This Forever Family

It’s been a long time since we posted, so I decided to post on a topic that has come up during many of our previous meetings and sessions throughout this adoption process.  Bonding is an important issue with all new parents.  Throughout our homestudy process and through articles we have read, we have come across a few suggestions on bonding with an adopted child.  One suggestion that appears most often is  that adoptive parents should limit the number of people who feed the baby.  Feeding time is one of the most intimate times in a newborn’s life and it is important for the adoptive parents to experience that intimacy, whether or not the mother is planning to breastfeed.  So, in light of this, please don’t be offended if we don’t offer to let you feed the new baby…we really are just trying to bond with our child.

Here are some articles that have further suggestions on how to bond with an adopted child.

Connecting Through Everyday Baby Care

Ask the Doctor: Promoting Attachment

So you can now see our profile online here.

One of the things which they cover in our adoption preparation classes is the use of respectful, or positive adoption language.  There is, in our culture, something called “Adoptism”, which is a lot like any other “ism”, where people are prejudiced against a certain group of people.  Just like many other “isms”, this often is something people aren’t even aware of.  But it’s very obvious in questions asked of the child, such as “have you ever met your ‘real’ mother?”  It’s the idea that adoption is a second-class way to build a family, and adoptive parents are lesser parents than those who bring children into their families biologically.  So one of the important ways we can combat adoptism is to promote the use of positive language when talking to families built through adoption and when talking about adoption in general.

What people using such statements don’t realize is how much pain they can cause members of an adoptive family.  An adopted child does indeed have two families, each important in their own right.  Our blog title is in fact based out of this language—an adopted child has both a “first” family and a “forever” family.  The goal is to be respectful to both situations, and to talk about them in a way that let’s everyone know that an adopted child is being loved and cared about by both families.

Below are links to some articles we have found about positive adoption language that we will be using when talking about adoption.  We don’t necessarily think everyone should memorize these list of terms, but we did want to make sure everyone close to us understands how the way we talk about adoption can affect those in the adoption community.  We would also happily discuss any questions anyone has about this topic.

http://www.perspectivespress.com/pjpal.html

http://fellowshipzone.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1634&p=19832

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/pdf/PositiveLanguage.pdf

Since the period between now and placement will be mostly waiting and praying, we thought we would write about a variety of adoption related topics.  This might be discussing the process, things we find interesting, reflections on articles we read in adoptive books and magazines, or just posts about how we’re feeling.  One such topic involves a part of the process at Bethany: the “Match Meeting”.

Now, every adoption agency does this part of the process a little differently.  At Bethany, the matching process begins with the profile that each couple prepares.   You can see ours on this site (see the links to the side) if you haven’t already.  Next, no earlier than a birth mother’s 6th month or so (possibly later depending on her specific process), Bethany looks at a Mother’s (and Father’s where possible) preferences, and matches that up with the background acceptance statement that each couple makes.  The background acceptance statement is basically how a couple indicates their openness to different kinds of adoptions, from race to risks and other preferences.  A Bethany birth-parent counselor then meets with the Birth-Mother, and shows her all the profiles of appropriate waiting couples.  She, along with any of her supporting family or friends look through these profiles, and pick out who they think would best parent their child.  Possibly, they pick out an additional couple as well, but Bethany asks that the mother make a first choice.

Bethany then arranges a “match meeting”, a face-to-face meeting (when time permits) between the birth-family and the waiting couple, to be held at a neutral location the birth-family is comfortable with.  The match meeting is attended by the waiting couple, the birth-mother (and someone to support her at her discretion), and the birth-mother’s counselor from Bethany.  We had originally thought that the adoptive couple counselor might be invited too, but in our preparation, Bethany explained that it was very important for the waiting couple to not outnumber the birth family support, as that can be intimidating.  At the meeting, everyone talks.  We describe ourselves, and the birth mother describes herself.  It’s a time for each of us to ask questions, though of course some questions are not appropriate.  We are told that it is generally a very emotional meeting, which makes sense when you think about it.  Everyone needs each other — the birth-mother is looking for a couple to parent her child, and the waiting couple needs a birth-mother for the selection.  A lot rides on this decision, and everyone is scared and hopeful at the same time.  At this point, though the birth-mother has chosen the waiting couple, there is no match yet.  The point of the meeting is to help everyone be comfortable with the match.  But everyone comes into the meeting vulnerable, hoping to make the perfect match and hoping that everyone likes each other, but everyone has the concern that it won’t work out.

This is also why it is critical for our profile to reflect who we are accurately.  A waiting couple is selected based on their profile, but the match meeting makes the whole situation more real, and gives everyone that personal connection.  If our profile is not who we are, then the match meeting can be one of the most awkward and disappointing situations imaginable.

After the meeting concludes, the birth-parent counselor talks first with the waiting couple, and then the birth-family, to get their impression of how the meeting went.  If everything went well, and the birth-mother wants to make a match, the waiting couple is notified and their profile is placed on hold for the duration.

We received our official approval letter from Bethany on Saturday, July 11, 2009.  At this point, we will be mailing back the form (which simply says we agree to everything we’ve already been told about the process) and initial payment.  The initial payment pays for the homestudy process we just completed and marketing/advertising they will be doing on our behalf.  Once they receive those, they will begin showing our profile to birthmothers.  And so the waiting begins.  It could be a few months or it could be over a year.  We just don’t have any idea at this point and in reality, the only person who has control over this is God.  So, we pray that He provides us with the patience and trust to get through this waiting period, knowing at the end we will be parents and begin the next phase of our lives.

“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.

So I went to the facility to get my lab-work done. The woman checking me in glanced at the paperwork from the doctor, whose “diagnosis” box on the form read “adoption screening”. She asked me, straight-faced, if I was getting adopted. We laughed. She expressed amazement that I had to go through so much effort to be qualified for adoption. I thus got the opportunity to explain to her that it was all about the safety of the child, that the doctor had to verify that I was neither dying (faster than other people) nor using drugs which might promote an unsafe environment for the baby.

Granted, it was inconvenient having to wait 15 minutes to be checked in, then another 10 minutes before they drew blood for the lab-work, but as I keep being reminded, all decisions in adoption are made on behalf of the child, not for the convenience or preference of the adults involved.