Adoption: Fears, Misconceptions & How To Confront Them
By: Dave Drew
Tags: Parenting, Baby, Fertility, Motherhood, Adoption

Our first child was naturally born. It took years, trying every method available. Once it happened and he was born, we tried again, for years. Eventually, we were told that the likelihood of us successfully conceiving on our own again, was infinitesimally low. Our first childbirth was a miracle and we weren’t going to have another one.

After many years and countless dramatic transitions that went along with attempting to conceive, my wife and I finally became open to considering adoption. Changing course rather slowly in some ways and abruptly in others, we abandoned the idea of another natural conception. Knowing our blue-eyed baby boy wasn’t going to have a biological brother was a dream we had to let go. The odds were overwhelmingly stacked against us. We just accepted it.

We considered ourselves fortunate, but still wanting. We were already more fortunate than others, but we saw the reality of the situation, eventually through the lens of, well…pain. The reality was that our quality of life was suffering badly as a result of the never-ending failures we were enduring while trying to conceive again. Oh, and I almost forgot, my wife almost died one of those times. So yeah, we considered adopting. We felt like we had so much more love to give. Coming from large families, my wife and I agreed we should give it a go. We decided.

Setting out, we had a million questions and I figure others do too. In the hopes that our experience will help anyone struggling with adoption or with the challenges that come along with it, I wanted to share how we stumbled through our decision-making process, as I see it today. I’ll focus on the biggest things we encountered in the hopes it will shed light on someone else’s path. There were a lot of decisions to make.

Local or International

Immediately, we needed to decide how and where to try and adopt. You hear so many stories about how these things go sideways. Scams, illegal kid-selling, amazingly high cost, open v. closed adoption, and the like. Our neighbor had a wonderful girl they adopted from China. Their story inspired us and made us think that we would love to have an adopted Chinese baby. Growing up in the eighties, we still had stories in our heads about how they were probably murdering baby girls in China in order to keep population growth controlled, so the idea of “saving” one of them was appealing. Overdramatic much?

Seriously though, it made little sense to us that friends of ours were going across the globe multiple times in order to adopt children from Asia when there were kids just a couple miles down the road without parents. It was tough to reconcile our predispositions and fears which included concerns about race, drugs, special needs and local lineage. Would we run into the parents at the store some day? How would we react? Could we be parents to a non-white kid? Were we up for THAT challenge? Did we have to be? We took long hard looks at ourselves, our motives for wanting to be adoptive parents and our capacity to handle all the unknowns that could come our way. Was it selfish? Was is selfless? Was it worth it? No cliffhangers here, it was all of those.

I’d recommend a comprehensive self-assessment including identifying motives and preparedness to anyone considering adoption. We did that. Ultimately, we thought we could handle most of what might come our way as a result of adopting locally. Of course, you can’t prepare for everything, so I did what I always do…I looked up and asked, “Hey, I can’t handle this. Can you help me figure it out?”

A friend introduced us to another couple who had adopted locally. Talking face to face with people who had actual experience with local adoption was key for us to get to the next step. I’d recommend this step to anyone considering adoption. You may not hear everything you want to hear, but you’ll want some unbiased input from a third party with experience as you progress. After an exhaustive talk and a million questions, we decided to call the place they used, Catholic Charities.

The Money

Maybe not the second decision for everyone…but I will admit, a major part of my initial decision-making process took the price tag into consideration. My wife would put this one further down the list in terms of priority than I would, I’m sure. Let’s face it, on its surface, especially if you have good health insurance, adoption seems much more expensive than having a baby naturally. Our research estimated that it would cost between $15,000 and $40,000 with international adoption being more toward the expensive side. There are upfront costs for lawyers, fees, travel and proceedings that are not involved with birth. We had a little money but really, we were paycheck to paycheck at that point. New house, new cars, new baby, new debt. The American Dream. “What the heck, we’ll figure it out!”

When we met with the social worker from Catholic Charities, we started down our list of questions. We assumed that since this was a charitable organization that maybe this was a service they provided free of charge. We were wrong, and yes…awfully naïve. During our first conversation we found out about the fee. They charged 10% of your gross annual income or $8000, whichever is higher. For us, since we filed taxes together and were married, we were in the 10% bracket. We were nervous but determined, still. The cost also supported our decision to stay local. I’ll tell you, I still have a little resentment over the charge though. Self-righteously, I figured we were doing the community a service and besides, we needed that money to raise the new child. Didn’t they understand that?

As it turns out, there was another thing about the money we hadn’t considered. We lived in NY but there was a federal adoption tax credit that was expiring that year. At the time, the government was offering a $10,000 tax credit that could be used for fees associated with adoption including lawyers, travel and other money spent. The problem for us was that we had to get a loan and in order to claim the credit, and timing was definitely an issue. You see, you can claim the adoption deduction on your year-end tax return, which for most folks with regular jobs means you get your tax return sometime in February or March. Compound this by the fact that you cannot make the claim until the adoption is finalized by your state government. We are in NY where this process takes between one to two years to finalize. The good news, considering how long this would all take, was that you can claim expenses over a two-year period.

Today, adoption tax credits at the federal level still exist. The IRS website is easy to read and interpret. For reference, information on adoption tax credits and rules, can be found here: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc607. It will also pay (literally) to find out about your state’s rules on taxes related to adoption. There may be additional tax credits to be found.

For us, while it was tough, we managed to handle the loan payment until we received the tax credit for the money we’d spent. Moving on.

Public or Private Adoption

Another choice was whether to adopt privately or publicly. Private adoption involves birth parents making the decision to put their child up for adoption. It is a voluntary process. Alternatively, public adoption (fostering) is the process by which children are placed with foster parents who may later move through the adoption process but may also be returned to birth parents or be placed in other foster families.

Both these options scared the hell out of us. On the one hand, we wanted a baby. On the other, once we started down the path, the parts of us that simply wanted to take care of other children started to grow and strengthen too. We were opening up in new ways but were still apprehensive about whether we could handle fostering a child. I mean, how do you handle the myriad issues that could go along with caring for a child who, for example, was removed by mandate from a parent. We didn’t think we could handle the child potentially, be taken away from us without our permission. We admire people who foster children but at that time, it wasn’t the right choice for us.

Deciding to adopt privately came along with its own set of ancillary fears. How long would it take? Would the birth mother be stable? How would the new child mesh with our family? These were just some of our concerns. The biggest question we had was, once placed in our family, could the child be taken away from us? I remember going around and around on this with my wife. It was positively terrifying and more so when we found out that the answer was yes.

Once placed, we learned that there was a period where the birth mother could “change her mind.” It was thirty days. Let me cut to the chase and let you know that these don’t feel like regular days. They feel like years. Thirty of the tensest, most petrifying days ever. What made this more complicated was that of the birth father had been known but not contacted, this period would have been six months. You’ll want to check with your adoption attorney, the organization your working with and the laws in your state, which can vary, to gain a full understanding of this risk. During our process, we were informed that even after the initial custodial agreement papers were signed and the baby was in our home, nothing would be legally “final” until the process had concluded in court, and again, in our state that could take up to two years. Finding this out, you can guess…we were scared as ever…again. We still decided to continue forward.

Open or Closed Adoption

This was another bit of a gamble in some ways, we thought. When asked whether we’d like an open or closed adoption, we had to go back to the pros and cons list and figure out what we could handle. Closed adoption meant that there would be no contact between the birth parent(s) and the adoptive family/child. Would that be healthy? What if we wanted more contact? What if we chose a closed adoption and all of the birth mothers chose open? Would we know? Could we change it? This was real.

As for open adoption, that usually comes with some form communication between the birth parents, the adoptive family and the adopted child. This communication could also include visitation. The terms of these arrangements are all up for negotiation so if you choose an open adoption, you should do so carefully, considering the terms you will (and will not) be comfortable with. Every situation is different.

For us, I guess the priority came down to how willing we were to be matched up quickly. Deciding on an open adoption was ultimately where we landed. We knew that the more open we were, the more likely we were to be matched.

We considered the future perspective of our adopted child too. You hear stories about adopted children searching for birth parents all their lives, as the result of sealed adoption records. We wanted our child to know where they came from, and as much as possible, have a path back someday if they chose to pursue that. We thought it could also be helpful for medical and emotional reasons.

From the perspective of the birth parents, in many cases, there is natural apprehension. The idea that this life changing decision is forever, is hard enough. Considering whether to sever the connection completely vs. leaving the door open in some small ways is more acceptable, more often. We understood this, though alongside the risk of the mother changing her mind, we still struggled.

My wife and I agreed to move forward with an open adoption which required a few in person meetings early on yearly letters up through five years. I’ll just touch on one further point. Having an open adoption plan made it easier to plan for communication with our future adopted child. We were resolved to keep our internal communication open between us and our adopted child. We planned never to hold anything back or be dishonest in any way, ever. It was just what we had to do.

The Menu

All agencies are different in terms of how they pair prospective parents with adopted children. Our understanding at first was that we were going to be put on some astronomically long waiting list and be told to “hurry up and wait.” I suppose this is the case with some processes, but it was not our experience. Our social worker at Catholic Charities informed us that the process we’d go through was not of the “first come first serve” variety. It was a matching process. Based on the home study that would be completed and the social worker’s guidance, if paired with a birth parent, it would be based on the best fit for them, and for our family. The most optimal path toward that match, we learned, was by being as open as possible.

There are horror stories out there. We heard them. Parents showing up trying to take legally placed children back. Kids growing up completely in the dark about the fact they were adopted. There were so many unknowns. As I write this, I have no idea how we even navigated these waters. We were fresh off the latest battle with our own infertility, fighting to keep our footing in what sometimes looked like A Brave New World. I remember leaving the adoption office after our initial appointment with what I refer to as, “The Menu.”

It’s crude to call it a menu. I know. It’s just how it felt. Were we really supposed to go home and figure out which criteria we wanted our own little human being to fit into? I mean, it was surreal. Disabilities, predispositions, history, ethnicity and race were all on the menu. About the only thing we couldn’t choose to accept or deny was gender. I’ll tell you what though, I learned a lot about myself as a result of that exercise. It took a few passes at filling out that menu for me to really get honest about who I was, what my intentions were and why I was willing to accept certain characteristics and oppose others. It changed my perspective and it changed my life. It really did. After that, we were ready.

The Home Study

While I did things like clean the house and fold the laundry, my wife started writing a full background on our family history. I wanted the social worker to get a great impression of the place where our adopted child would live, and my wife provided the basis and the background details for why we were going to be a great fit for the new little one. I don’t want to say we were “selling ourselves,” but we were. I had to be careful not to exaggerate and try and remain as humble as possible. My wife just tells it like it is so the interview process went well for us. By the end of the Home Study process, we had the impression that were in a good place. This was about two months after our first appointment with Catholic Charities. Shortly after that, we got a call. A mother wanted to meet us.

The First Meeting

We had no idea what to expect. We walked in the left side of an old two-family house that Catholic Charites was using at the time to run its adoption program from. My general sense of the meeting was that everyone wanted to be comfortable but no one was. My wife and I tried to be very welcoming, putting on our best “it’s gonna be ok” faces, but that’s easier said than done. I mean, try to get a feel for this. To her, she sees two parents with a son and what looks like a well-adjusted household. We don’t know — but we assume — it must have taken an enormous amount of courage for her to begin a process like this. The position we are all in is one of dependence. The symbiosis of it all is striking. We each have a vastly different problems yet we hold the others’ solution. all we have to do is work together. We knew it would be something special if we could just bridge the expansive gap between our hopefulness and her hopefulness. There’s no doubt about it though, the things we each wanted as individuals were almost diametrically opposite. Where we easily meet, however, was on the premise that we all wanted the best possible outcome for the baby.

There are a million more details here, but I’ll just let you know that she chose us and we chose her. The home study went well, we figured out the finances and our collective plans were in motion! She was pregnant and, in a few months, she would have the baby. We were elated.

Real Life

Sticking together through the tough times

For the first time in years we had the opportunity to go on a really cool, extended vacation. We were headed to South Florida for a week, then to the Outer Banks for another week. My job meant that two-week-consecutive vacations were not usually possible. There was one problem, the vacation spanned right over the new baby’s due date. We notified the adoption agency and reluctantly, we decided to go on the trip. We also made contingency plans to fly home at the first indication of any news. We were “on call,” so to speak. We went. Nothing. Crickets.

When we got back, we called the social worker and conveyed our confusion excitedly, about not having heard anything. Then we got the great news. The baby girl was born and was healthy! There was only one problem. The birth mother changed her mind. She was keeping the baby.

So, there we were. Freshly tanned and completely heartbroken. We knew it for the best. It simply wasn’t the right time. How many times have we comforted ourselves with that one? When the rubber meets the road like that, you find out if you really meant those things you said about wanting the best for the baby. You find yourself believing that you know what’s best, in fact. We had been through the wringer. Another cyclone of elbow-smashing, brain-busting highs and lows. We thought the fertility process was tough? Damn. This was worse. There we were again. Defeated. Should we give up?

The Happy Ending

As fate would have it, we did not give up. We wouldn’t. Reluctant as ever to board the ride again, a couple weeks later they paired us with another mother. She was very young and very nervous. So were we…again. And again, we pressed on, albeit with a few more bruises and another battle scar. Or were they badges? Whatever. Amazingly, within a month after that, baby Colin was home with us. We took him home from the hospital at eight days old. He is the light of my life. A second miracle. Go figure.