Our favorite book in the mix was Dear Birth Mom – it is a wonderful book that gives great insight into the feelings associated to closed adoptions along with semi-open adoptions and fully disclosed adoptions. It opened our eyes to the reality of the birth parents and their feelings and grief. It also helped us to understand the benefits of having our future child know their birth parents. It is a fear of many adoptive parents that if the birth parents know them and stay in contact they will eventually want the child back. While this is a genuine fear, it has been over-dramatized by the media. Adoption comes at a cost for all involved, but it is a choice and we were learning that contact can really be a benefit for all involved.
So back to the Home Study process. It started with filling out a bunch of
paperwork with questions about our past, present, and future. Our jobs, our income, our families, our home,
our debt, our educations, our health, etc, etc, etc. After filling these questionairres out we “got” to meet with
our social worker who delved deep into our personal lives. We also had to have reference letters
completed by several friends along with employment confirmation and a
verification of our health via our physician’s office. Oh and I forgot to mention that we had to get
fingerprinted – and because we had lived out of state 4 years and 11 months
before (5-years is the cut off J)
they had to check both Michigan and New York records. Not to be too graphic,
but I felt like I was being probed in every orifice.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept of licensing and gaining assurance that the adoptive parents are safe and secure…but why is it that everyday women get pregnant, carry a child, and give birth without anyone asking them these questions. I think I said more than once during the process that if the hospitals had to verify all of this information before parents could bring home their child, we would have hospitals full of babies. Our final visit with the social worker was at our home so that she could check it out. In the end, everything went smoothly. The agency was really helpful during the process but it was exhausting for me (Richard maybe not so much).
I don’t tell you all this for you to feel sorry for us or to scare anyone away who is considering adoption, but this is the reality and I think it may have been helpful for me to have a better feel for the process so that I could have been better prepared. And let me tell you that the day we got our completed Home Study Report in the mail was such a relief.
Next time we will talk about something a little more fun…
Galatians 5:22
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept of licensing and gaining assurance that the adoptive parents are safe and secure…but why is it that everyday women get pregnant, carry a child, and give birth without anyone asking them these questions. I think I said more than once during the process that if the hospitals had to verify all of this information before parents could bring home their child, we would have hospitals full of babies. Our final visit with the social worker was at our home so that she could check it out. In the end, everything went smoothly. The agency was really helpful during the process but it was exhausting for me (Richard maybe not so much).
I don’t tell you all this for you to feel sorry for us or to scare anyone away who is considering adoption, but this is the reality and I think it may have been helpful for me to have a better feel for the process so that I could have been better prepared. And let me tell you that the day we got our completed Home Study Report in the mail was such a relief.
Next time we will talk about something a little more fun…
Galatians 5:22
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