**Warning - I do not intend this post to get political, but there are some aspects of the adoption process that can't help but be political. If you don't want to read one more thing that has anything to do with politics, you should stop reading now. If you choose to keep reading here is my disclaimer: I will not debate this on Facebook/social media. If you want to have a conversation there are other ways to have it. These are simply my thoughts and reflections as an adoptive mother.** Ok, so if you're still with me: Over the last few weeks there has been a lot in the news and in conversations about abortion. One of the most common statements that I've been seeing has been: "Make adoption cheaper and then abortion won't be as easy a choice." As an adoptive parent, this statement gets me riled up because it is a false dichotomy. The costs associated with each are entirely different for different purposes. And, even though it is a source of frustration for my family, I don't know that the cost of adoption should be lower as much as we need to address the systems that are at play that make the costs so high. There is also a need for logical ways to help off-set the costs of adoption in much the same way pregnancy and birth can be off-set with insurance. Something I see coming from people who do not believe there should be any assistance to adoptive families is: "Well, we had to pay for costs associated with a pregnancy, you need to pay for the costs associated with your adoption." There is a difference. If you have insurance, there is already a net in place. There is an out-of-pocket deductible and limit. With adoption, there is no limit. (Can we just talk about the amazing-ness of the movie Mean Girls for a moment?) So, yeah, with a non-existent limit on adoption costs, it has the potential to get a little out of hand. Also, many doctors and hospitals are willing to set up payment plans. Not so much with adoption. When the money is due, it's due in full, not in any sort of payment plan. The way to get a payment plan is to take out a loan. That all being said, let's talk about the adoption process, the costs, and why they are necessary. The first step and cost in an adoption process is a consultation fee. This, for us, was a meeting at the agency with a social work to go through the specific agency's process, what the expectations were, and the ceremonial handing over of the fee schedule.... well, not so much ceremonial as slid over a table with a practiced, apologetic smile because you know the numbers there are going to hurt. In order to have this consultation we had to pay $100. Once we're through the consultation we have to sign up for the orientation. These are typically held once a month in the evening for about 2 hours at one of the locations of the agency. For us that is about an hour drive. It's a powerpoint slide show describing the process again, going more in depth, talking about why adoption is awesome, what a timeline looks like, and why the different costs are necessary. You get a big binder to take home. Woo binder! (That's one of the few exciting things for me, cause, you know, I love me some binders...) Leslie Knope is my hero. I relate to her on a deep level... Anyway, back to binders and orientations. For the opportunity to undergo this orientation, most of which we knew because we've done this before, we were allowed to pay $150. So far, costs have been related to the employee's time and the materials handed out. If you have made it through the orientation and the consultation, you then get the opportunity to fill out the online application that asks a TON of information about you, your family, your family's dog, your family's dog's family of origin, your preferences for ice cream, and if you sleep on your back, side or stomach... Well... not those things, but it is quite detailed. And here's the even more awesome thing about it.... all of this information that is entered here, is going to have to be re-entered, by you, in countless other forms and ways, so essentially this becomes a practice in futility. Wee. But aren't you glad you now know your mom's cousin's best friend's bat mitzah date? Oh, right, and applying isn't free. This was $400 for us to apply. Cause, someone has to read all that information you put out there... right? Take a deep breath because this is the "official" start of the process. Now, don't be ridiculous, the other stuff we just did is all preliminary. Now, remember all that work you put into the application? You get to do all that again but even MORE in-depth! Hope you saved that original form and didn't submit your only copy... She says from experience... Now, here's another frustration... laws regarding adoption vary from state to state. It's one of the reasons there exists what is called the "ICPC" or "the interstate compact on placement of children." Basically, the government of one state has to say it is ok to bring a child that was born in another state into that state until the hearing procedures are finalized. Oh, and yeah, there's a cost to this as well, if you were wondering. I don't remember the exact amount, but it's what kept us in Illinois a little longer when we were adopting Lucas. Anyways. Laws vary state by state. The fun law we learned for Michigan is that they place a "deadline" by which anyone who starts on the process of getting a homestudy must have a completed one by a certain date. If, for whatever reason, the study is not complete by that date, it actually puts a blackmark against the agency and you have to start all over again. Therefore, the agency we are working with has a specific rule in place that if it is becoming clear that you're not going to make it by that deadline that you actually have to withdraw your application so that it does not go against them. Best guess as to why this law exists: to keep agencies or entities from leading adoptive parents along without moving with due speed to process the home study. But, who knows, it could just be some random rule on the books because Jeffrey's hamster stopped on that square on the bingo board. And you thought I was being facetious about hamster bingo. So, the home study process. This is a process that must be undergone at the beginning of an adoption journey, must be updated annually, and if you move a whole new one needs to happen. What does this include? 1) Adoptive family worksheet - literally basic background on each parent - names, aliases, addresses, family members, education history 2) SAFE Questionnaire. This is hard to explain. It's basically as multiple choice sheet about your family of origin. Who raised you? How do you feel they did? What were their values? What were their personalities and discipline styles? How do you compare with them? What describes your early dating style? What describes your early sexual experiences? What's your relationship with your spouse like? How do you disagree? It's way more than that, too. You can check it out at this website: https://achservices.org/am-site/media/couple-applicant-safe-questionnaire.pdf 3) Medical forms. Time to schedule those physicals with the doctors and pay out any co-pays that come with them. And some doctors will even generously charge you a fee just for completing your paperwork. Guess what? If you have a pet, they need paperwork too. Rabies certificate and vet certification. There you go Chloe. 4) Personal references. Now, it's time to pick four people who you think will say the right things about you and your ability to be a parent when they are being grilled by a short electronic survey sent to them. Even though it is electronic you still need to provide physical addresses and phone numbers. 5) Those references weren't enough. Now you have to make sure you have two work references for each person. This is for income verification. You have to make enough money in order to adopt, doncha know? You can get pregnant whenever you want with whatever income, but don't you dare drop below whatever the unspoken threshold is for adopting and bringing in an income. Thought you might need a little break. Ready? Let's keep on keepin' on. 6) Have you thought about designated guardians for your not yet present child to go to in case of your unlikely demise? No...? Well, guess what, you shall not pass until you name someone to take your bundle of joy when you kick it. (This was a fun conversation: "Hey, so... we don't have a kid yet, we don't know when we might get one, but if and when we do, if we die, will you raise it?") 7) Joy, rapture, it's time for the financial part. Gather up those bank statements, investment statements, mortgage statements, and W2s. Have them ready for when your caseworker comes to visit. 8) While we're on financials, here's a worksheet that will take most of the information from the documents you've already gathered and put them into one neat and tidy packet, but they still want you to keep the rest of it out so they can look at it. This will also ask you for your budget, any outstanding loans you have, student loans, credit cards, etc. 9) Are you ready for the required reading and education part? There's a lot of required reading... even if you've already adopted. Basic materials about being a parent, about being an adoptive parent, about the impact of drug use on infants during the pregnancy, etc. This includes lessons on the right language to use for adoption. This one I actually like a lot because so many people don't think about what they're saying when they ask about things with adoption and it can actually be really hurtful. Then, be ready to prepare a couple sentence summaries of the studying you've done. I am still not convinced that anyone read these summaries... (You also do not get to choose the topics for the continuing education which is frustrating in it's own way). Hey! You're still here! Rock on! 10) Right... I almost forgot, before you do any of this you are supposed to start your background check process because these things take forever. At the price of $62.50 a person you head to one of the designated fingerprinting locations as well as completing the paperwork for this. If you thought you needed some obscure information before, just wait. You have to travel back 5 years in terms of background checks and for some agencies they want to run them in whatever state you were born in just in case. If you want a background check in Pennsylvania and you went to college and you had roommates, you need to make sure that you know their middle names. That's right, David had to find out what his college roommates middle names were in order to complete his background check. 11) Now, you need to fill out the openness in adoption paperwork. How open are you willing to have the relationship between you and the birth parents? Open, semi-open, closed? These are all various ways a relationship might form and then within each of these are subsets of what this can entail. 12) Now comes the big moment... the interview. For this agency we had to do 2 interviews at their location and they came to us once. Because we live 55 miles from the agency, we therefore do not fall into the "50 miles or less" realm and it costs extra for the case manager to come to our house. Basically these interviews cover everything you've submitted but in verbal form. We did one each individually, then a joint one, and then jointly here at our house with Lucas. She came and looked around our house, talked to us, talked to Lucas, petted Chloe, and left. 13) Here is a first really big cost. $1,950 for the home study. At this point it was only a $10 extended travel fee, so $1,960 for the home study. This is to "process all of the information." 14) Is your profile active now? Nope. Next is the networking bundle fee. This is where the agency connects you with a profile building company and you give them pictures, writings about your family, letters to the birthparents, etc, and they make it into a pretty website and a book that the agency will show to anyone that matches with you so they can look through the soundbytes of your life and make a decision on if you are the right one to choose... This, dear friends, is $2,500. Congratulations! Your profile is active! You are in the running to be picked. But there is no way to guess how long that's going to take. So, in the mean time, you'll need to pay $250 a quarter to stay as an "active" profile with the agency. You'll also have to complete monthly continuing education readings and summaries. After a year, if you have not been chosen, you have to have a homestudy update. This is redoing the background checks, filling out all the same paperwork, and providing all your references and financial information along with the medical information. That's another $62.50 each for the background checks, the doctors co-pays, and the time cost. Oh, and they have to come to your house again to make sure everything looks the same. This update costs $675. Oh, but since we're 5 miles outside the 50 mile radius, we owe $100 extra in travel fees. So, $750 plus background checks plus doctors co-pays... That's the update cost. And that's what we're in the process of completing at this time. To date, we have paid $5,750 to the agency. That does not include the outside costs I've mentioned and it doesn't include the amount we paid to a different agency before this one that didn't work out. Oh, yeah, if you want to be listed with more than one agency, there's a big cost to that as well. Are we close to done? Not even maybe. A match is made, the birthparents have chosen you! Now what? For us, this is where the loan acquistion will happen. It's a $5,000 escrow to start covering the $195 / hour + mileage + expenses for the social worker to do what they do - meeting with the birthparents, meeting with you, going where they need, getting paperwork ready... This gets used, often times, to help the birthparents. I'll talk about that a little later... It's $10,000 due when we sign the adoptive petitions. But, you're still not done yet. Once you have the baby in your arms in your home, there is the waiting period where birthparents have a chance to change their minds. There is the waiting period for the court date to make everything legal. (This is a particularly nerve-wracking time and the generic advice is to not make it too public or get too attached to your little one because this is still a time of uncertainty.) And there is the court date where you go before the judge. There are all the legal fees that aren't even detailed out in pre-adoption paperwork. Uh-uh-uh - you didn't think you were done yet? After all of that, there are post-placement visits, where they come out to make sure everything is on the up and up. $300 - $350 per visit, plus $100 extended travel fees (each time). There are usually 3-6 post-placement visits. And there it is, the costs of adoption (*through the agency we are using) Now, let's remember what sparked my whole rant here.... The dichotomy being set up between adoption and abortion. Specifically for me it's the following post that's been floating around: While so many of the fees with adoption may seem arbitrary or self-serving for the agencies, there's more to the story than that.
Most of these agencies use a lot of the funding they bring in to help the birth mothers and birth fathers. This money goes toward counseling for them so that they can gain a full picture of what their options are before making a decision. The funds go toward helping with medical costs. Some of these women are going to be on medicaid, but how much does medicaid cover? There are a lot of optional medical tests and appointments that aren't required but go a long way toward ensuring the health of the birthmother and the child. It goes toward helping purchase maternity clothing, which is not cheap but needed. It helps with bills and food costs. This is because at a certain point in the pregnancy, the jobs that the birthmothers may hold are not pregnancy friendly and she will take leave. This may or may not mean that she loses her source of income. It's also to help with post-birth costs, again, so that the birth mother can have some breathing space before needing to go right back to work. This money is used to help with addiction education and recovery. It helps with diapers or needed items for the little ones in their households. This is where I think our system needs some serious attention. If a woman chooses to carry a pregnancy, she is looking at a lot of ways she may be further penalized in the process - whether it's job insecurity or loss of wages or such. The medical system is broken to the point where it's pick and choose on what you'll do because the wrong choice could put you so far in debt that you'll never make your way out again. Overall society has this tendency to look down on women who get pregnant when they don't intend. They want her to carry the child to term whether or not that is viable. Mental health plays a major role in a healthy pregnancy and for some that option is just not present. The job situations and what kind of family leave that is available play a role. All of these impact abilities to make a birth adoption plan for a child. The costs that are associated with adoption often will strive to help make up the gap between what society offers and what is realistically needed to help women who want to make a birth placement plan for their child. Which is why I don't necessarily believe the answer is simply "lower the cost of adoption." Put programs in place that help off-set some of these costs. Fix some of the brokenness in the system so that the agencies are not having to be the middle man in providing what is missing. Make mental health care accessible and affordable. Make birth control accessible and affordable. Make health care affordable and accessible. Put in place grants for adoption that are not all religious based. So many of them require adherence to a very strict faith statement, many of which would mean saying that my calling as a pastor would be invalid... If we want adoption to be the viable choice don't narrow down the help available. Don't only promote agencies that require faith statements or specific make-ups of the family. Awareness needs to be raised in society. People need to understand the mechanics of adoption and foster care. What does it actually mean? And there needs to be funding in place to help birth parents and adoptive parents be able to afford and raise children with special needs. This is becoming so prevalent because there are children being born with special needs that do not get adopted and end up in the system and then they age out of the system and end up on their own with little to no help. This is even true of children who are not special needs. Older children who end up in the foster care system do not usually have a high rate of adoption. Currently there are approximately 443,000 children in the foster care system in the United States. More than 23,000 children age out of the system every year. These are children who may not have a stable home, who may not have had an upbringing preparing them for adulthood, and they are ending up out on their own trying to figure things out. 20% of these children aging out become instantly homeless. 7 of 10 girls who age out of the foster care system will be pregnant before the age of 21. I think a lot of people are still functioning under the belief that this process is still like little orphan Annie or Despicable Me where someone walks into an orphanage, sizes up all the children, and picks the one they like the best. The process has changed and if society wants it to be the choice that people make they need to change what is hindering that option in society. Let's change the system. Let's break the unhealthy cycles that exist. Let's care enough to learn about adoption, foster care, aging out, special needs, and more, and figure out how to address these issues before we start saying that we need to lower the cost of adoption. I will gladly pay the cost of adoption if it helps women and birthparents who are struggling in the face of trauma, brokenness, and fear. Til I take my last breath I will say that all people are created in the image of God and all people deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, and care. Not because they have done something to deserve it but because they are people and that is enough.
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Today was an exciting day in our household. The social worker that is overseeing our adoption process came for visit three of three and at the end told us that she intends to approve us to enter into the waiting parents pool. This is a huge day for us because it's the day that tells us all the hard work, interviews, questioning, etc has reached a point where we can, hypothetically, at any point receive the phone call that tells us a birth mother has chosen us to make an adoption plan with. Before she and her intern arrived today David and I were nervous. We had a lot of energy bouncing around and we were fidgeting, cleaning, finding spots and fuzz. I posted to Facebook asking for prayers for the visit. Prayers and well-wishes poured in. I am so grateful for the cloud of witnesses and saints that surround us with their love, support and prayers. Following the visit I shared that the social worker said she had no qualms about approving us. Again, congratulations and celebrations followed. In both, though, there were the supportive questions of "did you really have any doubts that it would work out?" The short answer to that question is yes, yes, we were actually nervous about the home study. There's a longer answer though. If you're satisfied with the simple yes, now's the time to click onto another page or check out this adorable video of puppies playing with toys. However, if you're interested in the longer explanation, still watch the video because, seriously, adorable, but then keep reading! Well, hi there seekers of the longer explanation! I hope you enjoyed the adorable puppies. (Seriously... if you didn't watch it... go back right now!) I'm going to walk you through what the process would be like if you were going to go through it while trying to conceive naturally. I want you to imagine that you and your partner decide that it's time that you'd like to conceive and as you start to go to the bedroom, you have to stop and answer a bunch of questions as a preliminary screening. Basically names, address, basic financials, places of employment, members of your family, who lives in your house, etc. Assuming you answer those questions well you actually make it into the bedroom. Huzzah! Nothing more to worry about, right? You wish. It actually is just starting to get awkward. As you are getting intimate with your partner someone who is a stranger to you comes in and tells you that you need to go through an orientation in order to properly proceed through the process and then decide if you would like to continue. Right. So, if you manage to keep going after the pre-application and the couple hour long orientation, you're still not ready. You are now instructed to complete the formal application, but once you have completed that, the state has a ruling that you only have 90 days from the time you submit that application to getting in all the of the required paperwork and complete the 3 home study visits, so you have to make sure that when you submit that application you feel confident you have the kind of time available to really commit to completing this first part of the process. So, not stressed yet, right? Still feeling pretty confident that you're going to make it through with no problems? If so, good for you! If not, just wait. Next, as you and your partner, once again, try to become intimate, your room starts getting more crowded. In order to complete this application and this process you have to start inviting some other people in. You need to invite your employer in because they will be contacted to make sure that is, indeed, where you work and that you make the amount of money you have said you do. You're also asked to invite at least four of your close friends who would be able to vouch for you and tell the social worker that you are as awesome as you are claiming you are and that you have a strong relationship and you should be trusted with kids. So, once your employers and friends are there, you need to make sure that you can recite the birthdays, ages, and health statuses of your families. Is your room getting crowded yet? Better make some room because you also need to have your doctors present (and the doctors of any children in the house) to verify that you are healthy enough to be partaking in such an endeavor. Tell everyone to squeeze it in because you also need to invite the vet over if you have any pets so that they can verify your pet has all it's shots and is properly cared for. Make room for the police so that they can run your background checks. It means that you have to submit them for every place you've lived. ] I hope your filing cabinet is also in your bedroom because you will need to look up how much money is in your savings and checking accounts. Also, better have on hand what your balances are in any retirement accounts, any investments, etc. Do you know how much you owe on your cars? Credit cars? Student loans? If not, better get that information, too. How much remains due on your mortgage? What is the monthly payment? By the way, have you signed over your soul yet? It is possible to accidentally sign that line if you're not paying attention, so I encourage you to be careful. Speaking of finances, I sure hope you have a nice amount set away or at least have access to some funds... or maybe know where to get some low interest loans... or, I hear the black market is always looking for a few good kidneys, because adopting is not an inexpensive prospect. Add some money onto what you think it may be costing. Maybe keep going. More than $10,000 less than $40,000 with the agency we are working with. In that filing cabinet you better also have copies of your birth certificates, drivers licenses, social security cards, and other identifying information. You REALLY have to prove that you are who you say you are. Oh! Before you're able to really get started, you need to make sure that you do the appropriate education. Usually ends up being about 20-30 hours worth of education on parenting. Don't worry, there will be a question and answer portion to make sure that you actually did the assigned work. It doesn't matter whether or not you have any other children. You obviously do not know enough, so keep studying. Oh, and if you don't manage to conceive within a year, you'll have to update most of this, including education. By the by, have you discussed what it is you'd like in a child? Boy? Girl? What age? Would you like to do this locally or travel? What races would you consider? How much are you willing to consider in terms of exposure to drugs, alcohol, or possible incest? Better figure all this out before you start. While you're thinking about what you'd like to see in a child you have to make sure that you have the plan in place for what will happen to this child that is currently only a glimmer should anything happen to you and your partner. That's right, you need to figure out a plan for your not even conceived child in case of the tragic passing of both of you. Don't stay too somber. While you're compiling all this you need to be in conversation with your social worker and go over your family backgrounds, your work histories, your relationship with your partner, your relationship with your dog, your relationship with your neighbor's cousin's mother-in-law's dog... Well, not that far, but they really do study the relationships in your life. You'll have to do some inventories too in order to determine if you have any red flags in terms of mental health, that you appropriately discipline children, and that you are aware of appropriate language to use for your child rearing. This will take two really long meetings. Hey! I forgot to mention, while you're inviting people in, I hope you invited your entire social network including your workplaces. A couple reasons for this. One being logistical. If you should conceive, you'll need to have some idea of how to handle your maternity/paternity leave and your employers will want to know that you may need to have some time off. In our line of work you'll also need to be including those people who might be able to cover pastoral care and preaching duties while you're away, but without being able to give them any firm dates. The other reason to include your whole social network is because the more people you bring into the know the more the odds increase that you'll be able to conceive. Connections are everything after all. After all this, before you can really get started you need to show the social worker around your house. Hopefully you have all your outlet covers in place, everything safely away, and all that good stuff, as well as being ready to answer any last minute questions and have all your documentation of finances available.
Then, you'll need the social worker to type up a report that says, yes, you are sane, stable, loving, competent and educated enough to care for a child should you be chosen. This doesn't meant that you will conceive and be ready for a child... but this is really close to the point where you get to wait expectantly. So... If you were wondering why we might be at all concerned as to why we might not get approved, it might not be so much that we doubted our abilities or whether or not we're likeable adorable people. It's because in the midst of everything that I described above any one piece could go sideways and topple all of the dominoes we'd been so carefully setting up. That, then, is the long answer in order to say, yes, yes we actually were nervous about the home study, but there is a whole lot more than whether or not she'd like us. We appreciate and very much need the love, prayers and supports, but please understand that even things that seem simple and obvious aren't always that way for us. |
AuthorI've been Robyn for my whole life. I've been a wife for 10 years and a mom for 5 years. I've been a pastor for about 10 years. I'm still stumbling, but I'm still standing. Archives
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