I have been contacted by some very nice people who want to adopt. Adoption can be confusing and takes a while to learn the “language” and processes. So I thought I’d start a serious of advice postings, this being the first one. First, be ready. You need to have a homestudy done, background checks, and your finances figured out. The adoption world usually runs at a very fast pace, you should have all this done BEFORE you start looking to match with a first family/birth family. Situations are matched sometimes within less than a day, so be ready! Decide if you are willing to drop everything and go or if you will say no to some situations if the pace is too quick. You might also want an attorney who is ready to work with you if needed. Decide what types of situations you are available for: levels of drug or alcohol exposure, birth mother situations, situations if the birth father is not known, etc. its easier to sit down and decide this ahead of time so that you aren’t having to decide “this baby or not”? That gets too emotional.
So far so good with our match. We have guardianship of the baby and are waiting for our court date to do the adoption finalization. Baby is match to our daughter, half native (with a little white) and half black. She’s growing well and while we waited for baby to be born we got to know the birth family. I really enjoyed my time with them, and adore the birth mom very much.
We are matched with a most wonderful first mom, she is the mom to two older kids, she was in college when she got pregnant. The baby matches our family perfectly with the same racial mixture as our daughter. I will be removing the ‘profile-ish’ parts of this blog and I also want to post HOW we got our match to help other people do the same thing.
OH, and my “I’ll beat those spammers and stop people from posting” just slowed things down a bit, I’m still getting lots of posters who want to advertise for cheap viagra, etc. I just delete all of those. I think all I managed to do was to stop real posters. SORRY
I have no idea what is going on with this adoption agency, they give me conflicting information and we are still pending a match. I think one of the issues is that they are a group of adoptive moms and work with cell phones as they go shopping, etc. I think that an office, with files where things are WRITTEN down would really help them sound like they know what they are doing. I get calls with conflicting information and am about to walk away from the match because how can I trust folks who can’t even get accurate information to each other?
Oh, and I think I got all the “add comments” options OFF of this site, I was getting swamped by spammers. I might try and turn it back on after a while….. I must be on someone’s spam list that marketer’s purchase. I’m still getting the poor English “Thank you for the posting, it saved me much time” and some other, longer, obviously translated postings – all worded exactly the same! ARGH.
Wow, I’m being overwhelmed by spam today. I have had at least 10 spam postings in the last hour. Its all about the same so I don’t know if its a ‘bot’ or another of those wierd “how to get your business site seen” classes from Europe again. Anyway, I’ll be working on disabling comments.
Match is still pending with the adoption situation out of Utah. Wish us all luck, including the “first mother”, I hope she’s doing OK. Lots of paperwork, details, organizing, etc to do.
We might have a match with a Native American birthmom, the baby will be half African American. Sounds perfect to us, the agency has a good reputation and is willing to work with us. The baby will be born very soon.
Some folks have contacted me asking for help in connecting with Native American adoption situations, and I have been able to forward on their emails and/or share (privately) adoption situations that I am aware of. One thing I’ve learned, is that the adoption world moves VERY quickly. If you want to adopt, I’d get yourselves ready right away. Get the homestudy done, get the background checks in place, locate a possible lawyer (in case you need one) and get a savings account or other payment plan in place. IMHO.
I moderate all posts, and if the post looks like it comes from someone trying to get a ‘web presence’ particularly to advertise or get business, I delete it. Please do not bother to post and include a URL for knock off designer bags, etc. Thanks for being here, but this is not a classified ad page.
Well, darn, this is like dating. I like someone and they don’t like me or they like me and I don’t like them…. now I remember why I like being married so much! There is one adoption situation that is sooo tempting but I’m not sure we would be the right parents for that child. The child would be hispanic/haitian and tall. A perfect match to our daughter BUT there is no native american blood. We had to talk and talk about that (me and Ryan) and we finally concluded that since we live and work on the reservation, and so much of our live is cultural, it probably would not be fair to a child who would not be able to participate in everything. That could change too, its not like we need our tribal ID cards to do everything….. this is something we are still discussing. Our world isn’t black & white: its Indian & non-Indian.
We might be in review by a birthmother right now. Maybe, I’m not sure how this agency works. We have typically been corresponding with agencies and attorneys in the Dakotas and this is a new agency for us. We have kept ourselves in the “outreach” category for the different agencies because of the specific nature of our family. Who knows what will happen, well, apparently only GOD! Sure wish he was better at leaving hints!
I ended up doing a Religion Statement, some of the birthmoms that we are presented to are of a particular faith, and we are OK with raising the child connected to that faith so I documented that in a letter this last week. We tend to be non-denominational, or better worded, multi-denominational and so are flexible about how we are willing to raise children. Children will make up their own minds anyway when they become adults, all we can do is lay the ground work for them and hope it works out OK in the end. We will remain active in Native American Spirituality but the Christian side we are less picky about (as long as our children are exposed to ethics, morals, etc.)
We are also trying to see if a Native American/Islander will be able to review our file, we have Samoan cousins (and Asian and African American, etc.) so we feel we can raise a variety of ethnic mixtures, we’re still really hoping for a child that is part Native American.
I have some readers (they’ve contacted me privately) but I know my google findability is getting better, I keep getting these spam postings that I delete….. They are all worded about the same and contain a link to a commerical website…. No, thanks!
Wow, we had a birthmom in the midwest we almost matched with but had to say “no thanks, sorry” because I had a gut feeling she was not being honest about alcohol/drug use which was later confirmed by some other information. Then we had a birthmom in South Dakota that we almost matched with but the situation was wrong for us. It was such a positive situation that I’ve been trying to find other native potential adoptive parents to suggest for that birthmom; we learned about that situation three days ago! Then today I learned about another one, but with it being in Florida and everything that needed to be done for it, it was way too expensive for us! Crazy! Had to immediately say “thanks but no thanks”.
PLUS our own tribe might have a situation but it will probably go to a family from out of the area per the birthmom’s wishes. My head is spinning with all that has gone on in the last week and a half! We had to sweat last week just to keep ourselves focused and positive. We also wanted to pray for all the families, birthmoms, birthdads, etc. This world of adopting is beyond confusing sometimes.
