Adoption Agencies

I am going to start off by saying, I am sure there is one or two agencies out there that do NOT fit this mold. Otherwise, I stand on my opinion that most domestic adoption agencies are nothing but legalized baby brokers. (After reading this if you know of an agency that doesn't charge huge fees, please let me know.)

Our adoption of little Troy cost us less than $8,000. That was with counseling for the birthmother, our homestudy, legal fees, everything. We have several friends who have adopted for less than $2,000. SEVERAL. So why is it that the cheapest I have found an agency adoption for was $10,000? Wait, I must digress. They were not up front about the $10,000. Let me tell you the story of our last failed adoption.

Chris & I had done training to be foster parents, in hopes of adopting Troy's little brother who was in the foster care system. We did not finish prior to him being placed, but decided we still wanted to be foster parents to help out and be a light in some little people's lives. So, when we moved here I called a local agency to ask them about signing up to foster through them. After talking, and them finding out about my medical training, they asked me to consider a little boy they had available for adoption who had spina bifida.  He was born to a teenage couple, and had been available but they had not found him a family yet. He was 5 months old. Chris and I talked about it, prayed about it, and decided we would love to take him. We were concerned with the money the agency charged, and were assured that if anything, we would only pay the legal fees. We agreed to a fully open adoption, just like with our Troy. We went through the steps to bring him home.  We were to get him on a Saturday 3 weeks after we learned of him. The Monday prior to bringing him home, after we had already gotten his room ready, I turned in the last of our financial paperwork, to prove to the judge that we could afford another child. The adoption facilitator forwarded the information to the powers that be within the agency.  That afternoon we were contacted stating that the adoption would cost us $25,000.  They let us know they needed $10,000 before he could be places with us and that the balance would have to be paid before we could finalize. After many tears and protests, they finally agreed to take "just the $10,000" for the adoption. They expected us to go into debt in order to add to our family. We said no. What was their answer? "Well, one day the 'right' family for this child will come along". The right family was not a family, but a sum. This child needed medical care his birth family was unable to provide. He had been waiting at that point 6 months for a family who welcomed him with open arms. We were that family. We did not ever see his face, but we loved him. To this day we still pray for him. I wonder what they told the birth-family of this baby who already knew they had a match that was happy to take on his medical needs and still involve them? Did they tell them "Sorry, they backed out" or were they honest and told them "sorry, once we saw their income we decided they needed to pay us for the baby".

I know how much adoption costs. I know we are an excellent adoptive family. We have kept our word about honoring an open adoption commitment, and we want to raise our children to honor the Lord. Yet, this Christian Agency, and many others, base everything on a bottom line that is all related to money. Yeah yeah yeah, some have a "sliding scale". Guess what? It is still a lot of money. Especially when that sliding scale does not take anything into consideration outside of your income and family size. I know we are not the only family that feels like this. It doesn't just upset me for us, it upsets me for all of those people out there with aching arms and unpadded bank accounts.

There needs to be a revamping of the way adoption works. Birth mothers need to be made aware that agencies are using them to profit. They are taking advantage of adoptive parents. Would a birthmother rather you spend $25,000 on her child, and the expenses of that child, or are they better served by you spending that money to an agency just to add the child to your home?

I am seriously considering getting another degree in social work so I can run an adoption ministry. I believe adoptive families need to be financially stable to adopt, but I do not believe they should have to go into debt or spend their savings. There is a better way to go about building amazing families without tons of money changing hands. There are very few expenses beyond legal fees. Our adoption of Troy would not have cost as much if we had shopped around for a lawyer. He was about 3x what a typical lawyer charges, but we were in a hurry and didn't interview others.

Adoption

What is this? Two blogs in a row? Well, yes. I did not plan on this, but I feel I need to write about it so I am. As anyone who is close to me knows, our little Troy is a blessing through adoption. Lets go back to 2003. We decided we want to have more children, but there were obstacles in our way that meant we had to seek infertility treatments. InVitro Fertilization to be exact. Now, because of my beliefs (that life begins at conception) I had a struggle with this. Our decision was that we would never leave any embryo without a chance at life. Now, we never went back on that but the medical doctors, they are a different story. In our last IVF round, they "discarded" 3 of our embryos because they didn't like their quality, that left us with two. They did so without our permission and against our wishes. Hence why it was our LAST round. We did 4 rounds of IVF when it was all said and done. On the first round, we were blessed with a double pregnancy. Twins. We were thrilled. It was short lived when we lost twin A, and two weeks later twin B. The second and third transfers did not develop. The fourth, and final, we had two viable embryos and transfered both. We were delighted to learn that we were pregnant. Everything appeared to be going well, and things were progressing as they should. We passed the "danger points" and were preparing for our little Brody's arrival. Interesting fact about this pregnancy, I had a "pseudo sac" along with Brody. So, for the pregnancy I measured much larger that I should have because of the empty sac growing there too, presumably where the other baby attached but never grew. Anyhow, we were so excited and already in love with him. Then it happened. One day I couldn't get his heartbeat on my home doppler and it is then that we learned what real heartbreak was. We delivered our Brody that day, born so perfectly made but perfectly still. I struggled not understanding why he had to go be with Jesus before we even got to officially meet him. Chris' heart was broken. My heart was broken. It didn't seem at that time like we would ever be able to be happy again. We knew that we would never do IVF again, but still struggled with our empty arms. We grieved our son fiercely, and though we were shocked at how many people didn't even seem to care, there were many who showed an outpouring of love and support onto us. Oh how grateful I was for them at that time. Well, I am still grateful.

In July, Chris felt as though his heart was being led by God to adopt. Now, this was a BIG deal. Chris had not been open to adoption previously, but God changed his heart. Without going into a ton of details, I had a friend who approached us that week about adopting the baby she was pregnant with. It was such a God thing. Our son Troy was born August 4, 2005 just 9 weeks after we lost our Brody.

We agreed to a fully open adoption and to this day we are glad we chose this option. His unselfish and loving birthmom (whom I love very much) gets to see Troy as often as she like. He knows his biological siblings and he knows where he came from. I love that he has SO many people that love him.

After Troy's adoption, we wanted to adopt again. Well, that has proven to be a challenge. We have turned it over to God and his will. We have had 6 failed adoptions now. SIX. Six more heartbreaks. Just a little FYI, even though you are not carrying the baby, it still hurts when you are expecting and then it doesn't work out. You still grieve. It is still a loss. We did not share all of our adoption opportunities with our friends and family, because it is embarrassing and hurts worse to have to go say "well, once again...".

At this point we are not actively trying to adopt. We feel like if God led us to someone, or them to us, then if it is his will it will happen. If it is or if it isn't, we are happy with what we have. We certainly have enough and have been blessed beyond measure. Even though our family would think we were nuts for adopting again, we would welcome a new child with open arms. We will not seek one out though. We did enough trying to manipulate God's will before, and paid a hefty price.

Adoption is so beautiful. It is an amazing and loving option! I wish more people would chose it. I thank the Lord that we have a chance to experience what an amazing blessing it can be.