Give1Save1 Day 2: Scrutiny

After the first step inevitably comes the second.  You have made your decision - thought it through and have prepared yourself for what is next. Scrutiny.  You will find this decision analyzed and commented on by more groups than most other decisions in your life - your friends, your family, our government, their government, social workers, psychologists, and perfect strangers. Prepare to be studied.  Prepared to have a high power lens aimed at your life and a hot lamp stuck underneath you.

You will have to be ready for people to look at your life and let them judge whether they think you are a "Fit Parent" or not.  At least you get to pick the social worker who gets to poke around all your personal information - at least sort of (maybe if you live in a more populous place than Iowa there are multiple qualified people within a short driving distance who can perform the service).  Then they let someone analyze if you are mentally stable enough to have kids - which if you already have kids is a fun hurdle in itself (most of them perfect the art of driving their parents completely insane by the time they are 2). They ask you for your financial information because everyone has to be financially prepared when they have a child.  Then, after you tell them intimate details about your relationships with your family, details about your childhood, and a whole list of other fun facts which make you think you are one of the categories in tomorrow's Jeopardy which they intend to be prepared to win, they sit down with a neat little set of rules and grade your ability to parent.  And after they do, they send their crib notes to the government so they can cheat on writing their own paper and give you the same grade as the first people - at least most of the time (who knows, maybe while your paperwork was getting lost in the mail your fingerprints expired and you suddenly became a psychotic mass murderer they didn't know about but strangely has a desired to adopt a child).

Then you get the great joy of telling your family and other people in your life.  How much of a joy that is completely depends on the person you are telling.  Some of them laugh at you.  Some of them are proud of you.  Some of them will support you.  Some of them will surprise you both for the good and for the bad.  Everyone, everyone will question you.  It was so much easier with pregnancy - I only had to remember two things until the kid was born - boy or girl and when is she due.  Adoption isn't the same - once again, more hands on.  If you are adopting, you better be able to give good answers to a whole number of questions people wouldn't normally ask: "Do you make enough money to add more kids to your family?" "Why are you buying kids? (since you obviously didn't have problems making them yourself...)" "Did you know most Africans are black and your kids are white?"  "Did you think this through?" and my all time favorite "Can you still get it out of it?"  Here's a tip - treat an adoptive couple like a pregnant couple.  If it isn't something you would ask a pregnant person, don't ask and adoptive parent.  For example, most people know that if she is already pregnant, we will find a way to support the child.  Most people know better than to tell you that you have too many children and shouldn't have another one.  Most people know that you will love whatever child comes out of the womb, no matter what they look like.  Most people know better than to ask if you "know how babies are made".  And most people don't walk up to you and ask if you have considered abortion as an option so you can "get out of it".  Like my mom would say, if you don't have something nice to say then keep your mouth shut.

The first step is kind of like the waiting period in a pregnancy before it's "safe" to tell people you are pregnant.  It is the time where things are less certain, and the only one who has to know about and live with you changing your mind and not adopting is you.  But after that time is up, you have to know for certain that you are adopting.  People will try and talk you out of it.  People will tell you that you are crazy.  People will tell you about "that one family that adopted and it was terrible for them and their kids".  You are not going to be talked out of it. Who wants to be normal if normal is being so self-invested that you can't look around and care for someone outside your neat little life. Yes some families have problems whether they have adopted or not, and although adoption may not be easy, there is always the strength, hope, and love which will make it work.

And, after months of paperwork and questions, you finally get to move on.  You will go on answering all the questions to people you decide to tell, but by this time it has become routine.  You will continue to fill out paperwork and become intimately aware of all the red tape that stands between lonely children and loving families.  And then it hits you.  You are in the third stage of your journey: Revelation and Heartbreak.  Come back tomorrow to read about it.