How the Adoption Process Works

From what I have read and already experienced, a lot of the adoption process is hurry up and wait. Pre-activation is long, full of deadlines and you are constantly trying to schedule things and finish things so that you can then wait for them to be created/reviewed and then we hurry up and proof them and wait for them to be live. Now that we are active… we wait. We wait for “the call”.

When discussing this process in person I realize that people don’t know what to call who so here is the appropriate terminology. Before the baby is born we refer to the mother as the expectant mother (EM). After the baby is born we refer to her as the birth mom (bmom). Don’t ever refer to her as the “real mom”. 

Part of the pre-activation period is filling out your Adoption Planning Questionnaire or APQ. This is a huge part of the process and this is what they use to match you to expectant mothers (EMs). This is where we state our budget, race we would like to adopt, age of baby, amount of openness we are comfortable with having with the birth mom (Bmom), if we are comfortable with any substance abuse from the EM and how much, what family medical history we are OK with on the EM’s side and other misc. questions.

When a EM comes to the agency she fills out a similar APQ with her information. The computer then pulls profiles that match our APQs. The agency then shows the EM profiles that match the APQ and she will pick a family.

The more open you are on your APQ the more your profile will be shown and the quicker you will most likely be matched. For example, if you were open to any race you would obviously be shown to a lot more EM than if you stated you only want a 100% Caucasian baby. We were pretty open with contact with Bmom and budget, so it makes up a little bit of our choice to have a 100% Caucasian baby.

Once a EM picks you it’s called a match. A match can be a 5-month match, a 5-day match, a mom is in labor right now get your butt here match, or baby was just born, congratulations you have a child match (called a stork drop). You have to be ready for them all! When they call you and tell you the EM is in labor or baby was just born you have 24 hours to get there. The baby can be come from anywhere in the US.  I LOVE this Southwest commercial!

Ideally, they like to match you with a few months left in the pregnancy. That way you have time to prepare and to develop a relationship with the EM.

As far as what EMs are looking for when picking a couple, it is different for everyone. Some say the couple reminded them of their family, or looked like their brother or dad, or they liked that they travel. Some might like that we have a child already, but some might want a couple that doesn’t have children yet. You never know why you will be picked so they stress to just be yourself. A common phrase in the adoption world is “your baby will find you”. You are waiting for YOUR baby not just a baby and when your baby does find you it will all make sense.

Unfortunately, some matches fall through because the EM decides to parent the child, and these are called disruptions. About 20% of matches end in disruptions. Usually before the baby is born but sometimes not till after. For this reason, lots of people like stork drops because even if it is disrupted you only knew about the baby for a day or a few hours. Long matches are hard because you could end up waiting 5 months only to find out it was disrupted, and you have to start all over. Honestly, I would 100% prefer a stork drop! How fun to just get a call one day that you have a baby on the way!

Once you are matched and the EM goes into labor you get a call. You have 24 hours to get to the hospital. Every state is different but the Bmom  must wait, on average, 24-72 hours before they can sign papers to terminate parental rights (TPR). Again, every state is different but, in some states, this is irrevocable once signed and in other states the TRP is revocable for a short period (maybe a week depending on state). After TPR and the irrevocable period is over the baby is officially and legally yours.

Following TPR you have to wait for Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) to clear.  Interstate Compact is each state’s review of all adoption paperwork and documents to make sure it is in proper order. Once the paperwork is reviewed, both states involved in the adoption (bmom state/adoptive family state) provide their approval of the ICPC paperwork before the adoptive family can take the baby out of the state where the baby was born. So generally, families need to plan to stay in the baby/birth parent’s state for 2-3 full weeks. It could be shorter or could be longer. You can go anywhere in the state (after TPR) but you can’t cross the border. Once ICPC clears you can bring your baby home!

I hope this makes sense. It’s a lot of information and if you were like me, and knew nothing about domestic adoption, it’s kind of like a new language! 

Adoption

I started to think about adoption while I was still pregnant with Grayson. We didn’t know what Grayson had but it was clear it was hereditary, and I knew they might not figure out what it was, which would eliminate the option of IVF. I knew I needed to keep my options open and that I would do anything and everything to expand our family. I didn’t do much research before, but it was weighing heavy on my heart. After we lost Grayson and Dr. Shinawi told us what he thought he had we were excited to have more options, but I had two problems. 1. Our doctor wanted us to wait 1 year to get pregnant again because of my cesarean section and 2. If we did IVF I would have to be pregnant again. A year to try again seemed like forever. We had already been trying to grow our family for 2+ years! But the thought of being pregnant again, any sooner than a year ,made me sick to think about. It was very clear that adoption was the answer. We could continue to work on growing our family while following the doctors 1-year restriction and I could take some time off from growing humans.

At the end of October, after much research, we joined our agency. Joining the agency didn’t involve much commitment. Once you join, and they collect a small fee, you start to learn the details of the process. We did have a call with them before joining and did have our questions answered as far as cost, timeline etc. but after joining we were mailed a large packet and 250+ manual of the real details.

When we joined in October I was excited about the idea of adoption but was so clueless to how the process worked and not knowing is scary. I live for recommendations and asking people their experiences before choosing a doctor, a restaurant, a brand of yoga pant. So, choosing solely on my own research and having no one to talk to was hard and scary! The commitment level once we joined was minimal and we weren’t too invested financially, so I was OK with this fear. Our next step was to read the manual and have another call with the agency. Scott and I took our time and didn’t feel any need to rush. It was fascinating to read though everything and it opened my eyes to the world of adoption. But after reading it I was more scared and didn’t feel that great about the LONG process to become active. 

The beginning stages of adoption, before you are active, is building your profile. A 3rd party associated with our agency sends you a video camera and you film your life for 3 weeks along with collecting interviews from friends and a full interview from Scott and I detailing our life. We also had to do a whole print profile where we answered numerous questions/facts and wrote essays about ourselves and include 150 pictures. This is what I didn’t like. We had to market ourselves to a birth mother and hope to get picked. This was hard for me and it felt like a competition. I was able to view other profiles and videos online and it’s hard not to compare yourself!

So, we took our time, read our manual, had our call with the agency and then waited till it felt right to make the next move. We hadn’t told anyone our plans yet. We talked about it, prayed about it, and just let it sink in.  Then when we got the call from Dr. Shinawi. It was 8 weeks after we lost Grayson and he called to tell us that Grayson did not have what he thought it was and they still didn’t know what him and William had. I immediately hung up the phone and went to my computer to register for our home study. The home study was a lot more of a financial commitment and a lot more work. I needed to hear Dr. Shinawi tell me they didn’t know. If he would have told me it was confirmed, and we could continue with IVF it would have been hard to start the adoption process even though I knew that was what was best for our family. Mentally, I am not ready to be pregnant, physically I am not ready to be pregnant. And IVF is still an invasive and hard process with no guarantees. I was happy that we had a backup plan in place and happy that my decision was now super easy to make. This was, at that point ,the only option to grow our family.

Once I was 100% with our decision things started to pick up. We applied for our home study, started to gather ALL THE PAPERWORK, and made the next financial commitment to start our video profile. The adoption process is WORK! I sometimes felt like I had another full-time job. We had to get fingerprinted, apply for background checks in MO and IL, get  physicals and letters from our doctors stating that we were healthy, provide our last two years tax returns, a financial sheet that listed all our income, insurance, bills, life insurance, policy numbers, mortgage information. Provide copies of our SS cards, birth certs, marriage certs. We had to get our home ready for a home study – our house is really safe now! We have a fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detector on every floor, and a second story fire escape latter!

The first person I told about our plan was my mom and it wasn’t easy. I don’t know why but it was hard to make our little secret public. Maybe because it was making it real. Lots of people had been asking me if I had heard from Dr. Shinawi and I would say no. I don’t know, I just needed time to process it all myself before I told people. Once I started telling people I felt better about things. It became more real and less scary.

After several calls with our family coordinator at the agency and visits with our social worker I started to not only feel good about things but excited! I joined a Facebook page for families in our agency, Googled everything I could about adoption, searched and read blogs and adoption stories, looked for articles on Pinterest and bought books to read. I honestly felt like I did when I first became pregnant with Abby and wanted to read every pregnancy/birth story blog/book I could get my hands on.

I think what got me most excited was one thing our social worker said during one of our home study visits. She said, “this is going to work for you”. I don’t know why but I still had this fear that at the end of this we wouldn’t have a baby. We have been there before – losing two babies. At the end of those pregnancy there wasn’t a baby like there should have been. The beauty of adoption is it will work. Now, how long we must wait isn’t guaranteed, like a heathy 9 month pregnancy, but it will work. Even if we never get picked by a mother, the agency gives the longest waiting family babies from birth mothers who don’t want to pick or be involved. So, it could take a long time, but we will, at the end of this journey, have a baby.

So, after months of preparing, on February 14^th, we received the email we were waiting for that we were officially active in our agency! We popped open a bottle of champagne and celebrated our first huge milestone! And the best part of being paper pregnant is I can still drink!  

 

 

Big Announcement …

We’re adopting!

After 3.5 months of research, paperwork, home studies, background checks, doctor appointments, essays, interviews, and more paperwork we are FINALLY active or “live” in our agency and our profile will start to be shown to expectant mothers!

We have decided to adopt a caucasian newborn, domestically. Every case is different but the average wait time is 3-12 months till we have a baby in our arms.

In the next few weeks, I will be sharing with you why we decided to adopt, the process to adopt and everything I have learned along the way! We are SO excited to be paper pregnant! Now the real wait begins!

Another Dead End

We got a call from the research team at Wash-U last week and after looking at Abby, William and Grayson’s EXTL1 gene they were able to determine that that mutation is NOT the cause. They initially looked into this gene because I had 1 mutation, Scott had 1 mutation and Grayson had 2 mutations. They wanted to see if Abby had 0 or 1 and if William had 2 like Grayson. Turns out while Grayson has 2 mutations, Abby had 1 but William had 0 mutations on this gene. So, another dead end.

The good news is that they now have all 3 of our children’s DNA and they are going to keep going through it to see what Grayson and William have in common that Abby doesn’t have. It’s frustrating. I thought this could be it. They said the next part would take another 2 months.

We are still waiting for some things to happen before we share or fun news … hoping by end of the week or next. Stay tuned … =)