Adoption - A Choice

Excerpted from
Parenting an Only Child: The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only
By Susan Newman, Ph.D.

For the growing number of couples and single women who postpone starting their families until they are older, and for gay and lesbian couples, adoption has become a viable choice, quite frequently it's the perfect, and for some, like the Wheeler-Werners, the preferred, solution. After thirteen years of marriage, Henrietta Eakins never got pregnant. She says. "I really had no burning interest in being pregnant. Our main desire was having a child. My husband and I chose adoption over infertility treatments and high-tech methods to get the child we wanted."

In a sense, Jill Shu felt the same way. "I never thought I would get married or have children. I got married and we felt our family unit of two was very important. We had our work and felt we'd never be bored. We raise show dogs, so when we got home from the office there was plenty to do. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer-what I call the best kind to have in that it's the most curable-we started to rethink what we wanted. Neither one of us felt we had to have our genes in the pool.''

Jana Wolff, author of Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother, explains how she ended up watching Martie, an eighteen-year-old girl, deliver the multiracial baby who became Jana's son: "I loved Martie for the gift that was coming, and I utterly resented her for doing what I couldn't. Our female bodies had all the same parts . . . but hers worked and mine didn't. Recompense for the needles, the pills and the bills, the cold examination rooms, the gloved fingers up my cervix, the waiting-month after endless month-for my chemically confused body to follow orders. Unfortunately, I took too long to meet and marry my husband-by that time, my eggs and his sperm were middle-aged."

Although national adoptions outnumber inter-country adoptions, international adoptions have been escalating steadily, more than doubling since 1990, according to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In 1999, for example, Russia and China, followed by South Korea, were the major sources for Americans seeking to become parents. The number of children available from any given country is politically sensitive and open to change.

Sandy Ripberger of Spence-Chapin, a private adoption agency in New York City, reports that within a given country the rules, like the availability of children, change in relation to the health status of children permitted to leave a country, ages of adoptive parents, and whether or not the country is open to single-parent adoptions. Like so many today who bear a child, adoptive parents are limiting the number to one for assorted and well-founded reasons.

Ken Woodmere was a grandfather of three when he and his second wife, Vanessa, decided to adopt from Eastern Europe. "Foreign countries seem much more open to giving children to older parents," Vanessa explains. "We were told because of our ages we were unlikely to be chosen for a domestic adoption. The woman from the agency was quite frank about it. Because of open adoption laws in this country, the birth mother looks through a book of possible parents and she said, 'You're probably her parents' age or older and it doesn't matter whether or not you can offer her child the most fabulous lifestyle and advantages/

"I saw adoption as a good alternative," continues Vanessa Woodmere, who was forty-one when she adopted Zack. "My husband had his vasectomy reversed and when that didn't work, we decided to stop. I didn't feel good about going to elaborate and extraordinary extremes with fertility. At some point, I asked myself, what is my aim? Is it to have a family or to create a carbon copy of me? I realize people will disagree with me, but that's how we felt. And we're delighted. You do have to be a little more accepting, more open to a child with a developmental delay or nutritional problem when you adopt."

In some countries the child must have a diagnosis in order to leave the country. As it turns out, more often than not, the diagnoses are or quickly become invalid, say both adoption agencies and adoptive parents. Theresa Galinsky confirms the experience: "My son was delayed only in the sense that he hadn't been stimulated; he had been on his back in a crib for almost a year. The pediatrician at the orphanage in Russia said, 'He'll be fine; you just have to get him home and feed him and interact.' The doctor was right. The delays were so minor; we had early intervention for six months, and by age two he tested with the best of them."

Arden Holmes, a single mother, has a different, but remarkable story to tell. "My daughter was eighteen months old when she was given to me. There were no cries, no smiles; it was as if I had been given a robot. It was scary. She looked malnourished and I was worried about post-institutional adjustment, given her total emotional shutdown. I envisioned years of therapy and special help for this child.

"I was on my own, with no one to confer with about keeping this child. For several days I hugged, I kissed, I sang, I carried her incessantly. Three days later, this huggy, kissy, adorable child emerged who was thrilled to have a mommy. I saw a personality, a curious person.

"When we got home, I realized she was not underweight because of orphanage neglect or malnourishment, but because she's a terribly picky eater. The Chinese government is fairly accurate when they say a child is healthy; they are rarely wrong."

Adoption is similar to giving birth; there are no guarantees and both require a major commitment. Whether it's a national or international adoption, the process can be long and arduous, involving months of criminal checks, home studies, reams of paperwork, and often lengthy travel. For many, single or married, money is a crucial factor in forgoing a second adoption as it is for those who bring their own babies into the world.

China and Vietnam, in particular, solve the problem for childless couples, singles, and those who are older, but the upper-end age limits change periodically in different countries. China is especially single-friendly. Arden Holmes looks back: "Things came together when I saw an article on adoption from China and noted that China valued single parents and had gorgeous kids. Because of care-giving problems with my own parents, I wasn't able to pursue adoption until I was fifty. To my delight I discovered I wasn't too old."

But, as Arden Holmes is quick to tell you, she was lucky, but not with the first referral. The emotional strain of adoption is no less for married couples who are eager to adopt, who dream and plan, only to have their hopes shattered. "When the agency sent me a picture of the child I was adopting, I was thrilled and immediately began all the shopping I had been afraid to do. When the agency called to tell me my daughter had been adopted by someone else, I grieved as if I had miscarried. I felt such a terrible loss. I fell so in love with that child that I didn't want to see the second referral when it came within a matter of days. I thought it was the ugliest child I had ever seen.