Monday, June 1, 2009

It's A Beautiful Monday Folks!

I'm soaking up the sunshine! I love summer! At least this part of it anyway.

I love that I can go outside without a jacket on at 7 in the morning for my routine cappuchino run to 7-Eleven.

I love that the kids can go outside and play from morning to night to wear themselves out instead of banging their heads against the walls in the livingroom dying for something to entertain them.

I love that we can go camping and wake up to an awesome sunrise just over the waters edge, really appreciating the beauty of nature.

I love looking out to our garden and seeing our veggies growing like crazy!

I love the smell of fresh cut grass and when you can smell the folks in the neighborhood firing up their grills!

Summer rocks! And it's finally here!

And now a side note: Looking for opinions here folks. Help!

Andy brought this up to me in random conversation this weekend. A lady he went to school with had a baby about a year ago. She's got two older teenage kids who are being raised by her mother, and apparently, she's trying to find a home for this baby. She's a party-girl and just doesn't want to give up that lifestyle... even for the sake of her own children. Judgment about this lady aside, there is a kid, a baby, a 1-year-old little boy, who needs a loving family.

First instinct: I want him. I want to hug him and squeeze him and be his mama. I want to raise him in our home, treat him as our own and watch him grow to be a healthy, strong young man.

***History lesson: Andy has been neutered. We have 4 kids, combined, but we wanted another one, maybe two. We love big families. So this fall we were going to get him a reversal and hump like monkeys to create a spawn of our own.***

So anyway, we hashed it over, a lot. We decided there would be ground rules if we decided to take this boy in.

First and foremost, I need to know about this kids' father. Obviously he can't be active in the boys life, or this boy wouldn't be nearly homeless. But I certainly don't want some angry dad at my door wanting his baby back.

Next, this has to be official and permanent. I'm all for fostering, and in fact, I've been to therapeutic foster parenting classes and the whole nine. Even so, and it may sound selfish, I don't want to place this boy in our home and she gets free reign... like she just needs someone to step in and carry the financial burden of this child until she gets her shit together. I want papers signing him over to us. I don't mind if she has visitation, but there needs to be guidelines. Does that sound horrible? Andy and I would like to raise him as a mother and father, not auntie and uncle.

There are too many if-then statements right now because we don't know the details of her situation. All we know is she's actively looking for someone to take her boy. He's making some phone calls today, and I told him that I'd like to spend some time with him. Like an interview. That's the only way I can describe it. I want to see if there is a connection. I'm a sucker for kids, so I know I'll fall in love with him, but I need to see where he is, physically, mentally, emotionally.

So my question is... do you have any adoptive stories that might help us with this decision? Horror stories and success stories. We want to hear them all. We want to be as rational as we can, and we need to know legal issues as well. My heart cries out for this baby and we don't want to just snatch him up without processing what this means for our entire family.

Side note: This sounds like it's all about me, but this is really Andy and I speaking. He feels the same way I do about this and we could sure use some feedback.

7 comments:

LazyCrazyMama said...

I'd say go for it. We adopted our neice almost 6 years ago. Her mother has 5 children, custody of none of them... the 2 older ones live with their father as do the 2 younger ones, but the one we adopted her father was/still is in jail and had already waived his parental rights. Unfortunately, her mother had already waived her parental rights, so our neice was a ward of the state and we had to go through the entire adoption process. If this mother still has her rights intact it can be a relatively simple process - I believe she can just sign parental rights over to you. But I would totally seek legal counsel to make sure that it goes down how you want it with the visitation and issues with the father.

ThatsBaloney said...

Oh boy.
Where do you live? You can email me at thatsbaloney@gmail.com if you want to.
Our littlest is adopted but we got him at birth. We went through a Christian ministry here called CPO - www.crisispregnancyoutreach.org. The adoptive parents that I know of who brought toddlers in to their lives had a different kind of adjustment than an adoption like ours. They do only open adoption.
In our case, Jacob's birth mother decided to never meet us. Same for his birth father.
Other families do well to stay in contact at varying levels.
You HAVE to find the dad and get him to sign off. If you don't know him or can't find him you have to hire a PI to look (that's in Okla. at least) and it prolongs your adoption. You would need birthmom to go to the judge and give up her rights also. You also have to have a lawyer (obviously).
If everyone does what they are supposed to then your main cost is lawyer fees. If they don't, the price goes up.
It may take a little more effort on your part to take in a 1 year old but I can't imagine he won't be worth it. He needs a home and parents who love him.

~~Mel~~ said...

My first thought on the adoption...

Did she continue her party girl lifestyle into the pregnancy? My brother has a little boy with FAS and he's cute as can be but definitely has alot of issues...of course I'm sure you know you run that risk when you adopt.

Sounds to me like you and andy have very big hearts and you will know what's right.

Susan said...

Holy serious question for blogworld!!! Don't read my recent post about my kid who's literally driving me nuts these days!!!

By the way, you are special people.

And that is, no matter what your decision turns out to be.

Bon Don said...

I agree with Susan, bless you both for being so awesome! with that being said I don't have any stories or suggestions but it sounds like you are on the right track and have a game plan that sounds perfect for me!

heidi said...

I have no stories but would feel the same in your sitch. I'd take in half my neighborhood if we could. Good luck and keep us posted.

Aubrey said...

Wow! What an angel you are! I would love to hear what decision you made...