Exploring Adoption

Birth Fathers Network

Birth fathers need a place to share and to find encouragement, hope and healing. Christian psychologist, Dr. Noah H. Kersey, Ph.D. is in the process of building a network of birth fathers to communicate with each other for mutual support and exchange of information.

Dr. Kersey, who is from the Indianapolis area, is a birth father. You can email him or read about how being a birth father has impacted his life at www.FromTheHeartOfABirthFather.blogspot.com.

Dr. Kersey has recently started a Yahoo group called Birth Fathers United. Subscribe by emailing Birth_Fathers_United-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Affording Adoption

If you need information about how to finance an adoption, be sure to check out Affording Adoption. The site is owned by Angie Weldy, an adoptive mom, and contains oodles of info about grants, loans, fundraisers, benefits and adoption travel.

The Adoption Home Study: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

After reading my July 23 entry, one of my readers commented, "I know there are probably people out there who do not have pleasant home study experiences."

The adoption home study is one of the biggest fear factors that looms over prospective parents. What's it all about?

• Do they really peek in your junk drawer and your underwear drawer during the home visit?
• Do you have to have all your medications locked up?
• Does the laundry soap need to be stored on a high shelf?
• Just how clean does your home need to be when they visit? 
• Do they ask you questions about your sex life?
• What if you plan to spank your child? Does that mean you'll be rejected as an adoptive parent?
• What if you have alcoholism or mental illness in your family history? Will you be axed?

These are just a few of the questions would-be parents struggle with when preparing for the dreaded home study.

I'd love to hear from readers -- what was your home study really like? What was the most unusual thing that happened/that you were asked? What turned out better -- or worse -- than you expected?

Please e-mail me. I'll compile your responses and include them in a future entry.

Media Relishes Unusual Adoption Stories

I had a conversation yesterday with a friend who thought she and her husband were "done" after giving birth to two children, but now (9 years later) they're considering adoption. She would like to adopt an older child, but is worried about all the horrifying media reports she constantly hears about adoption.

The media relishes the unusual – the bizarre. Why would they publish a story about an Australian woman being too overweight to adopt – a full 10 years after she tried to adopt – otherwise? (See previous entry for that story)

In my unscientific opinion, over 90 percent of all adoption experiences are normal, run-of-the-mill (if there is such a thing when it comes to adoption) experiences. Much too “boring” for media attention. I'm a journalist and I admit that I often look for a story with an unusual twist. It makes for more interesting reading. But when the media constantly publishes only unusual adoption stories, it makes people wonder if all adoptions aren't a little strange. Thus, the myth of adoption being an unusual and highly risky form of family building continues to be perpetuated.

My goal with this blog is to make adoption more real for people – to tell the stories of everyday folks around the world whose lives are touched by adoption. Sometimes that means covering the seedier side of adoption…stories of adoption fraud, of adoptive parents who murder their children, or even news about would-be parents who are considered too fat to adopt.

It also means sharing stories of people who have reunited with their birth families after 30+ years, of spreading the news that there are millions of well-adjusted adopted kids out there who struggle with very few issues, and of offering slices of life from an adoptive family in which open adoption works beautifully.

Authorities Say Woman is Too Fat to Adopt

Here's a strange but true story: a Brisbane, Australia woman and her husband who applied to become adoptive parents in 1995 were refused because the woman was overweight.  She was told that she had to lose 30 kg of her 129 kg before she was healthy enough to adopt.

I'm not sure why this is being reported 10 years after the fact, other than that the woman is now calling for a "uniform, nationwide adoption system."

Link: The Border Mail.

Mississippi Branch of Bethany Christian Services Now Accepts Catholic Applicants

This week's uproar in the adoption world has simmered down, with the announcement that the Mississippi branch of Bethany Christian Services has reversed a policy barring Roman Catholic applicants from adopting.

Bethany's national board reaffirmed its position that all families who agree with its statement of faith, regardless of church affiliation, are eligible to adopt. All of Bethany's 75 offices in 30 states will comply with the national policy.

Bethany's statement of faith describes belief in the Christian Church and Scripture, but does not refer to any specific branches of Christianity.

Source: Associated Press, 7-20-05, Bree Fowler

Where to Find Information About Adoption Agencies

One of my readers plans to adopt a child from either Kazakhstan, Guatemala or Ethiopia. She's having trouble finding reliable information about adoption agencies that work within these countries. She'd like to locate websites, blogs or discussion groups where people are willing to frankly share the pros and cons of an agency's performances and practices.  Can anyone recommend sites she could visit to learn such information? What are other techniques adoptive parents use to learn the pros and cons of an agency?

For more adoption information, visit Laura's Web site: www.laurachristianson.com

Blogging About Incredible Blogs

Thanks to Ken Lebow, writer of Blogging About Incredible Blogs, and author of the best-selling book series: "300 Incredible Things to Do on the Internet," for recognizing my blog on his site.

Ken writes,
http://adoptionblogs.typepad.com
I've never explored adoption, but this site sure has.

I love sites like this because there are blogs about everything. To create a succesful blog all you need is:

1. An expertise (everyone is an expert in something)
2. Passion (everyone is passionate about something)

Check out Ken's blog -- it contains links to tons of blogs on every subject imaginable.

Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences

A book written by a professor at the University of Delhi, India, details adoption practices in India. In an interview with Shruba Mukherjee of the Deccan Herald, the book's author, Dr. Vinita Bhargava, says that in her early days of being an adoptive mother, the most frequent question she was asked was why she had adopted a baby when she had her "own" (biological) child.

"The second most frequent question was whether there was a difference between my biological son and my adopted daughter."

The book arose out of her desire to address some of the common myths about adoption.

Dr. Bhargava explains views about adoption that some who practice the Hindu religion adhere to:

• Some infertile women go through a simulated pregnancy before adopting an infant, in order to have their baby accepted by the family.
• Some adoptive parents are advised not to adopt a child whose family background is unknown, because genes are considered to be more important than good parenting.
• In India non-Hindus -- Muslims, Christians, Jews and Parsis -- cannot legally adopt a child. They can, however, take a child as their ward.

When Dr. Bhargava began interviewing adoptive parents for her book, she said that they were initially suspicious. "Parents would like complete integration of the adopted child into the family and are apprehensive that the child would be upset at the thought of not being 'their child.' Parents also fear the possibility of relatives or neighbours making hurtful comments," she said.

If you'd like to read Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences, you can order it at amazon.com.

Link: ‘Adoption closely related to fertility’ - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition.

Open Adoption from a 'Tween's Perspective

During my weeklong stay at the International Christian Retail Show in Denver, I had the opportunity to talk with several people about adoption. When people learned that we have an (extremely) open adoption with our sons' birth families, they asked the following questions:

Q: Do your sons know their birth parents?
A: Yes. Their birth parents have been an active part of their lives since they were 2 years old and since birth, repectively.

Q: Do they know that their birth parents placed them for adoption?
A: Yes. They call their birth parents by their first names, but they have always known that they are their biological parents.

Q: How do your sons feel about having their birth parents involved in their lives?
A: I think they like it, but I'll ask them when I get home.

So...I asked my almost 13-year-old, "How do you feel about Jen being part of your life?"

He pondered for a moment (keep in mind that his birth mom has been an integral part of his life for as long as he can remember, so her presence seems totally normal to him). Then his face brightened and he said, "I like it; it means double the presents!"

Speaking of presents, my husband and I are debating what to get for our boy, who is suddenly on the brink of teenagedom. We were discussing "the gift thing" with our son on the way to church yesterday, and I told him that in addition to the present he receives from us, I'll take him shopping for school clothes in late August (have to wait as long as possible because he may grow two sizes by then!). He rolled his eyes in typical tweenager style and sighed, "Mom, that's Jen's job!"