This was the topic I spoke about at Thursday night’s adoptive families gathering for Open Adoption and Family Services in Seattle. 

On a scale of one to ten, how are we on our adoption journey:  one feeling discouraged, unhopeful and ten feeling exuberantly joyful about the future.  Most adoptive parents can find themselves all over this spectrum throughout their adoption journey.  At first, once the paperwork is in, there is a feeling of accomplishment and progress and adoptive parents can feel pretty high.  As time passes, and the wait extends sometimes beyond what we had thought we could handle, emotions shift to more pessimistic ones, less hopeful, some anxiousness surfaces. 

Human beings are always in an emotion.  When things are going great, it may seem like we’re not impacted by emotions at all.  Yet, we may be in the emotion of: joy, happiness, or excitement.  When our expectations of what should be happening are not meeting the reality of what is happening, then emotions like sadness, disappointment, irritation, or anger may surface. 

“We are never not in an emotion,” says my friend and colleague, Carol Courcy says, in her 20 year study of Emotional Fitness.  We do have the ability to become aware of our emotions and to shift into a new emotion that we desire and that may serve us better.

Shifting emotions requires first of all that we become aware of the emotions that we are expressing.  Awareness is the first step along the journey of emotional fitness.  Recognizing patterns of emotions that we are in is helpful in shifting to new emotions.  Sometimes we embody a predominant emotion or mood that we have a habit of living in.  We see this in people who may live in a perpetual mood of resentment, or a perpetual mood of ambition.  Over time our bodies take the shape of the moods we are most in the habit of living in.  So shifting our physical shape from contracted to open, for example, can shift our mood from one of hopelessness to one of curiosity and excitement.  Our awareness of the interplay between our moods and how we are showing up physically (our body disposition and shape) is part of developing our own somatic awareness.  This is another step along emotional fitness which I will be discussing in my next blog post.

Written by an adoptive child and psychologist, Joyce Maguire Pavao, The Family of Adoption takes a look at the whole system of adoption (birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptive children at various stages of development).  Well written and full of powerful stories to illustrate important themes in adoption.  I recommend to all involved in adoption.

Of particular interest to me was Pavao’s discussion of secrecy vs. privacy.  The history of adoption in the United States comes from a tradition of secrecy: closed adoptions, missing and intentionally omitted information on adoptive children’s birth records, social worker matching children to adoptive parents by physical traits so “no one would know,” and the taboo of talking about adoption in families.  This secrecy is one that obfuscates and that inevitably leads to confusing and painful discoveries for all involved in “the family of adoption.”

Privacy on the other hand is important to consider as a way to protect the adoptive child’s story.  Becoming an adoptive parent after a journey of travails is often an exciting moment.  In that moment there may be an effusive spilling of the details of the adoptive child’s story of arrival.  And although there is nothing wrong with sharing the story, it’s important to realize that until a child is older, the adoptive parents are the keepers of their child’s sacred story of creation.  So share carefully and with friends and family who can be trusted to hold sacred your child’s story.

For transracial families, where the adoptive parents are of a different race or national origin from their adoptive child or children, the issue of privacy comes up more often.  When a child is of a different race than the adoptive parents, people are curious and want to know the story.  There is always a moment of choice of what and how much to share in the most public of places.  I remember being asked when my child was an infant in the market or at the grocery store, “where is she from?”  Because she is biracial and I’m white, often people assumed that she was from another country, China or Guatemala, places from where it was known that people were adopting children.   She is from the good old USA, about 20 miles south of where I live.  Transracial families bump into all sorts of assumptions and public narratives.  There is a sense of others around us wanting to put us into a certain category.  The people around us want to make sense for themselves of the differences they perceive.  And although there may not be any negative intention on the part of the curious, there is always for me a desire to hold my child’s story sacred.  Adoptive parents are the stewards of their children’s story until they are old enough to decide for themselves with whom and how they want to share their story.

3.  How much does it cost?

You’ve probably also heard that adoptions are expensive.  Yes, and so is life!  Truly, anything of a transformational, life giving nature will cost money.  It costs money to raise children too.

The cost of adoptions varies from less than a thousand dollars to upwards of $35,000.  Why the huge range?  The least expensive adoptions tend to be foster to adopt situations where foster and adoptive parents receive government assistance during the process.  The most expensive options are international adoptions.  In some cases there are unexpected costs such as travel costs, time away from work (loss of income), birthmother living expenses and health care costs.

Two things to keep in mind about cost:

1) What are your fees paying for and are those expenses aligned with your values?
2) Adoption is not a time for bargain shopping.

When looking at expenses, consider how your money is being spent.  Are your fees going to one person to help facilitate an adoption?  Are your fees contributing to the well being of the birthmother of your future child?  In an agency adoption for example, your fees could be contributing to on going counseling and support of birth families.  In a private adoption or facilitated adoption you may be asked to support a birth mother’s living expenses during her pregnancy.  There’s quite a range of possibilities. 

It’s important to take a look at how your adoption dollars are being spent and assess how aligned the expenses are with your values.  There are also legal implications in the question of what are you paying for.  Consider consulting an attorney (sooner rather than later) who specializes in adoption law in your State about the regulations surrounding support for birthparent expenses.

You may feel called to foster a toddler or older child in a foster to adopt process.  The staggering statistics about children in foster care can certainly pull on your heartstrings.  There are financial advantages to this option that are not available in agency or private adoptions (including international).  There are also different demands on adoptive parents in navigating the child welfare system, in managing relationships with state and county child welfare agents, and in the adoption of children with special needs.  It’s important to look at the long term picture and make choices with full awareness of what the demands of each particular situation calls for.  And back to knowing your heart, it’s important too to be honest about what you, the adoptive parent, feel capable of handling for the long term.

The good news about money is that there are ways to apply for assistance in financing adoptions.  A good resource for this is the Adoptive Families website.  There is also a tax credit that adopting parents can claim the year they finalize the adoption.  This can help reimburse some of the adoption costs.  Check with your employer to see if adoption assistance is available as an employee benefit.  I’ve known some adoptive parents to become trail blazers and advocates in their workplaces to lobby for policies that support adoptive parents in the form of paid leave (when the child is placed) and/or adoption expense reimbursement for a set amount of the costs.  Some agencies charge on a “pay as you go” schedule so that you are paying less up front and can space out payments.  Banks also offer special lines of credit or loans to cover the cost of adoptions.

It comes back to knowing your heart and allowing your passion for becoming a parent lead the way in finding creative solutions to financing your adoption.  Some families have huge yard sales, borrow from family members, charge expenses on low interest credit cards, or host fun, creative fundraisers.

2.  Time-”the big bugaboo”

You’ve probably heard that adoption takes a long time.  So what’s a long time?

Let’s start with what we know.  Having a child biologically takes minimally nine months from conception to birth.  Some couples or individuals may have been trying to get pregnant for longer than nine months.  I’ve had a few friends who tried for ten years to get pregnant.  So, how long does it take to have a child biologically?  It depends—anywhere from nine months or less to, in some cases, a decade.

How is adoption different?  Unlike a biological pregnancy, in adoption it’s hard to know when to declare conception.  In my case, from the time I thought about adopting to the time that a child was placed with my family almost four years passed.  I include the first two years which were spent in casual discovery, reading, doing on line searches and dreaming about how wonderful it would be to have a child.  I refer to this as my rose colored glasses phase—“won’t it be wonderful to have a baby?”  I thought I was committed but looking back now, I see that this was more of a trying out phase.  Which is fine.  It’s good to try it out—after all adopting is a forever event.

The moment of commitment came after a significant birthday for me.  It was a moment of reckoning with myself where I realized that if I really wanted to adopt a child, I was going to have to make a much more powerful declaration of intent.  Our research narrowed to two possible adoption routes.  My partner and I interviewed these two options carefully.  We flew down to California for the day from Seattle, to interview one organization.  And we went to an adoption seminar four hundred miles away to learn more about another adoption organization.  We declared our intention by making investments of time and money.  We committed ourselves to take action.

We made a choice, committed to that choice in the form of a financial down payment and a psychological and emotional commitment to the process as outlined by the agency we chose.  We had landed.  We were in motion.

From landing to the day that our child was placed with us, the process took another year and five months.

In adoption it’s hard to know when to declare conception.  In my personal story, I track conception back to the moment my partner and I committed to action.  So our pregnancy lasted a year and five months.  When I was in the middle of this time, I had no idea how long it would last.  I didn’t know (at least intellectually) when this process would result in a child.  I didn’t know if there would be a miscarriage or a hiccup in the process.  These happen too in the adoption world.  A birthmother can miscarry.  And/or an adoption can be interrupted and a plan go unfulfilled if one of the parties changes their mind.  That’s always possible.

Your timeline is important.  Whether you assess that you have one year or five years to become a parent will impact the choices you make and your rate of commitment along the way.  Age and health of the adoptive parents are often the two critical factors that determine how much time adoptive parents assess they have to adopt a child.  The actual age itself varies according to the parents’ own perceptions.  Some wouldn’t consider adopting past age 35 while others are quite comfortable adopting into their 50’s.  Age does become a factor with adoptions outside of the US, as some countries have certain age limits for adopting children from their country.

So, if I haven’t done much to allay the fears around time, what I hope to convey is that there is a perception that adoption takes more time than creating a family biologically.  While adoption does take time, so can becoming pregnant.  There is perhaps more unpredictability in adoption because there are more people involved and adoptive parents may have more of a sense of not having much control in the situation.  All of this can translate to:  “adoption takes a long time.” 

It’s hard to hear this at the front end of the adoption process but I am going to say it anyway, “Your child will arrive at exactly the right time for you and your family.”  That said, nothing happens until you commit to action.

1. Know Your Heart

Why do you want to adopt a child?  Why now?  Spend some time talking, writing, soul searching about your core reasons.  Get clear about why adopting a child is important for you now.  Are your “why’s” generative?  What new future do they create for you and your family?  Are there any “should’s” inherent in your “why’s”?

Generative reasons are infused with joy, hope, courage, laughter, and possibilities.  Reasons that are should-based can be more limiting in the long run.  Notice the difference when you say, “I should have a child because my mother wants grandchildren,” or when you say, “I want to raise a child because I know it’s one of the ways I’m called to serve on this earth.”  One way, “the should” way, carries a feeling of obligation.  The other way offers possibilities of legacy and service and following a deeper calling.

By the way, I think it’s unlikely if you are reading this, that you think you should have children because your mama said so.  That’s an obvious example.  There could be other more subtle ways in which you “should” yourself about having kids.  Let’s see, here are some:  “I should have done this a long time ago.  I should adopt a child because I’ll be saving a child from poverty.  I should adopt from a developing country because the need is so much greater than anything we can imagine in the United States.” 

Now is a good time to ferret out the “shoulds” and take a good look at them, and not just to get rid of them.  There may be core values inherent in them that resonate as truth.  For example, values of compassion and global citizenship are inherent in the statement about adopting from a developing country rather than the US.  But the reason for your choice has to be grounded in a core conviction that will carry you through the challenges of adopting from outside of the US.  “Shoulds” don’t wear well in the tough times.  They can turn to resentment.  What are the reasons that will sustain you along the adoption and parenting journey for the duration of that journey?  What heartfelt conviction can you rely on, that will give you grounding and steadiness in the trying toddler and teen years?

Now is the time for being honest, perhaps more honest than you have ever had to be, with yourself, your partner and whoever your support network is.  It’s not the time for social platitudes and wanting to save the world.  Start with truly knowing your heart and knowing it again and again.  The level of honesty and self trust that you are building now will be called on many times on your journey to adopt a child and beyond.

Sherrie Eldridge’s “twenty things” came just in time for me as I delve deeper into the world of my adopted child.  Written by an adoptive child, herself, Eldridge offers valuable perspectives in words that are hard to reach for ourselves and our children.  For parents who have not yet adopted or are in the process of adopting, this book offers valuable insights on how to begin imagining being a parent to an adopted child.  It’s a wonderful, sometimes challenging journey.  And it’s great to find some tools for the road. Great preparation for the adventure ahead.

Janis Cooke Newman’s memoire on the adoption of her son from Russia (The Russian Word for Snow) is a great read about the challenges of adopting from Russia during a turbulent political time.  Newman and her husband go home with their son at the the end of a roller coaster of a journey fraught with uncertainty and plain lack of information.  Newman captures well the emotional tides of the “waiting time,” the frustrations, the joys and surprising responses in most unusual circumstances.  Such an honest portrayal of what it means in the end to finally go home with your child that was born in your heart, and dealing with the sudden responsibilities of becoming a parent.  “How do we give him a bath?  And am I an awful parent because he cried all the way through it?”  

Published in 2001, the political players are different now, but this is a great account of the emotional, spiritual, and adminsitrative challenges of adoption and the resilience and resourcefulness of parents determined to love. 

Here are two adoption resources worth checking out.  One is the Adoptive Families magazine site.  http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/ for links to a full menu of articles on types of adoptions and lots of information regarding pre and post adoption concerns.

Also an active yahoo discussion group is Gay and Lesbian Adoption Discussion.  Links from the site are also a great resource.

“Mommy, just because you’re white, doesn’t mean you can order me around.” 
“Wow,” I thought, gazing into my five year olds brown eyes, “now what do I do?”

 I held her gaze and quietly and firmly said, “my telling you that it’s time to get dressed, has nothing to do with my being white or your being brown, it has to do with my being your mother.”  She held my gaze in return and grabbed her shirt to get dressed. 

You get about 5 tenths of a second to respond and you pray that it’ll come out okay.  I think it did this time.  The issue was clear in my mind—it was about putting on her clothes, not about race.  But, when is it about race?  And how is she making sense of having two white mommies?  The meaning she is making, that we are all three making changes from day to day.

A colleague of mine was told that if she wanted to become masterful at something she needed to find a question that she could live in for twenty years.  I think I’ve found mine:  “What does it mean to be a transracial family in the post Obama election world?”  

Browsing in a used bookstore over the weekend, I was in the parenting section, looking for books on adoption.  My eyes scanned the pregnancy, newborn, awaiting a child books, looking for a title that would indicate adoption.  Finally, toward the bottom of the section I spotted it: the label “adoption” separated with a slash, next to the word “divorce.”  “Oh,” I thought,  “They ran out of room and they smooshed these two sections together.”

I would not have chosen to put adoption books in the same section with books on divorce but it’s telling of how mainstream society values and views adoption–not quite in the same category with books about starting a family, but more in the category of when family plans go awry.  Still, somehow, second best, not equal to.

What about those of us who choose adoption, not as a back up, but as a great and valuable journey to pursue, equal to having a baby biologically?   And what of the children who are adopted, how then are they viewed by society?  Will they struggle against the social stigma that the circumstances that created their families were somehow tainted?

Adoption is about creation.  It’s about choice.  Adoption is about love.  And this one word doesn’t stand to qualifiers and hierarchies. There is no such thing as second class love.