Yesterday I went to a conference for infertile couples to talk about adoption and assisted reproduction law. I met a lot of couples there who long for a child to love, and who are doing mountains of research to make that possible. They’re reading medical journals about IVF. They’re learning about the Hague Convention for international adoptions. They’re cleaning their houses with a toothbrush for home studies. They’re learning how to hire professionals that they trust. They’re learning about attachment and bonding. On this Mother’s Day, I want to say to these women: I am talking about you, too. Because all that work you are doing to lay the groundwork for a child to come home? That’s mothering. All the worrying that you do at night? Mothering. All that research about reducing risks? Mothering. I know it doesn’t feel like it counts right now, but it will. And I want to honor you on this day.
I also want to honor the brave birth mothers who have placed their children for adoption because they believed that was the best thing for those children. Doing what’s best for your child even though it hurts? That’s mothering.
I want to honor the adoptive mothers who now hold the children they dreamed about. Loving a child and raising that child day by day, for life? That’s mothering.
I want to honor foster mothers who open their homes and their hearts to children in need. Giving children a safe place in tough times? That’s mothering.
No matter how your children came to you, or even if they’re not quite there yet, please accept my warmest wishes on this Mother’s Day. A person with the heart to love and welcome a child is a very special person, indeed.
In my travels on the web this week, I ran across the most remarkable adoption website I’ve seen in a long time, and it’s perfect for National Foster Care Month. Ashley’s Moms are Erica and Rebecca. Erica, Ashley’s birth mother, gave birth to her at 19 and later lost custody of Ashley after becoming involved in an abusive relationship and spiraling into drug abuse. Rebecca adopted Ashley through foster care when Ashley was 9 years old.
Sadly, I know through my work with children in the child-welfare system that stories like Ashley’s are not uncommon. What is uncommon is the alliance that Rebecca and Erica forged. They now have an open adoption in which Erica is treated like the member of the family that she undisputedly is. Both Erica and Rebecca have wonderful, honest blogs about their adoption experience – the good and the bad. I especially love this description by Erica of a Seder dinner that she attended at Rebecca’s house:
I was a little nervous about being the “birth mom” at the party. I happy to say, once I was there, that thought never crossed my mind. I wasn’t the “birth mom” but rather, just a family member! I was welcomed by everyone there, and when Rebecca shared the nature of our relationship, everyone at the table just smiled and acted as though this were perfectly normal. At that moment I realized this is normal, it is normal for our family, my family, the one I share with Rebecca, her husband, her daughter, my boys, and our daughter, Ashley. We are no different then the family next door, except, perhaps, we’ve chosen to be family, we’ve designed it ourselves, without knowing what the final outcome might look like, but to us, it’s perfectly beautiful.
What Rebecca and Erica have is not possible in every foster-care adoption, but I encourage you to let their story stretch the boundaries of what you believe is possible. The world would be a better place for children if more families opened their arms wider in this way.
In the course of my work, I go to a lot of adoption-related websites, and I just realized that almost all of them share the same trait that really irks me: They all very heavily use photos of cute newborn babies. Cute newborns in hats. Cute newborns in baskets. Cute newborns with teddy bears. Cute newborns snoozing in someone’s arms. Enough already with the newborns!
Why does this bother me so much? There are a few reasons. First, the photos are clearly meant to tug at potential adoptive parents’ heartstrings, and I know from talking to my clients how viscerally painful it can be for them to see babies. To me, there’s something unsavory about using that emotional raw spot to get paying clients. Also, the proliferation of cuteness seems to imply that cuteness is a good reason to adopt a baby. I bet you know how I feel about that! Finally, the photos almost never show the broad, beautiful spectrum of real adoptive families. Easily 99 percent of the photos on adoption agency and matching websites are of white newborns, which doesn’t do justice to the wide variety of races, ethnicities, and ages of adopted children. Wouldn’t it be great to see these sites celebrate the whole spectrum of families?
Is it just me? Tell me how you feel about the abundance of cute newborns on adoption websites. Did you react differently to them before, during, and after the process of adopting a child?
I was interested to see a post today on Adoption Voices, where a member wrote that it’s very upsetting to her when people say “don’t give up! Adoption will happen for you if you hang in there.”
Lara writes:
While I know it’s meant to be encouraging, I’ve come to really hate these statements – because nobody can honestly guarantee an adoption will happen. Even with a match, we’re all painfully aware there are no guarantees, until a judge declares it final. We can’t trust an agency, lawyer, or fate. We just hear what we want to hear – from those who have been blessed with adoption. But for how many of us does it NOT happen?
Lara’s post surprised me, because I have often heard (and sometimes given) this advice in the adoption community, and I think it is basically sound. After all, if you don’t stop trying, it’s true that eventually you will adopt successfully. However, Lara is perfectly correct: for some people, “giving up” is the right decision. If you have reached your emotional limits or the adoption journey is just too hard on your family, it is healthy and appropriate to stop. I can think of other situations, such as financial difficulty or a serious illness in the family, that also might be perfectly good reasons to decide that adoption is not a good fit for you after all.
I still think that saying “you will be able to adopt if you don’t give up” is a true statement, but as all things in life, it’s important to think before you speak. If someone has made the difficult decision to stop trying to adopt, telling them that they could have a baby if only they were more persistent is likely to hurt them more than it helps. But for those who are on the long road to adoption and just feeling tired and discouraged, it could be just what they need to hear.
What do you think? Has anyone ever said this to you about adoption? How did it make you feel?
May is National Foster Care Month. Over 400,000 children are currently in the U.S. foster-care system, and about 30,000 of them age out of the system each year without ever being adopted. The bottom line: We as a society need to do more to support families and children, both to keep kids out of the system and to offer them the services they need once they are in the system.
If you are a foster parent, thank you. The love and support that you give to foster children makes a tremendous difference in their lives. I believe that getting each foster child in a loving family that is educated about how to best meet children’s needs is the best hope we have, as a society, to end the cycle of abuse and neglect.
Of course, being a foster parent is not for everyone. If it’s not for you, know that there are many other ways that you can help foster children. The organizers of National Foster Care Month have created this list of things you can do if you have a few minutes, a few hours, a few weeks, or a lot of time to devote to helping kids in foster care. I especially love the idea of mentoring and tutoring foster children and those who have aged out of the system and are on their own for the first time.
One sentence that struck me as so important on the National Foster Care Month website is this: “Many children would not have to enter foster care at all if more states provided support and services to help families cope with crises early on.” I am a firm believer that supporting children means supporting families, and the best way to help at-risk kids is to keep them out of the foster care system in the first place, by providing services such as mental health counseling, parenting support and education, job-search assistance, low-cost child care, etc. When budget issues are up for debate in your community, let your legislators know that these services are important to you.
A new study published in the journal Advances in Nursing Science shows significant rates of depression in adoptive mothers. The study, by Karen Foli (author of The Post-Adoption Blues), Susan South, and Eunjung Lim, investigated depression in 300 adoptive mothers, mostly during the first year after placement. Their rate of depression wsa 18-26% (on two different measures), which is higher than the rate for postpartum depression among the general population (10-15%). Several factors were found to influence whether an adoptive mother would likely suffer from depression, including parental expectations of what adoption and parenting would be like, the child’s special needs and bonding issues, fatigue, lack of support from others, marital problems, and history of mental health problems. Fathers were not studied in this publication, but I imagine the statistics would be similar for fathers who are primary caregivers for their children.
The transition to parenthood is huge, whether you gave birth to your children or adopted them. Disrupted sleep, lack of support, and the special challenges that adopted children can sometimes present can feel overwhelming. If you are feeling depressed, please don’t hesitate to seek counseling or medication to help you get through the transition. It’s not only important for your own well-being, but also for that of your child, as depression can strongly affect your ability to parent well.
Every so often in my work as an adoption attorney, I run across advertising for “adoption facilitators” or “adoption consultants.” Who are these guys, and should you hire one?
What Is An Adoption Facilitator?
The first thing to understand about adoption facilitators and consultants is what they’re not — they are not licensed adoption agencies or attorneys. Since there is no state that licenses adoption facilitators, the services they offer vary widely. Some offer to match prospective adoptive parents with a child to adopt, some offer education on how to create an adoption profile and advertise yourself, some offer tips on how to spot a birth mother who might change her mind, some give referrals to other adoption professionals. Most provide some combination of these services.
Check Your State Laws
If any person offers to help you mind a child to adopt in exchange for a fee, proceed with caution. In all but two states (California and Pennsylvania) it is illegal to charge money for adoption matching services. Some states don’t allow adoption facilitators at all, even if they don’t charge a fee. Even in states where facilitators are legal, there are very specific rules as to what they may do. This is not an area where you want to take your chances: Paying an adoption facilitator in a state where it is not legal to do so can delay or disrupt the finalization of your adoption. In many states, a judge may not finalize an adoption where improper money has changed hands under state laws. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a website where you can check your state’s laws about adoption, including about adoption facilitators specifically. Check it out here.
Do Your Homework
Say you have found an adoption facilitator or consultant who either doesn’t provide matching services or does not charge for them. Before you get out your checkbook, do a little research to see how their costs and services compare to adoption attorneys and agencies in your area. For example, some adoption facilitators offer educational materials that help you spot “red flags” that indicate that a birth mother might change her mind. However, any good adoption attorney will do the same as a standard part of his or her practice (I certainly do in my practice. See this post for a few such tips). Since you have to hire an attorney to file your adoption with the courts anyway, it’s difficult to see the value in this service. Similarly, some adoption facilitators offer to help you create and review materials that you need to find a birth mother for a private adoption (adoptive family profile, website, fliers, etc.). Again, many adoption attorneys will do the same (although you want to make sure the attorney is charging a lower rate for this service, not his or her billable hour as a lawyer!), and if you used an agency, they would do all the matching work for you. Furthermore, in the age of the Internet, it’s not difficult to learn how to make an adoption profile on your own. Other services that attorneys and agencies commonly offer are referrals to social workers for the home study, referrals to counselors for both adoptive parents and birth mothers, recommending pediatricians for adopted kids with special needs, and much more. Be sure to compare the costs and benefits of an attorney, an agency, and doing it yourself before hiring an outside consultant. The more money you can keep in your pocket, the more you will have for your child when he or she arrives!
Examine Claims Carefully
Some adoption consultants advertise that their clients’ adoptions go through astonishingly fast. Three months from the day they walked in the consultant’s door, they had a finalized adoption! Hang on a second. If a facilitator claims that his or her clients adopt much faster than the national average, I’d be skeptical. Ask questions about what percentage of their clients adopt that fast, and how specifically the facilitator achieved that result. Also, recall that the timing for finalization of an adoption is set by law in every state, so if the consultant claims they can speed up the legal process, it’s just not true.
Consider Ethics
I’m especially troubled when I see facilitators advertise that they make it as difficult as possible for a birth mother to “take your baby away from you.” While it’s natural for adoptive parents to be frightened about the possibility that their adoption might not go through, every adoption professional should be concerned about birth mothers’ rights. We are not in this field to take babies from mothers who want to keep them. Instead, a good adoption professional should be making sure that the birth mother has counseling and understands the adoption process clearly. Treating the birth parents as the enemy is not only unethical, it also leads to more adoption disruptions, not fewer.
Have you worked with an adoption facilitator or consultant? Share your experience in the comments or email me at evaughan (at) vaughanfirm (dot) com.
The Wall Street Journal has done a thorough and thought-provoking piece on adoption from Ethiopia. The article highlights the serious ethical problems that can arise when there is not careful oversight of adoption. For example, the WSJ interviewed an Ethiopian father who was told by a middleman that if he placed his daughter for adoption in the U.S., she would send money back to the family. Stories of families being pressured to relinquish their children, or even of child abductions by foreign agencies and middlemen, have caused authorities in Ethiopia and the U.S. alike to scrutinize international adoptions more carefully. Ethiopia is not a signatory to The Hague Convention, an international treaty that puts safeguards in place to ensure that adoptions are conducted ethically and in the best interests of children.
Of course, this is not to say that all adoptions from Ethiopia are unethical! However, it certainly highlights the need to proceed cautiously and with the help of an agency that you trust. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about what safeguards are in place to make sure that the adoption was ethical from start to finish. The more adoptive parents demand integrity in adoption services, the more agencies both at home or abroad will provide them.
I believe that an ethical international adoption is one where:
1. The birth parents gave free and informed consent to the adoption because they truly felt that they could not parent,
2. Efforts were made to place the child in his or her country of origin,
3. The parties were given the option to have an open adoption, and
4. Efforts were made to obtain a thorough medical history, and this history was disclosed to the adoptive parents.
What do you think? Is there anything you would add to or subtract from this list? Post in the comments or email me at evaughan (at) vaughanfirm (dot) com.
You can read the Wall Street Journal article here.
For the last day of National Infertility Awareness Week, I’m reprising a post that I wrote in October 2010 about the unexpected emotions that some adoptive parents experience after adopting a child. Many people who adopt after infertility don’t realize that it’s normal to feel some ambivalence and even sadness after an adopted child comes home, as a natural part of the process of grieving their dream of having a child who is biologically related to them. If this sounds like you, know that you are not crazy, and you’re not alone!
You waited for years for a child, filled out reams of paperwork, and went through seemingly endless hurdles to get to the day when you would bring your child home. So, once you have completed your adoption, you have no right to feel anything but undiluted joy all the time, right? Wrong. While many adoptive parents feel guilty or ashamed of having negative feelings after their child comes home, the truth is, it is completely normal. Anger, helplessness, stress, and shame are all common emotions for new adoptive parents. Does any of this sound familiar?
I feel like a fraud; like I don’t deserve to parent this child.
I feel distant from my adopted child, and even wonder if bringing her home was a mistake.
I feel like I have to be the perfect parent all the time.
I am so angry that I had to go through so much paperwork and scrutiny to have a child, while some people just have babies by accident.
I want to hide from people constantly asking me intrusive questions about adoption.
I am so ashamed that I’m not happy. After all, isn’t this what I wanted?
My heart is still broken that I can’t have children of my own, and seeing this child who doesn’t look like me just reminds me of that fact.
If these or other dark emotions are haunting you during the post-adoption period, the most important thing to know is that you are not alone. Many new parents experience post-adoption depression, and it doesn’t mean you are a bad parent or that the adoption was a mistake! Here are a few things to think about before adopting to help avoid post-placement issues, and a few to help get you through the transition period.
Pre-Adoption
Take time out from “adopting” to focus on “adoption.” Just as a wedding is not a marriage, the adoption process is not the same as parenting. If possible, take time each week during the adoption process to focus on what life will be like after your child comes home. Read books and talk to other adoptive parents about the challenges that may arise in the first days, weeks, and months.
If you adopted after infertility, allow yourself to grieve the infertility. Too often, couples jump straight from trying to conceive to trying to adopt without taking the time to process their feelings about infertility. When their adopted child comes home, these couples sometimes experience their grief about infertility all over again, as it really hits home that they will never have a biological child. Talk about these feelings in advance, preferably with a counselor who has experience counseling adopting parents. If it’s too late for that and you find yourself ambushed by feelings of grief after your baby comes home, reach out to a counselor or support group. Also, know that it’s not ungrateful or coldhearted to feel sad at what you thought would be a happy time – it’s a normal reaction that will pass.
Build a network you can count on. By joining adoption and parenting support groups, talking to supportive friends and family members, and learning what resources are available for adoptive parents in your community, you can avoid the feelings of isolation that many new parents feel at the beginning. Try to meet people who adopted long ago as well as fellow new parents so that you can benefit from their experience.
Post-Placement
Know that there is no right or wrong way to feel. Many adoptive parents feel that they have no right to feel depressed after getting what they have wanted for so long: a child. However, just because something is a blessing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. Give yourself credit by acknowledging that this is a difficult time and that beating yourself up about it only makes it worse.
Stay plugged in to the adoption community. While many adoptive parents use support groups, counselors, and community resources during the pre-adoption period (such as the search for a birth mother and finalization process) it’s a good idea to stay in touch after the adoption goes through. Supportive people like your social worker, counselor, and adoption attorney can be helpful resources as you parent your adopted child and questions arise. Other adoptive parents are also an invaluable resource that you can talk to about your feelings after adoption.
Know that no parent has all positive feelings all the time, and that adoption has special challenges. All parents go through times when parenting is not what they thought it would be. Sleep deprivation, not knowing what to do, and feeling overwhelmed are all part of the experience of being a new parent to any child, and it’s nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. It’s also true that adoptive parents have some special challenges in feeling connected and bonded to their new children, as well as the stress of fielding sometimes unwelcome questions about adoption from friends, family, and even strangers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You are not alone.
Seek help if you need it. Especially if you continually feel anxious, overwhelmed, panicked, depressed, or paralyzed by your emotions, seek counseling. And of course, if you have thoughts of harming yourself or your child, call 9-1-1 or a local mental health crisis center immediately. Although you may not be able to believe this if you are suffering from depression, it really does get better.
If you are waiting to adopt, don’t let this article scare you! Many new parents feel absolutely great after they adopt! What I hope you will take away from this article is that “absolutely great” isn’t the only normal way to feel.
For further reading about post-adoption depression, I highly recommend The Post Adoption Blues by Karen J. Foli and John R. Thompson. If you have more resources or advice to share, please join the conversation by posting a comment or emailing me at evaughan (at) vaughanfirm (dot) com.
Today I am writing letters to my senators and representative about two bills that affect adoptive families and people with infertility. In honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, I encourage you to do the same! Below are the two main bills that are of interest to those trying to build their families through adoption or assisted reproduction.
The Adoption Tax Credit: Senate Bill S82/ House Resolution HR 184
The adoption tax credit, which currently covers up to $13,360 in qualified adoption expenses, is set to expire in December of this year. With the average adoption costing about $30,000, I don’t know many families who could afford to adopt without this assistance. These bills in the House and Senate would repeal the “sunset clause,” effectively making the Adoption Tax Credit permanent. There are a few important points about the current Adoption Tax Credit that should remain permanent:
The current credit is refundable. This is a new thing, having started in 2010. I won’t get too tax-nerdy on you, but essentially making the credit refundable makes it easier for middle- to low-income families to adopt.
The current credit includes domestic, international, foster-care, agency, and private adoptions.
The current credit allows families who adopt children with special needs to claim the full amount regardless of their adoption expenses. This is important because many of the expenses of adopting a child with special needs don’t happen until after the adoption is final.
The Family Act: Senate Bill S 965/ House Resolution HR 3522
This legislation creates a tax credit for infertility treatment. Infertility is usually medically treatable, but many infertile couples can’t afford this medical care because it’s expensive and not always covered by insurance. Only 9 states currently mandate that insurers cover the full spectrum of infertility treatment, and TRICARE, the insurance for active-duty military and veterans, does not cover treatments like IVF. A tax credit for out-of-pocket costs would solve this problem by paying for expenses not covered by insurance.
Won’t you take a moment to write to your elected representatives about these issues? If you don’t know who your representatives are, you can find out here by entering your zip code.
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