by faith-filled families who actively practiced within their chosen religious affiliation, because I know how essential faith formation has been in my own life. I think children learn values at home and as per the discussion which is required in the course of every homestudy, one of those values is supposed to be religion.
I didn't want to specify denominational membership, in hopes of encouraging religious diversity. But unlike other agencies with a particular affiliation requirement, Abrazo did not opt to exclude those who did not document regular church attendance, and I often wonder if we did Abrazo's kids a disservice, as a result?
I made this choice intentionally at the time, because I know church attendance in itself is no guarantee of spiritual authenticity. And I subscribed to the idea that some families might be led to faith by the arrival of a child in their lives. I still hope this is so. Yet given the secularization of our society, I wonder how many of Abrazo's families have made a dedicated effort to nurture their children's religious faith? How many of Abrazo's families worship regularly, as a family? How many of Abrazo's kids have parents who have made no effort whatsoever to grow in faith since they took their new child home, and as a result, are raising children who have no spiritual foundation whatsoever in their lives?
I ran across this article today, and it reminded me of how crucial it is for us to be placing with families who are genuinely devoted to "raising up a child in the way he/she should go" from the time they're tiny, so they have a faith foundation to return to, throughout their lives and amidst their questions:
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A few additional resources for grappling with these questions...
http://www.gotquestions.org/infertility.html
http://www.nacsw.org/Publications/Proceedings2009/MacDougallRSeeingGod.pdf
http://www.christianliferesources.com/article/a-mother-s-sacrifice-of-adoption-1194
http://rachelsblatherings.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-you-want-to-adopt-please-dont.html
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What a gift that Sloan still has her birthmom and birthgrandparents so involved in her life! I am so proud of all the grownups in her life for ensuring that she didn't have to lose her first family in order to gain her adoptive family! Happy Birthday to one very loved little girl!
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Interesting essay on Huffington Post... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/05/imaginary-redhead-adoption-story_n_2405298.html (text appears below, in case the link goes bad):
Lessons Learned from an Imaginary Redhead
Written by Elisabeth O'Toole for Portrait of an Adoption
Not long after I married my husband (a tall redhead), my mom and I (both short and brunette) developed a plan. I was going to finally fulfill some long-held desires she’d had for her family -– desires my siblings and I had not successfully satisfied. In the anticipated daughter I would soon be having (yes, it would be a girl), my mother was finally going to get not only a redheaded baby in the family, but, later, a long, lean and very talented basketball player.
I know this sounds like pressure, so I should admit that I had no problem with this assumption. In fact, I’m sure I perpetuated it far more than my mother did. After all, I was fully confident in my ability to produce this child; the child I imagined for us both.
That is not how things worked out.
As readers may well know, loss is a fundamental and complicated aspect of any adoption. In order for there to be gain –- of a family, of a child –- there must first be loss. Birthmothers and birth relatives experience an often great and abiding loss. The adopted child experiences loss –- no matter at what age he is adopted or under what conditions he was adopted. Communities, foster parents, other children who may remain, and caregivers may experience loss as a result of adoption.
As an adoptive parent, I struggled with the loss of privacy, the loss of control over this aspect of my life -- becoming a parent -- and the loss of my imagined child -– that redheaded basketball player I had expected.
Like most adoptive parents, I was counseled to try to understand the role that loss plays in adoption, and how it may be experienced by others, birthparents and adoptees, especially. And I was advised to acknowledge and grieve loss as an important step toward adoptive parenthood.
I’ve come to believe that it’s also important that we try to consider how others, outside of the immediate adoption triad might also experience loss related to adoption. This is especially common for our closest relatives. Like adoptive parents, it’s not at all uncommon that others have also imagined and anticipated a particular child or experience, both for us and for themselves. When that expectation is unmet, other people may experience aspects of that same loss that many of us triad members do.
A grandfather described for me how his son’s adoption plans meant the end of his family’s genealogical line. And the grandfather’s early resistance to the adoption –- painful and frustrating for his son -– stemmed from that loss. He needed time to let go of a lifelong (and reasonable) expectation. And he needed to mourn that real and legitimate loss before he could welcome the adoption.
A grandmother described for me her reaction to her daughter’s announcement that she was adopting. The grandmother couldn’t understand her own lack of enthusiasm, even sadness. After all, she told herself, she just wanted her daughter to be happy. And she’d always wanted to be a grandparent. She finally realized part of what was holding her back was her reluctance to let go of a dream she’d had, an experience she had long looked forward to. For years, she’d pictured being with her daughter in a delivery room, present at the very moment of birth of her first grandchild. It was something she and her daughter had anticipated together. That she would not have this experience was a loss related to adoption that both of them had to acknowledge -– and grieve.
Neither of these grandparents, nor their adult children, initially identified the grandparents’ ambivalence toward adoption as related to loss. Instead, their loved ones viewed them as unsupportive and negative about adoption. But acknowledging loss and then grieving it were steps these grandparents needed to take. Just as the adoptive parents had.
In my own life as an adoptive parent, I didn’t consider the losses others might have experienced around my family’s adoptions until years after first adopting. I had begun talking to adoptive grandparents and relatives from other families as research for a book I was writing. And so it was, years after my first adoption, I found myself reconsidering my own relatives’ reactions to adoption with new eyes. I finally came to recognize that the people around me had lost that redheaded basketball player, too. And I suddenly understood why one family member in particular had reacted to our adoption plans as she had.
At the time, feeling vulnerable and still trying to understand adoption myself, I couldn’t understand or, frankly, have much compassion for what seemed to be her knee-jerk resistance to adoption. I thought this close relative was narrow-minded, overly concerned with appearances and tradition. But after making an effort to consider what this experience had been like for someone who, like me, had long anticipated a particular child and experience, I felt compassion for what I now understood was another person’s response to her own loss. I wish I’d had that insight -- and that vocabulary -- at the time.
Though understanding loss is a standard discussion topic in adoption education, we don’t typically offer others -– who are also impacted by adoption –- that language of loss. I think we should.
Thinking about loss in this way reinforces for me how adoption is not just about “us”: my husband and I and our children. Rather, it’s about a larger “Us”: our parents, our siblings, our close friends and extended families. And as our family ages and our circle expands, adoption includes our kids’ friends, their teachers, their caregivers, and the many other people who comprise our family’s adoption circle.
I’ve come to believe that one of the responsibilities we adoptive parents take on when we adopt is to include others in adoption, to bring them in on it. One way we can bring people in is by acknowledging their own perspectives and experiences with adoption, perhaps including loss. Other people -– besides adoptive parents -– deserve the chance to ask questions and to share their concerns and fears about adoption. Other people need and deserve information and preparation for adoption. Because other people are going to love and want to advocate for our children and for adoption, too.
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How can people of faith clearly discern when they're being led by God, versus driven by their own desires?
That's a question being raised by some in the wake of the Baby Teleah case.
The currently-pending controversy is pitting the rights of a military husband (and admitted agnostic) who never consented to his wife's decision to flee Texas and place their daughter for adoption in Utah, against the alleged spiritual entitlement of a Mormon adoptive couple who have been ordered by the courts to return that child, who is nearly two years old.
Here's a thoughtful blog by another LDS parent, about statements made by Teleah's would-be adoptive parents regarding their conviction that God wants her for their family: [/url]
It's risky business, presuming we know what God intends when it comes to fertility, unplanned pregnancy and adoption. And it's human nature to seek answers and to want what we want for ourselves to be what God wants for us, as well.
Adoptive Families magazine raised the question not long ago: http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=363. Even the venerable New York Times recently took on the question of whether adoption is more about destiny or magical thinking? http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/adoption-destiny-and-magical-thinking/. Do we look for "signs" that God put our adoption together to assure ourselves of some cosmic seal of approval? Would a loving God wish miscarriage or infertility on us just to make adoptions happen-- and if God is completely in charge, why would God need to go to such lengths at all? Do adopting families only get the children God intended for them (and if so, does that mean disrupted adoptions are sinful?) Or does God allow the element of human liberty and free will to take precedence in adoption planning, loving and watching over us regardless of the results?
Adoptive dad Shaun Groves (http://simplemom.net/six-things-adoption-has-taught-me/) cites a brother-in-law who thoughtfully asks "what if God's will for our lives is found wherever someone's need and our abilities intersect?" (This, however, incites the age-old debate of why those who claim their motivation to adopt is solely child-centered don't just devote the funds they would spend towards adoption to financially enable an expectant mother to parent and not place?)
Yet if destiny/divine intervention is responsible for determining what happens and what doesn't, then does that suggest that it is somehow Fate that certain parents are destined to suffer adoption loss, and if so, how does that fit with the concept of a benevolent Creator, who wants only the best for our lives? http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/the-adoption-lists-was-it-my-destiny-to-become-a-birthmother/. To what extent should expectant parents seek Heavenly guidance when considering their adoption options and choosing a family, and how can they know if the answers they find are from God or not?
But what about those who feel called to question the process by which they became part of a family who feels they were divinely entitled to shut out the birthfamily? Here's one adoptee's response (and we warn you, it's not exactly warm and fuzzy: http://landofgazillionadoptees.com/2012/08/16/dear-people-who-believe-placing-children-for-adoption-and-adopting-children-into-your-families-is-destiny-and-a-part-of-gods-plan/... and here's another, rather scathing indictment of the adoption "industry" as a whole: http://neverforgottenisfound.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/gods-will-according-to-the-bible-and-not-according-to-the-christian-adoption-world/. )
I do believe that God watches over those who place, those who adopt, and those who live with the choices of both. I trust that Abrazo's efforts have been blessed by God, imperfect as we are, and I cling to the age-old wisdom of the Scriptures, in which we are assured that God has left nothing to chance, however limited our vision may be at times?! And I cling to the wisdom of my father, who always assured me that "out of a web of human emotions and events, some of which seem good to us and some of which may not, God IS bringing God's purposes to pass!"
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We're all for humor, but what a strange thing for these celebrities to joke about:
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/kristen-bell-dax-shepard-joke-were-giving-child-134500022-us-weekly.html
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We've seen what happens time and time again, when an expectant parent or a newly-delivered parent find their family members opposed to their placement plan... and it can get really ugly, at a time when that parent is so very vulnerable and in need of support.
We've seen birthparents whose families dragged in the heavy artillery by threatening to disown them, or by threatening to take away their other kids from them, or calling in the grandparents or aunts and uncles to voice disapproval, or who refuse to let the birthparent(s) come home after placement. We like to think they mean well, but they clearly do not recognize how devastating the opposition can be to a placing parent who truly does just want a better life for their child.
Much of this is hard for the adoption community to understand. We tend to see adoption as a positive decision, yet for very traditional/minority families, the placement of a child for adoption is often considered an anomaly, akin to abandonment. Sometimes, the opposition is simply based in ignorance, and in such cases, it is possible to educate birthfamily members and eventually secure their support for the placing parent.
Placing parents whose parents had them young fear often that their decision to place will be viewed as "disloyal" to the family. (If Grandma gave up everything to raise Mom even though she wasn't ready, and then Mom dropped out of high school to have me, what am I saying about them and their choices if I give my baby away?) This is especially true if the parent or grandparent is offering to help raise the child that is potentially going to be placed; rejecting that help in favor of placing a child outside the family can be perceived as a direct offense by those whose offers are being denied.
Occasionally, the disapproving birthrelatives have had their own bad experience with adoption, or are influenced by media stories that focus on birthparents who were tricked into placing or denied promised contact after placement. Their concerns can sometimes be alleviated through access with the adopting family and education about the legal process.
Sometimes, though, the motivation for withholding support borders on abusive. (One Abrazo birthmom who placed recently has had to deal with taunts from her mother about the baby she "lost" to adoption, even though that baby's birthgrandmother has likewise relinquished parental rights in the past and more than once.) These situations are typically indicative of dysfunctional family systems in which the problems long predated the pregnancy, yet the pregnancy and/or placement becomes one more excuse for the maltreatment that occurs.
Placing parents who are facing family opposition quickly discover there is no magic solution; it takes a lot of courage to stand up to pressure from one's relatives, some of whom may eventually come around and others of whom never will.
Abrazo routinely offers counseling from independent therapists who can work with a birthparent and her family to address such issues, but the agency cannot force a placing parent's relatives to support an adoption plan anymore than an adopting family can do so with their own kinfolk.
Does anybody out there want to share their experience with oppositional birth relatives, and how they dealt with it?
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Bandtmccrory, welcome! We're glad you're excited! Your application just arrived in yesterday's mail, so give us a little time to review it, and Brianna will surely be in touch.
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NEEDED: Emotionally-stable, financially-secure, medically-infertile childless couples for our February orientation! Abrazo is blessed to have plenty of againers at present, but we need some newbies (especially Texans) to fulfill the expectations of prospective birthparents looking to place and hoping for their child to be an adoptive family's "firstborn." Contact Brianna for more information, or submit an Adoptive Parent Inquiry form (available on Abrazo's website) today!
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Rosie O'Donnell and her latest partner have adopted a US-born newborn, according to reports today:
http://news.yahoo.com/rosie-odonnell-wife-michelle-rounds-adopt-baby-girl-212503478.html
O'Donnell formerly funded and worked for a NJ adoption agency, Children of the World, which had reportedly handled her prior adoptions.
That agency was shut down by the state in 2007 for wrongful adoption practices.
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Thank you!
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Good luck with that New Year's resolution... but yes, Scott, I believe Tara is correct! Since you didn't take placement of any other child in 2012, you should be able to claim the funds lost in your failed match for last year? (Where is Suzi G. when we need her accounting expertise?)
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The adoption tax credit is now permanent but no longer refundable:
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An interesting perspective on intrafamily adoption, by someone whose family has been deeply affected by this process:
http://www.huffingto...html?ref=topbar
Abrazo recently interviewed a job applicant who announced in the course of the interview that she "has adoption in the family."
She proceeded to tell us that her nineteen-year-old brother was adopted as an infant but "doesn't know yet" despite the fact that the other family members do know and are keeping it a secret from him "until he's old enough to understand."
We did our best to educate her about the importance of openness and the rights of adoptees to know the truth of their origins.
(Suffice to say we won't be hiring her-- and her family won't be breaking the news to her brother anytime soon, unfortunately.)
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It's been awhile... anybody have any "baby steps" to offer for those who are brand new to the adoption universe and trying to get their bearings?
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I think one common misconception is that "open adoption (is supposed to) make things easier for the grown-ups." It doesn't. (Nor should it, frankly.) Open adoption can be complicated... messy, even (sometimes.) It takes work to make it work.
The primary purpose of open adoption is to provide the person(s) being adopted with lifelong information and ongoing access to their family of origin, understanding that they should not have to lose who rightfully belongs to them from the beginning just to belong with the parents who adopt them for a lifetime.
Roots are important, after all. They ground us. Yet roots aren't all that's needed... all growing things need nurture and sunshine and oxygen and water, those essential "extras" that make life possible.
It takes the love of both birthfamilies and adoptive families to raise wholly-loved adoptees. (And that takes unending effort on the part of all the parents, who have varying and changing needs of their own.) They don't always get along. They don't always agree on everything. They don't always appreciate the other as perhaps they should. These are challenges we encounter in nearly any human relationship, after all.
When open adoption relationships break down, it doesn't mean open adoption "doesn't work." It just means both parties aren't able to do what it takes to keep the relationship healthy, for whatever reason. Sometimes, they need time to work out individual problems; sometimes, they need space to recalibrate expectations or work through misunderstandings. Time-outs can sometimes be useful, if they don't result in permanent disruptions. Open adoption agreements can always be renegotiated but should never be completely abandoned, for the child's sake.
Any "open adoption relationship" is based on an agreement made between parents, committing themselves to a certain standard of contact and communication. It cannot and does not obligate the child who is adopted to be "in relationship" because that is the choice of each adoptee to make, upon adulthood (whether or not they choose to be "in relationship" with their family of origin.)
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Troubling reports are arising out of Ethiopia, suggesting that the problems reported in Guatemala and Vietnam are impacting Ethiopian adoptions, as well:
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More info, for those interested in doing designated adoptions, as to why they are gaining popularity nowadays:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/10/31/how-social-media-is-changing-adoption/
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As the single mom of boys who will have two parents who will be card-carrying members of AARP before they graduate from high school, I can't help but worry that they are likely to become "midlife orphans" (like me) by the time they're my age.
By choosing to not become a parent until I was 39, my sons reaped the benefit of having emotionally-mature parents who were also financially-secure, but the tradeoff is that their parents don't have the energy their classmates' younger parents may have, and may or may not have longevity on their side. (And being homegrown, their support system may be regrettably somewhat limited in that event.)
Up until this stage of my life, I've always believed fiercely that one "cannot be too old to be a good parent" and my agency's age policies for adoptive parents have reflected that.
However, I do think there are tradeoffs to every choice we make, and the downside for adoptees placed with older parents has to do with their capacity for compounded loss (ie., the reality that they may grow up suffering the loss of two sets of parents by adulthood.)
This may be another, unanticipated advantage to fully-open adoptions; that in essence, the adoptee could still have access to his/her birthparents of origin, should his/her older adoptive parents have a more limited lifespan than expected?
Yet we owe it to children who have had to be adopted to seek to shelter them from further losses, to whatever extent we're able, and sometimes I wonder whether working with adoptive applicants over fifty who are seeking to adopt only newborns really accomplishes that goal?
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I happened across this post today. I have my own theories about why a family with three bio-kids who only wants to adopt a girl under the age of three is finding it slow-going? But I think the ever-dropping numbers of American moms willing to consider adoption stand as a reminder of how much we should (as a society) appreciate those who do find the courage to place when doing so is in the best interests of their child/ren.
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Hannah posted a link to this on the private Facebook group for adoptive families, but I thought it was so remarkable, it needed to be shared here! So thank you, Hannah, and thank you, "K" (and her mom Carrie Goldman and Chicago Now), for helping to make this remarkable reflection ("I Want To Go Live With My Birthmother!") available to us all!
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Financing An Adoption
in Looking to Adopt
Posted
Great story, Mari!
I wonder if adoptees in closed adoptions are more sensitive to the financial issues because they weren't raised in the context of relationships that helped assure them their adoption was far more than a mere monetary transaction?
That said, though, I remember my horror at a placement more than 20 years ago, when an adoptive father waved the case estimate in the air and proclaimed "I'm gonna frame this and put it in the nursery to remind this kid what he owes me whenever he refuses to mow the lawn!"
He thought it was funny. (I sure didn't.)