When we left our most recent meeting with the adoption agency Mr. MPB said something to me. Something that I will never forget.
I am excited. For the first time in months, I am excited about having kids. Each pregnancy became more and more about dread, fear and death. And while I am still scared, I am also excited again.
– Mr. MPB
And with that, hope has returned to our lives and excited anticipation is back in our lives. I will acknowledge that fears do exist, but our fears are currently massively outweighed by our hope and excitement.
On that note, I’ll share the details about our meeting with the adoption agency.
When I first re-initiated our interest in adoption, I was able to have a telephone conversation with the director of international adoption at our local agency. She introduced me to the idea of international open adoption with the USA.
So, I scheduled a meeting so Mr. MPB could be involved in the conversation. When we met with her, Mr. MPB and I both really liked her immediately. We really enjoyed our conversation. She had a good mix of warmth, knowledge and compassion. We spent about an hour with her discussing everything adoption, and all of our concerns. We discussed the various international adoption benefits and concerns as they compare to the domestic route. We discussed different programs in multiple counties – Thailand, South Africa, China, Ethiopia, Haiti, USA, etc.
Ultimately, with her help, we have made another adoption decision and have officially started the process!
We will be adopting from the USA!!
Ultimately, by determining all of the pros and cons of the USA, we have been able to determine that this is the right route for us. In case anyone is curious, here is the list of pros and cons, at least as we see them.
USA Adoption Pros:
- The USA adoption system is very similar to ours. All agencies we are considering facilitate open adoptions where we will have some contact with the birth mother and possibly father. That said, given the geographical distance, it will be a much more restricted given the geographical distance. This means our child will have the ability to know their heritage, but we will not have to contend with random visits.
- Adoption time is less than 1 year once the dossier is submitted, as opposed to the three year wait we will face locally. Evidently Canadians are very attractive adoptive parents, which apparently has to do with the stereotypical belief that Canadians are nice and non-Caucasian children will face less racism, and the Canadian health care system is viewed very positively. I’m not sure how much I buy into these three things, but it is what we are told.
- In our province we are required to wait 12 months between adoptions. Yet, if we adopt from the USA, we can have multiple applications in with multiple agencies. When we are placed with one agency, we can pause our second application, rather than terminate it. This means we can just do an amendment and re-initiate the other application about 8 months after our first child, and be higher in the queue because our application will just be re-initiated. (The cost of submitting two applications at once may make this unattainable, but it’s a pretty good option).
- The revocation period in our province is 10 days. In the states we are considering, it is either immediately after the birth and the paperwork is signed or 48 hours after birth. Somehow, this helps us reduce our anxieties about a potential failed adoption.
- In our application we will make all the choices that we would make if we were to adopt locally. We will check off boxes related to race, level of birth mother drug and alcohol usage, etc.
USA Adoption Cons:
- Cost – $30,000 to $40,000. Local open adoption is about $13,000. I am no math whiz, but this is a pretty big price difference. There are two reasons for the different costs. First, in the USA, everything is done with lawyers, where as in our province everything is done by social workers and only the final adoption paperwork requires a lawyer. Second, in our province adoptive parents do not pay any of the birth mother’s costs, whereas in the USA, adoptive parents pay many of the birth mother’s costs. So, when you think about this, the cost difference actually makes a lot of sense.
- Adopting international can be viewed very negatively, as there seems to be a belief that you should help a local child rather than an international child. This will likely be more prominent as we are choosing to adopt from a well-off country. While we do not see this as a negative, we know some people do. We are told to expect some judgemental backlash.
- In the USA couples are able to prepare online profiles. As we are bound by the laws in Canada, it is illegal for us to do this, so potential birth mothers will only be able to see our application should the agency show them a hard copy. We are not too worried about this given the standard wait time for Canadians is only 1 year. I want to find out more details about this, but on the surface it sounds like we can not “advertise” our adoption intention, which would mean my blog absolutely has to stay anonymous and I cannot share details of our adoption profile on my blog or via any other electronic social media avenue.
Our next big decision is the adoption agency we will work with, which will determine the State we will adopt from. There are 5 Hague compliant agencies currently approved by our province that our local agency has worked with in the past, although only 4 are accepting international applicants right now. We can apply to have a new agency approved by our province, but we no interest in doing the additional paperwork to work with an unproved agency. So, we will use one of the 4 agencies that are already approved. This means, the possible states we will adopt from are:
- Florida
- California
- Arizona, Nevada, Utah
As we have to complete a number of steps locally before we can submit anything to the agency in the USA, we don’t have to make this decision right away. Which excites me because I could use the time to research each agency and the legislation in each state.
Our upcoming, immediate adoption steps that we will complete in the next few weeks include:
- Submit our formal application to our local agency. We are waiting to receive this from the agency.
- Apply for our Criminal Record Check – this requires a trip to a local police station and the application is very quick once there. Although, it takes multiple weeks to be processed.
- Apply for our Child Welfare Check – the application is done with the adoption agency, and takes 2 minutes to fill out. Although, it also takes multiple weeks to be processed. (We have already completed this step)
- Attend a one day international adoption seminar – we have already signed up and paid for this. It will occur in a few short weeks!!
- Pay our initial local fees for our home study before the end of 2014, as costs will increase in 2015.
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On multiple occasions in the last years, people have suggested we turn to a gestational carrier (GC) to create our family. In many circumstances, we find this is suggested even before adoption.
I think most people have this fanciful idea that surrogacy is easy and affordable. Because, really, it sounds pretty straight forward. How hard is it to pull out a few eggs from me, introduce them to a few sperm from Mr. MPB in a cute little petri dish, and then gently place them inside another women?
News flash – IVF / surrogacy is hard! And it’s expensive!
See, as Canadians we cannot legally pay someone to be a GC. So, in addition to the costs of IVF which would be required to harvest my eggs and create the embroys, we would only pay their medical costs – i.e. the cost of the embryo transfers, medications, pregnancy care, etc. This means finding a GC is logistically a challenge locally. There are basically two options to finding a GC locally:
- Find a willing friend who just wants to be an amazing person and carry our child. Although we have received two “offers” in the last year from friends, both are probably unrealistic for a number of reasons including using their reproductive organs to carry their own children and their own unique medical challenges. Both of which would remove them from the list of realistic GCs. (We are truly blessed to have such friends in our lives, and am thankful for the love and support they have showed us).
- In a country where people are not typically motivated to be a surrogate for financial reasons, we could try to find someone who is. But, they would have to agree to have all the financial payment stuff occur outside of the legal agreements – i.e. trust that we will actually pay them for carrying our child, when the legal documents will offer them absolutely no assurance that we will in fact pay them. Often payment happen by gifting the GC something at the end – i.e. a car. If this is the case, you are looking at an unofficial GC bill in the tens of thousands of dollars. I’m not really sure how you even find someone like this – put up an ad on Kijiji? Or take out a newspaper help wanted ad?
Or, we can go international and work with countries where it becomes possible to pay a GC. The top 3 countries that Canadians go to seem to be the USA, India and Thailand. Without travel costs appear to be at least $30,000, and even as high as $60,000 – $100,000 in some states (it is hard to get precise numbers without giving up all our personal and private data to online companies that I have not research enough to feel comfortable handing over our information to). Oh, and going internationally also raises a lot of questions regarding the political stability of foreign nations – a quick 2 minute google on the situation of surrogacy/GC in Thailand since the country is now under military control should send anyone considering surrogacy/GC running given the upcoming laws outlawing the booming business. And India has a history of lower medical standards then we are used to in Canada. These blunders are known to compromised the health of the mother during IVF, the GC during pregnancy and/or the baby before or after birth – we know someone who’s baby was born premature and they were unable to get the care in India that they could have received in a NICU in Canada. This of course will result in long term negative consequences for their child. So, this leaves the USA as our next option. While the USA has a great medical system for those who can afford it, we would be paying for everything out of pocket, without insurance of any sort. This will not be affordable at all and thefore makes the USA the most expensive country.
Even if we did find a surrogate, either locally or internationally, we still have three significant hurdles in front of us:
- In addition to the surrogacy costs, GC requires that I undergo IVF, or we purchase donor eggs. So, yup, that’s another $15,000 for IVF locally using a clinic we no longer trust or an international clinic. Or $18,000 to get purchase donor eggs, again using a clinic we no longer trust or an international clinic. And given our history, we would absolutely be recommended to do PGD or CCS, so add another $20,000 to the bill. And then we would have all the costs associated with an FET using the GC. Suddenly, the cost of a GC are just as high as the costs of our anticipated treatment from Dr. B. (wow, that was a lot of acronyms).
- IVF does not always work – it is not a miracle cure for all things infertility. So, while Mr. MPB and I can create an embryo, and assuming we find ourselves a GC, IVF is no sure thing and does not guarantee us a child. What it means is that we will have another two week wait, another hope and potentially another devastating loss. The RPL cycle of hope and despair, is statistically likely to continue. Just this time, we will pay a small fortune to remove my toxic uterus from the equation. While it may work, we know all too well the intense hurt and emotional wreckage that a miscarriage leaves in its wake. Even the thought of losing another baby sends shivers down my spine as I recoil in fear. Honestly, I know in my heart, that I could not survive another loss right now. I simply cannot survive another one, and this in itself means we cannot go the route of GC.
- The idea of undergoing IVF right now scares the heck out of me. I know many women have gone through IVF in the past, and many
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more will in the future – and that’s great for those women. But, I don’t think it’s a viable option for me. I have no interest in putting my body through IVF. Remember, in two years my body has already gone through more then most. My body has experienced 5 pregnancies and 5 miscarriages. My body has already gone through 2 D&C surgeries, (one which was a medically required termination/abortion) and multiple hellish cytotec/misoprostol treatments that did not go smoothly. My body has also gone through countless procedures and tests that I struggle to even keep track of anymore because the list is just so long. And let’s not forget the mental health side of all of this. Ultimately, my body no longer feels like my own, and I am currently working really hard to reclaim my body and put myself back together both emotionally and physically in a way that resembles a modified version of the old me (picture all the kinds horses and all the kings men trying to put me back together – it’s taking a lot of work). The idea of shooting myself up countless drugs to force my body to do something completely unnatural just doesn’t seem like the best idea right now. I do realize that we could get around me doing IVF if we just use donor eggs, but honestly I don’t want to. This probably sounds horrible, but I don’t want to invest in an unsure thing (see point 2 above) when it won’t even be genetically ours. I’d rather take on the risks associated with adoption (i.e. health of the child due to risky birth mother behaviors) then to go ahead with a GC carrier using donor eggs and Mr. MBP’s sperm. Part of me feels as though I am taking away Mr. MPB’s ability to be a genetic father, but he seems to understand this and doesn’t appear to be hung up on the genetic composition of our child.
So, honestly, all of this is to say that people who can procreate like normal human beings do not understand the emotional or financial struggle that those of us who are attempting to create a child with multiple doctors and professional in the room with us. There is nothing cheap or easy about using a GC. And right now, even if we remove the financial considerations from the equation, I just know I don’t have the strength and the mental stamina required to do invest myself in the GC route to creating our family. We am not saying never, but right now as we start the adoption process we are absolutely saying not right now.
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