The following blog post will be told from the point of view of one of Adoption From The Heart’s amazing adoptive parents, Matthew. He opened up and shared his experiences from start to finish in hopes to help other families experiencing the same obstacles.
Beginning the Open Adoption Process
Our journey has just begun-although we started preparing over 2 years ago. My wife and I attended an information session at Adoptions From The Heart (AFTH) in 2013, after researching different options for opening our home to a new addition and expanding our family. The session was really helpful and put adoption into perspective for us-and the many children ready for homes; so we began the process.
Much of it seems like a blur – from building our profiles, making our video, taking parenting classes, to learning about how to open your heart to an open adoption, and now into late night feedings and round the clock diapers-it is the greatest blur of our lives. To watch our baby girl laugh, smile, and reach for each of us just warms our hearts. We attended over 18 months of support group sessions and had a difficult time with the “waiting”. We began to doubt we were going to be chosen or that emergency placements would present themselves to us. We learned a lot about child development in utero as well as child development milestones. Reading and research was all we could do. We were excited to be a part of the “scariness of parenting”.
We grew closer as a family in these past couple of years, yet longed for a child to join our family. We just have so much love to give and we prayed continuously that God would help us understand and accept whatever is meant to be. It was through this waiting period where our faith grew stronger that we were presented with more situations-some disappointments, and some positive moments that just felt like they were meant to be.
Receiving “The Call”
After a difficult holiday season and almost 2 years from our acceptance into the open adoption program, we received a call and message from the agency. My wife described to me the “story” she learned after she spoke to the agency. She described to me that a baby girl had been born just 3 days ago-and the birthmother was interested in placing her baby girl into a loving family home. As one of the longest waiting families in Virginia, we were immediately considered. I told my wife, “Sure, let’s let the agency know we want to be considered.” My wife stated, “No honey, we are it. If we say yes, we are driving to Pennsylvania to meet our daughter and stay as long as needed until she can come home. This isn’t about being considered, we are about to become parents of a baby girl.” When my wife’s statement set-in, when I truly heard what she told me, I was speechless for a moment-overjoyed!
We were both so overwhelmed at that moment; we both laughed and cried as we stood there with each other. The time had come for us to share our joy and love with a child. A child we believe God has chosen for us through our prayer and faith, that He knew all along were going to be parents, but was just waiting for her to be born.
We immediately began to initiate “the plan” we had built and refined for almost 2 years. We made appointments at the kennel for our 2 dogs; we worked with our employers to schedule an indefinite period of time away initially. We got the car ready for a long trip and packed as much as we could for a couple weeks…and we wanted so badly to shout from the rooftop of our excitement. Yet, that too brings another level of fear– sharing good news with potential risk that this process takes time and is not guaranteed immediately. The coming days, weeks, and months would require our patience with the process, but one thing was for sure; we were so grateful and excited to meet our baby girl!
We drove through the night after work and ensuring all our preparations were made. We were excited, scared, and overjoyed. We talked the whole 7 hours in the car together, wondering about meeting our daughter for the first time. Would she bond with us as much as we anticipate? Will we be able to express our joy and love for her while still remaining strong for her while she is in the NICU? How would we manage this change in our lives logistically; eating, sleeping, alternating shifts, etc.? What relationship will we have with the birthparents? Through time, patience, and the reassurance of hugs, laughs, and a healthy growing baby girl-it makes us feel we are doing something right.
Reflecting On Parenthood
We just recently completed our legal adoption process-within 30 days of writing this for Father’s day. As you can imagine, we are so happy we have crossed this intermediate hurdle in our exploration of parenthood and sharing of love with our daughter. We say intermediate because we know this is but a small milestone in the many wonders this world has to offer her-and we will build the strongest scaffold to support her development and growth that we can. Sturdy enough for her to feel safe that she has the promise of a loving family to rely on and home and wobbly enough that she will have to build strength and courage to trust in her and make smart decisions in her future, with our encouragement and love of course. We want her to know that because of adoption, her Mommy and Daddy’s dreams came true in more ways than one.
Enjoying the experiences of diapers and feedings and story time is so wonderful – to have an infant staring at you, exploring your eyes, mouth and tugging your glasses is captivating. It is such an amazing feat of trust between parent and child. As an infant, she is so “dependent,” and so “trusting,” that it gives us comfort and peace knowing we get to provide that love and nurturing to her and she responds to us so positively as those entrusted to provide that care. It is such a special parent/child relationship that we just revel in each moment.
I really enjoy my time in the evenings before bed time with my daughter; holding her, rocking her, feeding her-and watching her drift off to sleep so soundly is so magical. She truly is a gift from God and we are so grateful. For me, I think this is the best part of my day.
I always reflect on my time with my father in life and am grateful for the life lessons and encouragement he has always shared with me. I truly believe his examples in life were good for me to emulate and has helped me grow the family we are today. It makes me want to be better, smarter, more caring, loving, nurturing, and firm as a parent for my daughter too. I sometimes catch my wife just watching us two together and smile at what Ellie brings to our family.
Advice for Those Looking to Adopt
Exercise Patience
Exercise patience and lose any predetermined notions of timelines from your waiting period-seriously. Learn to build a plan, that if put into action tomorrow or 1 year from now would work. We had learned of families that received placement within weeks and months, we were not fully prepared for waiting years. It was extremely difficult.
Open Your Heart to Every Emotion
Open your heart to every emotion and communicate it to your partner or support group. Talking through your fears, sadness, concerns, or joy is extremely helpful. For quite a while, when asked about “how the adoption was going”, we would just say, “It is going okay”…but what we REALLY wanted to say was, “This is hard, it is painful, and we just don’t know why we have been waiting so long…”Over time, my wife was the first to speak to me about the need for us to be more honest about how we felt and continue to speak about it so we could help each other through. We then could learn what steps to take in order to try and correct what might be occurring. She helped us revisit our profile, modify it accordingly, and accept more placement situations in our profile. By confronting our concerns or fears or conservative profile, we learned more about what was driving our choices and helped us see more opportunities for placement.
Be Open with Open Adoption
Be open with open adoption-fully. Again, no predetermined notions of what open adoptions means. In our minds we had envisioned what we learned from others. We learned of possible yearly visits with a birthmother or birthparents, possible involvement from other grandparents or relatives, or perhaps no relationships or visitation at all. In the end, because of a combination of patience, acceptance, and love for the process and openness of open adoption we have something different than when we began…and it may change again-but that is okay. We learned in the hospital that the birthmother did not want a relationship moving forward-and we accepted that her terms would dictate if our daughter would ever know her birth mother. In the end, through months of legal proceedings and discovery, we actually have a relationship started with our daughter’s birthfather and have entered an open adoption agreement through the agency with him-even though he was absent from the early adoption process.
Over Prepare Yourself
Over prepare yourself with time planning, financially, outside legal counsel. The agency really helps navigate the intricacies of adoption well. In the agency approach they outline the process in generalities to reach a broader market of adoptive families and birth families. With that general approach, it can be hard to understand specifics to each individual case. While your social workers or case worker will help you with some specifics, we found that sometimes it is possible that no other case has ever mirrored or followed your case specifics and therefore requires outside assistance. Additionally, you can obtain legal counsel through the agency preferred list of counsel. My family chose to obtain outside counsel in addition and although an added expense, it offered us a greater understanding of the process as it progresses through the courts for an intrastate adoption. Sometimes an objective party can help you navigate through an emotional period by presenting facts-to us this was helpful.
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