Let me dive right in to a sticky, emotional subject. I’ve been thinking about the topic of adoption lately, mainly due to the Haitian earthquake and a friend getting pregnant via IVF, then today by a friend’s tweet about someone over in Haiti trying to bring back a child. There really isn’t any way to discuss the issue without getting people’s danders up, but I’ll do my best to posit my thoughts here without causing rancor.
First, let me share the tweet from my friend Mike Schneider. His friend Elizabeth Moore is over in Haiti, pregnant, and trying to bring back Lily – a child they started the adoption process on three years ago, according to Mike and the article. I think I might have hurt Mike’s feelings by not giving him the simple RT he wanted (RTs, or retweets, drive awareness on Twitter by sharing an idea form one person with a new network of listeners), and by simply wishing his friend safe passage home with or without Lily. I then went to the blog article and posted the same well wishes for her safety and linked to the Haitian adoption info I’m posting below, in hopes of helping other potential adoptive parents who might come to the Moore’s blog as well. It felt a little weird to combine well wishes with education, not knowing their whole story, but the issue overall is so hot button right now, I’m trying to share the educational link wherever I can.
Keep in mind, Mike is someone I trust. Mike is, usually, someone I will simply RT if asked, because the information he shares is vetted, always. In this instance I chose to share his friend’s plight with my network by replying to him instead of blanket retweeting, because it ties in to the overall issue of Haitian adoption, and Haitian adoptions since the quake are a problem issue. So, while his friend most likely confirmed Lily’s orphan status long ago, so many adoption now haven’t – how then to help Mrs Moore without also helping the others who adopt without thought for the consequences (you can read a very well done post about the consequences of adopting from different cultures and under-developed nations over here)? My answer, personally, was conversation, which I hoped drew sympathetic eyes to her plight and to the larger issue, without giving a flat endorsement to an issue that weighs heavy on the mind.
Adoption, in general, has been on my mind for many years. I have so many friends who adopt from other countries, or who eschew adoption in favor of expensive fertility treatments. In fact, Mike has adopted children from another country, and he is a good dad. When I ask people why they chose to adopt kids from another country and not one of the millions of American kids who need homes, the answer is most often “money”. From what I understand, it is actually cheaper and less time consuming to adopt a child in need of help from outside the United States, unless you wish to first foster a child, then adopt (apparently the cheapest method in the States). Since I could be misunderstanding, here is a site that discusses adoption costs.
Another reason they give are restrictive adoption criteria. I would love someone to educate me on what this means for the family and for the children in the system here. I genuinely have no idea, and nearly every site was incredibly vague on what the restrictions are for both families wishing to adopt and children waiting for homes. I don’t know about you but I find it easier to form opinions with more, and better, information. If we have set up a system where we are so restrictive our children here in the US can’t find homes that are safe, and adoptive parents can’t be connected to children who need them, then we need to reevaluate our system and use our platforms to effect change.
Last but not least, I’ll touch briefly on fertility treatments. I try not to offer my opinion on these to my friends – I have several who have gone that road, after all, and I am fairly firmly against this costly method of getting pregnant. In my unscientific opinion, it seems natural for some people to not be able to easily get pregnant – as if it’s nature’s way of keeping the population a little more even. If I found I could not get pregnant (were I to wish to have children in the first place), my only solution would be adoption or being a foster parent – no questions asked. If asked why, I’d have to say it smacks of selfishness to me to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to “have your own” child when so many need homes. No one’s gene pool is that important. Heck, this year a friend wanted to know if I’d use my social network to help them hold a fundraiser to help the couple pay for IVF. Um, no. That’s an abuse of a social network for a personal choice, not to raise money for a collective good cause like cancer research or whatnot.
Anyway, I’m always hoping to be a conduit of information so I’d love it if people much more knowledgeable on adoption than I posted some concrete information in the comments so we could all learn more about the process of adoption in America. And while information justifying a personal choice for or against fertility treatments aren’t going to sway my opinion on that, feel free to post that also – someone else may want to learn.
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