"Brand New to Adoption" in Minnesota

Jewels98 · 04-01-2004, 01:37 AM

Hi Ladies, I am so excited to find a website like this one!!!! I hope to get to know many of you better. My name is Katie and my husband and I have been trying to have a baby for over 2 yrs and have had our share of ups and downs. He has LOW sperm and I have PCOS/no ovulation. We have tried many IUI's and with no sucess. We are seriously thinking about adoption and want to learn all we can about it. We have thought about International and also Domestic but my husband is a little scared or should i say VERY scared of Open adoption and the birth parents taking them back and also.... wanting TOO Much contact.

Any tips, or advice, stories or anyone dealing with Adoption Minnesota, any of these i'd love to hear back from.
Also how common is it to still try infertility treatments and do adoption at the same time?

We hope to start the whole process in May. We decided that we rather adopt than pay $14,000 for IVF with only a 50/50 chance.

God Bless,
katie

One tattered Angel · 04-01-2004, 03:59 AM

you can go thru fostercare but plan on a lot more ups and downs. We desperately wanted to adopt a child and wasnt having much luck. We decided it would be good to get into fostercare so maybe we would be able to start our family pretty quickly. In less than 5 years we only were able to adopt our son Joshua. All the others left our home or were returned to their biological parent. My DH and I have had problems with the state recently so we are pretty much done but I will always be thankful we were able to find Joshua. Joshua was abandoned at the local hospital so it was pretty quick. IF you do decide to adopt a child you pay up front the amount and then the state reinburses you so it ends up costing you nothin. It may take awhile but

spookycyster · 04-01-2004, 11:24 AM

Hello,

Not every adoption done in the US is open!! Yes, that's the current trend, but not everyone does it. Our adoption is classified as semi open, meaning that we met the bm. She actually brought ds to me at the hospital. All of contact is now done thru the agency only. She knows our first names but that's it. No phone number or address. We know her first name only as well.

As for the child being taken back by the bio parents....each state has different laws on that, so you will want to check that out. Our bm signed her consent before we left the hospital, the bf sent his in a week later. Once those papers were in the hands of our sw, it was a done deal. The bps could not change their minds. It, of course, was not official until the sw went to court for the Termination of Parental Rights. Ds can not be returned to the bio parents. Ever. We are in the process of making him an official member of our family (waiting on a finalization date) but HE IS OURS!!!

My dh had the same kind of reservations as yours did....but by talking with a couple who had adopted children thru the same agency we used, he felt better about things. He was not really open to meeting the bm, but I told him I thought it was very important to HER that we did that, so that she could get some closure, see how we are in real life instead of the images in our life book/scrap book. He was still ancy about meeting her, but did agree to doing it. He was deployed when ds was placed with us and didn't get home until ds was 2 weeks old, so he met the bm after placement. He said afterwards that he was glad he did meet her.

Good luck to you....do alot of research and find the right agency for YOU. It's perfectly okay to put down your preferrences for a child (caucasian, AA, hispanic, whatever), what illnesses you feel you can handle, age, all those kinds of things. But know that the less you are open to, the longer your wait might be. Don't be afraid of meeting the bm. I think it's a good thing for everyone involved--you can tell your child that you did meet their bm (and possibly met their bf if he's in the picture) and the bps can have a sense of closure with their decison to place their child in your family.

MaryS · 04-02-2004, 07:48 PM

I'm from MN too. What part of the state are you in? Welcome to the adoption journey.
My DH and I started our adoption process from the MN waiting childrens program in May 2003 and were matched with 3 boys in Sept 2003, and they were transitioned into our home in December, we are hoping to finalize this summer. I don't know if you are interested in an infant or if you and your DH are also looking into older child adoption. If you are interested in adopting thru the state foster care system let me know, I'd be willing to share my story with you. Just PM me. There is also lots of information available on the MARNS(Minnesota Adoption Resource Network) website, the website is mnadopt.org .
As for how common is it for people to do adoption and IF treatments at the same time, I have heard of lots of gals doing it. DH and I decided to just do adoption and not ttc at the same time. Our agency, LSS, said that if we were still ttc they just didn't want to know about it. Best of luck to you.
Mary

Lisa2008 · 04-03-2004, 01:54 PM

welcome, im glad you found us.
i dont have any helpfull tips on adoption in MN as we are in Canada, and adopted publicly through the province. But whatever path you choose, good luck.
Each method has its ups and downs. We were very lucky to be able to adopt our son at 3 months after a very brief waiting period. He too was abandoned at the hospital after birth and was able to live in a loving foster home for the first three months.
Bm never returned messages or letters by the social worker, and never has made contact with anyone regarding our son.
It was concidered a high needs adoption, as Bm drank through the entire pregnancy, and is hep c +. Brandon has a clear bill of health and is on par with all of his peers physically, socially, and mentally.
It was a very rough rollercoaster, but we cant wait to do it all over again.