And there are a lot of studies that show that the best thing that you can do to really solidify your marriage so that when you are faced with rainy days, you are able to open your umbrella and walk where you need to walk but that takes work. When there is discord between the spouses, there is some level of unhappiness and anxiety and worry that any spouse would have to focus on because you want to be in a good place with your spouse. Again, that’s going to take away from your adoption journey. That’s going to split your focus. And as we talk about when families aren’t ready to adopt, we want to make sure that they are in the best place possible. Another thing is, if a family hasn’t done education about adoption, it’s really important to do so to understand… adoptions look very different today in 2020 than they did in the seventies or sixties or eighties, nineties, it’s changing and evolving.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’ve got so much research and data that wasn’t available decades ago. And when families are not familiar with adoption and what is available, we see it right away and it’s our job as an agency to educate you on what it takes to adopt a child, but you have to have some foreknowledge so that you can go into a program and understand what we’re trying to explain so it’s not completely foreign. If you are having difficulty conceiving your own biological child, you have some choices. You can choose fertility treatments. You can choose adoption. You can let nature take its course and in time you will either have a biological pregnancy or you won’t. Or you can choose to not have children. And those are very difficult choices. There’s not, in my opinion, an easy answer, but it’s one that I would recommend if you and your spouse are not on the same page to see a counselor and work with a counselor together before making any of the four decisions.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When you’re not on the same page with the choice that you are choosing, it’s important to look at why. And when I mean why, is it the path that one spouse wants to take over another spouse or is it the amount of the level of importance it is to become a parent? Or is there some ulterior reason that maybe you’re not aware of that your spouse wants to take a different avenue or not take an avenue than you do? Again, this is where counseling is so important. For families that have had to seek fertility treatments or chose to and were not successful, again, this is where a counselor can help you process grief and help you make a decision about what to do next. Some obstacles when you are deciding about adopting again would be funding. Fertility treatments are very expensive and when you are coming off of a fertility treatment and adoption wasn’t your first choice, and you’re looking at it as a default choice, think about the fairness in that.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No birth mother would want to be a default choice. That doesn’t mean that you would have to choose adoption first. What it means is that when you are choosing adoption it should be at that moment your number one choice, and getting in a head space to where you are is vital. So again, obstacles that you’re going to be facing are funding, and accessibility, if you’re choosing adoption is one spouse in the military? Are they stationed at a remote location? That can create some challenges. What about feasibility? Is there insurance restrictions if you are going to be adopting your child? If you are continuing with fertility treatments what is their effectiveness with your body chemistry? Family support, do you have your family’s support or lack of family support?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Society, family, friends, pressure, when you’re looking at this is there anybody in your circle that has adopted, that is familiar with adoption, that has walked that path? Are you going to be able to get time off of work, sick time, Family Medical Leave Act? If you’re self-employed are you going to be able to be gone for a period of time when the baby is born? These are all things that you really need to consider when learning what it takes to adopt a child. We’ve had situations where a baby’s born prematurely and the adoptive family says, “Well, we weren’t prepared for that. We weren’t expecting that to happen.” And when you’re in an adoption, even though you are not the one that is pregnant, that is still intended to be your child. So biologically, if you were carrying this baby and you had the baby early, it really wouldn’t be any different.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When you are learning what it takes to adopt a child and looking into beginning an adoption plan these are the following steps that I would recommend. Making the conscious decision to adopt by considering the following: your funding source, the child or infant preference, and then whether you’re going to use an agency, an attorney, or try to do this independently, I would recommend that you begin researching adoption options that you have, again agencies and attorneys, speaking with family or friends that have adopted and attending adoption information seminars. These are really good starting points so that you can slowly introduce yourself into the world of adoption. Then choose what type of adoption and entity that you would like to pursue, whether it is domestic newborn, international, foster care, foster to adopt, whatever path is the right fit for you and your family. Then it is completing a home study and then picking an adoption entity.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, picking the agency that you’re going to do your actual adoption through if it is not your homestead. So, lots of states don’t have as friendly of adoption laws as other states and so families from one state will get certified in their state, they’ll get their home study done, and then they’ll choose an agency or an attorney in a different state and that’s the entity that will actually find the birth mother, work with the birth mother, and do all of the work on the end of the adoption rather than just the homestead. And lastly, the biggest signs that an adoptive family is not ready to begin, I would say, are unresolved issues regarding failed fertility treatments, a previous failed or disrupted adoption, discord in your marriage over the choices that have been made to date, and if everybody’s really not on the same page. If you have a spouse that is kind of going with the flow and along for the ride, that’s not going to have the same…
Ron Reigns:
Well, they’re not going to be as emotionally invested and active in it.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Well, it’s not just that, it’s really unfair to the spouse and to the child that you would like to adopt to not have the spouse on the same page. When we do adoption home studies, both parties are interviewed separately because we have to do our due diligence in making sure that both parties are wanting and ready to adopt. And I will tell you having done dozens of home studies, there are times where when one spouse is being interviewed, their feelings, emotions, and what they’re saying are diametrically opposed to what the other spouse has stated. And it’s really easy to pick up on when a spouse has been coached prior to the interview and it’s important for us to make sure that both parties are both ready and wanting this because again, placing a child in a home where one spouse is so into the adoption process and wanting to become a parent, wanting to do this, and the other parent has burned out and that’s not where they are anymore.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And they’re not ready to jump back into the fire, if you will. So, we’ve also found that families that have had disrupted adoptions or failed matches, some of them want to jump back in and they do have that personality and mindset to where they are able to try this again. Just like a family that has had a failed infertility treatment and then they jump back in and do that again. Some have had what they consider a harder adoption failure or adoption match, and they’re really grieving over it, and those families need to take some time and then come back into the program. Because again, we’re going to see them coming in angry. When we have families that come to us after working from another agency where they weren’t successful in becoming parents, they don’t come in with the same attitude and demeanor when they’re unhappy as when other families come in. When they come in, they are more aggressive and they’re bitter and they’re questioning everything and they feel slighted, but we didn’t work with this prior family and we don’t have all of the ins and outs of what occurred.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so when they come in like that, and they are just so unhappy with what has happened previously, it sets a tone for their adoption journey that I don’t think that they would really want to come across as. So again, this is where I would recommend counseling. There are lots of counselors out there that can really assist you in moving forward and resolving your grief. Even during COVID you can do online counseling, and virtual counseling. That doesn’t mean that you have to wait. We as an agency, to date, haven’t slowed down all in terms of how many adoptions we’re doing or how many families are coming into the program. COVID hasn’t stopped families from continuing to build, but we want to make sure that you’re ready. Again, we don’t want you to be overly concerned to the extent that it’s not normal in an adoptive family because you have been, what you feel was, burned before by another agency or by a birth mother. We want you to be in a place where you have resolved that grief and that you can enjoy this to the best of your ability.
Ron Reigns:
So, when a couple comes into you as an agency and they are aggressive, and you can tell that they’ve got unresolved issues that they need to take care of, what do you tell them? What do you recommend to them personally when they come in? Do you just say, “You need time?”?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Not even just time, really more counseling, because when you have a really good counselor it’s not a process that has to take years or six to 12 months necessarily. It’s really taking that time and working with your counselor and processing those emotions and being able to find peace and close that door so that another door can open. So, we recommend counseling. If we have an adoptive family learning what it takes to adopt a child, present initially like they are ready to begin another adoption or begin adoption after having failed fertility treatments, and everything goes well in the beginning, and then they start to get nervous and we start to see some of the signs kind of creep up during their adoption journey, we do recommend counseling. Obviously, they’re matched at that point and they’re working with their birth mother and we just have to point out that unfortunately, some of the things that they have been saying, or their mannerisms with their birth mother or with their case worker, or their comments are not being well received.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so, everybody would be best served if they could work on themselves so they can be ready for when their baby comes and they can start enjoying every moment of their journey. Again, some of these birth mothers have, many birth mothers have not placed a baby for adoption before and so this is their journey too. And when an adoptive family is on this journey learning what it takes to adopt a child, and they’re carrying so many emotions with them and they’re angry, and they’re resentful that they’re not the one that is pregnant and they’re not the one who gets to experience the baby kicking inside of them, and they’re angry at the birth mother because she’s able to do something that they can’t, but they’re also grateful to her, those feelings come out in things that are said and the consistent or inconsistent communication that you have with a birth mother.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And those are really important because you’re not just cheating yourself out of a beautiful experience, you’re cheating your birth mother out of one, and she didn’t do anything wrong. And so, it’s important to make sure that you’re able to be present in the moment and this is something exciting, and you don’t want to rob yourself of this time because as beautiful as an adoption is when a baby is born and handed to you and you meet your son or daughter, the journey is just as important. And so, in order to make sure that you are smelling every rose along the path of your journey you need to make that you are emotionally ready to do so.
Ron Reigns:
Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption. If you’re listening and you’re dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and want more information about adoption, Building Arizona Families is a local Arizona adoption agency and available 24/7 by phone or text at (623) 695-4112. That’s (623) 695-4112. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get started on creating an Arizona adoption plan or just get you more information on what it takes to adopt a child. You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website at AZpregnancyhelp.com. Thanks also go out to Grapes for allowing us to use their song, I Dunno, as our theme song. Birth Mother Matters in Adoption was written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me. Please rate and review this podcast wherever you’re listening to us. We’d really appreciate it. We also now have a website at birthmothermatterspodcast.com. Tune in next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I’m Ron Reigns.