1. Every family has their own story: Really. No two stories are the same. There are too many factors (age of child/parents during adoption; domestic or international; special needs or healthy child; size of family; interracial or same race adoption; preconceived notions about adoption; open, semi-open, or closed adoption; ease of adjustment; what brought the child and family together; ect., ect., ect...).
2. The fast parts are too fast and the slow parts are too slow: Someone said this to me once and I knew exactly what they were talking about. There is a sequence to the paperwork and a time frame to follow as far as expiration dates and renewals. Sometimes adoptive parents are just waiting for papers to arrive in the mail, forms to be checked, questions to be answered, offices to be open, rules to be regulated, ect. And then when the ball is in their hands, it is hard to get things done quickly enough! It is the adoption hurry up and wait.
3. There is such a thing as the Adoption Monster: At least in my mind. The adoption monster is nothing more than an ever changing system. Sometimes good changes and sometimes just more rules and restrictions. Change in the adoption system is inevitable because times change, people change, opinions change, technology changes, power changes hands, needs change, research points us in different directions, ect. There is something called The Hague Convention that may help uniform some adoption regulations, good or bad. The Hague was put together to help protect children and families.
4. There is no "They" in adoption: I often hear people say "They certainly don't make it easy" or "Sometimes I think They make parents jump through so many hoops to be sure they really want to be parents". While I know what the people making these statements mean, there really is no they. There is not one group of people regulating everything. It is a bunch of different parts somehow all working separately to make everything happen. In my situation, I am working with an adoption agency and a home study agency who both have to comply with rules and regulations made by individual states, the United States, and Honduras. And to break it down further, each piece of paper processed before it gets to them may have its own complexities and path to follow.
5. Adoption is Complex: This may be the most true statement of all. It is complex on many levels...personal, legal, financial, social, religious, medical, psychological, ect. Many adoption topics loop around on one another. How are rules made? Who gets to decide? How do we deal with adoption issues once children are home? As a person who has asked a million questions, I understand that some answers have to be learned over time...by hearing many different answers and reading many different blogs and hearing many different peoples personal stories. Even then the question may not be fully answered to your satisfaction. Although I just proclaimed that adoption is complex, I also often believe it is as simple or complex as we as a community choose it to be.
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