One of the hardest parts of the home study was making so many decisions. When you conceive a baby, you find out that you are pregnant, and then you are going to get the baby that you birth. You don’t have to make decisions about whether the baby should be 100% one race or if it is okay for the baby to be 1/4 Hispanic or 1/2 Native American. You don’t have to decide if you will consider a baby whose birthfamily has a history of seizures or heart disease or schizophrenia. You get what you get, and that is enough. The number of decisions we had to make was overwhelming.

One of the hardest batch of decisions for me was the medical considerations. I wanted a healthy baby. If I had gotten pregnant, I planned to drink only water or milk. I would have taken my prenatal vitamins every day, and I would NEVER have imbibed on even one sip of wine. I even planned to eat the “What to Eat While You Are Expecting” diet to make sure that my baby got the very best nutrition he could.

I felt physically ill as I had to make decisions about what kinds of things could have gone into the placing mother’s body that could possibly affect the health of my baby. How much alcohol was okay before I would no longer consider the match? Did it make a difference if she drank a lot only in the first trimester? How about cigarettes? Or pot? Or crack cocaine?

Initially, we said no to any of those things, but then our social worker gave us a reality check. MOST of the placing birthmothers who came through their program had drunk at least a little alcohol while pregnant. It was unusual for them to have a placing mother who did not ever drink even one drop of alcohol. Unless we relaxed our standards, it would be a long wait. A long wait was not an option for me, so we went through the task of weighing out how much was too much for each possible risk.

Another big decision for us was the issue of post-placement contact. All I knew about adoption was from the television. On TV, adoptions were closed. I had never even heard of an open or semi-open adoption. This agency strongly encouraged all adoptions to be semi-open, which they defined as meeting face-to-face before the birth without identifying information (first names only). Also, they strongly encouraged that the adoptive parents send pictures and letters to the birthmother every other month for the first year and then twice a year thereafter until the child was grown. These packages would go through the agency, and identifying information would be kept private. I flat refused to have ANY openness in our adoption. I was not going to risk the birthmother tracking us down and coming to take the child back.

I will discuss open and semi-open adoptions in much greater detail in a later blog. For now, suffice it to say that I eventually came around to seeing the importance and beauty of a semi-open adoption. I am so glad that I gave in on this issue. My fears were based upon lack of education and understanding about adoption. Writing the letters is a joy! Sending the pictures is a joy! My son’s birthmother enabled me to become a mother. I am HAPPY to share a piece of her birthson’s wonderful life with her. I want to give her peace of mind that her birthson is truly happy and loved.

Next post