So today I thought I would answer some questions that I get asked a lot. Keep in mind that EVERY adoption situation is different, so I can only speak to my situation. 😀
I wrote about some of the FAQ’s we got before placement in this blog post, Our adoption {FAQ’s}, so you can see answers to the questions, “Is it an Open Adoption? What does that mean?” ““So is it a done deal? You get the baby for sure, right?” “So is she a young mom?” “Did you know each other beforehand?” at that post link above.
Here are the questions for today:
I’ll start with a fun one, “Who picked out her beautiful name?“
When we started the adoption process we discussed having the middle name be either after the birth mom or have the birth mom help us choose it if it wasn’t really a middle name that worked. Luckily we just loved the name Lauren for a middle name, so we were pretty set on using Lauren for the middle name. Not only did we want to use it because it will always remind Alayna of Lauren and that she is a part of her, but we just really loved Lauren and wanted to honor her with having Alayna be named after her. Now the first name was trickier. I had such a hard time coming up with a girls name. At first I tried to find a name that started with a C since both of my boys are a C. I liked Courtney and Chloe, but Josh vetoed those. He liked Zoe, and although I liked it, it never felt right. At the time I had an amazing bride and friend named Alayna, I was also watching the first season of Vampire Diaries and the main character was named Elena, but pronounced like Alayna (although if any of you tell my husband that it came from that I will totally deny it! haha), I grew up with a girl named Alaina, who was just always so sweet and kind to everyone and for some reason I was just thinking about that name a lot around that time. So she isn’t really named after anyone, just inspired by them. I also came up with Corbin after one of my groom’s-when I met him I thought, I really like that name. We really hadn’t agreed on anything else. With our kids names there is only one that we ever agree on-so it must be the right one! The name Caleb took us our first three years of marriage to come up with!! Luckily we came up with Alayna and Corbin faster or our kids still wouldn’t have names! I came up with the spelling because being a former teacher, I wanted to to be as phonetic as possible, but you would be surprised how many people say it wrong! a-lay-na. 😀 Oh well! And yes I agree, Alayna Lauren is the most beautiful name I think I have ever heard, but I’m just a little biased 😀
Ok onto a harder one, “How did you handle criticism on wanting a girl only? ”
Well it isn’t that we only wanted a girl. When we first felt the feeling that we still had another baby coming to our family and that adoption was the way they would come, we hadn’t even thought about only putting in for one gender. My husband kept having a dream about a little girl and other personal things and just felt like this baby coming was a girl. No not felt, he was adamant that it was a girl. I was fine with a boy or girl, but he said when I tried to have him just put either gender, “No it is a girl and why do we care what other people think. The birth mom that is supposed to have our baby girl won’t be offended by it.” Our caseworker tried to convince him to saying that it would lessen our chances of being chosen, but he didn’t budge on it. It was a faith building situation for sure. We did get a lot of negative comments about only putting in for a girl, but people didn’t know why, nor did they ask. They just assumed most of the time I wanted a girl to dress up and do girly stuff with, but to be honest I was terrified to have a girl. I only knew about boy stuff at the time and was SO scared to have a girl-especially a teenager. I am SOOOO happy to have our little girl now and although it is fun to dress her up–I just really feel like SHE was supposed to be in our family and it is complete. I’m so glad my husband felt so strongly about it, even though at the time it was a little scary to think we wouldn’t be chosen because of it. I asked Lauren about it and she said it didn’t bother her at all, in fact she liked that we were wanting a little girl. So I guess my husband was right in that situation and I’m so glad he was 😀 So it is hard for sure, but in the end, it is your family and if people criticize your decisions, you just have to let it not bother you. You will get A LOT of negative comments about adoption unfortunately, so you have to choose your battles.
“Do you still have a relationship with the birth mom/birth father?” “Do you let her real mom still come over?”
I am SO happy to say, yes we do. We have gone through A LOT in the last six months together. At times it has been hard for sure, but in the end we know it will be the best thing not only for Alayna, but for all of us. 😀 Now for the “real” mom thing, I just have to comment on that. I know better now not to say “real” mom when talking about a birth mom. I didn’t always know the proper terms to use in adoption, but this one is one I wish people didn’t use. If Lauren is her “real” mom, then I am her “fake” mom and I’m not ok with that. I never thought little words could hurt so much, but they do. Other words to replace would be instead of saying “give up her baby for adoption”, say “placed her baby for adoption”. “Give up” is really painful as well. That got a little off topic, but I had to put that in there because I am pretty passionate about it 😀
“How much does adoption cost?”
We get this one a lot. This question doesn’t bother me, but please don’t ever ask anyone “How much did your baby cost?” because I just may ask you how much your baby cost, haha 😀 The money paid in adoption goes to the agency, lawyers, fees, court fees, paperwork, some may go to pay the birth mother’s living expenses or medical bills, but none of it goes to BUY the baby. That is illegal.
So for how much adoption costs, it has many factors including what kind of adoption you do, race of the baby, if it is a special needs adoption and where you do it from. The average cost of domestic adoptions in 2010-2011 was around $30,000. Most international adoptions cost more than $25,000, with Haiti being around $20,000 and Russia being around $50,000. Foster to adopt situations are usually less than $5,000.
**Cost statistics are from the Adoptive Families survey taken in 2011.**
Well that is it for today! We have a BIG day tomorrow that I need to go get ready for. Feel free to post questions below in the comments or private message me at [email protected] and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!
More posts about our adoption from this week:
Looking back at Placement {adoption}
Love at First Sight {adoption}
Looking Back at Alayna’s birth {adoption}
Building a Relationship {adoption}
