Month: June 2009

“What Transracially Adopted Children Need from Their Parents” — This was the name of the session we went to yesterday (June 27) at the Bethany office in Indy.  It was delivered by one of the intercountry adoption specialists and involved different videos, activities, and lectures on various topics regarding transracial adoption.  Since we’re open to children of other races, we decided this would be a good session to attend, especially since this is a topic we don’t know a lot about.  The session was interesting and we got some good information from it.  One of the things that Chip and I agreed was something we hadn’t really thought about was the difference between the terms “race”, “ethnicity”, and “nationality”.  I think both of us used those terms interchangeably, but they really don’t mean the same things.  There are five racial groups in the U.S. (Caucasian, African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American).  So, when we talk about race, we’re talking about one of these five groupings.  Ethnicity (on the other hand) is a person’s place of origin…for example, our presenter was born in Korea, so her ethnicity is Korean.  Nationality is your place of citizenship…obviously this could mean different things for different people since some people have dual citizenship or are living in a country with a visa, but don’t have citizenship yet.  But, the bottom-line is that Chip and I used these words interchangeably without even thinking that there might be a difference.

In terms of adoption, I think the main thing I took out of the session is that we need to be advocates for our child in any circumstance and that we need to acknowledge and be sensitive to their feelings during different situations.  In addition, it’s important to speak to our child about what they might encounter and open the door to communication with our child if they want to talk about different experiences they may be having with other people regarding race.  The other thing is to make sure our child has interaction with people of all races and ethnic groups, no matter what race our child is.  So, those are the things I got out of the session.

In addition to learning a lot, this particular session was the last official requirement we had to meet to finish our homestudy.  So, right now we are waiting for our adoption specialist and the domestic adoption director to finalize our homestudy and approve us for adoption.  After that, we are finished with the homestudy process and our profile can be shown to birthmothers.  And so the wait begins!!

We wanted to share our adoption profile with you all.  The adoption profile is also sometimes known as a “Dear Birthmother Letter.”  It is this profile which birthmothers use to select the right family to parent their baby.  After reading through the letters, Bethany will arrange a face-to-face meeting for the couple of the birthmother’s choice at a neutral location.  So this letter is designed to market us at our best — both who we are and what we like to do.   You can see our profile, either by clicking on this link, or by going to our “Adoption Profile” page, linked at the right under the “About” page.

Now is probably also a good time to point out one of the things we learned at our last meeting — privacy of the mother.  When Bethany arranges a face-to-face meeting with a birthmother, we might be able to post that a meeting took place, but we definitely won’t be able to post any more information about the mother.  To publicly post information about who she is, or anything about her or her pregnancy, could be a real risk for her and the baby, depending on her circumstances.  So for the safety of all, we won’t be able to say anything about her here.

On Tuesday, June 16, we went to a pre-placement preparation meeting.  Basically this meeting is to prepare us for the time after we are approved by the agency and when a baby is actually placed with us.  We talked a lot about the match meeting — where we get to meet the birthparent(s) who have chosen us.  We also talked about the hospital plan — what will happen after the baby is born in the hospital, when will we arrive, when will we actually sign the paperwork, etc.  We also talked a bit about positive adoption language, bonding with an adopted infant, and how to talk to our child about adoption.  We thought we might post a little bit more about some of these topics in the future and maybe include some links to different web sites and other resources that talk about these topics.  Overall, the night was very informative and we got a refresher on some information we already knew and also received some new information about different topics.

On another note, we have mailed our profiles to the agency.  They should arrive there tomorrow.  In the next day or two we will also be emailing our online profile with the pictures we’d like to include.  It’s very exciting that our homestudy process is almost complete.  Next weekend we will be going to our education session on Transracial Adoptions.  This is an important topic if we do end up adopting a baby of a different race, so we’re really looking forward to this session.  After that, it is just a matter of Bethany telling us we’ve been approved and then…we wait and see what God has planned for us!!

So Wednesday, we had our third meeting with the adoption specialist.  Yes, that’s the final 2-on-1 meeting with her, and yes, it’s the one where she came to the house.  The house visit is like any other visit, in that we sit down and discuss our lives so she can evaluate our suitability as an adoptive family, but unlike the other visits, we get to show off our beautiful house to her.  Technically, she is there to make sure the house is a safe environment for us to raise a child in, with enough space for the child, though in our case it was more of an opportunity to show off the house, since there really was no question about the safety of the house.  Thankfully, our new sofa for the den arrived Tuesday, so we were able to show off the completed den as well!

Our discussion this time focused mostly on the community we are living in.  What do we like about it or not, what kind of people are in our neighborhood, what options for diversity are there, etc.  The meeting started at 9am, and we wrapped up around 12:30pm.  I’m not sure if all people’s meetings with their specialist are as long as ours, but Kristina and I are talkers, and very proud of our lives thus far, so enjoy talking to other people about it.  Then we went back and wrapped up loose ends — questions she didn’t get to in prior sessions.  (For example, we had discussed my job at length, but not Kristina’s, so we went back and talked about that).

She also confirmed for us that our paperwork is all in — thanks to our letter writers for getting your part in!  So, we have two things left that we have to do, and then she has to write her evaluation up, and then we’ll be on the list.  The two remaining things are (1) a pre-placement info session where they educate us about the process between now and placement, and (2) attending an education information session.  The first is Tuesday next week, and the second we are attending on June 27th.  Both are in Indianapolis at the agency office.  There are actually educational sessions about once a month, and we can attend as many as we want, but are required to attend one before our profile can be shown.  The one on the 27th is about transracial adoption, which is potentially important for us since we are open to adoptive children of many races.  So we had thought we would be done on the 27th, though our specialist told us she won’t be able to get the report done before the end of the month, so realistically, we won’t go on the list until early July.

We asked her how we would know we were “approved”, and she reminded us that not only would we get a letter from the agency, but that at that point we are to pay the “advertising” portion of the fee, so of course we’ll know.  Then it’s mostly a matter of waiting and praying.  Our adoption specialist suggested that we take this time to do the things we can still do as a child-less couple.