Personal Adoption Truths
If you're checking out this page, chances are you're interested in adopting a child or you already have. My husband David and I have eight children. Three of them were born to us and five were adopted to us. At this time we are also raising four grandchildren by two of our daughters. Sometimes the challenges a child has carry over into adulthood!
For many years I assisted our local agency in providing education for adoptive parenting classes. My area of expertise was helping people present themselves to caseworkers in ways sure to catch their attention and make a placement more likely. I am not a caseworker or a social worker. I'm a MOM-with experience.
I belong to several pro-adoption organizations; Adoptive Families of Chemung County for which I serve as convener. (I tell everyone to shut up so we can start the meeting.) NYSCCC--New York State's Citizen's Coalition for Children, and NACAC-- the North American Council on Adoptable Children. I was a foster parent in the past, but no longer.
I have written numerous articles on both foster care and adoption, many of which have been published. Some are listed in the links below.
For many years I took part in the pre-adoptive parent training in our county. I did the segment on finding a placement through the Adoption Photolistings and taught about adoption subsidy and certain legal matters which require attention when adopting. Our county no longer does the same kind of training, so I don't do that any longer.
As mentioned above, my husband and I are parents of eight children. We've been married thirty eight years. Our eldest child is 37, married and father of three. I have four grandsons and four granddaughters. Chris's children are 12, 11 and 9. Unfortunately they live in Tennessee and I live in New York State. It makes spoiling a little difficult! I make up for it with the two little ladies, Mackenzie 6, Danica 5, and gents, Samual, 4 and Elijah, 3. who all live with us. We also have a new little grandson named Caleb. Our youngest child, another son, is almost 20. In between are four daughters, ages 36, 28, 26 and 25, and two more sons, 34 and nearly 30. The five youngest are adopted to us. They are Robert, Alaina, Meghan, Serena and Jeffrey. T he three eldest, Christian, Daneda and Sean, were born to us.
Although we chose to concentrate on adopting older children, because we were willing to consider a child with a disability, two of our children were placed as infants. Serena, now 25, was 10 months. Serena has mild Cerebral Palsy. She was our first. Sometimes she tries to tell the other kids she is older than they are in this family because she was adopted first, and so she ought to get more privileges. It doesn't work!
She's just graduated from college, hoping to be a historian. Jeff, our youngest, has Downs Syndrome and is still in school. The other kids were siblings, aged 8, 6 and 4 when adopted. They're either working or on SSI, depending on their situations. All eight of our children are doing well even though some have more to handle than others.
Adoption has been quite an adventure for us. Our first adoption was also our county's first legal risk placement and took years of legal battles before Serena was totally ours. We ended up fighting first parents, grandparents, former foster parents and even took the placing agency to court! We won.
Our second placement fell through. It was of a foster child we were approached about taking into our home on the condition we'd get to adopt him when he was free. He had siblings, and things worked out so that when we was freed, he had to be placed with them although he had never lived with them either in his birth home or in a placement. For years after the move, when he saw me in public, he would run up to me crying or he'd latch onto Serena and cling for dear life. They were only two months apart in age, and so close! Pain like that of losing Isaac never goes away. Legally, he is someone else's son. In my heart he is still mine. (Flotsam, an article below.)
Rob, Alaina and Meg were also legal risk placements. We just had to wait out a standard appeal in that case. After the others, it was a breeze. Rob and Alaina and Meghan have mental illnesses, which are a different kind of challenge, one I find harder than the physical disabilities. They are doing ok considering their challenges.
Jeff, our final adoption placement when he was 6 weeks old, was totally free! What a relief that was - until cardiac and respiratory problems developed which threatened his life. Legal risk was easier than life-risk!
Then, after Jeff we tried an international adoption of my newborn nephew from Canada. Things took so long that by the time John was to come he was almost two and he'd bonded deeply with his foster family. When it was time to come to us, John grabbed my hand to come with me, and his foster mom's hand to bring her along. He couldn't imagine life without her. In his little mind, where he went, she would be. After losing Zac, there was no way we could disrupt John's life or put another family through the pain we suffered, and so I signed off. John stayed with the family he'd lived with since birth. I won't say it doesn't hurt, but there's satisfaction in knowing Johnny never hurt because of me.
I am less active than I used to be in Adoption circles due the needs of my children and grandkids. It will never not be a part of my life. I still attend meetings, and troubleshoot when the need arises. I still write about adoption.
David and I don't intend to adopt any more children, however, unless we adopt some of our grandchildren, so the focus for us is no longer the adoption process itself but living with adoption.
Twelve years ago I got a computer for the kids, sure I'd never touch it. Wonderful gadgets! I liked it so much I got another really fast and updated one, which I am very reluctant to share! I let the kids have the old one. It's opened doors I didn't even see before. I take online classes, LOVE working with Paint Shop Pro, do web pages, and have a ball. Sure beats the old word processor! Now I have several machines, desktop and laptops, PDAs and all sorts of digital toys to play with!
Eventually I found work from home on the computer, as Production Manager for TechTV's online chat and then managing member services and feedback mail for their Interact department. When they got bought out by another company, that ended. Presently I work as an independent contractor moderating messageboards, administrating some, doing customer and sales support, testing software and proofreading web content. Some of the boards are technology based, some are sports, some based on television shows. Between that and the children, I don't have much spare time.
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Articles, Art and Children's Stories
Flotsam: The story of a foster child.
At Risk-Grief or Joy: Legal Risk Adoption
Differences: What makes a family?
My Writings Links Page: Chidren's stories and others.
Rover: A Story of Independence.
