Family to Family Adoptions Inc, Adoptive Families, Birth Mothers

An adoption workshop has been added to our events and schedule page for April 28, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. If you are interested in adopting or would like to know some more information about the adoption process and our agency and reside in Virginia or the surrounding areas, please join us for this workshop. The workshop will be held at the home of one of our adoptive families. Our Executive Director will be there along with some adoptive families that have completed adoptions through our agency. If you would like to attend, please call our office at 281-342-4042 or email Maxine Seiler at max@fam2fam.org to RSVP and get the location’s address.

We want to thank our hostess and all of the families that will be there for this workshop. We look forward to meeting some new adoptive families. If you are interested in possibly hosting a workshop in your area, please contact us.

The relinquishment process in adoption raises lots of questions for both adoptive families and biological parents.  Alot of confusion from this topic stems from the different kinds of adoptions. One concern we hear frequently from adoptive families is if the biological parent can return months or years after the adoption and reclaim their child.  There is alot of fear on the adoptive parents part and why some families choose to do international adoption instead of a domestic adoption. In the State of Texas, if you adopt through a private licensed child-placing agency such as Family to Family Adoptions, relinquishments are signed by a biological parent no more than 48 hours after the birth of the baby. Once these voluntary relinquishments are signed they are irrovacable. These standards are for the State of Texas and private licensed agencies and vary from state to state. Most people who fear that this might happen have heard from someone else that it happened to their family or they know someone it happened to. It is important to remember and understand that the relinquishment process can be different for the foster care system, if the adoption is done through an attorney, and if the biological parents did not relinquish their parental rights but instead granted custody to a family member or friend.  If you have concerns or questions about the relinquishment process the best person to get the information from is the adoption professional. We will answer any and all questions regarding this process and hope to alleviate any concerns or fears you have regarding relinquishments. Please contact our agency for further clarification or if you have additional questions regarding relinquishments or the adoption process in general.

Open adoptions have become the norm today according to a report cited in the Houston Chronicle on March 21. According to this report, “only about 5 percent of infant adoptions in the U.S. now take place without some ongoing relationship between birth parent and adoptive family”.

While open adoptions are more popular, and provide many benefits to the families involved and to the adopted children, there are many problems encountered with the process due to mis-matched expectations as to the degree of post adoption contact. If you are interested in learning more about an open adoption, be sure to read our description of the open adoption process to prepare yourself for what you might encounter.

From time to time, we hear from people that we have worked with, and we like to pass that communication along to share with others who find themselves in similar situations. We recently got the following messages from Sydney, who we worked with some time ago to help her with her situation. Her first message talks about how she experienced her first contact with us. The second one is from a later period in her life, when she is looking back on how things have changed for her and her family.

I first contacted Fam2Fam in 2002- I was pregnant, alone & scared. Already a mother of a 2yr old son & struggling to make ends meet at age 21. I called the number, explained my situation & expected to hear the stranger on the other end of the phone to hang-up or at least laugh. But she sympathized, she listened & understood. Reassured me everything was going to be alright, and that she was there to listen and help me.

H E L P.. Because that’s what I needed! Nobody knew the details of my story or the situation I was in, But these ladies on the other end of the phone were willing to HELP me. And as the conversation went on, I felt the weight lifting off my shoulders & suddenly things seemed like they were going to be O.K.

… and here is the second note,

I placed a child for adoption, with a family in 2002. I was young and already a single mother of a 2yr old son. A lot of questions went through my head during the process about what will my son think when he gets old enough to wonder and ask questions. Here it is 2012, and not only does my son know about the adoption process and well aware of his biological brother –but they have a relationship. They stay in touch through Facebook, emails, phone calls and the occasional gifts on holidays/birthdays. We were blessed to have chosen a family that also kept their son they adopted aware of us, his biological family and the adoption in general. We have spent family vacations together and shared several laughs. It is truly a wonderful relationship. We get to watch as they each grow up & share their experiences. And although raised in two different parts of the country and in different settings, they both share such similarities. The way they giggle, the sports they enjoy, even the foods they eat.. They have that brotherly connection and always will.

My experience with Family 2 Family is almost a fairy-tale one, I was treated with the up most respect & care and never once felt obligated or pressured into the adoption. When asked about my 2cents worth- I say sit down & get comfy, because ive got a plenty of positive comments about Adoption & Family 2 Family!

We are so happy when we get notes like this because it shows us that the effort and care that we put into every situation we encounter really does pay off and make a difference in the lives that we touch.

If placing a child is something you are considering, read over some of the points you should think about to see if adoption is right for you. We also provide information on the birth mother process, and, as you can see from Sydney’s story, we are happy to talk with you on the phone to help you understand what we can do to help you.

you can write to us through our website or call and let’s talk

1-800-385-6301

Our History and Adoption Statistics Page has been updated with our most recent number of placements and average wait and placement times for active adoptive families. Since our inception, we have placed 293 babies and toddlers and had the pleasure of working with so many wonderful birthmothers and adoptive families. We continue to place children because of the love that both birthmothers and adoptive parents have for a child.

If you would like more information about Family to Family and the adoption process, please feel free to contact us. A list of dates for our conferences can be found on our Events and Schedules page. We also offer private consults in our office just give us a call to schedule one. We look forward to many more adoptive placements and to working with you to help you create your family.

Anyone can tell by looking at our family that Jonah is adopted and I believe that makes it easy for interested people to ask me questions about how we came to be a family.   I have made new friends and reconnected with friends with whom I’ve been long out of contact through my willingness to discuss Jonah’s adoption.  It’s such a joyful fact of my life that I’m thrilled for the opportunity to talk about it.  Little did I know before Jonah was born, many women around me are going through infertility issues or are interested in growing their families through adoption for one reason or another.  The process seems mysterious and intimidating to someone who hasn’t gone through it before and I’m so happy to encourage would-be parents to learn more about the process.  Our lives are vastly richer because we are Jonah’s parents and I am more than happy to help other families find their riches too. 

Every conversation I’ve had with women interested in adoption has been different because everyone’s circumstances are different.  However, there has been some overlap on some basic themes – I’ll go through some of them below:

How old was Jonah when you adopted him?

Jonah has been our baby since his very first breath.  His birth-mom allowed me to be in the operating room holding her hand when he was delivered via C-section.  The nurse took him out of the womb, wrapped him in a towel, and placed him in my arms.  He left the hospital with us when he and his birth-mom were discharged three days later and he has always been ours.  We finalized the adoption when he was seven months old.

Was there a lot of paperwork?

You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork:   forms, questionnaires, medical records, financial records, diagrams of your home, fingerprints for background checks, life history, family tree…there is no aspect of your life that will remain private if you choose to go through an adoption home study.   The sheer volume of paperwork can be overwhelming and it took us a long time to work up the nerve to get started.  The only way to do it, though, is to just start filling it out, one page at a time. 

I would do it all over again in an instant and I believe that the next time (if there is a next time) it won’t take us as long to complete the paperwork just because we won’t be intimidated by it.

Did the process take a long time?

It felt like an eternity because of how badly we wanted a baby and because we’d already been dealing with infertility for over two years, plus another five months of infertility treatments.  And it took us a long time to get our home study started because, like I said above, the amount of paperwork scared us.

However, once we got started in real time, it took us about a month to complete the home study and about fifteen months later, we had Jonah.  The key for us was finding the right adoption agency:  we started with one adoption agency that didn’t care for very many birth-moms each year and we never got a match with that agency.  Once we signed on with Family to Family, it had been only five months when Jonah’s birth-mom contacted us and Jonah was born just three months after that.

How did you get started?  Did you work with an agency?

The first thing that you have to do is to complete an adoption home study.  We contacted an agency local to us that provides home studies, but that does not actually place children with families.  A licensed social worker conducted the home study, interviewed my husband and me together and then separately, and interviewed some of our friends to complete the picture.  She also guided us through options available to us and helped us determine what was right for us in the process.  She is the person who helped us find both of the child placement agencies with which we worked.

 Do you keep in touch with his birth-mom?

Jonah’s birth-mom told us before Jonah was even born that she would not want photos or updates from us.  She has three children older than Jonah and placing him for adoption was the only way that she could see to be able to care for those kids.  It was a very painful decision for her but one that she never backed away from.  She told me that it would be too difficult for her to see and hear about Jonah and that she felt that she needed to look to the future with her kids.  She told me that she might be open to meeting him one day, many years from now.

I promised her that we will regularly send letters and photos to the agency and that if she ever changes her mind, she can check in there.  As far as I know, she has not done so.  I would love to hear from her and I want her to know how wonderful, amazing, brilliant, and handsome our boy is.  Hopefully she’ll be able to contact us some day.

Every adoptive family’s story is different and there’s even much more to our story than I’ve written here.  The topics above are what have come up most in my conversations with other people exploring adoption, though there are other issues too.   If you have any questions about our experiences, just email me (finkelstein.kate@gmail.com ) – I’ll be happy to talk with you.

Written by Kate Finkelstein, adoptive mother

If you are not already a fan of Family to Family on Facebook we hope you join us soon.  We are so close to reaching 100 fans that we have decided to give the 100th fan a $25 gift card to the restaurant of their choice.  We love our fans and supporters so much that we have also decided to sell our annual calendars for half off during the month of May. If you would like to purchase a calendar or get more details, please contact us or give us a call at 281-342-4042 or toll free at 1-800-385-6301. Thank you to all of our fans!!!

One important part of the adoption process is establishing a plan of contact after the baby is placed with the adoptive family. Both the biological family and the adoptive family agree on the amount of contact that both parties are comfortable with and an adoption plan is signed with the agency. Family to Family’s minimum required amount of contact of the adoptive family is to send pictures and letters of update to the biological family through our agency every 3 months for the first year and twice a year after that until the child is 18 years old. Some adoptive families and the biological family have a more open adoption and agree to more contact or have a different arrangement other than what is required of Family to Family.

The agency encourages biological families to send pictures and letters of update as well. This is also important for the adoptee.  The adoptive family should keep these photos and updates in a special place for the adopted child to give to them when the timing is right. However most biological families lose contact with the agency and the adoptive family after placement.

Losing contact with your child’s biological family can be sad not only for the child but also for the adoptive family. One of our previous adoptive mother’s recently wrote a blog about how she did not realize how affected she would be when they lost contact with their child’s family. She describes her feelings and her concerns over losing this contact.

It is also equally important for adoptive families to uphold their agreement and to send pictures and updates to the agency.  The biological family trusts you to do this when she chooses you as the adoptive parent of her child and she has made your desire of becoming a parent possible by making an adoption plan.  Sending these pictures and letters as agreed shows the biological mother how grateful you are as well as it ensures her that she made the right decision for her child not only by placing but by choosing you as the parents.

If the agency or you as the adoptive family lose contact with your child’s biological family, Family to Family encourages you to continue sending these updates and photos to us. We will keep them and send them to her when and if the biological family makes contact again.

When you opt for private infant adoption, your process may be a little different than if you were going through international placement or placement from foster care, but the emotional roll-a-coaster effect is still present. In foster care placement as well as international placement, after you have qualified, had your home study, processed all of the paperwork, then usually a child will be ‘referred’ to you for placement. Naturally, you have the right to refuse a referral, but the average person doesn’t. In private infant adoption, the birth mother and/or birth father choose the adoptive family.

Today, almost all birth mothers want a semi-open or open adoption rather than a closed adoption with the adoptive family. Because of today’s recommended best practices, almost all agencies allow the birth mother to choose the family she wants as parents for her baby. Studies by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Washington D.C. have shown that the more open the adoption, the better it is for the adoptee, the birth family and the adoptive parents as well. That is a hard concept to get your mind around when you are rebounding from years of failed infertility treatments and you have watched too many ‘adoption stories’ on the Lifetime Channel. But it is true.

Most adoptions are completed without any problems and the adoptive family and birth family forge a real bond and a lifelong relationship. However, you don’t know how your process will proceed when you begin this challenging and emotional experience. I recommend that you opt for a semi-open adoption to begin with and leave the door open for a more open adoption if it is possible. A semi-open adoption is one in which you meet the birth family and are given an opportunity to develop a close bond and relationship with each other and attend the birth of your child. This type of relationship may include your extended family as well as the birth family’s extended family. The difference in this type of adoption and a fully open adoption is no identifying information is exchanged by the parties. I hope and pray that you will wind up with an open adoption in which you and the birth family have exchanged identifying information and are contacting each other directly and maybe even meeting periodically so your child and any siblings can learn about each other. But you don’t know if that is possible in the beginning of the relationship. The openness of your adoption can be increased as time goes on.

In our agency, a full 25% of our adoptive families and birth families have opened their adoption to include the exchange of last names and identifying information by the actual birth of the child. In most of those cases, the birth mother puts the name the adoptive family has chosen for the child as well as their last name on the baby’s birth certificate. In many cases, the adoptive family and their extended family members as well as the birth family and their extended family members are present at the birth and spend hours or days together making memories for the sake of the child they all love.

Even if they don’t have a fully open adoption from birth, another 20% of our adoptive families are able to grow their relationship with the birth family into a fully open relationship within the first two or three years. So our anecdotal experience is that roughly ½ of our placements are fully open eventually. This is not perfect, but we feel that it respects the needs and wishes of all parties involved.

If a mother matches with a family and is unable to make that attachment and bond with them for some reason, she may ask for a rematch. Also, we have families who for one reason or another have agreed to a match under circumstances in which they find impossible to continue and have asked for a rematch. Our agency believes that you and the birth mother are the only people who have a right to make decisions about what type of an adoption you want. Occasionally, a mismatch will happen. That is fine. We will be glad to rematch both parties, because this adoption is about them and the baby, not our agency or our time line constraints or our cash flow or our ego. It’s about you as the parents, both biological and adoptive, and most importantly the child.

The scenario I have described is a wonderful process to watch from the outside as well as to live from the inside. The only way to achieve this type of adoption is to take time with the decision making process. Don’t be rushed into a decision and don’t be afraid to voice concerns about the situation. My experience tells me that if you are having concerns about the birth mother and the openness of the adoption, then she is too. When both parties are participating in the type of adoption and placement that they need and want, then very little else can go wrong.

Discover the Benefits of Adoption and how you can provide your child with the American Dream and fulfill your goals too.  To help you learn more about the benefits of adoption we will send you our Unplanned Pregnancy packet.  You are under no obligation and you will learn the answers to your many questions, solutions to your unplanned pregnancy, information about financial assistance during this traumatic time in your life and give you access to our caring counselors.

 You choose the family as parents for your child from our waiting families who have been thoroughly screened for criminal and child abuse history and who have been recommended for adoption by a social worker.

We help you with the process of placing your child for adoption when you are sure that adoption is the right choice for you and your child.  We offer free birth mother services with independent housing while pregnant if needed.  In addition, we offer life time counseling and support after placement and help to find good pre-natal care during this unplanned pregnancy.

 We believe that placing your child for adoption when you are not able to provide for him is a heroic act of selflessness.  We understand how courageous you are for making an adoption plan for an unplanned pregnancy and respect your rights as a parent.  Call 1-800-385-6301 and let us help you today.