Good News Re: Home Study
The agency that will be doing our home study is willing to use part of our home study from the state - so we will most likely be able to say a few hundred dollars on paperwork processing.I contacted our worker, and told her that we had decided to do a private adoption with an agency. I don't think she was surprised at all. She said she would check with her boss, but that all we needed to do was send her a letter with our signatures, social security numbers, etc. authorizing them to release our home study. This is great news.
Also, after talking with the domestic adoption person at the agency, I learned a few things.
First, most of the adotions they do are also "open" adotions. She asserted that most domestic adoptions nowadays are open adoptions. I'm really not sure how I feel about that other than uneasy.
Second, the costs - $1900 for our home study (minus a few hundred bucks if all goes well getting our state home study to her so she can just update that), $9,500 placement fee, and then she thinks the legal fees will only be a few thousand dollars on top of that. She estimated that if we adopt domestically through her agency, that our total cost will be less than $15,000.
We set up a meeting to go ahead and submit our application (another $50) on November 29th. That will be our "informational meeting", although we are really ahead of the game.
The third thing I learned is that most all domestic adoptions work this way: the birth mom (plus whoever is helping/accompanying her) gets to choose the family to adopt her baby. Yikes. I must say, I hate feeling like I am competing against other hopeful individuals and couples for the chance to adopt a baby. I know we have strengths and weaknesses - and that the things that I see as strengths, someone else might label as weaknesses. For example, we are a biracial couple (sarcastic **gasp**) - which some might view as a plus for raising a child with dual ethnic/racial identities, and some might view as a social stigma. Also, the fact that we both work full time could be seen as a positive or a negative depending on your perspective.
To address the question of our jumping into adoption too quickly, please allow me to assure readers that I have known since I was 16 that conceiving a child would be difficult for me. Thus, my relationship with my husband has always involved conversations about adoption. In fact, when we were dating and understanding issues surrounding interracial realtionships, we talked about the possibility of adopting biracial children (even before we found out with "certainty" that we could not conceive). We've also known for a year now with "certainty" that we are infertile. As a result, we've talked about adoption for a year now - and started the process of training with the state last May. So, I may not have blogged about it a great deal - but it has always been a topic of conversation and prayer.
And, yes, I have grown impatient with the state. There's a lot to like about the system - and a lot to dislike greatly. There are pros and cons of each. And there is also some impatience that accompanies infertility. From reading accounts of other infertile couples looking to adopt, it seems that there is a sense of urgency - to move past the pain of infertility to the joy of starting your family. There is indeed an impatience, and my infertile friends all have that in common. To someone outside looking in, it may look very rushed - even crazy to move this quickly. But we also know how long the process of adoption takes (and can take). We know that even after we finish our home study, we could wait a very long time (even years) before we are selected by a birth mother to adopt her baby. Since we turn 35 in 2006, it seems to us that we should start this process quickly. We would like to enjoy our kids while we are still (relatively) young.
It's a good question to ask - how do you know it's God leading and not some other stimuli? That's tough to put into words - and one that I will surely keep thinking about and praying about. One thing I do know for certain - when I was younger, I mistakenly thought that in order to be in God's will, I had to feel"at peace" about something, or "have a good feeling about it". On the contrary! Many times we are called to do something we feel completely uncomfortable doing - or scared to death of. It doens't mean we are not supposed to do it, or even that we are supposed to wait until we feel a certain feeling. After all, if you are of the philosophy that language creates thought and thought creates feeling, then you understand how skewed our human feelings can be (or how accurate!). As a result, I try not to rely on my human-feelings as much as I try to rely on doing what I am called to do, or what is right to do. And it's tough to know what you are "called" to do. I think many people look for "signs" from God to lead them, only to end up calling every convenient thing that goes their way "a sign". (i.e. "Oh, look, the cost of this agency is cheaper - it's a SIGN!", "Oh look, I slept good last night - it's a SIGN!", "Oh look, it's snowing - it's a SIGN!"). Personally, I think chipmunks are good luck - but that's a whole other blog.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 12/21/2005 01:03:00 PM
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