Ok this bugs me
Dec 31, 2003 Adoption
I’m obsessively reading adoption boards right now. I go on and off being into them; I’m into them right now.
There are some discussions about living expenses and I don’t know anything about the legalities of all of that because at our agency, adoptive parents don’t pay living expensies. I don’t know if that’s an Ohio law or just our agency’s policy or, frankly, just the program that I’m in. I do know that adoptive parents can be accountable for medical expenses but in our program, we are only accountable for the baby’s medical expenses, which will be paid for by our insurance.
Anyway, on one of the discussions someone said something along the lines of, “My attorney says this is a good situation and there isn’t much chance of her changing her mind [the potential birthmom isn't due for two more months] so it’s worth paying her the money.”
Basically, it’s worth the risk because the lawyer feels the potential birthmom is going to place the baby.
This makes me crazy-nutso. Let’s not even get into the whole “paying birthmom” debate, let’s just talk about these unscrupulous lawyers and facilitators and agencies who make these kinds of ridiculous promises.
I asked our social worker about this because our agency really emphasizes that a match is just a match — not a baby guarantee. There’s always always always a 50% chance mom will parent and there’s just no telling until she’s had the baby and time to think. Now I expect people outside of adoption to have trouble with that. Many people in my life — friends and family — would say, “Congratulations on your match! It’s like you’re pregnant now!” or “So then you’re expecting!” No, I would explain, a woman who is unsure of her parenting plan is expecting and she’s thinking of placing her baby with us. The emphasis is on her dilemma and eventual solution — of which we’re a possible part — and not on our baby hopes. Even women who are dedicated to their birthplans change their minds, even ones who swear they won’t. A baby in arms is a really different thing than is a baby in utero. Like I said, I get that this is hard to understand outside of the adoption triad but when adoption professionals don’t get it, well, that pisses me off. Especially when they lead on their clients.
Anyway, our social worker said that they do targeted adoptions, too, which is where they facilitate an adoption for someone who has found a birthmother on their own. This might be someone who did it privately or who used another agency, lawyer or facilitator. Recently (last week, to be exact) they had a birthmom who was coming to our agency through another agency and so she was being counseled by other social workers. Our agency’s social workers met with her, too, for the paperwork and they found out that the other agency’s worker was calling the birthmom and saying, “You owe it to those parents to place. She’s sobbing right now. Do you have any idea how much you’re upsetting them???”
How sick is that??? This is how some agencies and attorneys can make those kinds of promises. If they were honest with their clients they would say, it’s always 50/50.
One thing that really reassures me is that our agency tells the potential birthmoms to erase us from the picture when they’re making a decision. They say, “The waiting parents will get a baby; you don’t need to feel bad for them.”
“I don’t know any parent who wants to take a baby away from a woman who wants to parent him,” said my social worker. Neither do I, but I hear tell of plenty of adoption professionals who aren’t quite that picky.
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Tags: our agency
Good/Bad
Dec 31, 2003 The Story of My Life
Good things:
–My friend has offered me her entire supply of Indisposables cloth diapers! (I said yes, thank you.)
–We have a playdate today with friends we are missing.
–I am feeling all warm and fuzzy over some particularly nice comments — thank you!!!
–My not-to-be-boss thinks it’s funny that I thought she would be mad that I turned down the job.
Bad things:
–We still don’t have a shower and I am tired of taking baths.
–I turn 34 in a couple of weeks and I still forget and tell people I’m 32. How am I going to remember to add yet another year???
–I’ve been letting some of my less kind feelings drive my blogging for the past week.
Good/Bad things:
–The neighbors brought over a dozen Krispy Kremes last night.
Looks like good wins!
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The unbelievable truth
Dec 31, 2003 Parenting
I’m a feminist, as you all know, and I am also ambitious, which may not quite come through here on my blog as it does in my real life. I used to want a career in a high-rise and I still definitely want a book that will do well enough to inspire me to go to my 20th high school reunion. Because of my feminism and my ambition, there were a bunch of people who were surprised when they found out I had decided to stay home with Noah. Well, they shouldn’t have been.
When I was twenty I took a paycut to get a job working as a daycare teacher. I loved slinging children around on my hip. I also loved wiping noses, finding lost crayons and patting backs during naptime. Not only did I love it, I was also very good at it.
I changed my career plans and started thinking about being a child therapist. I still didn’t think I would be at home with my own kids because all of that youthful ambition was roiling around in my head. And even though I knew that caring for children is a worthy occupation, I guess I wanted prestige, too, which is hard to come by as a daycare worker.
When I started working at the shelter, I also got baby hunger in earnest — something I’d been fighting since I was twenty and took that daycare job. First I had to graduate then I had to work on Brett (actually I was working on him during that last year of classes) and finally I had to conceive and quit miscarrying. But I got Noah eventually and as soon as he showed up, all was right in my world.
I didn’t have that mind blowing experience that some women have when they discover that mothering is really hard. I mean, it was physically way harder than I thought it would be. For example, Noah didn’t sleep through the night until he was more 3+ and I night weaned him. Yes, for the first three years of his life, my getting a four hour stretch of sleep was a rare thing indeed. That was kinda hard. But I didn’t feel that awful “why didn’t anyone tell me?” feeling. I had been working professional with children for seven years by the time Noah showed up, not counting my teen-age babysitting experience. I know that caring for children was hard but also I knew that there was a chink in my heart missing that could only be filled up by parenting.
Everyone said that I changed when I had Noah. I smoothed out, I got happier, I became more calm. I know that I became more myself. I felt totally centered and right.
The part that was hard for me was finding out that cultural expectations didn’t jive with my experience. As an ambitious, feminist woman, I didn’t feel I had cultural role models who echoed my experience. Iconic women with whom I identified as a feminist didn’t seem to understand the transformation that had mothering had created in me. What does Gloria Steinem know from motherhood? Also the world has changed for the better for many (not all) of us; my pro-feminist husband always values my work here at home and does his fair share of work to maintain it. Why wasn’t I stir-crazy and miserable?
La Leche League and the attachment parenting community became my mothering home in large part because saying “I love being with my baby” didn’t produce an outcry of dismay. I could say, “I never plan on going back to a 9 to 5 job if I don’t have to,” and people would nod, understanding. I could say, “Noah is still waking up every night and I don’t think he’s ready to wean but I’d really like some sympathy,” and no one would tell me I was crazy for putting up with it.
Within LLL and the AP community, I found other feminists like me who were able to jettison cultural expectations and do what felt right for themselves and their families. In my real life world, I am fortunate to be surrounded by women with a diversity of backgrounds and future plans who are all feminist-minded and who are all at-home with their kids. When I talk about my problems, whether it’s sleepless nights or a budget in the red, I know that I will find support that doesn’t demand that I change my values. I’m proud of us, that we won’t abandon our feminism even when it seems like the cultural institution seems to have forgotten us.
I’ve been thinking about this because of my decision not to take the job I was offered. A couple of people (my father being the loudest) asked why I just didn’t hire someone to come in and take care of the baby while I worked. After all, we need the money and I like to work. But here’s the thing, I have waited an awfully long time for this baby and dammit, I’m going to indulge myself.
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Tags: Brett, daycare, feminism, feminist, high school, Noah, Shelter
A good story
Dec 30, 2003 Adoption
I just talked to our social worker, Denise, because I needed some cheering up. Our good news is that we’re almost at the top of the list now. The couple ahead of us want what is essentially a closed adoption (will not share pictures of themselves or names or anything) so their wait is likely to be longer. The agency has placed four babies in the last week and another potential birthmom is in labor today. She wasn’t due ’til mid-January and no one had heard from her for awhile so her social worker figured that she decided to parent but V. (potential birthmom) said she’s taking the profiles with her to the hospital. The social workers really feel that she is going to end up parenting.
“But,” said Denise. “We’ve been surprised before.”
Which brings me to a story with a happy ending. The couple at the top of the list was matched with a potential birthmom who was due just before Christmas. The baby was born on the 21st and the birthmom said she was set on her adoption plan. Three days later on Christmas eve, an hour before the adoptive parents were set to go pick up the baby, she changed her mind and decided to parent. The waiting parents were crushed and spent a really unhappy Christmas. Well, this past Sunday a different birthmom who originally planned on parenting — and who gave birth Christmas day — changed her mind and decided to place after all. She asked the agency to place the baby with the couple who had been waiting the longest and so they did get a baby after all. Talk about a roller coaster, eh?
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Proactive
Dec 30, 2003 Adoption
I just answered a comment that was posted to the entry below and thought I’d bring it up here.
I know that there are lots of people pursuing domestic adoption who are way more proactive than we are about getting their match. They might register with more than one agency or attorney, they might do a lot of networking, they might advertise or post their profile on various sites.
Brett and I made a conscious decision not to do these things. To use religious terminology, we are not “led” to do them; it wouldn’t feel right to us. Why? Hmmm. Well, part of it is that we want an in-state adoption so we haven’t looked at out-of-state agencies or attorneys. The other bigger part of it is that we have faith in our agency.
We’re sure that the right baby will come to us and even though the wait is hard, this feels like our path. We know our agency’s placement rates and we know that we will eventually get our baby. Searching harder for our match would be stressful and expensive and I just don’t feel all that driven to pursue things that much. Passive we may be but we also feel like this wait is part of what we’re meant to experience.
It’s difficult to explain to anyone who feels “led” to do things differently. Fortunately, people get to do things their own way and don’t have to understand but I thought it was worth a shot to try and explain it.
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Tags: Brett, networking, our agency