The Biggest Decision of Our Lives

“Just don’t think about it- that’s when it will happen.”

“When it’s the right time, it will happen.”

“All in God’s time.”

After three years of trying to conceive, Oscar and I did a lot of reevaluating of our lives. We thought, talked, cried, and continued on dreaming of becoming parents. After months of this, we sat down and laid out all our hopes, dreams, fears, and pains to one another. We decided that the most important aspect of creating a family was to become Mom and Dad. It was soon after that when we stopped caring about the details of how we got there. It became clear to us that adoption was our path to becoming parents.

We went to talk with a counselor about this big decision we were about to make. She asked if we had exhausted all options for conceiving a child, which we hadn’t. We had plenty more options, including IVF, but the stress that led up to this point was enough to push us to find another option. All too often, infertile couples do not take the time to mourn their inability to conceive, and our counselor wanted to make sure we were identifying with every level. To this day, we don’t know if we will ever be able to conceive a child, we just don’t burden ourselves with it.

The next few months I consumed my free time with researching adoption- closed adoption, open adoption, semi-open adoption, domestic adoption, international adoption, private adoption, fost-adopt, on and on it went! Naively, we were sure a closed adoption was the best option to pursue. We didn’t want anyone to interfere with our parenting or try to make us compete for our child. We didn’t want there to be any confusion as to who Mom and Dad were or chancing having our child reclaimed.

We decided to meet with a local adoption agency because we really enjoyed their website. We felt comfort with the fact that they were local so we could go see them in the flesh and know where all our money was going (calming the fear of an internet scam). This website was filled with videos from the founder on the 700 Club, Lifetime, and a few others. There was a lot of language about bringing technology into adoption and doing a lot of outreach. One thing that impressed us the most was their foundation that offered scholarships to birthmothers, assistance with clothing, support of older children as they too are a part of the adoption. The aspect of the birthmother outreach and assistance really sealed the deal for us.

Our next step was to go meet with these people, face-to-face. We had the option to do an online meeting, but Oscar and I are both personable and felt the need to go in person. When we sat down with the executive director, she was inquisitive about how we came to the decision to adopt and about why we thought a closed adoption was best. Many of the feelings we were experiencing about a closed adoption were, as I mentioned before, quite naïve. She didn’t sway us completely at this meeting, but it did trigger me to do more research. From this meeting, we felt encouraged, supported, and a little pressured to get our contract with the agency completed as soon as possible… almost as if there was something in mind for us.

We would like to stop here in the story and urge anyone looking for an adoption agency to do a lot of research, get referrals (actually call people, don’t just accept a list of contacts), ask a lot of questions about the services, and read, read, read your contract. Adoptive parents are very vulnerable, whether you like to admit it or not, so be aware of being sold a dream as there may be other motives there… like the almighty green!

After talking with the adoption agency and coming to the realization that we might not be choosing the right adoption path, I started hitting the books and the internet. I highly recommend reading Loved by Choice: True Stories that Celebrate Adoption by Susan Horner and Kelly Fordyce Martindale. I also started watching those people locator shows which are primarily filled with people who are results from a closed adoption. I saw the agony and anguish they went through as they searched to fill a void in their souls by connecting with a blood relative. I couldn’t imagine my child going through that pain. I turned my research away from closed adoption to open adoption. Even though open adoption is fairly new (in the adoption-grand-scheme-of-things), I found so much information supporting how healthy it is for your child, for your birth family, and for yourselves. We quickly came to find out that an open adoption is not about getting a family.  

The agency we chose had a “payment” plan of sorts where you could put down 1/3 of your total contract amount and take the next 6 months to pay the balance. This didn’t strengthen our chances in any way as we would not be presented as potential adoptive parents until the balance was paid in full. We took this option anyhow as we still needed to raise some serious cash! (It would behoove you to research the costs of adoption in your state and be aware of surrounding states.) 

If you aren’t made of money, like us, there are tons of ideas online for raising money for adoptions! Churches will often help their members. There are grants, but primarily for those who have completed their home study (I will get to the advantage/disadvantage of this in a moment). We chose a fundraising yard sale! We asked our friends and family to donate their unwanted-ness and boy did we get a response! Over 2 month’s time, we collected truck loads of items to sell from all over our county. We were willing to do all the hard work in transporting it, setting it up, and selling it. For that, we had a lot of willing participants. We also offered to sell peoples belongings as it would add bulk to the sale and in exchange we got a taste of the proceeds!

 

Not only did people donate their belongings, they also came to the yard sale to see what we scored and ultimately ended up buying other peoples donations. We advertised the yard sale online, on street signs, and in the local paper. Thankfully, we had 3 helpers the day before to set-up and organize the sale and then another 4 helpers the next day to help sell. Our future child’s godparents came and tugged on heartstrings every chance they got! I implore anyone taking this route to advertise that the purpose of your event is adoption. People opened their hearts and their wallets. We sold over $2500 worth of stuff and were able to meet some amazing people who had adoption touch their lives in one way or another. We had adoptive parents of special needs children, adults who were from a closed adoption, grandmas, aunts, cousins, you name it and the amazing stories were there!