Our Adoption Story Part II: Choosing an Agency & Matching with a Birth Mother

Hi Friends! If you landed here and haven’t read Part I of our adoption story, you can do that here. I’ll admit, the title of Part I is a bit of a misnomer, because that post primarily focused on our IVF journey. For us, though, it’s all part of the path we took to find Baby Bright, so I hope you’ll understand. And honestly, I entitled it before it was written. I had no idea it would take quite so many words to get this story out.

For the sake of time, and because in January 2018, I took exactly zero pictures, this will be my first post without photos. I hope you will survive.

Part I of our adoption story was read over 200 times in just 48 hours, so it’s clear that adoption is something people want to learn more about and for good reason. There is PLENTY on the web about IVF. I never felt I was alone or missing information regarding IVF. Adoption, on the other hand, is not written about by hundreds and hundreds of people who are in the thick if it right now or who have recently had a successful adoption. I hadn’t written about our adoption journey until last week–two years later! The lack of readily available, reliable, and consistent information made getting started on our adoption journey challenging, but once we did, it was a whirlwind process that led us to parenthood in just three months.

Getting the Adoption Journey Started and Common Questions

As I mentioned in Part I, we had decided we were, in fact, ready for another failure (as our doctor had mentioned should be the case before we moved forward). We made the decision that another round of IVF wasn’t in the cards–it was just too hard on my body, we were out of benefits, and we felt the outcome was more of a gamble than adoption.

I understand you may have some questions. Like…

1) Why wouldn’t you want to try one more time for a child that looks like you guys (especially since Mr. Bright is kind of HOT? Hello Mary?!)?

2) Weren’t you worried an adopted child would have physical, emotional, or mental issues?

3) What if the birth parents try to take your child back?

Those are all fair questions we absolutely thought through and discussed. I can honestly say that my only sadness around not having our own at that point is that they wouldn’t look like my husband, because I know how happy that would have made Mr. Bright. That’s it. I never longed to be pregnant (I was SO sick for the 13 weeks I was pregnant before I miscarried), and I really didn’t care to pass on too much of myself, except for maybe my sense of creativity…and maybe some of the bravery and resourcefulness. I hoped and still feel these are characteristics I can help develop in Baby Bright.

Regarding physical, emotional, or mental concerns….the truth is, there are no guarantees, whether you have your own child or you adopt. There are plenty of perfectly normal families who have perfectly imperfect children of their own, so in some ways, we didn’t see adoption as any more of a risk in regards to the health of a baby. We would love our own baby, regardless of what challenges he or she faced, so we felt that would also be the case for an adopted child.

As far as birth parents wanting their child back, we did learn that laws are different in every state, but typically, once the revocation period ends, it’s very difficult to reverse unless the birth parents were somehow coerced or both parents did not relinquish their rights. Obviously I’m not an attorney, and I can only speak from my own experience and those experiences of friends that have adopted. Having our child taken from us after the birth parents relinquished their rights was not a concern we had after we conducted our research. I’m sure there are some stories that could prove otherwise, but this was not a major concern of ours.

Also, what choice did we have? I am one of those people that will spare myself the kind of thinking that is unhelpful if it won’t change anything. Yes, I was aware of those things, and yes I researched them, and that was that. None of those things would change our want to adopt, so why “what if” myself to death? Mr. Bright, on the other hand…..if “what ifs” were lethal in high doses, he might not be here. Just saying–we balance each other well!

So now back to–where to start? And why is this so hard? Getting started with adoption comes with some natural deterrents.

1. Right out of the gate, we knew we weren’t guaranteed a positive outcome. (We were at least over that hump–see rationale above.)
2. Reviews of even the best adoption agencies include horrible reviews, too–so who should we trust?
3. The thought of sending off any sum of money over a couple hundred bucks, and then potentially thousands more once we were matched with an expectant mother, felt like putting all (or at least a good portion) of our eggs in one basket. It felt…. pretty risky, and that’s coming from someone who is not risk averse!
4. There are also different ways to go about the adoption process–which route should we go with? Adoption agency? Private attorney? Referral agency? One of those floating umbrella situations from The Grinch?

The Family Profile, the Home Study, and Committing to an Agency

After a decent amount of research, we decided to go with the least expensive and lowest risk entry point, which is a referral agency. This route offers a way to be added to a list of hopeful parents who are given access to a listserv of potential adoption situations and consistent updates to that list for a cost of $2-300 (and an approved application). These agencies are typically very small operations, and as a result, are often willing to jump on the phone with you and just TALK IT OUT. Like what the heck do I do next? Can someone just answer that question?

While we didn’t have the BEST experience with the first referral agency we used (found on the inter-webs with mixed reviews, like pretty much all of them), the connection I made there offered up a ton of useful information and also a link to another adoptive mommy who ultimately, just through a chance encounter (conversation), would lead us to Baby Bright.

So I went through the registration hoops and was added to this referral agency’s listserv. The owner spent some time on the phone with me, and here’s what I came away with:

1. We needed to get her our profile completed ASAP or no birth family could even consider us.
2. We needed to get our home study completed ASAP, because you cannot be considered for any situation that will result in a birth any time soon without that step being finalized.
3. We needed to set our expectations appropriately.

I discussed item #1 in Part I of this post. The adoptive family profile is a document comprised of mostly pictures and captions with a bit about your life and who you are. The purpose of this document is to provide information to expectant parents who are considering choosing adoption.

Regarding item #2, I found a local home study agency with excellent reviews and have provided some details further down in this post.

As for item #3…you are probably thinking wait time–like how long would we have to wait for a baby? And you’re not wrong, but that’s not even the hardest part. Here is a summary of the tail end of the discussion regarding expectations:

“Look, I know you are hoping some young, beautiful, intelligent college girl will want to give you her baby because she’s unwed and not ready for this stage in her life, but this isn’t Kansas, and you should probably prepare for the fact that these expectant mothers are not in great situations, and that’s why they want something better for their children.”

O.K. NOTED.

*Disclaimer–there are plenty of pregnant women who choose adoption and also take care of themselves and their babies and go on to have wonderful relationships with the adoptive families! We were not exposed to any situations like this, maybe because of the route we took. My account of our journey is only a reflection of our own experiences. I am also trying to be respectful of others’ misfortune and difficult circumstances, while at the same time sharing our story and helping other adoptive families understand what to expect.

“BUT ALSO,” she added, “be prepared to find that many birth mothers and fathers may have heart-breaking stories. They may still smoke when they are pregnant, they may have diseases that can be passed on to the baby, and they may be addicted to drugs or alcohol.

My next questions were the same as you are probably coming up with in your head right now. How much smoking? What kind of diseases and drugs? Do these babies turn out o.k.? Can pregnant women go to rehab? How can we help the mother and the baby?

She cut to the chase, “Smoking is o.k. Most diseases will not be passed to the baby, and many drugs, like cocaine or heroine are survivable. Alcohol is a different situation, and one I would caution you about. You’ll want to work with agencies that do everything in their power to take care of the birth mothers.”

I guess I knew this world existed, but it was really, really difficult to hear. You have to realize, for women who never carried a baby to term, who did everything possible to make it possible, it seems rather incomprehensible that one could carry a baby to term in such dire circumstances, and further, that one would, if certain things were avoidable.

This news was not only disturbing and heartbreaking–for the babies and their mothers, but HOW IN THE HECK was I going to a) tell this to Mr. Bright and 2) get him on board with it with this much risk?

Mr. Bright, while younger, is actually a super duper old toot inside, and he is NOT a risk taker. You may be thinking, well, Mary, he married you, so surely he IS a risk-taker. I am telling you, he is not. Him choosing me to marry was a fluke, or perhaps I packaged up my life up until the point I met him into some very well thought out, measured-choices kind of way. WHO KNOWS. That was SO 2012. He doesn’t read these things, but even if he did, IT’S TOO LATE NOW, HONEY!

(I really wish I had time to riddle this post with memes right now, but I don’t, and that may not be appropriate. Opportunity missed!)

So anyways, I adapt quickly. Cigarettes, drugs, no alcohol and no prenatal care? Got it. Mr. Bright, on the other hand, was a tougher sell, but we didn’t have to make any decisions at that time. We would just see what opportunities showed up on this list. What became very clear is that the more we were open to–race, gender, family history, drug exposure, etc., the quicker we would adopt.

Most of the situations that were shared on the listserv did not apply to us. Many expectant mothers wanted a certain profile–this could be ethnicity, already have children, must be a certain religion or not, live in a certain state, etc.

Meantime, we got our home study into high gear. Every home study process is different. I found a local agency here in metro-Atlanta, and they were helpful and very laid back. I found them to be focused on the outcome rather than nit-picky details.

The job of the home study agency is to make sure you can provide a good home for a child and help you understand what you need to do to be home study approved. The process included filling out a ton of forms and questionnaires, getting background checks, being interviewed at our house, giving a tour of our house, and shelling out dough. The cost was around $2 – 3k when it was all said and done, if memory serves, although I’ve blocked out some of the monetary details because SO MANY DOLLARS LEFT OUR ACCOUNT. Home study visits continue on after you bring an adopted baby home, as well, so that was included in the total cost.

The home study process itself was really not a big deal. There is a lot of hoopla on the inter-webs about home studies, and I think some people just overthink this. Our house was mid-renovation, we had no nursery ready (we did have a room that COULD be one), we had a pool without pool alarms installed (yet), and I didn’t have time to clean house before our visits.

My point is, it doesn’t matter if you dropped out of college, got divorced, floors need mopping, you’re a gun owner, you got fired from a job, you don’t have parents, you aren’t married, blah blah blah. The purpose of the home study is to be sure you can provide a safe and stable environment for a child. Your missteps in life or your dirty house don’t define you. Trust me, Mr. Bright and I are not perfect people by ANY means, and we had zero issues in the home study process.

We Got a MATCH!

Meantime, we are on “the list.” Remember? After two weeks of watching situations come through the listserv with the adoption referral agency, we saw a birth mother situation that we felt could be right fit for us, so we asked that our profile be submitted to the expectant mother.

We were warned to be prepared to be picked over MANY times. We were told not to get discouraged. But I just had a feeling in my gut—can’t tell you why–I knew she was going to pick us.

I mean, I’m not going to lie. I’m a salesperson, ya’ll. You better believe our profile had cute pictures of Mr. Bright and our chocolate labs all over it! I knew who would be making the decisions. What woman doesn’t like a good looking man and cute dogs? And if she didn’t, should I even be the parent of her child? I KID, I KID. Don’t judge me for that comment. It’s late, and I’m getting punchy.

Like I said, I don’t know why I knew we were going to be picked. Our profile looked like many others. I shared about our hobbies and broadly touched on what industries we worked in, what kind of home life I felt we could offer, etc. There is no identifying or specific information in these profiles.

It was a gut feeling, and it was right. We were chosen! We were MATCHED! The expectant mother was about three months from her due date. She admitted to smoking. She reported that she had been in and out of prison for theft and said that she was clean–no drugs. Keep in mind, everything the adoption agency and potential adoptive parents know about the birth parent(s) is self-reported by the birth parents. Birth mothers are not drug tested and interrogated. They can say whatever they want about their family history, siblings, current state of living, health, etc.

Equally mind-boggling, is that everything the birth parent(s) knows about adoptive parents is what the adoptive parents choose put it their profile (this does have to be approved by the adoption agency or attorney, but a decent amount of it is fluff that’s unverifiable). This is the information birth parents use to choose the parents of their child!?

WILD, right? But that’s how this thing works. Is it broken? Yes. Is there an obvious way to solve the current problems in the adoption world without making it even harder to complete an adoption and potentially put more children into harm’s way or in foster care? No. And so you just carry on, because that’s the only way to your baby.

So we are matched! Oh happy day! We could really, actually become parents and bring home a baby! All the excitement was there, but it didn’t take more than a minute before the worry set in. Is she taking care of the baby? And herself? Where is she right now? When can we can we see the results of the ultrasound? Could we talk to her and keep in touch?

And YES, friends. We had to send ALL THE MONEY. At the time of match, after signing another pile of documents, adoptive parents start paying for the living expenses of expectant mothers: rent, groceries, utilities, cell phone, maternity clothing, etc. This cost used to be something adoption agencies took on and were able to defray for most families by having all families contribute.

Most agencies have since done away with this practice by shifting the cost to the adoptive families. This way, you don’t have to pay the agency more than an application fee upfront (which is still a significant amount); you can begin paying the really big bucks when you are actually matched. There are pros and cons to both ways of covering this cost, of course.

The Dark Side of Adoption

You may be thinking, but wouldn’t this money provide incentive to some women to put their children up for adoption just for the money or for a place to stay? Couldn’t this lead to a mother being coerced in some way? Doesn’t this open opportunities for people to scam hopeful adoptive parents while living for free until the baby is born?

These are all valid assessments. But what if the rent wasn’t paid and the groceries weren’t purchased? What if the expectant mother had no way to get to the doctor and never received prenatal care? Would these babies get the care they needed? Would these birth mothers have the time and support they needed to get back on their feet after giving birth and giving up a child?

We don’t know, friends. And these are the difficult parts of adoption. Yes, some things are broken, and some will take advantage of this. Someone will coerce a birth mother, and someone will steal the last hard-earned dollar of a hopeful adoptive parent. There is good and evil in most things (except puppies), and adoption is no different. It all requires a leap of faith.

Meeting the Birth Mother

We knew that the chances of the baby coming home with us would be increased if we met with the birth mother and started a relationship with her. Knowing that her baby was going to a home with people she knew and trusted was really important. She lived in the Tampa, Florida area, so we agreed to meet her for lunch.

At this point, we were no longer dealing with the referral agency. The referral agency just helps adoption agencies and private attorneys find adoptive families when their own networks do not turn up a match. This could be because the cost was too high for any families in their network. Or perhaps they had no families willing to accept drug use or that were willing to be part of a semi-open adoption. There are many reasons for this.

(This is probably illustrating another point: if you have all the time in the world to wait and all kinds of disposable income, it COULD be the case that working directly with an agency might offer potential matches with birth parents who have more stable and healthy lifestyles. For some, this might be a better path. That’s just an observation on my part. It is an opinion, not necessarily based on an abundance of evidence, but definitely some evidence.)

We were working with a representative from a private adoption attorney at this point. She and the attorney she works with had conducted hundreds of adoptions, and she acted almost like a den mother to the expectant mothers. We were under the impression that she took great care of these mothers, which we found comforting. She would be present and coordinate the lunch as well as all other communication.

We flew in on a weekday morning, got a rental car, and drove to Applebees to meet her and the birth mother for lunch (look, I didn’t decide on these things, ok?). And we waited.

If you picked up on my descriptions of Mr. Bright, you must know that he was so far out of his comfort zone that I wished I’d had a tranquilizer gun in a hip holster. I had been managing my own emotions and his “Negative Nancy/ Why are we doing this / What if this is a scam” commentary for a week prior to this lunch date, and it was looking like the birth mom wasn’t going to show.

We were starving, and Mr. Bright was too angry to eat. I ordered a salad and couldn’t stomach it. The birth mother would intermittently send text messages to our “adoption professional” (who was quickly losing our confidence) from the attorney’s office. It seemed as if the birth father was not on board with the adoption plan and was very controlling. We got the impression that all he cared about was having his bills paid, and that felt awful.

We couldn’t miss our flight back, because we had to go back to work. We were ANGRY. We felt trapped. What should we do? Cut bait? We were already out a couple grand. We had been told many times that we should not try to comprehend how expectant mothers in these situations live by looking through the lens of our own experiences. And that was probably fair. We had no idea what she was going through or what her life was like.

Many birth mothers considering adoption are bouncing from place to place, have no job, no transportation of their own, etc. But she had money for a taxi or an Uber. We had provided that money! We had paid for her maternity clothes, rent, and the cell phone she was using! She knew we had taken the day off of work and flown in from out of state to meet her! What were we going to do now? If she had changed her mind, why didn’t she just tell us?

The entire adoption experience really exposed us to some things that we don’t see or deal with every day, and it was HARD. Sure, we had donated clothes, time, money, etc. to those in need, but being so close to situations where pregnant women were living with literally nothing, was heart-wrenching.

Even worse, though, is that when given the means to have a safe place to sleep, food to eat, medical care, options for transportation, etc., many still cannot find their way or get back on their feet. As you can imagine, this largely has to do with addiction. I have a history with people with addiction, and not by choice. My tolerance and patience is about as close to zero as you can get without dipping into the red zone, so this part was really difficult for me to navigate.

We certainly heard some stories of redemption along the way, where birth mothers got back on track and carried on to live healthy, successful lives and stayed in touch with their children. We hoped for that kind of outcome. The “adoption professional” from the attorney’s office assured us that we should hang in there. She had an ultrasound scheduled soon, and if the birth mother didn’t show up, then we could decide if it was best to switch gears.

BUT SHE DIDN’T SHOW UP. Meantime, THE BABY. I couldn’t help it….every day, every minute, I thought of that precious, innocent soul. What if he wasn’t getting the nourishment he needed? How would his life turn out if his parents didn’t allow us to adopt him? Would they be able to care for him? Was the birth father mistreating the birth mother? GAH. It. Was. Brutal.

I think the match lasted a month. I didn’t keep track–it was emotionally too much. We never had a good feeling about it, and it honestly started to feel like the “adoption professional” had wooed the birth mother with living expenses, because she seemed extremely non-committal. I started to wonder if the birth mother ever even agreed to an adoption plan at all. She didn’t show up for even one meeting or appointment, other than the initial consultation. Maybe we were wrong. We were so close to the due date and so far in financially already, we just kept on. There were many phone calls, texts, broken promises and agreements, and SO MANY DOLLARS.

It was the end of January, and my phone rang. It was the adoption professional from the attorney’s office. Our birth mother had some kind of rupture. It was a medical emergency that may have been due to drug use, and she delivered the baby four or six weeks early. I should remember that detail, but I can’t, because the next thing the adoption professional said was, “She wants to keep her baby.”

Of course she wants to keep her baby! What mother would not want to keep her baby? We couldn’t fault her, but damn if we couldn’t mourn for that baby. He had no home. He had a mother who had been in and out of jail, had no job, no car, and a controlling boyfriend.

Failed Match | Failed Adoption

Mr. Bright and I were devastated. We are still devastated for that baby. And he is just one of thousands. I can only hope that somehow the parents got their lives together or maybe they lost custody and the baby is in a wonderful foster care or adoptive home. We will never know.

And we will never see that 7k again either. I hate to bring that up, because if Mr. Bright does read this, it’s going to send him into a fury all over again, because he REALLY needs a new truck. Old Betsy has over 200k miles on her, and it’s touch and go on the heater this winter. Don’t get me wrong, I want that money back, too, but I don’t give things like that any energy. It’s over and done and nothing can change it so, NEXT.

We were now in that place that almost all hopeful adoptive parents go and none want to be–the abyss of the adoption world = ready to adopt, home study complete, some money saved, and not matched with an expectant mother. In other words, we weren’t even on a road that MIGHT lead to somewhere good. We were at a rest stop, and all we could do was wait.

I DON’T WAIT WELL.

Two-ish weeks after the failed match (failed adoption?) –WHATEVER–I was not at peace. After a failure, I can’t just sit around and let it marinate. Rolling things around in my head, weighing out the what ifs = no can do. That’s a recipe for long term sadness, bitterness, and committing the detailed exchanges of the failure to memories that I don’t really want to recall. I had to do something.

PSA: Why Connecting With People As They Are, Even When They Are Different, and, In Your Opinion, WRONG, Matters (In related news, I’m good at long subheadings)

Some time after we had connected with the referral agency back in late November/early December, the owner had created a forum for new, potential adoptive parents to pose questions to those that had already adopted one child. I followed the thread and ended up connecting with a woman who had already adopted a baby boy. She and her husband were looking to adopt a baby girl of a very specific ethnicity, so I felt she would be willing to help me because we weren’t “competing,” if you will, for the same adoptive situation. She had answered some of my questions through the thread and even jumped on the phone with me for a chat one day.

She was so different from me in so many ways–a “crunchy” mommy she called herself. An anti-vaxxer, and maybe a home-school only advocate? She owned it all and even admitted some of it may seem a bit crazy. Some of it I couldn’t identify with, some I could, and some I couldn’t even agree with….. but here’s the reason I even offer you all of these details: if it wasn’t for her, Baby Bright would not be Baby Bright, and Mr. and Mrs. Bright might not even be parents right now. Let that sink in. The point I want to illustrate here is that even if someone is the POLAR opposite of you, you CAN find common ground. You CAN help each other. You CAN change each other’s lives for the better–in the most profound way. But you first have to seek to understand and connect. That is all. That is my PSA for the day. Take it or leave it.

So we were two weeks out from the fail, and I had to do something. I thought about reaching out to Crunchy Mommy, but the thing is, it was Valentine’s Day. If you have followed me on social media or on the blog over the last week, you may have just gotten chills. I know I did, and I’ve lived this story and told it a hundred times. Baby Bright was born on February 13th. He had already been born. The story was already being written.

I can’t wait to tell you the rest—the very best part of this whole journey! I had no idea it would take three posts to tell our story, because I had never written it down before. I hope you’ll continuing reading! Here’s the link to Part III!

If you’re still here, leave me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and questions. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to my updates! I won’t spam you, but I will be sure you’re the first to know about posts and other good stuff. See you back here soon….

xoxo Mary