Our Adoption Journey

So by now, most of our friends and family know that Chris and I are in the process of adopting. In fact, it was their frequent inquiries into where we are on the adoption journey that prompted me to finally begin writing the blog that I've been meaning to start since forever. I figure it will be so much easier to give folks the address to my blogsite than to give them the whole story every time someone asks. And who knows, I may be tempted to keep the blog up and continue writing about everything else going on in our lives. But for those who know me, you realize I can make no promises about that.

LET’S START AT THE VERY BEGINNING
Ok, no Julie Andrews jokes, or for you older queens, Mary Martin... although the beginning IS a good place to start. Well, maybe not the very beginning but at least the beginning of when Chris and I decided to go ahead with the adoption process. We had actually discussed adoption relatively early in our relationship, maybe about a year or two in. We didn't really go into specifics but we identified two options that we would both be happy with: adopting either a child around kindergarten age, or a teenager (neither of us was thrilled with the thought of changing diapers). As fate would have it, however, our lives took a different turn together and kids weren’t in the picture. I decided to go to graduate school (and post-graduate school) for the next six years. We sold our home and moved to Palm Springs, then about ten months later moved into an apartment back in San Francisco. Not really a stable time to embark on such a challenging journey as adoption. Eventually our lives settled down, but by then we were quite a bit older and didn't feel that adopting a younger child was still a good idea for us. We figured that someday we could still look into adopting a teenager.

PRIDE AND JOY
It was now summer of 2008 and Chris and I started noticing ads on the subway for Family Builders, an organization that works with the various California counties to find permanent families for kids in foster care. What really caught our eye were the ads for a program within Family Builders called Pride and Joy, which finds supportive permanent families specifically for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) youth in foster care. They were the cutest ads: a mom is holding up a framed photo of her (presumably) adopted son, dressed up in a tux and getting kissed on the cheek by his prom date - another BOY! We decided that we wanted to provide a safe and supportive home for a gay youth and gave Family Builders a call.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS
There is typically a period of about six months between when a child is placed in a home and the adoption is finalized. The child is still technically in foster care, and for that reason, prospective adoptive parents have to be certified as foster parents. It is quite a lengthy, thorough and intrusive process, and practically everyone I've talked to about it has said it should be a requirement for all birth parents too. I am convinced that if it were, there would be a lot fewer kids in foster care. It started off with an initial interview with our social worker, Charles, where he came to our home to talk to us about how the program works and what we would need to do. After that, the next few months were pretty intense. We had to fill out a stack of forms, get fingerprinted, give several references, attend three full-day trainings and a panel discussion, get certified in CPR and first aid, pass a home inspection, and participate in 8-10 hours of one-on-one and couple interviews with another social worker at our home. At the end of the whole process the home study social worker writes a report that basically summarizes who we are as individuals and as a family and we then have to check it for accuracy and sign off on it. This is where we are right now. We finally signed off on our home study a few weeks ago. From the beginning to this point has taken about six months, although there had been some delay because things slowed down a bit over the holidays. Now we just have to wait for the next step.

THE NEXT STEP
Now that we have completed our home study and have signed off on everything we are ready for the search process. Basically our social worker sends our information out to other social workers in the area and they try to match us up with a compatible youth who is looking for a family. If it looks like they have found someone who might be a match they will send us a paragraph or two about him to see if we are interested in learning more. If we would like to find out more about him then we will set up a disclosure meeting.

At the disclosure meeting we learn the youth's whole story - family history, medical conditions, disciplinary issues, academic records, etc. From what I've been told this meeting can be a little difficult. That's when a lot of the optimism of adoption is challenged by reality: these kids are coming from difficult and often traumatic situations and, let's face it, they are going to have some issues. But I'm reminded of something that one of the guest panelists said at one of our training classes. She was a young adult who grew up in foster care and she remembered always being afraid of making a mistake that would end up in her file and make her unadoptable. She reminded each of us in the audience that if someone were keeping track of everything we've ever done wrong, who would want us? That is something I won't want to forget once we get to disclosure. Although childhood is getting further and further away, Chris and I do remember what it was like to be teenagers, so we plan to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone we might be matched with. For us the most important thing is to find someone who wants to be part of a family.

MEETING OUR CHILD
Once we complete the disclosure process and decide to move ahead, the next step will be to meet the youth. Usually it is a gradual transition: we meet him first with his social worker there, on another day we spend the day together, later he can spend the weekend at our house. If everyone feels good about the match then we make it official. He would move in and we would be his foster parents until he becomes legally eligible for adoption, at which time we can adopt him if that's what everybody wants. Regardless, we would be his permanent family: somewhere to crash over college breaks, or a home to go to for the holidays, or a place to live if he's not ready to make it on his own. These days a parent's support doesn't necessarily end at 18.

So that's where we are now, finished with our home study and about to start the matching process. A very exciting time! I'll be able to post any new developments here and hope it will help to keep our family and friends in the loop.

For now, I can say there is one young man we are looking forward to learning more about. He lives in the Los Angeles area which does present some challenges in setting up our initial meetings. But from what we already know about him he sounds like a great kid and he would be worth the extra effort! I'll let everyone know how it works out!