What Is It About Babies?

The reason there is a business related to adoption is that couples are willing to wait a long time and pay a lot of money to adopt an infant.  It is the blank slate idea that Georgia Tann (the baby scandal thief) was fond of utilizing to obtain customers.

After 10 years of marriage, my husband decided he actually wanted to become a father after all.  Before that, he was glad that there was no pressure from me because I had been there and done that (I gave birth to a daughter in a previous marriage at age 19).  Therefore, when he announced to me over Margaritas at a Mexican restaurant that he had been thinking, I think my mouth dropped open in amazement.

At first, we considered adoption.  We weren’t actually thinking about infants.  My husband’s uncle had adopted an older boy.  We considered the problems that had resulted from that choice.  We wanted a child without someone else’s baggage.  Ours was not an uncommon perspective.  At the time, I really knew nothing about adoption beyond the fact that both of my parents were adoptees.

Ultimately, we did find a way to conceive our two sons that required a lot of medical assistance and thankfully, in our case, it worked.  Half of all women who try to conceive in the manner we did – fail.  Because my husband waited until he was truly ready and did not have fatherhood forced upon him without intention, he is a wonderful father.

There are lots of older children in foster care who would benefit from a more conventional kind of home situation.  Many never receive that and age out of the system without any resources to be independent and self-reliant.  There is no profit in taking any older child into one’s home and the attendant complications can be daunting.

The only request adoptees make of hoping to adopt couples is that they first understand the impacts of their own infertility and what it is they seek to do, in taking another woman’s child and raising it as their own.  I’ve previously discussed some of the common reforms suggested.  [1] Not changing the child’s name or birthdate.  [2] Making possible their awareness of and eventual reunion with the people who conceived them as well as any other siblings that exist.  Those two are some primary ones.