Still backtracking to last year and
hope to catch up to the present day soon...
As we could not agree on a journey, we decided to get professional help! After a few sessions of couples therapy, we made a decision to go with adoption. And if in the future we still wanted another baby, we'll pursue surrogacy for child #2. We explored our options. Met a few agencies and decided to go with Adoption STAR in Buffalo, NY. On August 16th, 2012, which was our 15-year anniversary, we took a trip to Buffalo / Niagara Falls to meet with the agency and register with them. I was so happy that finally we are taking a major step towards our dream.
We spent almost 3 months doing all the necessary paperwork for adoption and we were getting ready for home study. We had to come up with sooooo many documents... very painful. We started putting together a profile so birth parents (mostly birth mothers) can review and decide if they want to place their child with us.
I have to say we learned so much about adoption during those few months. As previously mentioned every journey has it's own challenges. Here are the few challenges we learned about adoption:
So in October we mailed out most of the forms to the adoption agency before we went on vacation to Greece and Turkey. After we returned home, I was ready to mail the last form plus the final check to start the home study. Then my partner had a change of heart and suggested we should pause on adoption and try surrogacy!
As we could not agree on a journey, we decided to get professional help! After a few sessions of couples therapy, we made a decision to go with adoption. And if in the future we still wanted another baby, we'll pursue surrogacy for child #2. We explored our options. Met a few agencies and decided to go with Adoption STAR in Buffalo, NY. On August 16th, 2012, which was our 15-year anniversary, we took a trip to Buffalo / Niagara Falls to meet with the agency and register with them. I was so happy that finally we are taking a major step towards our dream.
We spent almost 3 months doing all the necessary paperwork for adoption and we were getting ready for home study. We had to come up with sooooo many documents... very painful. We started putting together a profile so birth parents (mostly birth mothers) can review and decide if they want to place their child with us.
I have to say we learned so much about adoption during those few months. As previously mentioned every journey has it's own challenges. Here are the few challenges we learned about adoption:
- It turns out International Adoption is pretty much not an option for gay/single people. Almost all countries have closed their doors to us. So our only real option was domestic adoption.
- Adoption can take a long time, as we have to hope someone will choose us among all other profiles.
- Studies show that every year there are less and less children (throughout the world) available for adoption. So there seems to be more intended parents than babies to be adopted.
- We have better chance of adopting older kids or those with special needs, but we have always wanted an infant.
- Adoption is not cheap. It can cost as much as doing surrogacy in India.
- Most domestic adoptions are open. That means in most cases we have to make arrangements with the birth parents so they will see the child once or twice a year until the child's 18th birthday. I wasn't very happy with this aspect of open adoption.
So in October we mailed out most of the forms to the adoption agency before we went on vacation to Greece and Turkey. After we returned home, I was ready to mail the last form plus the final check to start the home study. Then my partner had a change of heart and suggested we should pause on adoption and try surrogacy!
No comments:
Post a Comment