And then the clouds parted (also, August ’09 group update)

So it’s been a pretty active week after a relative lull.  As I alluded to in my last post, we’re at the profile part of the adoption process, and money is starting to become a stresser.  Being that we sunk a ton of money into our infertility treatments (which ended up not really treating anything, so I’m not sure I care for the term) we didn’t exactly have a huge adoption war chest to begin with.  Maybe for other couples looking to adopt the financial stuff isn’t a big deal, but I can assure you that it has been for us.

Oddly enough, the profile fee was causing us more grief than the much larger placement fee.  Most likely this is because we always figured we’d get a loan of some kind for the placement fee, but the profile fee would be out of pocket.  And as I mentioned before, we don’t exactly have that kind of scratch between our couch cushions.

So that brings us to Monday’s group session.  We got there a little early as we normally do, and struck up a conversation with another person in the group and one of the social workers at the counseling center where the sessions are held.  We had heard that this center (one of our first contacts in the adoption journey) works with people on profiles, and for significantly less money than our agency.  We had sort of dismissed the idea of going outside the agency to do our profile, but suddenly it seemed like a much more attractive option.  We agreed to contact Family Options to see how feasible it would be to get a profile done by the counseling center, our main concern being to make sure that all the agency’s requirements were met.

But more on that in a minute…

The group itself was very good.  There wasn’t a whole lot of progress for anyone to report – and our new parents weren’t able to attend – but the discussion was good.  I brought up one of my ongoing concerns regarding adoption, which is rejection and bonding.  I don’t worry so much about whether or not I’ll be able to bond with and love my child as much as a biological child; rather I worry about being the one who gets rejected.  Not by an infant of course.  They have no real conception of adoption and are more concerned with converting food to poop.

But later, as the child grows up…what then?  We plan, of course, to be completely open about their adoption as early as possible.  If nothing else, there will be no secrets (even though some terminology or concepts may have to be simplified early on).  But even then there’s no guarantee that he or she won’t decide they want no part of being adopted and living with “fake” parents.  I’m just not sure how I could handle a situation like that.

But of course, the same disconnect can happen in a “normal” biological parent/child situation as well.  So at the end of the day I know I’ll just have to do what any parent does – do the best job I can raising my children and hope it works out well.

We discussed other useful topics in the session, but that’s the one that I remember the most as it was weighing on my mind the most.  All in all, a good group.

So that brings us to yesterday.  We got in touch with the agency, and they said it should be OK to use the center for our profile, but that it may not bring down the cost as much as we thought since some of the profile fee went toward things other than just the consultation.

So we were kind of back at the start, and we were also feeling more urgency to get moving on an arrangement for the placement fee.  We’ve been reluctant to go the bank loan route, and credit cards are not an option as the agency doesn’t accept them.  Long story short, we reached out to a family member and got a commitment for the placement fee as well as the money for our agency profile!  So I’d say that’s a pretty sizable weight off our shoulders.

So now we’re ready to FINALLY make our profile appointment and get moving toward being active.  Hallelujah!