One more cup of coffee

Open Adoption

If all goes well, Meredith and I will be adopting a baby soon.

There are, it seems, three major routes to go through for adopting: international, domestic closed, and domestic open.

International is where you sign up for a baby from Russia, China, or wherever. You pay the money, get in line, and when you get to the front of the line, you fly to the country and pick up the child. One problem with this, from our perspective, is that you don't ever get an infant this way. The minimum age depends on the country, but it's never any younger than six months, and can be a year or 18 months.

Domestic adoption has traditionally been closed: you get an infant, but don't know the birthparents, and the birthparents don't know you. The kid can sometimes get the records unsealed after turning 18. For most of the last century, this was the norm for adoptions in this country.

In open adoption, though, everyone knows everyone. The birthmother looks over profiles of adoptive parents and picks the ones that she'd like to talk to and meet. After meeting, if both parties agree, it's a match. After the birth, you might (depending on what the birthmother wants) continue to have contact, in the form of photos, phone calls, or visits. There's a growing body of research that suggests that this is much better for the child, because there's no mystery. It's never "where did I came from", it's "I came from her".

Last January, we met a couple from Nevada who are expecting a baby. We talked on the phone for an hour before meeting, then they drove out here and had dinner with us so we could all meet and make sure that it seemed like a good match. And it was!

Since then, we've been out to visit them several times, and they've been out here once more. The baby (it's a boy) is due in early June, which, realistically, means it could come anytime between now and mid-June. The birthmother is so ready for this baby to be born ;) It's really been a great match with them -- all four of us get along well.

One possible complication is that both birthparents have some Indian heritage, which means that the Indian Child Welfare Act (aka ICWA) applies. Basically, ICWA says that if a child is elegible for membership in an Indian tribe, said tribe can intervene in an adoption and insist that the child be placed with Indian parents. The procedure is that we have to notify the tribes of the planned adoption, and they answer and tell us whether or not they have an interest in the child. We've done the notification; now we're just waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully soon. We don't think this will be a problem, but, well, you never know.

The second major thing that could change this, obviously, is that the birthparents could change their mind about the adoption. After the birth, they have a minimum of 72 hours before they can sign the relenquishment. They can take longer to decide; they cannot take less time, which makes sense. It's a huge decision to have to make.

So, we're waiting. At least we don't have much longer to wait! But it could still be a long month (or more).