Adoption @ MindSay 
babies
1: You are on your own.
In an independent international adoption, the heavy lifting is the sole responsibility of the parents since there is no agency offering guidance or expertise. Interested parents need to request a home study from a licensed adoption agency or a local social worker. After this step, you would work independently to acquire the required documents in your home country (for the U.S., the Citizenship and Immigration Service or USCIS, formerly the INS) and for the foreign judicial system where you are seeking to adopt a child.
You will also need to find a lawyer or agency in that country that will connect you with a child and then take the trip to obtain responsibility for the child and the corresponding documentation for the adoption, passport, and visa.
2: You have to work across cultures.
If you are interested in independent international adoption, you must be patient and flexible when navigating the legal system of another country. You need to become familiar with the regulations for the governmental and adoption agencies involved in the process. The key is to be informed and research the countries you are considering and their adoption practices to determine the best match for you.
3: There are more risks involved.
When dealing with an adoption outside the United States, there are more unknown factors and therefore more prospective dangers. If you are not working directly with a recognized licensed agency then you may face the possibility of working with a local lawyer or missionary who will find you a child but not be able to obtain the necessary documents needed for the international adoption to be considered legal.
Other possible hazards include potential - although unintended - involvement in the illegal adoption market, the falsification of the child's medical and personal documents, a breach of the confidentiality of your medical and personal information, and the loss of money in an adoption scam.
4: The restrictions are tightening.
Many countries are keeping a closer watch on their international adoption policies. The result is that it has become harder to adopt a child abroad. In 2006, China was the most popular country for U.S. foreign adoptions. As a response to the increased interest, in May 2007, China imposed restrictive policies for the profile of potential adoptive families. The laws and regulations for independent international adoption are evolving so do your part to know what's current in the countries where you are considering adoption.
For one thing, we live in a 2 bedroom apartment. That's not enough space to raise another child, especially if it's older or a girl. Girls have to have their own separate rooms by law here. Another thing, we have to make sure that we can handle it emotionally as a family. My husband works a lot and working on marriage things sometimes bogs us down, let alone parental things. We really have to make sure that we are mentally ready for an undertaking of this magnitude.
I know that DE also has subsidized adoptions, but there is something about adopting a child and being where I grew up, where my son was born, and where my mother is that appeals to me moreso than being out of state and doing this. We would need a lot of familial support when we do this.
The MAIN thing is to get my husband to agree that we can move in this direction eventually. He has said he might be open to it, but I know he would rather have another child "the old fashioned way". If I can arm myself with information, and we can move together as a cohesive loving family over the next few years, I know that we will be ready to do this no matter which state we end up living in.
last night I came to an epiphany because I realized that I was reliving the "poor me i have no control" aspects of my life that were there when i was preganat and others were running everything. And it was so drummed into me to during the reunion process and all the literature to let the adoptee set the pace and keep the door open and be patient. But I realized that's a smaller version of believeing you have no rights all over again. Do we let a an ambivalent man string us along? do we tolerate girlfriends who are there when it's conenient for you and on the fly when we have a need? hell no. But with children we are taught that the never dry tit must always be kept in wait. That's pretty sensible when you child is a child but is total bullshit when you are dealing with a grown married woman with kids of her own.
so I asserted myself and told her that emails were a lousy way to communicate about these issues and while she had said that it's "not like we are mother/daughter or cousins or girilfriends" ( that's a quote) I just had a mental pop and said Hell- I wouldn't be putting myself through this misery if she were just some person I decided i wanted to meet who had no importance in my ( or her) life.
okay I did not raise her and I am not in any way minimizing that part of motherhood- but my genetic contribution and the fact that she found ME were some minimal evidence that yes my mothering contribution has some meaning. i am taking a very convoluted and cloaked way of saying that I told her I wanted a relationship and if she didn't have the time to make some space to work on forming one I was taking my ball and going home because I am not a masochist and a 42 year old woman should know better than to behave like this.
taking control feels good and also makes me feel sick but I am not going to let this non-relationship or the hope for one destabilize me and send all my emotional progess down the toilet. ( as always I did not proof read this one either)
Thread Heads meets today- I am teaching three different felting techniques to the group and its begining to snow which is magical because the flakes are large feathery chunks and abi tries to chase them with her eyes and can't understand why they cease to exist once they hit the ground. But later this morning it will start to accumulate and a toasty fire and some chamomile tea while my husband and I play a board game will be delicious. and since i finished dressing the loom I can make some gifts for women I love. Yes, and they love me back. no shilly shallying about that. hrrrrrrrrrrrmpf.
The problem with keeping a journal on a computer is that when you buy a new computer you don’t transfer everything from the old to the new because maybe that particular day you don’t see the reason for a specific file anymore and it’s gone gone gone.
Such went the personal folder labeled all the sad stuff- letters and entries relating to the short term connection with the first daughter to which I gave birth. I saved the photos of her in adulthood but the words and thoughts- from her to me, from me to her and from me to me are all gone and linger only as a memory. My husband tells me that my last confessional letter to her was very brutal towards myself but I wanted her to know everything and so I poured it out in one big emotional vomit- maybe because I didn’t believe she would ever really accept me and it might be better if I gave her really good reason. All that self fulfilling prophecy shit. And taking control to insure the bad rather than just risk ambiguity.
But I confess I think of her often. Sometimes with jealousy. Sometimes longing. Sometimes irritation, Sometimes simple curiosity. I don't know she is aware of the imprint her birth had on me and how vivid every one of those memories is burned into my heart and mind. Taking the train to the city and the uptown bus to east 94th street where I signed the papers relinquishing her for adoption. And waiting at the bus stop to go home with those girls from sacred heart- all nice 17 year old virgins in plaid skirts and knees socks. And me outward looking the same but never the same again. Nor the way her birth informed every relationship I have ever had since. Or how when she turned 21 I planted 21 daffodils in her honor. and how somehow deep in my freaky telepathic heart I knew that she wasn't placed in a happy family and wasn't always being treated well. I thought of her internally as a little blackbird. my little blackbird but I never let that thought go beyond my mind.Back then by signing the papers I gave up every right they told me. and was just left with the pain whcih even that I was told would go away before i knew it.
SO since everyone was lying to me, why shouldn't I join the game and lie to myself. Accept the verdict, internalize it and expect the rejection when it came. Oh it hurt but it was no surprise. And so when everyone you know in adulthood tells you that you are funny and smart and generous and gracious and you get sickof hearing it because they might have read conrad but they don't know the heart of darkness.
Recently I mailed her a book titled The Girls Who Went Away or something like that – a book that gives the view of what it was like to be a “good/bad girl” in the 1960’s and be sent away because being pregnant unmarried was incompatible with being in decent society. It was a clumsy overture and she responded- with the articulate directness that I think is genetic because she writes quite well and is honest without being bitchy but it hurts all the same. And she has every right to build her life just the way she wants and I know I have every right to want to be a small part of it and she in turn also has the right to say no. But I don’t like that.
Maybe if Jim and I had had children the hole would not be so big. We tried many times and did extraordinary things and even got on the adoption roller coaster for a short while. I long ago stopped believing it was retribution for the errors of my youth.
But you know. It really sucks to be told plainly that someone doesn’t want to be in your life because of who you are…not because you did the right thing in having them adopted- even if aspects of the home was really bad- many of us survive bad biological mothering and I am sorry she had bad adoptive mothering. ANd yes i know that love must be given without expectation and I love her, but I dont know if I like her.
Anyway I also learned she reads my blog ( as I go to her website to see what's new) and I could make this entry readable only by mindsay members or even close my entire blog to only mindsay registrants… but I also use it as entertainment, soapbox and a fun way to tell friends in Alabama and Denver what is new. So do I exploit my pain and her privacy and submit this? Which ever way I can always change it later. Right? Right.
P.S. there is a response from her sitting in my uotlook inbox and I am not sure I want to read it. God I see the icy intensity she brings to relationships and I know it intimately. Nature has a lot more going for it than nurture. Yes. I know that manner very very well. It's mine. out out damn spot
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