Now, I just can’t help myself but talk about work.

Despite the ridiculously long wait right now, I still get calls from families interested in the program. In some ways, I feel like this is good–the long wait is skimming the cream of the crop off the top of PAPs looking for a quick baby. But that’s not always true. I get some families asking about the program who seem to trick the intake people that they’re cool and with it, and so intake sends them to me. Then, as I’m speaking with the family, their true lame-ness comes to light. This is particularly true with two phone calls I’ve had recently with interested families:

Family #1
My buddy in intake calls to tell me there’s a woman on the phone with some questions about the wait times for the China program as well as some other questions she can’t answer. I agree to take the call. The woman has questions about the long wait. I give her the long memorized party-line about why its lengthening like a Christian muttering the Lord’s prayer. Seeming annoyed with that news, she asks about the program for children with special needs. I explain that program a bit–how long it typically takes, how it differs, and commonly seen special needs. She then inquires further about the special needs; for example, are there any that are really minor, like hidden birth marks? Before I can answer she explains that she has two children at home, both of whom are school-aged and have what would be considered special needs. She continues on by saying how amazing each of her kids are: how smart they are, how well they’re doing in school, blah blah blah–oh, but she doesn’t want another kid with a special need as her two are exceptions to the rule.

What I wanted to do was say something to the effect of “most of the special needs these children have are physical ones, which means they may even outshine your little ‘perfect’ children when it comes to performance at school. And hey, whose to say that an adopted child with no known medical needs will perform at the level you’re already setting it up for? S/he might hate school or be autistic or whatever. You can’t determine all that just because the kid doesn’t have an obvious outwardly special need,” however I wouldn’t be able to formulate all of that fast enough in my enraged state so instead I would simply say “fuck you lady” followed by a fast and hard smash of the phone to the receiver, but unless I also wanted that action to be followed by a firing, I thought I had better handle the situation with more tact.

So, instead, I said “well, you need to choose whatever you’re family is comfortable with parenting.” Saying this always makes me feel like its a cop-out. I feel ashamed when I let this out of my mouth, even though I know its true–if adoption isn’t hard enough of an issue to deal with on its own, placing a child with an issue the adoptive family isn’t comfortable with is an equation for disaster. Furthermore, we all know there are healthy children who would fit this woman’s parameters available for international adoption, so I can’t just turn her away. But, you shouldn’t be able to be so pig-headed about it. I try to find some solcetice in trying to remember that these families aren’t yet in the home study stage, and hopefully the education they must complete and the meetings with their social worker will help them get ahold of the words that come out of their mouth.

Family #2
Once again, the intake staff have a woman on the phone who is interested in the China program and they want me to talk to her about the wait times. After telling intake about the above call, she promises this one isn’t crazy. I take it. The woman begins to tell me how interested her family is in adopting from Vietnam, but know that isn’t an option right now, so they are looking into China instead. I go into robot mode and spout the information about the wait times to her. She is quite monotone as we talk about the program and is a bit scatter-brained with questions. She then asks about the Korea program. I tell her what the approximate wait times are for that program (which are about 50-25% that of China’s wait) and all of a sudden she perks up. Her voice has gone up by an octave as she continues with her barrage of questions: “Can we pick the sex of the child?” I have to physically grit my teeth as I tell her yes, knowing already her excitement level will increase exponentially at the answer. “Wow, well, what do you think we should do?” she asks me. I go into paragraph about how it depends on which culture her family thinks they can incorporate the best, and honor for their child, yadda yadda yadda, to which she responds, “Oh yeah, well I’m Vietnamnese, and I don’t even know that much about my own culture anyway, so any of the Asian cultures would be fine.”

Really, what can you say to that? I tend to get speechless when families baffle me with their words as I’m trying to sort my feelings and emotions into expressible sentences. I had this desire to give her an earful right then and there–telling her how while she may be able to choose whether or not she has knowledge of her culture, her adopted child won’t have this choice. So, unless she were to incorporate this into their family, this child will not know about his/her (likely her) culture and you’ve just become the sole violator who has stripped her of this opportunity. Granted, at least the adoptive parent is Asian, so the child will have that type of role model in her life, but that doesn’t help answer some of those questions about the child’s birth land that will inevitably come up.

I felt the pull to be the friendly staff I am supposed to be while simultaneously wanting to give this woman a humbling lesson. So, as a result, no words of consequence came out of my mouth. Positive affirmation sounds–”uh-huh” and ”mmhmm”–were pretty much the only words I was able to form as she was telling me that she’s made a decision and she just needed to talk all this out. She thanked me and hung up.

For me, these are both prime examples of the dichotomy of roles I am to play at work. On one hand, its being an educated advocate for children, and on the other, its providing customer service for the families with whom we work. They are difficult roles to compromise sometimes, and I wish I had more support from the agency to do so. But, in all honesty, I understand where the agency is coming from with their view on things because an amazingly ethical and educational and selective adoption agency would get no business. It’s better at this point to be in the middle of the road on these issues so you can maintain clientele while also pushing for better adoption practices. Definitely frustrating though.

Maybe I’m slow to the game, but I was just introduced to this movie which is not yet released. Seems to me it may raise a much-needed discussion with all individuals in the adoption triad.

I can’t wait.

Well, I’m finally back from a blogging break. I guess I just kind of felt like I was at some type of plateau. I mean, here, I had really started this blog to vent about how frustrating these families are that I work with because I thought surely I wasn’t crazy for thinking what I was thinking about what the families were saying. But then I realized, the issues I have with families are often the same: they are ordering up some kid because they’re afraid of the unknown (even though parenting is an unknown because every child’s personality is so unique–but hey, if its cute and has no medical needs, it’ll be perfect, right…ahh, but I digress…).  So, here, I didn’t just want to keep spouting the same shit over and over again like a whiny older adult that doesn’t have very good social skills and makes you feel uncomfortable to be engaged in a conversation with…yah, you know the type.

I also felt like I was reaching for something to talk about…like, trying to tackle these bigger issues without having the right ammo first. And its a weird topic to bring up with people in the real world like with my social work friends and others at work as they don’t often have much to bring to the table for one of three reasons: 1) none of them are adopted, 2) none of them are parents of adoptees, and 3) some of them are in the same place as I trying to wrap their heads around it as they hardly understand it (just a note: there are some social workers who either are 1 or 2, but we’re not as close, and I feel awful vulnerable just popping in at their desk and trying to discuss this stuff with them). Furthermore, I felt like I was writing for someone else, for a reader, when, once again, the blog is for me to write what I’m thinking about, what’s troubling me, and to give others a glance into this side of the adoption triad.

I’m feeling refreshed now though, and ready to write and tackle some stuff. This blog however, might be taking some twists as I move forward as this adoption journey is about to get a whole lot more personal. That’s right folks, my husband and I are about to begin our adoption journey (more on this at a later time), but don’t fret! This isn’t going to be the type of adoption blog where the waiting family just tells innocuous stories. No no. Because we’ll be waiting like 3 years for a referral, I plan on spending that time learning what the hell we need to do to be the best damned adoptive parents to this kid (or kids) that we can be because I don’t want to repeat some of the shit I see adoptive families do everyday.

 Now, I’m gonna say it once again for everyone so we’re all on the same page as we move forward, ready? Here we go: I don’t really know shit about all this adoption stuff and am kind of shooting from my hip from what I’ve learned since working in the field. As a prospective adoptive parent myself, I really, really want to understand the issues surrounding adoption better than I do, yet in a way, I’m hesitant to bring some stuff up because it may seem rude or uncouth. But you know what, I need to learn this stuff even if I sound like a jackass and have people yell at me in the meantime.

So, here goes nothing!

Disclaimer: I have a lot of thoughts running through my head, and in an attempt to record them all, I’ve begun writing just to get them out on (cyber-)paper. In writing this post, I struggled with retorting my own arguments, and therefore I do realize the complexity of this topic despite how I may relating it, but its been a month of reading and formulating, and its time to start getting some of it out.

A social worker friend who knows of my current struggle with the efficacy of adoption ethics recently introduced me to some wonderful conversations about this which are taking place on some forums of adoptive parents of Ethiopian children.

From what I’ve read and understand, it seems that many children in Ethiopia are placed for adoption due to poverty. Oftentimes adoptive parents are able to meet the birth/first family while completing the adoption trip in Ethiopia, and can experience the pauperism of the family for themselves. It would seem then, that many of the Ethiopian adoptions could be avoided and families preserved if they had some type of support, financial or otherwise. Perhaps it is for this reason many prospective parents are now inquire into the humanitarian aid efforts of different adoption agencies, and how or if they are working towards benefitting the families of Ethiopia; not merely the children living in orphanages. Their thoughtfulness does not stop at merely selecting an agency or deciding upon which non-profit aid organization to donate to in Ethiopia, but rather it is reflected in a plethora of discussions on their forums. Besides the basic conversations about raising these children, these families appear to also collectively question the motivations of relinquishing or abandoning a child, the role of adoption agencies, and possible solutions to the struggle to keep things ethical.

Researching the “One-Child Policy” will expose many articles about China’s rich breaching the regulations by having more than one child and paying the fines and fees associated with it, so much so that it’s beginning to be seen by some as an epidemic needing to be curtailed. This could lead one to assume that in fact there are many cases in China, as in Ethiopia, where money may successfully keep a family together, and thus begin questioning what can be done to allow families to successfully stay together in light of the governmental policies. Maybe it will through supporting better education in rural areas, or offering job resources for rural families, or providing better healthcare for villagers (in China the focus may need to be on curbing pregnancies rather than allowing families to keep many children).

I think the China adoption community is sadly deficient and lacking richness as a result of its ignorance to the issues of adoption efficacy and ethics. I also think the great debate around adoption ethics is at a loss without the China community in attendance. By merely focusing on teaching their children China’s traditional culture and the “One-Child Policy,” these families are doing a disservice to adopted Chinese children as well as to the future of adoptions everywhere by not addressing the ethics behind adoption. Since China has been one of the most popular countries to adopt from, the benefits the conversation about adoption ethics would gain from so much more attention, drive, and creativity as a result of the increase in participation would be astounding. I’ve seen first-hand results of the combined influence and voice the China adoption community can have, and let me say it is an awesome sight. The adoption community as a whole has come far since it began, but it is still in need of some fine tuning. Now is the time for the community to take the next step towards benefitting children worldwide by furthering the cause to make adoptions more just. After all, this issue doesn’t just affect some adoptions—it affects them all.

While doing some monkey work midday, I received a call from a soon-to-be dad with referral but waiting to travel. He was all charged up, but not angry. He was frantic…nervous…worried. Apparently he’s been reading about adoption all throughout the wait, but it hadn’t been until earlier this summer when he discovered a new genre of adoption literature: that of adult adoptees who are displeased with the “adoption industry.”

He stated that he had been reading a lot from this aspect over the past few months and had been thinking about it on a theoretical level, however when the photo of his referral arrived is when this issue became all so real. He now wanted reassurance that he wasn’t just feeding “the machine” of affluent families buying babies from struggling parents, and answers for some tough questions his adopted daughter may ask him some day about her journey to his family.

Perhaps it’s weird, but I was so excited to hear this from him for two reasons. First, I have been asking many of the same questions he has as of late (hence the slowness in blogging—I’ve been trying to come to terms with some personal conundrums with adoption) and was happy to not be the only one with an underlying feeling that adoption is overall a good thing but who comes up short when confronted with arguments from alone in this struggle. Secondly, he’s one of the parents that just “gets it.” He realizes the seriousness of adoption and the struggles with identity, history, and society’s perception with which adoptees have to deal.

The frustrating part however, is that he thought that by him asking these questions and having this discussion with me that I would see him as a “bad” adoptive parent. Now, I want to make this ever so clear for all those PAPs out there who feel/think the same way: Asking questions about adoption (i.e. whether its morally right, how to prepare for the questions your child will have about his/her history, how to react to people you might encounter on the street) is terrific! In fact, I wish, wish, wish more parents would ask these types of questions. By having this man ask these questions he actually did the exact opposite of what he thought he was doing: He probably thought that I was judging his commitment to this child negatively because he was questioning adoption, but in fact I felt that his motivations and commitment to this child were even stronger because he was pursuing these issues now.

I’m so proud of parents like this father to take initiative to investigate both the positive and negative aspects of adoption because it isn’t all rosey and there will be challenges to overcome as their child matures. That being said, I also know that this child entering their home will have a wonderfully supportive family to grow up in, and that makes this job worth all the while. While conversations like this are few and far between, it is my sincere hope that more of the families that I work with do have these same type of questions and find the support and

With the wait for an adoption of a child with no known medical needs from China reaching nearly two years now, many families already in the process are wanting to instead adopt a child with special needs. Sounds so great, right—and I mean, it is since these are children with medical issues who may otherwise have not found a home—but on the same hand, many of these families are adopting these kids because they are impatient and unfortunately occasionally do not prepare themselves for the adoption of an older child nor the lifelong impact these needs can have on the kids. People throughout the adoption community including not only adoption coordinators like myself, but also social workers and pediatricians, are finding the need to emphasize the importance of preparation and education to these families not only on the particular special need their child may have, but also on attachment and development of an older child. And surprise, surprise, many still do not heed this warning.

While it’s obviously still possible to parent a child without this foundation, it can make it more difficult for everyone involved. I’ve been witness to a family disrupting while still in-country because they felt their white faces had traumatized the two-and-a-half year old child to be adopted because she had tried to run away out of the room the first night they were together. Had they properly prepared themselves, they would have realized this would be a typical toddler reaction to such a situation, and thus could have dealt with it better. Furthermore, I’ve had families who have biological children and therefore feel they have all the necessary preparation from raising these children only to realize upon placement that the newly adopted child isn’t within the families’ expectations. Children are children, yes, however they fail to remember that their biological children were snatched from the environment they considered home and, without understanding why, given to adults of a different race with different smells, sounds, and food preferences. Of course an adopted child will not act as you expect, and s/he may not be developmentally on target due to neglect within the orphanage.

With so many families switching to the special needs track, I felt the need to put this info out here for any and all PAPs who are considering adopting an older child or child with special needs, and to remind you: prepare, prepare, prepare. It’s important to do this now because once your child is home you will not have the free time to do this research no matter how much you tell yourself now you’ll make time.

So, I felt I had this epiphany the other day. It was while being at some mandatory meeting about HIPAA requirements of all things. As the instructor was going over transmission of Hepatitis C, I was sitting there daydreaming about other things such as our role as an adoption agency in the greater society. That’s when it hit me.

Americans have a hunger for perfection and guarantees which seems to stem from our drive for business and free markets. And this characteristic of American culture is terrific when applied in these arenas—I mean, just take a look at how successful this country has become in the world of international business. However, this demand for perfection and guarantees can be ineffective and even detrimental in certain contexts such as adoption.

See, adoption agencies, such as the one I work for, are quite bizarre for the American to navigate. After all, at a first glance we seem like a business: we have our own bureaucracy with a defined hierarchy, there are fees to pay at certain times and loads of paperwork to complete, and we participate in media campaigns and community outreach. But, when it comes down to it, this is merely a façade that we must exude in order to play in the sand box with the big boys. See, adoption isn’t a business, and therefore shouldn’t be run like a business. In fact, if you speak with any of the social workers or adoption coordinators at my organization, we’ll all tell you that we feel that we are facilitators in assisting families to grow through adoption not baby sales representatives.

However, due to our appearance and the American culture, we often have families approaching us with the same attitude they have when buying a refrigerator, for example. They will amuse us by filling out all the paperwork needed, but they come in with an idea of what model, color, and size they want, and want to know how much will it cost, when will it be available for pick-up, and what happens if it breaks down. We fight against this sort of attitude every single day because what we realize is that people cannot have this attitude towards their family. It doesn’t work well because these are human lives that we’re dealing with not refrigerators.

Creating a family is a very personal and intimate journey that cannot be treated in the same manner as usual business transactions. It’s a process of facilitation in which all the actors are really on the family’s side (although truthfully, we’re on the child’s side more) in trying to help see the adoption come to fruition and resulting in a win-win for both family and child. I think often times families feel their adoption agency is working against them, forgetting that we do the best we can for each family hoping to adopt although sometimes there are road blocks that may make a process more difficult or implausible altogether. And its these road blocks that are in place to secure the best interest of each child which really is (or at least should be) at the heart of all of us enduring this journey.

I am starting to have some serious doubts about adoption lately. Maybe I’m just getting jaded because I hear a lot of stupid stuff that happens, but I’m starting to feel that the rotten apples are really spoiling the whole bunch, and I’m not sure I want to be apart of it.

When I first began thinking about international adoption long before my job, it just seemed like a good decision for myself and the global community at large: There were kids out there who didn’t have families due to a variety of reasons (poverty, for example), and I thought I could help save the world by giving a child a home. It all seemed so good-natured and and in the best interest of everyone involved. My god, how absolutely naive of me.

Now, after working in the adoption field for a number of years, and being closer to the process, I see all of adoption’s dirty laundry. I have encountered numerous families that just make me cringe because of how they view adoption–especially in the China program which up until recently hasn’t been very restrictive. I can’t stand families who have 4 boys and want to adopt because the mother always imagined raising a daughter, but had these boys instead. Or the couple in their mid-fifties who stated they were open to an older child on all their paperwork, yet when their referral arrived and was for a 5 year-old, they suddenly were very upset about this and considered her “damaged goods” (my words, not theirs) because attachment would not be as simple as if she were 12 months. Furthermore, I have known families nearing 50 who become so desparate for a child that although they have their preference for a white infant AYAP, will accept an Asian child nearing 2 because they want a kid so bad.
In their desparacity, they totally ignore issues of transracial parenting because “what’s important is that they are now a family.”

And then there’s the ever-more prevalent attitude that gets me of families who want to adopt from China because they want a girl. They have no connection to the country, culture, language–nothing. They take their kid out to the Chinese buffet on special occasions as a way to show them their “Chinese-ness.” This is just such bull-shit, and I just don’t know if I want to be apart of this community by adopting my own child.

I know what I need to realize, and its just hard to do right now. What I need to remind myself is that I am only seeing these families for a relatively short period of time while they are waiting for the addition of a new family member. I really think you can see the worst of people during this time. I’m sure these families change by leaps and bounds after they are placed with the child, and quite frankly I don’t see how they couldn’t change. But I never see this side of it. I don’t see the families years after placement to see how things are going, how the parents are sharing in the adoption journey with their child.

I think in general I am just at a low with my job right now, but that’s ok. Everything has its rhythms, and this is part of mine.

When will some of these families realize that these are little, young PEOPLE they are fawning over–not puppies. The families with 4 boys should be happy and thankful that they have had such a blessed family at all. And fifty-year olds should not want to have nor be placed with an infant. Such a concept should not even be fathomed.

Someone was kind enough to just share this article with me, and I thought it was a great “reality check” so to speak for those who presume that because they are requesting to adopt a “healthy” child, s/he will not have any major medical concerns.

This article is written by Dr. Dana Johnson, who established this nation’s first international adoption clinic.

http://www.med.umn.edu/peds/iac/preadoption.html

Damn rumors making my work more difficult. There’s been a lot of chatter about Chinese children with special needs being referred in the non-special needs program once they have had corrective surgery. Apparently these children have had corrections done such as extra digits that have been removed or minor heart repairs. But the one condition that seems to have everyone’s undies in a bunch is a cleft-affected child who has had the cleft repaired.

The most frustrating part to me about all this gossip is how families waiting for the referral of a NSN referral are talking about it. They are being horribly insensitive. It seems to me that they keep cloaking their desires for a child without any medical issues as what is “the best interest of the child.” Their argument goes that a family referred one of these “repaired” children is not prepared to parent such a child, and therefore the CCAA is not acting in the best interest of the child.

Does anyone else see how stupid this argument is? It makes me so frustrated that I can hardly put together a cohesive retort.

First of all, I think these families need to realize there is no guarantee that ANY child will be completely “healthy.” Perhaps that’s part of the pipe dream of some China families since one reason families pick China is because there is no family history to the child, and as far as doctor’s reports can tell the child is healthy. This information alone does not ensure that a child is defect-free. This idea ties into one of my former posts about families wanting to “order” their kids just the way they want them. Sorry, but even for families who have their own children they cannot do this. Even in my own family, my brother and his wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who nearly a year later was diagnosed with a serious heart defect. Does this then mean that because they didn’t prepare for a child with such a condition that it is not in this child’s best interest to remain in this family? Of course not. Nothing in life is perfect. There are going to be surprises and bumps along the way. It all depends on how you want to look at it.

Secondly, I think that all this talk about a few instances where children like this have been referred has brought out all the dirty laundry and scary stories people have heard about families adopting a child that they thought was healthy (whether after having corrective surgery or just not having any issues documented in the original referral). This, in turn, frightens everyone else because now they think that this sort of thing happens a lot more frequently than it actually does, and that they may be next. Then, suddenly its doomsday in China-adoption-town, with the China adoption program quickly going to hell in a hand basket.

Furthermore, I really don’t think the CCAA in China is doing any of this maliciously. I think that they are bending their definition of a child with no known medical needs to include these children with corrected conditions because they have so many PAP applications that they are trying to match. It seems to me that the CCAA is in fact doing what it sees as the best for these children because it is matching them with families. And children with a removed extra digit or a cleft lip that was repaired maybe really are healthy after corrective surgery. I think the CCAA is really just trying to do the best they can for everyone involved in this process—finding children homes, giving families the opportunity to parent, and to keep the criticism of their agency to a minimum.

Perhaps if these stories were shared openly with families early in their adoption journey, they would not have such high expectations about the health of children coming from China. I know that even within the agency I work for we see a couple cases each year where a child referred to a family as a NSN child returns home and it is discovered here that the child has a medical concern. And the possibility of being presented with the referral of a child with a minor, corrected condition is there too. This just happens. It’s happened every year for many years because believe it or not, adoption is uncertain in more ways than just wait times. All families need to prepare themselves for the possibility that their child may be one out of the hundreds that has an issue, and how they are going to deal with that situation, should it arise, beyond making judgment calls out of fear.