One Family's Story
April 2002

Our adoption story began at Christmas 2000 and ended only seven months later with the birth of our son, Owen Patrick, on July 24, 2001. Although we believe that we were beneficiaries of substantial good luck, we are positive that two pieces of advice that we received at the outset of this journey, and which we followed at the "moment of truth" later on, were instrumental in helping us achieve a swift and successful adoption. Before we give you that advice, let us give you a brief version of our adoption story.

After three heartbreaking miscarriages, we decided that if we were going to add a fourth child to our family, it would be through adoption. We were not optimistic about our chances, given that we were in our mid-forties and already had three children. We assumed that most agencies would reject us out-of-hand. We decided to consult with an adoption lawyer to learn about the different kinds of adoption and to get realistic assessments of our chances. That lawyer, Fred, explained the various kinds of foreign and domestic adoptions. Initially, Stephen thought we should try foreign adoption, believing that (a) it would be a "sure thing," (b) our ages wouldn't be as important, and (c) we would never have to fear that the birth parents would track us down. I had a different view. I thought that a domestic agency was the way to go because (a) we would have information about our baby's background that our child would want to have later in his or her life and (b) I was confident that a good, professional agency, to the extent humanly possible, could screen out birth parents who were not genuine in their wish to make an adoption plan. Ultimately, we agreed on using a domestic agency, and we began a search that led us to A.S.A.

We spent two--three months completing our application and, in early May 2001, were told that we were officially "Parents in Waiting". Not even three weeks later we received an e-mail from A.S.A. describing a difficult case. A birthmom had been paired with adoption parents several months earlier. She had represented to A.S.A. that her baby was the fully Caucasian child of her and her husband. Two months before her due date, she "confessed" that she was not certain who the birthfather was, and in addition, that the "possible fathers" were Latino and African-American. The birth mom did not know the names of these men and could barely describe how they looked. The original adoptive parents backed out. Thus, a scant two months before her due date, this birth mom had no plan for her unborn baby. ASA issued and "Adoption Alert" to make a swift placement.

As I read the e-mails from ASA, I was absolutely panicked; the moment of truth has arrived. All sorts of questions -- none of which make me proud-raced through my mind:

· We said we'd accept a mixed race baby, but do we mean that?

· What kind of a woman is this birth mother who behaved this way?

· Do we really want a child with a birthmother like that?

· What does this mean genetically?

· Are we prepared to live with the medical ramifications of an unknown birth father?

Here's where our lawyers advice came in….

When we met Fred on that December day, barely six months earlier, he said to do two things:

1. Do not romanticize the birth parents. Understand that in most cases, birth parents that are making an adoption plan have suffered real misfortune in their lives and their life experience is wholly

different from the adoptive parents who are searching for babies. It is quite seldom that the birth mom, for example, is a scrubbed college student who "made a mistake." In short, do not hold prospective birth parents to your preconceived notion of what like them to be. Simply put, they are who they are.

2. Take the first baby who is offered to you who meet the criteria you described in your application. Understanding that there is medical risk in every pregnancy and no genetic guarantee in any pregnancy-as many of us who seek to adopt know from our own painful experiences-stick to your original decisions about what you could or could not live with.

On that May day, when the e-mail was in front of me asking if Stephen and I were interested in this case, and my head was pounding with all of those doubts, my mind (or was it my heart?) went back to that meeting with Fred, and it was as if he was sitting on my shoulder repeating his advice. I remembered that yes, we did discuss all of the possibilities when the adrenaline wasn't rushing. I remembered that we had made careful, responsible and considered decisions to get to this point and now we were being given exactly the chance we had hoped for. I dug deep, put my sudden and quite emotional fears to the side, and wrote back "YES! please share our file with this birth mom!" Suddenly my concern was changed from whether we should choose this baby to whether this birth mom would choose us. Fortunately for us, that very day, she did!

--Pam and Steve