Joshua P. Simon - The Accidental Author

This is an older article/video my wife ran across recently. It’s still just as relevant and important today, though. Please watch, have a good laugh, and think seriously about what you just watched. Then please make sure that you choose your words carefully next time you’re out and meet a transracial family.

Sadly, my wife and I have been told about 90% of these things.

http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2012/10/people-say-to-transracial-families.html

Part 3 of our adoption story will be used to talk about our plans going forward (yes, we’d like more). You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

There are over 40 references to orphans in the bible with the most notable, in my opinion, being James 1:27 - Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Though I don’t really use my blog as a mouthpiece for my faith, I’ve never denied that God and his word mean a great deal to me. Though the above passage isn’t the sole reason for me and my wife adopting (we would do it anyway), it is still an important factor.

So far, we have adopted two beautiful girls through private adoptions (both newborns). Going forward, we would like to try to adopt through the foster care system. Two main factors have led us to this decision.

1. Cost – It’s awful to say, but private adoptions can be very expensive and vary in price greatly. By spending less money per adoption, we hope to expand our family that much more.

2. Providing homes to older children (possibly siblings) – Many choose not to adopt older children because they are scared about the unknown in doing so. This is understandable. However, many concerns are the result of high profile cases that are not the norm. Regardless, children of all ages need homes. Going forward, my wife and I have decided not to let age alone be a determining factor in our decision to adopt.

So what are our next steps?

1. Build our savings back up and then look to put away money that we’ll use to buy a larger home to accommodate a hopefully bigger family.

2. Start the process of adopting through foster care which will involve taking parenting classes and completing a whole new set of paperwork.

3. May need to buy a larger vehicle if we end up adopting siblings. Something else to save up for.

4. If all of the above works out, we’d like to adopt through the foster care system in the next 2-3 years.

5. Repeat.

Below are some statistics about orphans I truly hope will tug at your heart strings because there are far too many children out there in need of a loving home environment.

The CCA Institute mentions that according to UNICEF and ChildInfo Data, there are an estimated 153 Million orphans around the world. (This number excludes all children over 16 years of age).

Startling information about the environments these children are growing up in:

Africa:
• In Sub-Saharan Africa 1 out of 9 children dies before the age of five (UNICEF).
• Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest risk of first-day-death for infants, and is the region showing the least progress towards ending infant mortality (UNICEF).

Asia:
• Asia is home to the largest number of orphaned children in the world; 60 million, at last count
• In the Russian Federation alone, 140,000 children with disabilities live in institutional care. 2-3 million total kids need a home.
• Under-five deaths are increasingly concentrated in Southern Asia – India and China are two of the countries with the highest rates of early childhood mortality

Latin America:
• There are 10.2 million orphaned children in Latin America, 5% of all children in the region
• Women and children are especially vulnerable in Latin America; under age minors represent 50% of people living in extreme poverty

USA:
• “In the U.S. 400,540 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system. 115,000 of these children are eligible for adoption, but nearly 40% of these children will wait over three years in foster care before being adopted.”
• It is common for children in foster care to age out, leaving them with little financial or emotional support. 27,000 children age out of the system every year (AFCARS).
• Almost 25% of youths aging out did not have a high school diploma or GED

And most alarmingly, orphans are systematically released to the streets on their own at age 16 in most parts of the world. Within 2 years the following happens:
• 70% of the boys become hardened criminals
• 60% of the girls become prostitutes
• 25% become the victim of violent crimes
• 15% commit suicide

There are over 153 million reasons to adopt, I pray that you find at least one of them important enough to you.

For those that follow my blog, you probably remember me mentioning that we were in the process of adopting again. Well, I’m happy to say that on Christmas Day our new baby girl was born (which puts all three of our kids with December birthdays…crazy, I know). It also means that now with two daughters, my son and I are outnumbered. Ha.

All joking aside, this has been a pretty crazy experience with lots of ups and downs (far more than with my other daughter’s adoption). Some of those ups and downs occurred before we were matched with our new child, others occurred afterward while waiting for paperwork to process so we could leave the state where she was born) and return home.

Since everything is all squared away and we are back home, I thought I’d share some of those ups and downs. It’s my hope that by doing so, more people might see that just because things don’t always work out how you planned (or wanted them to) it doesn’t mean that they won’t still end up well for you in the end.

Before Placement
One of the risks associated with adoption is that after being matched with an expectant parent, the prospective adoptive parents run the risk that something will endanger the match (i.e. one or both expectant parents changing their mind about adoption). This isn’t something that happens as often as people think, however, it does happen.

Oddly enough, this happened to us twice over the last few months. The first time, the expectant mother committed fraud about her pregnancy. The second time, the birthmother withheld medical information that showed she suffered from a mental disease. Because of this, she needed to go through psychological evaluation to prove she was mentally fit to terminate her parental rights before the adoption could continue. She didn’t want to do this. As a result, we lost several thousand dollars used to cover medical/living expenses for these two women prior to the match failing. In between these two matches, we also missed a couple of opportunities because expectant parents who initially chose us to parent their child, changed their mind once they realized that we did not live in the same state for them to visit the child post-adoption.

Unfortunately, these things happen.

More unfortunately, is that people often hear about or even experience these setbacks and get discouraged with the entire process. I find that sad. The little sacrifice or suffering we dealt with throughout these experiences is nothing compared to what we’ll be doing for and getting out of our new child. Something to remember for any adoptive parents is that a matched child is still not your child. Do not allow yourself to think of the child as yours or refer to the child as yours (even right after birth) until parental rights have been signed over to you and the child is actually yours. This outlook might seem a bit harsh, but it protects you emotionally from any ups and downs. I know it has helped us.

Next week, I’ll talk about the craziness that ensued once we were matched this last time …

After adopting our daughter 19 months ago, my wife and are in the process of now trying to adopt our third child. It is a very exciting and happy time as we look to add to our family.

*steps up on soap box*

But, as with most good things, there are a few, negative, head scratching parts of the process that just make you question people’s reasoning when it comes to such serious matters like finding homes for children.

I read a statistic the other day that said at any given time there are roughly 100,000 children that are in need of a home in the US alone. I’m not sure how many families there are who would be interested in providing a home for those children, but from my own personal experience there are far more than people realize.

However, as with most things in life, money becomes a huge factor.

Adoptions are not cheap and most people we know empty their bank accounts AND borrow money on top of doing so in order to bring just one child into their home. There is something really wrong with that. Perfectly capable parents that are almost begging to adopt a child, can’t in some instances because the price is too high.

Some agencies charges are flat out ridiculous and once you add on legal fees, medical expenses for the mother in some instances, and travel costs, adoption costs can range anywhere from 10-50K depending on a myriad of variables (which unfortunately includes ethnicity).

The government at one point helped with this cost through tax breaks, however last year the laws were changed and the amount of money adoptive parents would receive as a result of their adoption has lessened significantly.

One thing many people don’t realize is that those parents who’ve adopted one child generally would like to adopt more. Agencies know this and will often reach out to those parents with prospective cases. However, both sides find themselves frustrated because you have approved individuals wanting and able to give a child a home, yet cannot afford to do so.

I know people like this. In fact, my wife and I partially fall into this category. 19 months after my daughter’s adoption, we have not built up our savings to what it was prior to her adoption so our budget is lower than it was previously.

As a result, we’ve already had to remove ourselves from consideration of several cases because the agency fees alone were at the top end of our entire adoption budget. And because I have a good job (part of why we’ve been able to save back up what we have these last 19 months), the chances of us qualifying for a grant is pretty much nil.

I bring this up not because I want sympathy, pity, or your money.

I bring this up because we as a society should make up our mind about how important it is to find loving homes for needy children. We need to lower costs and/or provide better tax breaks to those households actively pursuing adoption.

I’d also like to ask that you keep those 100,000 children I mentioned earlier in your thoughts and prayers. I hate to think that some will miss out on a stable home life simply because no one could afford to give it to them.

*steps down from soap box*