Mythbusters: Public Adoption Edition

There are a lot of things people will tell you about public adoption. These people will be misguided family or friends, articles, your social workers, the agency, doctors, etc. Here are the myths we have heard, and the truths we have learned. Keep in mind, thus far our experience is only with public adoption, so we can only speak to that type of adoption!


Top 4 Myths About Public Adoption
1. All children who are up for public adoption have serious issues, and won't attach.
This one is so super duper untrue it's silly. We have met several adoptive parents and their kids, adopted from infancy, all the way to age 12. The strength of the bond that they have is equal to that of birth parents and children. Many of the children who are in foster care suffer from trauma, developmental delays and some sort of handicap. Many of them are perfectly fine after having had time to catch up thanks to the time and effort of great foster parents who have helped nurture these childrens in ways they have not experienced. Some are still a little behind, but they do catch up. There are parents for those that are handicapped, who can handle, and even embrace, their disabilities.

2. The parents or other birth relatives will try to get the kids back.
 Once the parental rights have been terminated, and a child is legally adopted by another family, they can not get a child back. Your name(s) are listed on the edited birth certificate. You are from that point, and forever that childs parents.

3. The homestudy process in public adoption is quick. You should be in the matching process about 6 months from when you started.
I think caseworkers are afraid of people turning down the opportunity to adopt, so they continually give you the best case scenario. In Florida, MAPP classes are 10 weeks, then you have to wait to be assigned a caseworker (3-6 months) who will then try to make time to do your homestudy (if you get lucky, a month or so). THEN you have your FBI/criminal background check (a few weeks from the day you have your fingerprints done). As of right now, we are waiting to hear about our background checks, so it has been 6 months. We paid to start our homestudy however, so we did not have that initial wait thankfully. If you don't pay for your homestudy it would be 3-6 months on top of everything else through public adoption.

4. If you have an open adoption, or any contact with any relatives, your child will not attach, or will be confused.
I have met several adoptive and foster parents who have very open relationships with birth family. The children are not confused at all. They understand that their adoptive parents are the number one authority, they are the people who provide comfort, security and direction, and the birth parents are like extended family. Imagine if the the first few years of your life were completely wiped from existence; wouldn't that be more confusing? If the entirety of their birth family is rejected, it can cause the child to feel that a part of themself is not good enough, and should also be rejected. By allowing for positive role models from the birth family to be involved with the child, and showing that you can accept them too, you are telling the child that there is no part of them that you do not want.

These are the biggies. I am sure there are more, and I will add to the list as I see them!

Homestudy and Loose Ends

Gianna here!

Our homestudy was last Thursday. I meant to write about it right away, but I have been so busy I didn't have a chance.

Greg and I were super stressed about it. We had been cleaning and scrubbing and organizing for 2 weeks. The house looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Anyways, I had read somewhere that if you are stressed, NOT to work that day, because you will just be more stressed. I decided not to take that advice, and was absolutely miserable at work all day. If you are getting ready for a homestudy and reading this, I know you probably won't listen to me, but for the love of God, take that day off. Set your alarm for later in the day, and, although I know that if you are like me, you will already be awake, lying there staring at the ceiling, force yourself to stay in bed until the alarm goes off. Take it easy, do all the last minute stuff that will suddenly seem important, and do all the pacing you feel like. Do not go to work. If you're like me, you will be absolutely useless anyways.

So, our caseworker got there, and we sat in the living room and chatted. That's all. She asked questions about our lives up to when we met, like where we were born, if our parents were together, why not, how did we feel about it, what is our relationship like with our parents and siblings, what are our religious views, how will we discipline, do we prefer a certain gender, age range, and what disabilities can we handle, etc.

And then she took a 3 minute tour of our house.

That's not even an understatement. It was like "Oh, here is the downstairs, and up here are the bedrooms and the second bathroom and..oh, you are leaving? Ok, thanks."

Super duper fast. And that was it. I just had my fingerprinting done, and Greg's is scheduled for Thursday, and then we should hear something after the first of the year!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Today is the day!

Gianna here.

Well this is it. Our interview for our homestudy starts tonight. I am so nervous it's a bit pathetic. I am going to work now, and I have to say it was a bad decision. I read that you should take the day off so you can relax, but I assumed I would need something to occupy my time. Nope. I could be at home pacing instead of at work messing everything up.

Our house looks great, I have to all our paperwork in order, so I have nothing to be nervous about right?

And so it begins...

This evening, around 4:50, when I had accepted that I probably wouldn't hear from anyone about adoption stuff until Wednesday, I got a call from a caseworker! Our first interview is December 13th! We are so excited (and anxious and nervous and scared)! We needed something to take our mind off the homestudy, so we decorated for Christmas. It was a lot of fun. We thought about how this may be our last Christmas that we will not have kids, and decorating our tree with things our kids make, and sharing our traditions and start our own new traditions...so basically we spent the evening thinking about kids instead of the homestudy. :-) So for the next week we will be cleaning up, and I want to clear out the spare room so that it will be ready to be a kids room. We are so excited and blessed!