In the story, the author, Seth, describes the tragic loss of his and his wife's twins when she went into labor at twenty weeks, their subsequent struggle with infertility and their journey into adoption. He writes:
Feeling a little frustrated and trying to think of new ways to let people know we were interested in adoption, I put our adoption flyer as a PDF posting on my Facebook site late one night in early December 2008. It was more of a whim than a well thought out plan. My friend Jon took the flyer and put it on his site. On Dec. 8, 2008, his friend Jenny, to whom he hadn’t spoken in 20 years, saw the flyer and contacted me at work.
They were parents by January 1, 2009.
While we've told people that we are adopting, we have not shared our profiles with them. That part of the adoption we've kept more private - leaving it to the adoption facilitators to get the word out about us.
Perhaps we've been going about this all wrong.
Any thoughts on this from out in the Blogosphere?
It seems logical that the more people who know you're seeking to adopt the better your chances would be. My stepson came to my wife in exactly that way - his teen birth mom was the friend of a cousin. And connecting in another way doesn't preclude you doing the adoption through the agency. My two cents...
ReplyDeleteI think the ethics of advertising can get pretty weird, but then, I'm not in a position to have to rely on advertising to become a parent, so I recognize that this may be coming from my privilege. I can tell you that when I was choosing adoptive parents, I was really put off by the YouTube videos etc. Then again, if you're working with facilitators, we already have different positions on that kind of thing, so I am probably not a good resource.
ReplyDeleteGitana - I didn't know that J came to you folks through a personal connection. Thanks for sharing that bit of info.
ReplyDeleteSusie - We are working with facilitators, which is very weird. I can tell you that had I known at the beginning of this process what I know now...we might have gone a different route. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you on the "ick" factor of facilitators and YouTube videos and such. Guess the article just stirred that slight feeling of desperation in me that I didn't know was there.
Well, and I know from your blog that you want an ethical situation, and I can completely sympathize with the wait being super hard. My son's parents were in the pool for fourteen months before they took him home, and I know that's not even a particularly long wait. I can't even imagine. I'm keeping you in my thoughts....
ReplyDelete