Jan 02 2009
Maybe some history would help…
Whew!!!! WHAT A DAY!!!! Can’t even tell you how glad I am it’s over! Let’s just say my brain may not be up to par tonight, so please forgive me any nonsensical thoughts. Brain farts tend to be a common malady when you’re worn out.
Side bar - being a middle manager working schmuck SUCKS!!!!!! Remind me to buy a lotto ticket so I can get out of this mess! 
So it occurred to me that since this is an ongoing blog about our “foster odyssey,” perhaps I should write a bit of history about our adoption. I thought I would start with why we decided on our path and the process to get licensed. I am not ashamed to admit that fertility seems to elude us. I think it’s a frighteningly common problem, in a Children of Men sort of way. I know more people with problems conceiving children than not. After actively trying with my hubby for about 3 years to get pregnant, we had a decision to make. Obviously, the first question was to parent or not to parent. How badly did we want kids? Was it worth the drama? We decided yes, we want to be parents (duh). The next question was how were we going to approach the problem? We could pursue fertility treatments for ourselves, find a surrogate to carry a child for us, or adopt.
Our first thought was to research fertility options. New advances are made all the time and there are numerous options, but few of those options are covered by insurance and you need deep pockets to afford most treatments. Ok, money is money and necessity would breed creativity. If we really wanted to do it, we’d find a way to pay for it. We were sorta ready to start the treatment path and went to see a doctor who specialized in fertility issues. He checked us out and gave us both a clean bill of health, then started talking about putting me on hormone treatments for ovulation. Ok, he had our attention and we were listening. Then the doc started talking about the side effects. Huh? Side effects? For those of you who have any experience with the frustrations of wanting kids but having trouble having them, the last thing I could deal with is a drug-induced emotional roller coaster. Factor in the odds of the treatments working (not great), along with the expense, we backed away slowly. Not for us.
Surrogacy was pretty much never an option for us. Just not something I could deal with. I admire anyone who goes down this route. More power to you.
By process of elimination, that left us with adoption. We started digging into research.
I should note that it was surprising to me that we accepted the adoption option so easily (Ha! That rhymes!). For some reason, I had the crazy idea that all men want to spawn their own young. To be a man was to have your own litter of mini-me’s following in your footsteps, and that kind of thing. I was very relieved to find that I was wrong. Frankly, the whole thought of pregnancy and child birth scares me, so I was kinda glad to be off the hook. I knew I would have no issues adopting and loving a child just as much as if I had a biological kid, and I was pleasantly surprised my hubby agreed. I’m a lucky gal! 
We found there were 3 basic adoption options available to us; domestic, foreign, or working with DFACS on a foster-to-adopt or child legally freed for adoption.
I have nothing against domestic or foriegn adoptions, so I really don’t mean to offend. Here’s why they didn’t fit us. Red tape. Plain and simple. There is massive amounts of bullshit you have to deal with, and massive amounts of money to go with it. The more we dug into it, the more it just felt like we were “buying” a baby. Some of these adoptions can run $30,000 or more. That’s like a college education. I would rather put that money into clothes, formula, diapers, education, savings fund, and such and such. It didn’t matter if we were dealing with the Chinese government or the Catholic archdiocese, it was going to boil down to my checkbook.
I started reading more about foster care and adoption programs with the DFACS office. Turns out they are DESPERATE for good people to give these kids loving homes. There are thousands of kids in the system, and many of them are being raised in group homes or facilities until they age out of the system. Going to Guatemala to bring back a child from there just didn’t feel right when we have our own national epidemic of kids without good families.
It just so happens that the county we were living in had a monthly meeting for people thinking about fostering or adopting. It was purely informational with no commitments, so we decided to attend one and check it out. If you ever decide to attend one of these types of meeting (and good for you if you do!!!!), be prepared with some tissue. You’re going to cry. They are going to tell you some stories about kids who have gone through their system, and it’s going to just wrench at your heart.
Depending on your DFACS system (and largely on the size of the population where you live), you can be matched with any aged child, from newborn to 18. This surprised me as I was researching this option. I think most people think DFACS kids are a little older and automatically dismiss it because they want an infant. In our case, we were matched with our son when he was 4 months old.
Hubby and I signed up for training while we were at that meeting. We didn’t need to go home to discuss it. We knew this was the best fit for us. We were training for our license less than a month later. Next post…the license process.
Till then, peace and good night!
