I understand that economics is a fundamental part of adoption. I’ve understood this from the very beginning when we started contemplating adoption. But honestly, after our most recent visit, I’m actually starting to really understand just how financial disparity is critical to adoption.
Let me be frank and make an over-reaching statement (something I typically tend to avoid doing): In almost all adoptions, financial disparity is likely to exist. One family has the money to adopt (i.e. adoptive parents) and one family does not have the money to raise a child (i.e. birth parents).
I know this isn’t true in all circumstances, and this is an oversimplification of adoption, but I do believe financial disparity is a factor in almost adoptions.
Realistically, the financial differences in my adoption story means that in any other circumstance my path would not have crossed with my son’s birth mother. But our shared love of one child, means our lives are forever intertwined.
When Little MPB was born until his adoption was finalized, there were a lot of government restrictions on what we could spend and how – no cash could change hands, we could pay for group meals when we were there and Little MPB was born, we could give a small gift to her at the hospital and send small birthday/Christmas gifts but no gift cards. Once the adoption was finalized, there were no longer any rules and as such we’ve continued to send gifts, just as we would for anyone else in our family. We also send Little MPB’s clothing and smaller toys when he outgrows them (I always ask if they want them as to not force these things on them). With our most recent visit, we also offered to pay for meals, admission fees, etc. These are things we can afford without any real worry so it just makes sense in our minds.
But one thing that happened on this particular visit was that the financial disparity was very apparent. I wont go into details, but I will say, we likely saw the disparity more on this visit then when Little MPB was born because we spent more time with each other without an infant or adoption agency worries consuming our every sleep-deprived moment. Which meant we had time to talk about life – jobs, how we met each other, daycare, clothing, food, extended family, medical care, etc. We learned a lot about real life. Things that one cannot read in a textbook and truly appreciate.
So, here’s the thing that Mr. MPB and I have been trying to wrap our brains around ever since we got home. What is our role in providing help/assistance. Do we always send Little MPB’s clothing that he outgrows, even when he’s 10 years old? Do we always offer to pay for things when we visit? Should we be sending clothing and paying for things? When we buy something for Little MPB at a museum, do we buy something for her child (we did, but is it the right thing to do)? And, if they need money to help meet their basic needs due to unforeseen circumstances like medical bills, do we give it?
Our role as adoptive parents is to care for Little MPB, our child. Heck, we literally signed contracts to this end. And no matter what, Little MPB will always come first. Thus, we know that we are in no-way responsible for his birth-mother and birth-sibling, and yet, we see them as an extension of our family. And, so this begs the question, what is our role as decent human beings?
What I do know is that this all comes back to the fact that open adoption has no rule-book. We have no idea what is right or what is wrong, so we are just doing what feels right to us, while trying to speculate what would also feel right to Little MPB’s birth-mother (hence, why we ask before we send things). As I said to Mr. MPB, if any other member of our family needed clothing for their kids, we’d offer help in an instant. So, for me, it’s a simple decision so long as they want it and we aren’t forcing it on them. But, do we draw a line somewhere? And if so, what is that line?
I don’t necessarily have the right answer to any of this, but it sure is taking up a lot of my brain power right now. Heck, I’m not sure that there is a right answer to be found.
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So, our dog trainer fired us. Apparently she gave up on our dog and us? Honestly, I was about to politely part ways with her anyways, so I shouldn’t be mad. But, I am absolutely pissed! I’m pissed that we’ve literally given our trainer thousands of dollars to help our dog and she just walked away from us. For context, here’s what happened – she told me we need to do more training sessions with Doodle MPB, and I said no, not yet, maybe in a few months when we have Doodle MPB in a place where she can actually use her brain through a combination of medication and TTouch. I told her once we have her more able to think, hopefully in a few months, we will absolutely start training sessions with her again. Her response was to tell me via text a few days later that she will not spend any more time walking Doodle MPB if we wont start weekly training sessions. Of course, she said this AFTER she charged us $600 for 5 days of boarding (which we were LIVID about as her rates online are $50 per night for boarding). Anyways, it sure feels like now that I wont throw money her way for additional training without addressing the underlying issues, she cut and run.
Unfortunately, this effectively means that we no longer have a dog walker to help us out one day a week – these walks gave us a day-off from trying to fit walks into our busy life and also gave Doodle MPB the opportunity to socialize with other dogs. So, now, in my non-existent free time, I need to find another dog-walker or find a doggy daycare, something to help burn some of Doodle MPB’s energy.
But in good news, we really like the other trainer we called a few weeks ago, who is working with Doodle MPB for free on TTouch. So, we have a different trainer to help us, which agrees with my approach that we need to help Doodle MPB think before we can work on basic obedience training. In fact, she maintains once we can get Doodle MPB thinking, we probably wont need to do anymore training because Doodle MPB knows all of the basic training, she just cannot hold a down or a sit for more then 2-3 seconds, because she cannot think long enough to sit still. So the actual training side of things doesn’t worry me at all.
And then, by random chance the day after we were fired, we had an appointment with our vet to review the Clomicalm dose. The current dose is not working, and in fact has not done anything to help Doodle MPB. So, next up we are upping her dose of Clomicalm and our Vet will be speaking with a Veterinarian Behaviorist located on the other side of the country. We suspect the Veterinarian Behaviorist will likely try a different combination of medications then our vet is comfortable with on her own, as she’s never experienced a dog quite like Doodle MPB. More $$$ down the drain, but we all agreed this as an appropriate next step. The other thing our vet told us, is that it may be time to start trying to find Doodle MPB a farm with another dog around to call her forever home.
So, we are back to the idea that Doodle MPB may need a different home that allows her to run all day long to burn some energy. But the reality is, a farm wont solve her problems, as she is high energy and is absolutely, completely desperate to be with her people all the time and she her lack of confidence means she’s also very anxious. Sending her to live outside, won’t help her anxious tendencies, in fact, it may only make things worse for her.
And so, I’ve reach out to a friend mentioned a few weeks ago that they know someone who is looking for a second Doodle to join their family. We will be meeting with them to discuss the possibility of re-homing her with them as being with another dog may be all the therapy Doodle MPB needs, and is not something we can do. Unless it’s a near perfect fit, we will not re-home her as I will not set her up to be moved again in the future. And truthfully, even though I fully acknowledge she is causing an insane amount of stress in our lives, I’m really not sure that I will be able to give up on her. And if we go through with it, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for giving up on her.
I have tears streaming down my cheeks as I write this. This is simply not the outcome I had ever envisioned.
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