Growing Family

Australian Adoption News

This week has been an important one for adoption in Australia. New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell  issued a formal apology from state Parliament, for forced adoptions that occurred during the 50s-70s. Several state governments have done this, and I think it is so great for a government to come right out and say "we did this wrong, and we are sorry". 

In America I think we get lost in the challenge of how to dispense compensation to wronged parties, and because we can't agree on that, we never get the apology out there. Women were tricked, deceived, coerced, and forced into adoptions.

I agree with Opposition Leader John Robertson's statement

"It has become the norm to describe what these women experienced as forced adoption. However mothers I have spoken to feel that the word adoption is too sanitised for what happened to them," he said. "What they endured was more akin to an abduction or a kidnapping."

 

 

You can count the number of voluntary adoptive placements that currently take place in New South Wales, each year, on your ten fingers. Australia does not have a system or culture of voluntary adoption, like the U.S. does, and I believe this is largely because of abuses in the past. 

Turning our attention to Australian Intercountry Adoption, we were notified this week that the training seminar we were required to attend in November before applying for intercountry adoption, has been cancelled.

We were told that ALL intercountry adoptions are on hold, the Philippines program has closed, (the Australia-Ethiopia program closed in July), Taiwan is changing their program, and until further notice, Australia (or at least NSW) is suspending all Expressions of Interest (the first step in the adoption process) while the entire system is evaluated. 

How can a country with so much resource and such strength, be so closed to welcoming the most vulnerable? I think Australia's adoption policies are frozen in fear of repeating past mistakes. It seems like no politician or party wants to be associated with allowing MORE adoptions.

I applaud the apology for past wrongs. No one wants to repeat history. But what about children who are currently vulnerable without a family to care for them? Children in orphanages, and children bouncing around the foster care system need permanent families.

I feel like I spent years on this blog talking from the American adoption perspective about the need for reform, and the entitled way Americans can sometimes approach having/adopting children as a "right". From that side of the pond I think we need to be more careful with the decisions made to remove children from their families and place them into foster care, to appreciate the checks and balances of the Hague Convention, and to exhaust every resource in ensuring a child in an orphanage is truly best served by adoption and not a victim of trafficking.

From this side of the pond I am saying don't be paralyzed by fear! Children need stable and permanent families. It is a scary thing to walk a journey where others have failed catastrophically, but kids are suffering if we do nothing.

Being an American in Australia has given me a bit of whiplash in terms of my adoption advocacy. More than ever I believe in the importance of loving homes, supporting ongoing family connections across adoptive/foster care lines, and agencies that walk with integrity to support vulnerable children and families. I believe in those things from either side of the pond!

 

Adoption Stats

Adoptive Families Magazine just published the results of their annual survey on the length and cost for American families adopting in the last year. You can see the results here.

Unless you adopt from the foster care system, adoption is still expensive, there is no way around that. However, I don't think that should ever be a deterrent to a family considering adoption. The money always works out.

For families outside America, don't cry when you see how much more quickly many adoptions happen for families in the U.S. Small Sun's adoption was actually six months from our initial application to bringing him "home" to a hotel while waiting for interstate travel clearance. It doesn't always happen that fast, but sometimes it does.

Kind of makes you scratch your head and wonder why many Australian families wait about 8 years to see an adoption completed...

Go have a look, it's very interesting!

Changed by Foster Care

When you are in the process of adopting a child, you complete a checklist where you specify what age, gender, special needs, and family history you are willing to consider when accepting a placement. No one asks you to consider a list like that when you pee on a stick and get a positive.

For families having children by birth, the situation is often straightforward. When special needs are detected in pre-birth screenings, then there are things to think about, but in my pregnancies, we presumed health, and were blessed with two healthy babies.

In adopting Small Sun we had a scare on about day three of his life, where they found a hole in his heart, and suddenly everything seemed terrifying, and unknown, and unthinkable. In the end it was all okay, and we just had about an afternoon of tests and questions and answers, and then we went on with life.

Perhaps for other families it is different, but when we looked at that checklist, I only felt comfortable with "healthy." I have only ever been healthy. Everyone in my family was healthy. I had no experience with doctors or hospitals, procedures, medications, none of it, really. It all seemed overwhelming. I couldn't imagine what I would do with a child with epilepsy, or diabetes, or...I just didn't know. 

I tell people that foster care is like signing a blank check. "Yes" we say, to a child with very little accompanying information, and then we learn as we go. I am starting to understand foster families who work with children with very specific special needs. I am seeing that once you learn how to manage something specific, the fear factor starts to disappear and you just get about doing what needs to be done.

The first baby we cared for appeared normal at birth, but eventually was diagnosed with rather serious visual impairment. I spent time educating myself on different variables in his diagnosis, and learning my way around the optometrist, opthamologist, and all the other "ists" for eyes at our local children's hospital. I had never even been to the children's hospital before.

Then, with the girls we had for a very short time, one had some kind of hip issue where her hip sockets seemed to be affected. She had been in a plaster before, and was going to have follow up. I wasn't involved, but I got to see some of her experience.

Now, we said yes to a child with "delays" and that is turning into a much bigger diagnosis. Today I managed my first EEG with a two year old and I give myself a gold star. He was hysterical and I had to hold him in a body lock for a really long time to keep him from ripping all the electrodes off. It was so intense, but I was pleased that I knew what to pack for a morning at the hospital, and that we made it through a very challenging experience, with him smiling and happy on the other end. 

Now we are facing several days of hospital stay some time in the near future, with MRI, lumbar puncture, and a battery of tests. We are going to be learning to manage epilepsy. We are way out of what I would have felt comfortable with, because I have never done any of this before.

But who has? Most people parenting children they gave birth to, who have medical needs or disabilities also just have to learn as they go. I don't imagine many people feel very confident and prepared BEFORE they get into the thick of it. 

Whether it is by birth, adoption, or foster care, once you say yes, you just get on with it and learn as you go.

Along the way, I am impacted by this whole realm of beautiful people I was completely disconnected from before. Specialists, doctors, technicians, and nurses - when I feel anxious I remember that these people have chosen to help others through their work, and they do it so, so well. The woman who did the EEG today was so calm and kind and skilled. When the electrodes started melting off because of how much our little guy was sweating as he screamed, she got out a hand fan and set our accompanying social worker to keeping us both cool. 

And our social workers? They have been fantastic! I am really seeing how amazing it is to work with an agency that only accepts a limited number of cases and works those cases really, really well. Our case worker went to the pediatrician with us this week, and was totally hands on in our 2.5 hour stint at the hospital today. 

I am coming to realize that just because I don't know about a particular need doesn't mean I am not capable of helping a child with that need. There are amazing support systems to learn from and access along the way. 

Once we are able to move forward with adoption, I don't think we'll continue fostering. I imagine we'll pick it up again a couple years down the road, but all possible focus will go to helping our new child(ren) get established in the family. That said, I have learned and am learning SO MUCH through being a foster parent.

When we have to look at that checklist again, I think I will feel very differently about it than I did before. I think I will be less fearful, and have more of an idea of what saying "yes" might mean. Loving anyone forever is like writing a blank check, and I'm learning to be more at ease with all the unknowns. 

What do you think? Have you said yes to someone or something, not knowing how it would work out, and been surprised along the way?

Adoption and Foster Care - A Letter to the Australian Government

Being adopted is better than being in foster care. This is my opinion as an adoptive mother, and a foster carer.

Australia, listen up, I think some things need to change in the system here. I am close to becoming a voting citizen; soon my opinion will matter, and this is what I think.

I can see that you are doing your best. The 2 year old that I am caring for has special needs, and you are amazing at allocating resources for him. He has multiple services being provided to him, and specialists looking into areas of concern. Before coming into care his family received extensive help, and assistance is ongoing. No one could assign blame when it comes to services being provided, you are doing that well!

Also, no one can fault your  to keeping families intact. I can see everything imaginable has been done to support keeping this family unit together, and everything possible is being done to try to keep things from falling apart beyond repair. This is another thing you put so much effort and care into doing well. Bravo!

But sometimes, the mess is too big to be mopped up when there is a clock ticking for a little person. Sometimes the family can't be put back together. Sometimes it is time to move on.

Caring for the little guy who joined our family a month and a half ago is hard. He has been through so, so much in addition to his special needs, and as a result, he can be a really unhappy little person at times. Don't get me wrong, he can still enjoy a tickle party and he still has belly laughs, but he has been so hurt along the way.

We are loving him as best we can. We are being consistent with our support of him, and with providing safe boundaries for him to learn what is acceptable in a family and what is not. We hold him when he rages, we read stories, we kiss scrapes, we feed him, we tuck him into bed, we include him in the rollicking joy and noise of our family, and we hope we are giving him everything we can. We hope that what we are giving him makes a difference, that it helps him in some way on his journey.

But what he is on is just that, a journey. We are temporary foster carers. If this little guy does is not reunited with his family, he will leave us to go to someone else. Someone who says they can take care of him until he is 18. With them he will grieve losing us, and try to attach to them. Hopefully they will be able to provide him long term stability.

I think adoption is a better long-term answer for children than foster care. While foster care allows for enforcement of ongoing birth family contact, it withholds the kind of permanence both parent and child needs to do the work of attaching to each other. Helping a traumatized child heal is hard work for the adults and the child. It is not fair for the child to keep them in situations where they may be uprooted and re-traumatized.

Imagine a long-term foster family who finds their ability to continue fostering a child jeopardized because their work is requiring them to move abroad, or they have family overseas they need to assist for a time. 

Adoption gives a child a PERMANENT family that they can trust to help them through their hurts. Adoption gives a family incentive to give their child 110% because they are committed to raising this child for life, rather than unsure that circumstances won't change and the child will be relocated. 

Whenever possible, allowing a child a permanent family is better than a temporary one, even if that might mean reducing access to birth family. 

I believe we have to fight for family preservation first, and then pour significant efforts into reunifying the family. If it is established in court that cannot be facilitated in a timely manner, then I think the long-term focus for the child should switch to adoption. The child has been through enough already and deserves a safe place in which he or she can heal, and pursue the fullness of life, supported by a loving parent or family.