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Meredith C
Joined: 05 Sep 2002
Posts: 797
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 The letter
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Hi Social Worker,
It was very nice to get to meet you yesterday and very nice, indeed, to get to start the interview process for our homestudy! That said, I think that we may be coming across as less sure of things than we are because, in fact, we mostly feel unsure on one particular issue. So, I hope that you don’t mind an email instead of a call about all that is going on. I find that I’m much better at getting my thoughts sorted out and explained in writing than on the phone.
DH and I have been discussing and mulling over our conversations yesterday and trying to figure out where our hearts lie in all of this. Basically, we feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. After our initial interview with Director, we had had a picture of what this process will be that seemed very different from what we discussed in our interview yesterday. We came in to your office yesterday thinking that we were looking at an in-house adoption of a Caucasian baby for around $13,000-$15,000 (based on the fee schedules). We figured that this would take a year or two (hopefully) but maybe more. We came out thinking that we might be doing an interstate transracial adoption for more money, but more quickly. While the changes aren’t necessarily bad (well, okay, more money is bad, but more quickly is good), they do require some readjustment of our expectations.
And, while I think that we’re definitely prepared for adoption, we are not ready to make a decision on transracial adoption in particular. I’m more comfortable right now with the possibility than is DH, but he has very valid concerns, some of which I share, and I wouldn’t want us to move ahead without them being addressed and without both of us being fully in agreement. DH’s concerns basically boil down to the fact that adoption is going to present difficulties enough and he’s not sure about adding to these with the difficulties of parenting a child who is of a different race than both of us. Raising a black or biracial child as white parents in a very white state is a possibility that we just need to spend more time on. Although it just got a lot of discussion time, this is actually about where we were yesterday morning on the possibility of transracial adoption. We indicated “willing to consider” because we are doing just that. But, as I think we expressed in our interview, we’re just not sure yet. And, while we make that decision, we’d like to focus on a Caucasian adoption for now because we feel that we ARE prepared for that and have come to the right agreements as a couple on the related issues.
Because we weren’t (and aren’t) sure about transracial adoption, I think that we felt a bit overwhelmed at having the possibility come up so quickly. When you called yesterday, I was immediately imagining a beautiful black daughter and was ready to run to the bookstore and start looking for good books with black role models (okay, I was also ready to run to Gymboree and buy some cute little girl outfits, far prematurely, I know). But that wasn’t really fair to either of us. We’re trying to make the decision about transracial adoption rationally, calmly, and with serious thought. But trying to do so with the incredible emotions of actually imagining a child just muddies everything so much. Neither of us wants to end up making such an important decision under pressure or the heady intoxication of the emotion that comes with imagining that we may have found our child.
So, for the time being, we’d like to focus on a Caucasian adoption. We are going to do some reading and some soul-searching and work out our feelings on a transracial adoption, so that may become a possibility in the future, but not yet.
As I write all of this, I can’t help but wonder how it all comes across. The homestudy is such an odd mix of feeling that we want to please but that we also need to be honest and work towards the family that is right for us. In the end, honesty is what will win, of course.
Many thanks for your help so far and we’re looking forward to next Monday.
- Meredith
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Meredith C (2 ~ DH (34)
Cycle #6 of Not Trying to Conceive
After 43 cycles, 3 years, 2 miscarriages, 6 failed IUI's, and 1 failed IVF,
WE'VE DECIDED TO ADOPT!!!!!
Homestudy Application Under Review
First Interview 1/30
Read my guestbook ~ Sign my guestbook
 Thinking of you, Felicity.
[This message has been edited by Meredith C (edited January 31, 2006).]
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 Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 2:02 pm
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