How do you know?
As you’ve seen, I’ve been struggling with certain issues concerning my second child. Gender, race, health, age, etc. Two of these aren’t really tough issues. While I want a daughter, I’d be just as happy with another son (possibly happier, as I suspect Oscar would prefer a brother), so gender isn’t really plaguing my mind. Race, again, isn’t so much an issue, in that I don’t care about the color of his/her skin or where s/he is from. It might be easier as the kids grow up, though, if they had been born in areas of the world that are closer together (e.g., Vietnam and say, Thailand?). Aside from that, I’m interested in all sorts of different cultures, so geography isn’t a problem.
What I’m struggling with are age and health (or really just medical condition). More specifically, do I really need my next child to be an infant or toddler, and can I parent an HIV positive child? Perhaps oddly, the second question seems easier for me to answer. I think I can raise a child with HIV. With the advances drug companies have made in meds, the prognosis for HIV+ children is fantastic. It’s considered to be a manageable, chronic condition and not a deadly disease anymore. I think I also have the temperament required to deal with the multiple visits to specialists per year and not over-reacting to every sneeze or cough. Not to be dismissive of the severity of HIV at all, of course, but I do think it’s something that can be dealt with.
My current struggle revolves around birth order and the age of my second child. I think I’m ok with the concept of altering birth order (i.e., adopting a second child who is older than Oscar). I just don’t know whether I can deal with having a school-age child right now. I’m pretty accustomed now to being the mom of a toddler. I like it; I love the babbling, the funny walking, the tantrums where he stomps his feet, the silly dancing, his goofy way of focusing on everything and then breaking out in a great big smile. All of it. I like that most of our life takes place in our house, with breaks for outings and playdates. That all changes with an older child, right?
Say, if I were to adopt a six-year old, how would our lives change? She would be old enough to start school, although she wouldn’t speak English yet. I know that emotionally she would be younger than a six-year old who had spent her life with her family and had not been institutionalized, so that would be a consideration. I guess we’d have a tutor to help with language / school. I suppose she would be involved in some sort of activities (ballet, soccer, what have you). Is this where things get difficult as a single mom? The logistics alone of all this already have me concerned.
I wish there were a book that could walk me through this. There are all of these great parenting books that tell you what to expect with a newborn. There are others that tell you what an infant/toddler should be doing, so you can (and I did) extrapolate from them what you’ll be doing as a new mom to an eight-month old. The great thing is that after you kind of master the age when you get them, you grow with them and can anticipate what is coming next. What worries me is making this leap from a two-year old (realistically, Oscar will be a year older when the next adoption is finalized) to a six-year old. Have any of you done this?Am I crazy for considering this, or should this be left to the pros – the experienced parents out there who have already raised kindergardeners?
More from the peanut gallery
I told my best friend at work today that I am going to adopt again. We had a long conversation about my frustration with the fact that my family planning is being considered as a factor in whether to make me a partner. Last time I checked, that’s sort of illegal. Long story short, his feedback was that I should wait until I make partner (2 years at the earliest).
I don’t want to wait. When I make a decision to do something; it’s time for me to do it. I feel compelled to have another child soon. I feel it in the same way that I was compelled to complete my dossier for Oscar. I imagine it sounds hokie, but I believe I was meant to be Oscar’s mom. Had I not submitted my dossier at the exact time I did, he would be with another family. I feel the same about this child. That I’m supposed to be working on this dossier now. Not in the same frenetic way I worked on Oscar’s dossier, but definitely should be doing it at this time. Crazy, hmm?
I also find it interesting that so many people of the very few people who know about this decision are very comfortable telling me that I shouldn’t adopt from Ethiopia. I don’t think I understand that. Is it because of racism? The fear of HIV/AIDs? No one ever said a thing about my decision to adopt from Vietnam. Is it more acceptable for a white woman to adopt an Asian baby than an African one? I’m not sure where this comes from.
Regardless, I had my home visit yesterday. I didn’t obsessively clean the house, and my social worker was as lovely as ever. She called Oscar “delicious,” which just capitvated me. Strangely, though, even she suggested I seriously consider another country. I don’t think she has anything against Ethiopia, but I found it odd that again I’m being told to look elsewhere. Are these opinions I should be considering? I’ll have to think on this a while.
Second guessing
Am I ready to be back in the world of international adoption? I’ve had my I-600 ready to file for two weeks now and I have not yet mailed it. In real life, I’m one of those hard-charging overachievers who gets things done more quickly than most can imagine. I generally procrastinate for a reason (although sometimes that reason is sheer laziness or exhaustion). Is the reason here that I’m not ready to dive back into this pool?
Every time I think about adopting this child, I start to obsess over everything that could go wrong within the process itself. Ethiopia really could shut down to singles. I certainly have not been led to believe these rumors are anything but that except for word I’ve received from two agencies (and I talked to many others). But I’m worried that this concern is going to be in the back of my mind in the same way the concerns I had about Vietnam shutting down were always present when I adopted Oscar. This isn’t really helped by the fact that the agency I chose is encouraging me to get my dossier in as quickly as possible just in case. I’m also concerned about dealing with USCIS again. I suspect my fears about them may not be rational, since the same issues that were dealt with in Vietnam aren’t as much of a problem in Ethiopian adoptions, but I’m still wary of them. My life was turned upside-down for eight months while CIS decided what to do in Vietnam and how they would implement their plans. I don’t want to go through that again.
What do they say, international adoption is not for the faint of heart? From my experience and those of the folks I’m watching go through it now, it’s a rollercoaster, and I’m not a fan of that sort of excitement.
So where does that leave me? Well, I’m going to adopt another child. It’s simply a matter of geography. I’m drawn to Ethiopia, but ultimately I don’t care where this child is from. I’m not invested in having a child of a particular race, culture, whatever, although I’ll certainly be invested in their culture when we’re a family. My primary objective in building my family through adoption has always been to provide a home to a child who needs one (this isn’t about “saving” a child, BTW). There are kids all over the world who need a family. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to go about adopting them as a single girl. My international choices are extremely limited. My domestic choices might not be so limited.
People (including many agencies) keep saying there is a great need for families who are interested in adopting African-American kids. Obviously, I’m interested in doing so. You want to know the reason I ultimately chose to go with Ethiopia instead of a domestic AA adoption? It wasn’t because I thought there was a greater need to adopt from Africa – sure, on a macro level there might be, as there is a far greater number of orphans in Africa than in the US. But on a micro level there isn’t. Each of the children out there who need families deserve to have them. The reason I dismissed domestic adoption was far sillier. I’m scared of newborns. They terrify me. I have no idea what you’re supposed to do with them (other than the obvious feeding, changing, burping, etc.). Because of this I almost automatically ruled them out (I get the irony, BTW, when so very many people want to adopt a child AYAP).
Of course, domestic adoption is not without its own issues. If I go down this path, I’ll need to really consider whether it will be difficult for Oscar to have a brother or sister whose birth family might be in contact with him/her. I’m, of course, a little concerned with the possibility that a birth mother would change her mind (you know, the classic adoption worry). Clearly, I’m still in the process of working this through. The upside of all this is that I’ll be able to focus my social worker on these issues instead of the state of my closets when she stops by next week.
I’ll let you know what I decide, of course. Thanks for listening (yes, I know, reading).
Sweating the small stuff
As I’ve mentioned before, the only thing I dislike about adopting is the role third-parties play in my family planning. Since I’m early on in the adoption of a child from Ethiopia, the third-party that is having a significant impact on my life right now is my local adoption agency. For those of you who haven’t actually adopted, many people not only have an agency for the actual placement of their child, but they have an added bonus agency who does the paperwork necessary at the state level. Two agencies for the price of one, well, two really.
I’m in the process of getting my homestudy updated. Shouldn’t be a big deal, as I’m using the same social worker, but I have to have a home visit nonetheless. Aside from delivering to the agency documents pretty much describing most of the most intimate aspects of your life in detail, a social worker comes to visit your house. The purpose of the home visit really is to see that your home would be a healthy/safe environment for the child you’d like to adopt. That’s what they tell you at least. For some reason, though, I just cannot act as though this is true. Most people seem to sweat the disclosure side of the homestudy – you know, when you have to disclose whether you’ve been arrested, had a substance-abuse problem, health issues, etc. I don’t have these issues, so instead of breezing through the process, I obsess about the home visit.
My social worker will be at my home in one week, and I have developed a homestudy cleaning plan in order to ensure my house is spotless by the time the SW arrives on Tuesday. I will also be buying additional safety equipment (fire extinguishers) and enhancing my child-proofing. An added bonus is that I was already scheduled to have two rooms painted and new light fixtures installed this weekend, so the house will be looking great.
What bothers me is that I know better. Sure it’s great to have a thoroughly cleaned house, and there’s definitely a benefit to having additional safety features, but neither of these things are necessary for the homestudy update. The problem here is that I’m allowing myself to fall onto the same obsessive path that I followed during my first adoption. The path where I sweated each and every detail. I’m afraid this does not bode well.
Then and now – adoption forums
Like many prospective adoptive parents (to you bio mommies out there, we call these PAPs), one of the first things I did when I started down the road to adopt in Ethiopia was to join the relevant forums. I was incredibly reluctant to do this, as I had a love/hate relationship with the Vietnam forums while I was waiting for Oscar. Now, though, I really love to read the posts on the Vietnam boards, although I’m just a lurker.
I find myself comparing the Ethiopian and Vietnamese online adoption communities. Not based on their demographics, as I have no clue how these groups are comprised. I focus solely on the choice of discussion material and the tone of the participants in their forums. The upside of being a BTDT adoptive parent is that I’m no longer desperate for information from third-parties and I certainly don’t get as emotionally invested in the heated discussions in these groups. I was a sponge when I started the process in Vietnam. I may have thought about things like corruption in adoption, the adoptive triad, issues relating to having a multi-cultural family and more general issues like attachment, but I soaked up everything I could find (especially in these groups) and went back to my social worker to ask for more reading material. Now, I’m still curious, but I have a much better handle on what my opinions are about issues and those opinions themselves are far better developed than before.
The Vietnam groups were full of discussions regarding the ethics of adoption, focused (naturally) on corruption. Over the months, these discussions ranged from allegations of wrongdoing against agencies (versus wrongdoing of orphanages/individuals on their own), the malevolence (or not) of USCIS, and still my all-time favorite, the moral superiority of a PAP who had chosen an “ethical” agency or who had chosen to walk away from the program altogether in a condemnation of corruption (and not because it was clear that the program was going to shut down before they received a referral).
The Ethiopia groups I’ve joined have a different slant. Possibly because the corruption issue simply isn’t as prevalent, the debates focus on different topics. What I find the most interesting are the discussions about race (as issues relating to the race of the child I’m adopting now are seemingly more emotionally packed than Oscar’s, at least in our country (and if not, they’re at least a bit different)) and the adoptive triad.
I actually find the discussions on the Ethiopian boards about “birth” mothers to be similar on an emotional scale as those about ethics/corruption in Vietnam. There’s a huge focus by a small subset of one of these groups on compassion toward the first/birth mother. I’m all for this sort of compassion, BTW (in fact, it always astonishes me that we don’t extend this same sort of compassion to the birth father). What I find interesting is (a) how some people can turn a show of compassion towards another into a demonstration of what a great person they are and (b) how those attempting to be compassionate towards the first mothers can be so terribly insensitive to the adoptive mother. I find “(a)” to be very similar to the ability of some in the VN program to turn a discussion of ethical agencies into a demonstration of what an ethical person the PAP is.
The other thing I find fascinating about the PAPs in the Ethiopia program is how open they are about their faith (from what I’ve seen in the forums and on blogs, the majority of the people who post are Christians). I’ve read a lot of posts / blogs in the Vietnamese adoptive community and I have no idea what the religious preferences of most of the parents are. I’m sure many have a faith that is just as significant as those in the Ethiopia program; I find it interesting that people choose to show it in one country and not another. Not better or worse, just interesting.
Anyway, I’ve just been thinking about the differences, and while I suspect this might not be of interest to a lot of you, I’ve been trying to make sense of it in my mind.
Game on
I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. Just ten days in and I’ve managed to pick a country, contact my homestudy agency about an update, fill out my I-600a, pull together almost all of its supporting docs and choose a placement agency. Last time, these things took me weeks and weeks to do (ok, months). I guess all of the agency debates while I was adopting Oscar were put to some use, since I was able to knock many of the agencies off my list almost automatically. Now, I’m off to work on my dossier and pull together a few docs for my homestudy update. Maybe this is easier the second time around.
Single parenting
It appears that Ethiopia may be planning again to restrict the ability of singles to adopt (this from a few agencies I’ve talked with – other agencies say they haven’t heard a thing). They’re not prohibiting us from doing it, but they have a strong preference towards two-parent families, which makes me believe they’ll be going the way of China, perhaps. This prompts me to revisit an issue I debated internally before I chose to adopt Oscar and even while I was waiting for his referral. Are two parents really better than one? Would Oscar have been better off in a two-parent household?
It’s easy to say that one parent is better than none, but even I have struggled with the question of whether two parents are better than one. I almost didn’t adopt because I thought it would be unfair to a child not to have a father. Clearly, I came around to the other point of view. I think it’s critical that Oscar have male influences in his life, and he does – his grandfather and my friends (and as soon as he meets them, his uncles). But, as I look at my friends in their two-parent families, I find it hard to believe that Oscar has been cheated in some way. He has me, our full-time live-in nanny (bless her), his two dogs and my friends and family all showering him with love and attention. Economically, we’re as well off, if not better off, than most people simply from my income, so he’s doing well there, too. He doesn’t have a dad, though.
Whether that dad were to live in our house or just visit on weekends, whether he worked too much or was as engaged in Oscar’s life as I am, he would be one of the two most important people in Oscar’s life. Am I wrong for not letting him have that? Looking at him, it’s hard to believe I am. He’s so very happy and comfortable in his life here, but I’ll never really know what kind of influence a father would have had on his life (unless I miraculously find someone).
What I do know is this. What makes a family is not the presence of a man, woman and child. A family is a group of people brought together (either by birth, by adoption or just by happenstance) who share their lives together (in some cases, whether they want to or not). It has nothing to do with blood or a marriage certificate and it has nothing to do with whether there is both a mother and father to raise the kids. When countries restrict the abilities of singles to adopt, they’re simply saying that they believe we’re not good enough independently to parent their kids. When they say we can only adopt SN kids, they’re saying we’re only good enough to parent those whose worth they think is diminished (because our worthiness as parents is diminished by the lack of a spouse). The “more worthy” healthy children will go to the preferred, two-parent homes (whether those families stay intact or not after the adoption).
Listen, every country has the right to make their rules on who gets to adopt their children. They’re sovereign nations with that ability. If they decide that it’s preferable for two-parent families to adopt their kids, so be it. I just happen to disagree with some of those rules and find it unfortunate that some children won’t be placed into some really great homes that happen to only have one parent. Ultimately, I’m just happy that some countries recognize the need to open their doors to international adoption and actually allow it to happen.
Adoption Etiquette
This isn’t really directed at PAPs or APs, but for those of you who are friends or family members of PAPs. When someone tells you that s/he is going to start the paperchase for their second adoption, the appropriate response is “great”. If you’re interested, feel free to ask about the details of the process. Please, do not say, “what? why? Oscar doesn’t need a brother or sister” or, in response to the possibility that the child will come from Ethiopia, “you know they have a problem with AIDS babies; can you trust the medical information?”. Please, show the same sort of support you would show anyone having a bio child.
Blissful Ignorance
Wow. Was I some kind of idiot when I started my first adoption or what? I chose a homestudy agency near my home, chose a country based on the fact that it accepted singles, had a low incidence rate of FAS and had a culture I found interesting and chose an IA agency because my homestudy agency recommended it and other families did, too. I didn’t know what a NOID really was; I didn’t worry about my country shutting down; and I didn’t worry all that much about ethics (I mean, they reopened the country, so the process had to be fixed, right?). I automatically ruled out domestic adoption (who’s going to choose a single woman to parent her child?) and special needs (hey, there’s no way I could knowingly take that on). I had no idea what I didn’t even know about adoption.
I feel like I’m starting from scratch on this one. Maybe I’ll adopt a bi-racial baby domestically. There is an obvious appeal to knowing I’m not going to have to spend weeks (or months!) in a foreign country alone with my kids. Maybe I’ll adopt an HIV positive child. All I know right now is that with every thought I have, I have a number of thoughts questioning the original one.
Adopting domestically – it would be nice to have a child from the time s/he is a newborn, but I do wonder whether Oscar would somehow be jealous of that. There’s also the issue that this adoption would likely be an open one. Is it fair for one child to have a relationship (regardless of how close it is) with his or her birth mother when the other cannot?
Adopting special needs kids – I know now that I can take on far more than I previously thought. I also have a better handle on the kind of life kids who don’t find families are likely to have. Is it unfair to Oscar to have a sibling with a significant medical need that will require such a large amount of my attention? Or, would that need eventually just become a part of who that child is that he didn’t even really notice it? Do I really have it in me to parent a child with a chronic illness that could become a terminal disease? I think I do, but one of my best friends reacted to this prospect far more negatively than I had imagined anyone would. There’s still a lot of mis-information and prejudice out there about HIV. I know I’m open to “correctible” needs like a cleft palate. I met the sweetest little girl in VN whose lovely mom was waiting it out over there, too. Little RG had the sweetest disposition notwithstanding the fact that she had severe hip dysplasia and a club foot that had to be causing her extreme pain. While I know the surgeries, etc. would be difficult, I no longer see those obstacles as reasons to turn away from a child.
Adopting internationally again – Where? Jeez, it’s becoming tough for a single girl out there. There’s Ethiopia, of course, but will it go the way of Vietnam? The multiple trips required of some of the Eastern bloc (and Asian) countries rule them out for me. I just can’t put Oscar (or myself or our dogs) through that. There’s Colombia, although I would be looking at an older child, which raises the birth order issue. I’m leaning towards India, but I’m not of Indian descent, so that makes it more difficult (added to the fact I’m a 40 year old single woman) and likely I’ll need to adopt an older child (birth order issue, again). I’m interested in Thailand, but there are significant restrictions there.
Gender – Hmm. Do I want to choose? I’m thinking no. Although I have a great name for a little girl and still have some desire to have one, I know I won’t be asking for a HBG AYAP. Should I adopt a brother for Oscar? Maybe it wouldn’t matter to him.
Timing – While part of me would love to do my homestudy now, I know I can’t adopt until next summer at the earliest. I do want to have at least a year with Oscar home alone before we actually bring another child home, so if I go international, starting back up now is the right choice. From talking with some of you out there who have gone the domestic route, I’ve been shocked about how quickly you’ve been able to add to your families when you’ve been open to race, relationship with birth mother, etc.
So, while I was thinking that my second adoption should be a snap, I’ve managed to make it far more complicated than the first. Not a surprise, really, if you know me. Perhaps I’ll simply put all of the options into a hat and have Oscar choose. Ok, probably not, but there’s some appeal there.
I’m back in the game (I think)
So, I’m going through this great internal debate right now, and if any of you still check in here, I’d love to get your thoughts. I’m considering adopting again (honestly, I’ve been thinking about it since about the third week after Oscar’s G&R), but I’m a little bit conflicted. Oscar is my special guy; would I really be able to have the same sort of feelings that I have for him for another child? After all the two of us have been through together, it’s hard to imagine being able to establish the same sort of bond with another child. I know I took a huge leap of faith when I started the process for Oscar; is this the same sort of thing?
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
