Fourteen

Yesterday Nghia and I attended yet another adoption meeting. This one was called Home Study 1 and in about a month we will attend Home Study 2. Yesterday's meeting was essentially about getting us ready for our home study, which is when a social worker comes to our house to make sure we have smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, an extra bedroom, etc. We were given a HUGE folder of paperwork that we have a month to complete. We will spend the next several weeks filling out all the forms, making copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, going to the local police department to get background checks, filing background checks in every state we have lived since age 18, obtaining our medical reports and pediatrician reports for Khai and Avi, getting fingerprinted, writing 10 page biographies, and about a million and one other things that require lots of running around to state offices. I know we will get it all done, but it certainly feels like a huge amount of work right now. The timing is good though, as my winter break begins today. My goal is to get everything completed by the time I have to go back to work on January 2nd.

Yesterday we also received a packet of paper that is referred to as the "Key." This is the part where we have to decide exactly what lifestyle choices, medical conditions, and life circumstances of the birth parents we are comfortable with. There are so many things we have to make decisions about. For example:
Birth mom smoked pot during pregnancy, birth mom drank alcohol during pregnancy, birth mom smoked crack during pregnancy (this goes on for every drug), birth mom has depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc, birth father has a mental illness, either birth parent is HIV positive or has Hepatitis, birth father is incarcerated for a non-violent crime, birth father is incarcerated for a violent crime, the baby was conceived through rape, etc. (They even distinguish between acquaintance rape and stranger rape.)

This is a very small sample of the kinds of things we will need to decide upon. The Key is almost 3 pages long and will probably require the most thought on our part. We will speak with at least 3 pediatricians to gather as much information as we can about the effects of different substances on the developing fetus. And we have to think about the long-term impact some of these circumstances could potentially have on our family because this will be an open adoption. We are going to have some level of contact with our child's birth family and we need to think about how all of these issues might later impact our child. For example, we might be comfortable with the birth mom smoking crack during pregnancy, but we wouldn't be comfortable with our child spending time with someone who is high on crack. (For the record, we are are not comfortable with exposure to crack in utero. I was just using this as an example to illustrate how we need to think about the short and long-term in order to make these decisions.)

We have been strongly advised to keep all of these decisions private. Ultimately, this will be our child's story to tell, not ours. It would not be fair to the child for others to know such personal information about their background. Also, we think about the fact that people have such stereotypes about adopted children and often hold such negative views about their futures. Let's say we decided we were comfortable with the birth mother smoking pot during pregnancy. Then 7 years later our child has some learning challenges. I would hate for people to think, "It's because the birth mom smoked pot." And people would think that.  I was recently talking with a friend, someone who is smart and educated, about a child we know who is facing some behavioral challenges. I mentioned that this child is adopted and my friend immediately said, "Oh, that explains it!" It's offensive and ignorant, and it's extremely common.

So as far as our Key is concerned, we will only say publicly that we want a healthy baby and we are doing ridiculous amounts of research before making any decisions. We want to be conservative, yet open minded.

So we continue to move forward. I wonder if this will be our last holiday season as a family of 4.