Prenatal alcohol exposure is assumed to cause more serious birth defects than does heroin. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder - Wikipedia
Thank you for that.
Huh.
I would have thought it would be just as bad if not more damaging with heroin to the fetus than alcohol.
Prenatal opiate exposure can cause things like low birth weight and other generalized problems. Once the infant has gone through withdrawal, it has a pretty good chance of growing up without too many problems (unlike meth or crack exposure which is much more detrimental). But alcohol exposure is a whole different ball game, causing retardation, deformities, etc. Author Louise Erdrich and her husband Michael Dorris adopted a boy with fetal alcohol syndrome, and later Dorris wrote an acclaimed book about their son and FAS called The Broken Cord. When we were going through the adoption experience, we had to pass on a baby boy, born to a Russian female sailor briefly in port, who was going through withdrawal from crack, which was as heartbreaking as it sounds.
We have 2 adopted children, one adopted as a newborn, one at 18 months. We live in a state where we can adopt independently, going through an adoption attorney and overseen every step of the way by a judge. Saved tremendously on adoption agency fees. The only down side is if you’ve chosen a prospective birth mother who may change her mind, you’re out the time and money, but good, experienced attorneys get a pretty good feel for who is and is not likely to complete the process. Our first birthmother contacted us a few weeks after we placed a newspaper ad; the second one contacted us through our attorney’s office after reading our profile. We had a couple of false starts with birth mothers who chose other options, but both decided pretty early in the process and not much emotional or monetary (legal) investment had taken place.
If I may answer this:
It’s quite illegal to pay a birth mother for things not directly related to her pregnancy, and not pre-approved by a judge. To do so can cause an adoption to be overturned. We had a few costs that were outside the actual realm of the pregnancy, but were pre-approved by a judge, such as paying to have the birth mother’s phone reconnected (essential for medical emergencies; she lived out in the boonies) and a brake repair for her car.
Yes, it’s very counterintuitive- but adoptive parents who’ve gotten babies in Russia or Romania can tell some horror stories about fetal alcohol syndrome.
Thanks for starting this thread! My husband & I have been trying to get pregnant for about 3 years now, and if it doesn’t work in the next 6 months or so we’ll be looking into adoption (we’ve decided that IVF isn’t for us). My challenge is that I’m a lot more open to adoption than my husband it; I could have been just as happy adopting from the get-go, whereas it’s taken my husband a couple of years to adjust to the reality that we may end up adopting. At the moment, he’s pro-adoption but completely opposed to open adoption, which concerns me. Could you talk a little bit about your path to choosing an open adoption?
I’m sure that’s true where you live but it’s not so everywhere. A couple of my friends who adopted a drug-affected newborn here in Utah April of last year did so after being dumped by a birth couple who asked (through an agency) for an all-expenses paid move to California from Michigan. And the agency they adopted through in Utah received $19,000 in fees in cashier’s checks before the agency told them the hospital name and room # for their newborn son. They also shouldered the accumulated bills for the mother’s pregnancy, her shelter, her online tuition and a monthly stipend from the time the agency moved her to Utah from Virginia. Lastly, they had to work though the lawyer the agency arranged who moved at a snail’s pace once the retainer was received; she wound up staying here nearly 2 weeks b/c the lawyer was ‘too busy’ to get everything filed on time. That’s 12 days of hotel, rental car, equipment rental for his jaundice treatment, etc.
Now, perhaps there are different regs for private agencies versus state-run ones, but my firsthand experience was w/ the private one.
You are both right. It is illegal to pay for unrelated expenses - but what constitutes a related expense has had a wide amount of leeway depending on the state (the judge, the phase of the moon). New cars and tuition have both held up to scrutiny in some cases.
Dangerosa is correct. There’s a lot of room for interpretation, and a lot of room for questionable expenses if you’re not careful. This is why we chose to adopt independently rather than through an agency, that, plus the fact that we had much more control. We too were approached by a potential birth mother who wanted us to foot the bill for her own apartment because her living situation wasn’t good enough for her (actually, it was, but she wanted her own apartment, not to be living in her mother’s house). Conceivably, there might have been a way to get this approved by the court as a necessary living expense, but it could also signal someone who was in it for the money, holding out for the highest bidder, and perhaps not be as likely to follow through with the adoption (which turned out to be the case). A *good *adoption attorney, on your side, is vital.
Open adoption doesn’t necessarily mean open communication all the time throughout the child’s life. It can mean occasional updates, or simply that the birth mother chooses the adoptive parent and then drops out of the picture. With my open-adoption children, there’s been no communication whatsoever with the first birth mother, at her request, and extremely limited with the second. We used to have more communication with her, but my daughter began to act out and we decided to curtail it, which birth mom felt was better for herself, too. Looking back, it was good for my daughter in some regards, but hard in others. She always regarded her birth mom as more of an auntie, and birth mom felt the same way. Many birth moms think they will want a fair amount of openness, but when the time comes, realize it’s too hard on them and graciously bow out. I don’t think your husband has anything to worry about, in the experience of everyone I know who has adopted.
In our case, our “open” adoption hasn’t yet meant any real contact between my 7 year old son and his birth mother. All it’s meant up to now is that we send her a note and pictures of him every few months, just so she knows he’s alive, healthy and happy.
SHE hasn’t tried to have any other contact with us, probably because she has other kids and doesn’t have time. My son knows he’s adopted, but at this age, he doesn’t seem to care that much about it. As he gets older, if he wants to have more contact with her, it won’t bother me.
That’s one other thing people are often surprised about. When we imagine a mother giving up a baby for adoption, I suspect most of us picture a teenager (I know I did). In reality (in the USA), it’s more likely to be a woman in her twenties. A teenager who gets pregnant unexpectedly is more likely to think it would be sort of cool to have a baby than a slightly older woman in the same boat.
I looked up on my company’s HR website. They offer a $5000 adoption stipend. That seemed great until you started listing your expenses. Wow.
Congrats on your future child.
StG
Good luck, Bom.
I know when Mrs. Cliffy and I were first considering adoption the reason I shied away from open adoption was I figured it would open the door to possibly overturning the adoption, or that it would confuse the kid as to who it parents were. As I learned more about adoption, I realized that these fears are almost completely unfounded, while knowledge about biological relatives can make the kid more well-adjusted (not to mention the ability to get a medical history, which can be a big one).
Omar, I’ve got some bad news if you’re committed to Chinese adoption. It’s been at a near-standstill for the last five years or so. We had a log-in date of January 2007 and we’d still be years away from getting a kid if we hadn’t dropped out a few months ago. Korean adoption, AFAIK, is proceeding apace, after a rough patch a few years ago (you can’t be overweight though). But there are a fair number of other countries which offer international adoptions, as well as domestic.
–Cliffy
This is almost exactly my husband’s set of fears about open adoption (plus, I think, some bitterness toward a potential adoptive parent - he wants a child so badly and we’ve struggled so much with it, so he feels pretty angry at the idea of someone being able to have a child, and then not wanting it. I think before we’re really ready to adopt, ideally he needs to be able to see it as a gift, giving your child the best life possible, even if it isn’t with you; but I don’t want to just tell him his feelings are wrong).
You said that learning more about adoption helped tame your fears; my husband has agreed to be open-minded and to learn more, but so far I haven’t found any good resources. Do you mind sharing anything you found (books, websites, movies, etc.?) to help us learn more?
There is a tax credit as well. But adopting is not cheap unless you go the waiting child route.
(There is another inexpensive way to adopt a child, it isn’t CHEAP, but it isn’t bad. IF you are in the position of knowing someone who decides not to parent and has their own insurance, and a private adoption can be arranged, you can often do the homestudy fairly cheaply. You aren’t paying for search services. You need a licensed social worker and an attorney. My sister in law adopted in that manner 20 years ago - someone she knew from church was the birthparent, and the timing worked out that before they’d even sunk any money into the process, while they were still “talking it out” the birthmother heard about their intentions and asked them to parent.)
If you are thinking of this in the next 3-5 years, you should really start now. It takes years from China now.
Or try Korea. We received a referral in 2 months this last time.
Hey Everyone,
This is BomTek’s wife. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the support and good questions on this thread. This has been a crazy, wonderful, emotional experience for us… and the real work of raising another kiddo hasn’t even started yet! Our next big hurdle is the home study visit by the social worker on Thursday night, so if anyone who has gone through that process has any tips/suggestions, I would love to hear them.
For QuarkChild: I just started rereading “The Kid” last night after BomTek mentioned you referencing it. Such a great book! While anyone who is conservative should avoid it, for everyone else thinking of adopting, you really owe it to yourself to pick up a copy. While it describes the experience of two gay men adopting, so many of the emotions/situations are similar to what I have found myself in. It is also strange to consider how much has and hasn’t changed in the near decade since the events take place.
For everyone involved in the discussion about paying the birth mom additional money: thank you! As several of you mentioned, each state is different in what it allows adoptive parents to cover. With our agency, when a birth mom contacts them, they make a budget for that parent based on the state she is in and her needs. She is then only shown profiles of adoptive parents that can afford her particular situation. I believe BomTek described how our agency lets each family set their own threshold. In addition, the agency does everything possible to pay the bills for the birth mom, rather than giving her money directly. While some of you mentioned the reasons why a private adoption is better/easier for this reason, I am very thankful to have an established agency that can handle it for us. I’d have no clue what expenses were legal/reasonable, and would be an easy target for getting suckered.
NEEDSCOFFEE: Thank you for sharing about the level of contact between your children and their birth parents. I think overall, BomTek and I realize that the level of communication, if any, may change over the years… open adoption just gives our child more options than a closed or international adoption would. I didn’t know my birth father for most of my life and I always had questions about medical history and my relatives. If our child has those similar feelings, we want him/her to have an easier time getting answers. In addition, I have met several people who have had their grandchildren given up for adoption and would have liked to been able to reach out to them. As BomTek mentioned, the more people that love our child, the better. And then again, there is always the possibility that we will get picked by a birth mom who simply wanted to pick her child’s parents and has absolutely no desire to see pictures/get updates. Just one of the many variables we face in this process.
For all of you that have adopted: thank you for your guidance. For all of you that are in the process or considering adoption: I am sending you much love and strength.
Any request for expenses paid is relayed to the attorney, who knows whether it’s reasonable and whether the court will likely approve it. Only after it’s approved is the expense paid. That way, it’s all aboveboard and guaranteed to be done to the letter of the law.
The best of luck to both of you! You can always PM if you have any more specific questions!
Interesting development last night: Sunny’s sister, the same one I mentioned in a previous post here, called us up. We just saw her last week when we were in Florida, and we had joked then that it’d be cheaper and easier to have her get knocked up again and adopt her baby. Sunny and her sister look a lot alike, and we were joking that the kid would at least look like us; we all had a good laugh and that was the last I really thought of it until last night. She called and said she had talked about it with her boyfriend (of five months, BTW) and they had decided to do it if we were still willing :eek:
Holy cow! Um, that really wasn’t what we meant! We decided not to do this, for a few reasons, but mostly we just don’t want to add that odd dynamic to our family. We love her sister, but we don’t actually see her that often and prefer to spend time with my family or Sunny’s mom and grandma. If we adopted her kid, would we be expected to show up there for every Xmas and Thanksgiving? Her boyfriend is nice, the nicest guy she’s dated since I’ve known her, but they’re not 100% committed to one another; what happens if that relationship crumbles? Are we going to have to deal with him wanting to see our kid? They’ve each got two sweet kids from previous marriages… how do you explain that situation to them?
It was just a really odd strange way to end our evening, to say the least.
Other (normal) developments: I’m at the doctor’s office right now waiting for Sunny so we can get the paper signed that says we have normal life expectancies. After that we’ve got the homestudy she mentioned on Thursday, and by then our profile should be finalized, so as soon as the agency reviews the homestudy, we’ll be active! Should be less than two weeks now.
That’s pretty close to how we did it. We adopted two sisters, nieces of a close friend. We hired a lawyer, paid for a home study and background check. Our total expenses were under $1500, which was completely covered by the tax credit. The process only took a little over 4 months, despite some bureaucratic roadblocks that we got past with the help of our congressman.