Just put an ad in the Penny Saver.

So, I've been thinking more and more about adoption.  I have a few issues that I need to deal with before making the call to Social Services.  I worry that the child, like so many other people in my life, will decide at some point that they want nothing to do with me, that I"m not good enough, that they would rather have their birth parent .  I worry that the child will eventually decide that I am a horrible mother and will cut me out of their life and find their birth family to be a part of.  I worry that we will be rejected by Social Services because of health or money or something silly like the fact that we own cats or live in a rural area.  I worry that my baby may be born with some horrible genetic disorder that may not appear until years after birth.  I worry that I will be faced with dealing with a birth family who won't give up, or who reappears in future years.  There are a lot of reasons why I think that adoption might not be right for me.

However, I have a huge reason why it might be.  I desperately want to be a mother and I know that I would be a great one.... and there are babies out there without people to love them.  I could be that person.  We'd have an awesome home to give any child - so why should I let a little thing like biology and genetics affect that? I think because I'm human and my dream has always been to get pregnant and carry a child, then give birth and raise my child.  My dream was not to adopt a child that someone else couldn't or wouldn't take care of... but then who does have that dream.

I think one of the other things that worries me is that I've seen too many children who end up in foster care in this province.  Sure, sometimes the reasons for children being put into foster care and eventually for adoption is that parents are unable or unwilling to care for them and give them up for altruistic reasons.  However, in the majority of the cases, the children are taken away from parents due to gross misconduct by the parents (abuse, drug or alcohol addiction, etc).  Those children have often been abused and mistreated, and often have lasting effects.  I don't have a problem caring for a special needs child, however, I'm not sure at this point that I want to take on what someone else has done to a child.  As a teacher, I've seen a number of children who have been abused and mistreated by their parents.  I've seen many children put into foster care who are irreparably damaged and can not make proper connections and attachments to adults or anyone for that matter.  SO do I want to take that on?  When you put your name in for adoption, you don't have a choice to say "I only want someone who is orphaned due to tragedy, or a baby who was voluntarily given up.

Here is that other problem...  In this province, there are no adoption agencies for private adoptions.  There are a few private religious organizations who help facilitate private adoptions, but they are limited and pretty picky on their candidates.  Public adoption, however, in this province is available and run by the government.  They take applications, interview, interview, homestudy, interview, interview, interview, then place you on the waiting list.  A waiting list that takes up to 7 or 8 years if you are wanting an infant.  At this point, I really do want to raise a baby from birth, so the wait would definitely be long.

In the meantime, hundreds of kids, including babies, are placed into foster care to be cared for on a temporary basis.  It takes time for them to be put into the system and for the right people to be found, etc, etc, etc... so these children, who could have wonderful homes, are left in temporary care.  I am not speaking badly of the foster parents - I know that most of them are wonderful, but it is still temporary and not a permanent home.

At this point I'm not sure what to do, or whether to put our names on the list.  I'm not sure that we should look into domestic adoption.  International adoption will be expensive - one agency I found said it is about $13000, plus travel and accommodations for one month while the adoption is processed.  All in all, that is not too much to pay to get a family, but it's still more than we have to put into it at this point.  We could potentially borrow the money in a couple of years, and all in all, given what we make a year, a personal loan for that through the bank, or a loan from a family member isn't out of the question, but it's still a big process.

The kicker - in this province, you can't advertise or publicly state in any way that you want to adopt a child domestically. If you do, you're breaking the law which says you are trying to buy a child.  It prevents private agencies, and it prevents teenagers from choosing who cares for their babies independent of the government.  It is an interesting conundrum that the government has set up.  It's not like there is a cost for health care of the mother here - we have publicly funded health care in this country - so payment is not an issue, but there is also not an option of putting an ad in the Penny Saver (if you can't place the reference... think Juno).