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| Picture of my siblings & Korean grand mother on vacation in Destin, Florida (June 2013) |
It has been my experience, once I state that Nick and I are
in the process of adopting, the second question most often asked is, “Where are
you adopting from? “ It’s like a
50/50 shot for our questioners as to whether we are adopting from the states or
from abroad. All have not seemed
to care if the adoption is domestic or international, but truly interested in
the process and very encouraging.
I suppose, I get off fairly easy when I respond with Korea. My mother is part Japanese and my
father is part Korean, so I think people assume that I’m making some sort cultural connection by
adopting a child from Korea. There
is some truth to this. I look
forward to bringing my little human to my dad’s house, where my siblings and I eat
kimchi & bulgogi and listen to my dad’s stories of growing up on
Korea. I look forward to
learning more about my own Korean heritage in the process of trying to preserve
my baby’s awareness of his ethnic roots.
I do plan to keep future baby Dobson’s Korean (given) name as a middle
name. As with all of my future
children, keeping their ethnic identity is very important to me. But, this doesn’t tell the whole story of why we chose
Korea. This blog post is only
speaking from my personal experience.
I have not done any research on specific numbers, but I’m speaking from
events that have occurred while on this wild ride called ADOPTION.
So, why not adopt an American child? Don’t we have enough orphans in
America????
Yes and Yes to both questions.
Nick and I plan on adopting more children. For us, adoption has been a way to
become parents due to reproductive issues out of our control. Therefore, eventually we will be
adopting a little one domestically.
I frequently joke by saying, “I want a rainbow of children.” But really, wouldn’t that be
cool??? I envision all different
shades of brown sitting around my dinner table. All of them loving one another as true
siblings, and all calling me “Momma”.
Sounds like heaven to me!
OK, I’ll throw a statistic at ya that I got from attending an Orphan
Care Alliance seminar last winter: there’s 7,000 kids in Kentucky alone that need adopting
or foster care. The need is there,
I hear it, and I plan on answering that call in my lifetime. However, we chose
an international adoption at first, because I am not sure if my heart could
handle a domestic adoption or foster care right now, and here are my examples.
First example involves my friend that was struggling with her own reproductive
disappointments. She was the one
to grab my heart and fill it with the hope of adoption. Before our convicting lunch together, I
was always interested in adoption, but didn’t see it as a reality. When she confidently declared her path
to parenthood was adoption, I saw this lightness that came across her. I saw how she was no longer empty, no
longer longing, no longer wondering if God had forgotten her. Adoption was freedom for her, and it
eventually became all of these things for me. The couple in my example chose to adopt
domestically. They wanted a
Caucasian baby that was drug/alcohol free. Now, before we begin to get upset over racial preferences,
it is important to consider it and be fully honest with oneself. Everyone’s family vision is different,
and I respect everyone’s desires.
I happen to be a person that if a purple child was calling me “momma”,
my heart would melt and I would love that little purple baby to the fullest. So
back to the story, this couple did ALL the paperwork and waited, and waited and
waited almost 2 years for their turn at the domestic matching game. In the US, adoptive couples wanting an infant will put
together a portfolio with pictures and things about themselves, and then a
birth mom can choose you. You then
will hopefully be there the day your baby is born. While my friend was waiting, several birth situations
occurred, but every single one of them failed. With every single failed birth situation, her heart
broke even more. By the end of her
adoption experience, the couple open their hearts to babies outside of the
Caucasian race, but still knew they wouldn’t be able care for a baby being
treated for drug addiction or fetal alcohol syndrome. From my friend’s experience, I got the assumption that
there’s a good number of babies being carried by biological mothers that are
drug abusers. I would like to end
this example on a happy note…. This couple’s journey was not meant to include adoption
for their first child. After years of disappointment, the couple received their first baby, which was conceived the good ole fashioned
way-SEX!! I could not be more
thrilled for them!! I do appreciate her having an adoption experience, because
it was this friend that lead me to this awesome journey. If this particular friend is reading
this and can deduce that I’m talking about you, I say with tears streaming down
my face, Thank you! Thank you for showing me adoption. I have never been more
at peace and full of excitement. With seeing this experience, I choose Korea
for my first child.
To piggy-back on the topic of American birth moms being drug
addicts, I have been told by my caseworker that the majority of adoption
situations do not include drug abuse.
In fact, if you look at the numbers, they support my caseworker’s
claim. At our first home study the
topic was raised, and we were told the majority demographic of birth moms were
white females, non-drug users, in mid-to-late twenties, and usually had other
biological children. Usually the
scenario includes the biological mother being in an economic hardship and
simply wanted to provide more stability for the child being born. As you can imagine, a birth mom loves
her baby very much to be able to make this very brave & difficult decision. Nonetheless, the odds of having a baby test positive for
opioids (biological mom was on heroin) are higher in the US than in Korea. My next example to support my thoughts
involves my second home study visit with our caseworker.
To give background on caseworkers (mine in particular), they are spastic
people. Very nice people with
huge hearts, but at least 10 things are going on around them at any one time. My personal caseworker deals mainly
with the birth moms, so her cell phone is constantly buzzing and she is
continually answering the needs of several different pregnant women all of whom
are in high stress situations. So
as Nick and I are trying to answer the caseworker’s very probing questions, text messages, emails, & phone calls would interrupt , and
our caseworker would have to pause us.
Don’t get me wrong though, I welcomed the interruptions. These questions
were tough and I needed to stall on a few! One of the messages that came through the vibrating cell phone
was to tell the caseworker that one of the birth moms had just given birth to a
baby that tested positive for opioids.
Therefore, that little baby would need methadone treatment and was
basically born addicted to heroin.
Instead of being shocked by this, the caseworker exclaimed, “I KNEW IT,
I JUST KNEW IT.” She elaborated
and explained, the best indication of if a birth mom is addicted to drugs is prenatal
care. Usually if the birth mom is
hopped up on drugs, she will not seek care while pregnant for fear of the drug
use being caught. What a sad
situation. That poor baby will
fight for its life, and the adoptive parents are now facing unknown territory…The
medical field is still trying to predict the outcome of a baby that just spent
9 months developing within a heroin addict. They don’t know the odds of whether a child can develop
normal or will be deemed special needs for the remainder of his life.
Korean babies do not come without their own risks, but the
statistics are much less for Korean biological mom’s abusing hard drugs. To provide full honesty, the culture
has changed in Korea, and adoptive parents, by agreement, must be accepting of children
born from mothers that smoked cigarettes and drank moderate levels of alcohol
during pregnancy. I know this
sounds confusing, but Korea as a country has developed this mandatory rule for
American adoptive parents. That being said, most of the babies adopted from
Korea are showing little-to-no signs of drug/alcohol dependence. Of the families adopting from my
adoption agency, all of the Korean children have come home as happy, completely
healthy, beautiful toddlers. My
point, my heart could not bear saying no to a child fighting for his life
because the biological mother couldn’t keep herself off drugs. But, at the same
time, my life as it is now (I’m a dental school student married to an Air Force
pilot that leaves all the time), could not handle caring for a child addicted
to drugs and fighting for his life.
I wouldn’t be the best match for that baby . Therefore, I choose Korea for my first child.
My last example as to why I chose an international adoption
involves a friend who has a relative that adopted. First let me explain, I always thought the biggest
risk to domestic adoption was that the biological family could come back and
legally take your baby. In actuality, I don’t think this occurs and if it does
it’s really rare, and shouldn’t hold anyone back from adopting
domestically. However, a
more realistic issue is the birth dad and his rights, so this leads me back to
my example…. This example’s
adoptive family was matched with a mom that was to give birth in several
months. The adoptive family began
to prepare for the baby in a short amount of time, and was excited for their
arriving baby. The call came in.
The biological mother was in labor and the adoptive parents were hospital bound.
Instead of receiving their bundle of joy that day, they received the news that the
biological father still needed to sign documents, but he wasn’t responding to
phone calls. Therefore, the little
baby could not legally go home
with his adoptive parents, but had to go into foster care for the first 30 days
of his life, AND the adoptive parents couldn’t have contact with the baby. What disappointment. I know I’m probably leaving out some
detail to this 6th degree story, but this was the outcome: the baby
didn’t go home with his parents. My
heart wouldn’t be able to handle this.
With Korean adoptions, once you jump through every unreasonable hoop
thrown at you by your adoption agency, the placing agency and the country of
Korea, you FOR SURE take a baby home. Therefore, I choose Korea for my first
child.
If you are interested in a Korean adoption, this is what I
know: The support group is huge in
Louisville, KY and elsewhere in the US. Korea has adopted to the US at a steady
rate since the Korean war. There
was a lull in the 1988 after the Olympics focused on Korea adopting their
children to Americans, which made Korea weary of how their nation was being
perceived by the world. The
international adoption landscape is constantly changing, so what is rule today
maybe obsolete tomorrow, but Korea has remained pretty stable. I was told with confidence to
expect an adoption process of 10-14 months, to expect a child that is 12-18
months old, and to expect a BOY!!! There are more male children available for adoption in Korea, so we are
not allowed to specify gender, but to expect a male baby. There are a couple of reasons for the gender discrepancy: 1. Americans
in general want Asian female children, so there are less little girls up for
adoption. 2. It was explained to us, in Korea there
was a previous law that basically deemed children born into unwed situations as
bastards. The children were not
allowed to attend college or move upwards in social status. However, females were allowed to marry
out of this status, but males remained held back. Therefore, unwed moms would place baby boys into the Korean
adoption system. NOW, I’m sure
this law was enacted when my Korean grandmother was herself a toddler and was
roaming the streets of Seoul in her diapers. Nonetheless, this used to be the
LAW and remnants of the stigma may still linger.
These are my reasons for choosing an international adoption
and specifically Korea for our first adoption. I hope I brought light to any questions. If you feel like you are a personal
example in my story, and want me to delete anything, I will. Just say the word! There is no right way to
parenthood. Biological or adopted,
foster care or adoption, domestic or international, it really doesn’t matter. In the end, a child needs you to
raise him and to give him a fair shot at this crazy world. So I close with
this: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. 1 John 4:7
