Adoption Story --- Part 2

If you missed anything...... Part 1

Before I go on I thought maybe I should tell you all a little bit about LDS Family Services. It is ran by the LDS Church (Mormon). Adoptive Families must be members of the church in good standing with current Temple Recommends. The fee is 10% of the Adjusted Gross Income for the year prior to placement. Birth Parents & Families do not need to be members of the church. Birth Parents are allowed to choose an adoptive family for their child and communicate with them face to face at least once before the baby is born and then through letters and photos on a schedule that they agree upon, some also choose to have face to face meetings after the child is born. The medical expenses not covered by the Birth Mother's insurance is covered by LDS Family Services. They also over lifetime counseling for the Birth Parents, no matter what their religion.
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We were finished with all of our paperwork and home study on December 21st 2001. Yes I remember the day well. That is the day that our caseworker came to our house and made sure it was a clean, healthy, and safe environment for a child. Then after this we had to wait for about 3 months before we were approved. Several caseworkers have to go over the file and then they meet together to approve couples to adopt.

In February we had our appointment with the Fertility Dr. at the U. After going over tests from both of us we were told that there was pretty much no way that we were going to get pregnant. We were given a couple of choices... 1) Use donor sperm combined with invitro...expensive...chance of me getting pregnant 25% - chance of carrying a baby 30% 2) Proceed with our adoption plan 3) Buy a boat. As much as we loved to water ski and fish, we chose to continue with our adoption plan.

In March 2002 we received a phone call telling us that our adoptive file had been approved. Now our letter and collage would be sent to the 12 agency offices in Utah. The offices all have a giant book full of the hundreds of families waiting to adopt. When a Birth Mom is ready to choose a family their caseworker goes through the book and selects families for her to look at based upon likenesses. Some Birth Mom's look at 2 families others may look at 20 or how ever many it takes until they feel that they have made the right choice. Of course there are no guarantees but we were told the average wait time was 6-18 months.

Over next few months I busied myself by being part of Families Supporting Adoptions. This is a way for families to help each other through this trying process. We had BBQ's and get togethers. I also volunteered a few times at the Agency.

Another thing that happened over the next few months is we received several phone calls about possible babies. Our caseworker called us about a few in other states. He also asked if we would be willing to have our file shown in Chicago, Georgia, and Michigan. He told us that there was a great need for families to adopt African American babies. This is something that we were very open to. After this conversation we were fully expecting to be adopting an African American infant or sibling group. We also received phone calls from friends that, "knew someone whose cousins friends mom" or whatever needed to place a baby. We tried to not get our hopes up.

It was also during this time that we learned the unfortunate truth about how some adoption agencies are basically selling babies. I spoke with an agency, I don't even remember from where that went over pricing of different babies with me. It was so sad to hear that white babies and bi-racial babies were so "expensive" while black babies "cost less". I told them that I wanted to adopt a baby -- not buy a car.

To be continued........