Waiting…

One of the most difficult things about the adoption process is the waiting, and I know it is only going to get worse from where we are. Adoption progresses in infinitesimally small intervals that are invisible to family and friends. There is no standard 9 (or really 10) months with an expected outcome and long periods can go by without anything seeming to happen at all. This makes it important to me to celebrate the small steps.

Today, I’m happy because the final member of our family has been told about our adoption plans. This means we can be much more publically open about where we are in the process.

We are also celebrating another small step, we are fully packed to move into a three bedroom in our housing cooperative. This means we have the room to accept two children at any time.

Still on the “to-do” list:
– (Possibly) S.’s final vaccine
– S.’s medical papers
– C.’s medical papers
– Confirm which budget is to go into adoption paperwork
– S.’s work verifications
– C.’s work verifications
– Couples photography
– Submit paperwork
– PRIDE training
– 6 to 8 home visits
– Adoption approval (hopefully)
– Buy beds / dressers etc… for kids rooms
– Waiting, waiting and more waiting.

Is there an end to this paperwork?

When we first started the paperwork I didn’t think it would be a significant issue. I have seen longer and much more complex packages. To be fair I work with government so I’m used to long complex paperwork.

We got the package in November, and the big thing we were missing was family doctors. It started off well, we managed to each get a family doctor within a month. Then we needed the vaccinations, physicals and the forms filled out.

The financial form is the other form we figured would take some work. We keep our finances completely separate and while we have talked about shared expenses in the past budgeting is something we have always done as a separate activity.

We made a plan to keep detailed accounts of our spending while we collected the doctors visits we needed with the hope that we would have a few months of accurate detailed spending to budget on once the medicals were complete.

One final detail that we needed was a photograph of the two of us, and our dogs. As a couple we actually have very few photographs of the two of us, and those that we have I don’t want to share with anyone. I figure if it’s going to be the first introduction to us, then we want it to be a good shot.

Everything was lined up to be finished by the end of this month. My medicals took the longest since I was lacking a number of vaccinations. We planned to sit down with our budgets by the end of the month, I booked a photographer and we are moving into a new apartment with three bedrooms on May 1, 2011. Everything was looking good.

When I pulled out the forms, I realized that the doctor that had filled out C.’s form had stamped it but not signed or dated it, he had also not filled in that Chris does have two of the required vaccinations. So, C. needs to go get another doctors appointment to have his paperwork filled out.

The last medical thing I needed was to have a booster for one of my required vaccines, I arrived for my appointment only to find out that the manufacturer who made the vaccine that I needed the booster for has discontinued it. This means I need another doctors appointment for the doctor to write me a new prescription for another vaccine that can be a booster.

This weekend we were supposed to do a photograph in a local park, the weather had other ideas, and launched a small hurricane. We’re re-booked for mid-May with a studio as a backup this time.

The good news is the financials are done, and we don’t think we’re in bad shape.

The bad news is we have some more information to get in the way of income verification, and details on our health insurance policies.

I can’t believe it has taken us over 6 months and we’re not done the paperwork yet!

Adoption: First Choice

Today a childless-by-choice (CBC) friend of mine re-called my attention to an article she had posted last week titled “My Uterus is Officially Closed for Business and I Have No Regrets“. I say re-called because I ignored the posting when she first sent it. The reason I ignored the posting is that I thought it was another “isn’t it better to have a life without children” article and, while I do celebrate womens choices to not become mothers if they do not want to be, I find it increasingly difficult to occupy the space between the “bio-moms” and the “childless-by-choice” camps.

It took me three attempts to write my friend back about why I did not read the article in the first place and what I thought about the article after I had read it. This got me thinking that it might be a good exercise for me to find an outlet for my thoughts, and possibly my partner’s thoughts, as we go through this process. At worst this blog will be a place for us to articulate our thoughts into the vast emptiness of cyberspace, at best we hope to find others going through this journey and share with others our experiences in the hope that they may be of some small benefit.

One of the biggest challenges for me in this process is feeling like we don’t fit. It’s almost like being back in high-school struggling at cross purposes of finding my own identity and at the same time wanting that identity to be accepted by others.

The high-school rebel in me (which I was), hates acknowledging the fact that I do want acceptance. Needing acceptance for me is not about needing validation for my choice. I am confident in my choice. It’s about reducing the obstacles that my children will face as adopted kids. It’s about knowing that parenting is a community activity, and feeling accepted into that circle.

The article above and many similar articles have made the point more eloquently than I will here that any woman who chooses not to have biological children is bucking against the social norm and in doing so will find themselves in a position where they constantly have to explain and justify their choice in a way that women who follow the status quo of marriage + kids never will.

As a woman who is entering my 30s having declared that I will not be having bio-babies, I feel a lot of solidarity with the women who have chosen to be “childless-by-choice”. It takes a lot of self-introspection and conviction to continually affirm that I do not have a biological kick to have babies, I don’t smell something “wonderful” when I hold a newborn or infant. Choosing not to have biological children means accepting that I will miss a very important milestone in most people’s lives – producing children. There will always be a very common experience that I will have no knowledge of. And, this will inevitably cause a certain distance between myself and some of my peers.

The fact that I don’t go ga-ga for babies doesn’t mean that I’m a late bloomer it means that I don’t want a baby of my own, and I think the best thing I can do as a human is to honour that.

While I do not want a baby I do think that human life is enriched by being a parent, a mentor and a provider for another human being. So, unlike the “childless-by-choice” (CBC) set I do plan to have children, but by adoption.

In find the bio-mom’s just don’t understand this choice. Which is fair, it is not their choice. What I resent is their reaction. They don’t simply accept or congratulate as they would another bio-mum announcing a pregnancy. When a woman announces a choice to be childless, or to adopt the automatic response seems to be to question, or to assure these women that they will change their minds.  I want to think the best of these women, but I can’t help but think I didn’t question their need / want to have a biological baby.

The problem with the questions is that I don’t think the bio-mom’s understand how judgmental these questions are.

“My friend had issues with infertility, and they saw this doctor, I can get his number for you.”

“So, why are you adopting?”

“But they won’t be your ‘real kids’.”

Sometimes the most judgmental questions come phrased as compliments:

“You’re such a good person taking in troubled kids.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you are doing this, I really would, but I just couldn’t.”

I notice that the news that we are adopting is never greeted the same way a pregnancy is “OMG, I’m so happy for you, when are you due?” There seems to be an implicit assumption that adoption is a second choice. That it means an inability to have biological children or that adopted kids will by definition be deficient as compared to biological kids.

I can’t complain too much though because I really did expect this reaction from the bio-baby set.

The gap I find most difficult to occupy is actually within the adoption community. There are reasons that people adopt and I find we don’t fit into some of the traditional categories:

We are not infertile.
We are not in a same-sex relationship.
We are not religious.
We are not looking to adopt an infant.
We are not carriers of any significant genetic disorders.

I find a significant proportion of the adoption literature, websites and forums that I have found are dedicated to couples who would have their own babies but for one reason or another cannot and therefore turn to adoption. Of the families that don’t have this reason many of them seem to be coming from a religious background.

I have found some resources for older child adoption but most of the families I have come across so far are either from a strongly religious background, have experience with infant adoption or have biological children before entering older child adoption.

I’m looking for others who are choosing adoption first. Adoption before biological, children who need homes instead of infants. So far it seems like an empty space. I am sure we are not the only ones who think adoption first, and I’m looking forward to meeting others.