I remember when we decided to adopt. My personality was and is, “I’ve made the decision, so let’s do it – NOW!” In my life, if I wanted something, I could pick up the phone and call in an order, sign a check, or ask my secretary to have it on my desk by noon. So here I sat with this overwhelming desire to be a mother and all this love to share with a child asking, “How do I complete this ‘task’ of parenthood by my deadline?”
Nearly 40 years ago, I began my adoption journey. My husband and I didn’t know where or how to get started. Through research, determination, and prayer, our dream of a family became a reality.
I started with a plan, a notebook, assistance from a caring adoption consultant, and a lot of hard work; this was our family we were building, after all! We had a few heartaches along the way, but the emotional pain of not having children was more painful.
Researching Adoption
The first week into our journey, I drove myself crazy spending hours per day researching the process of adoption. Additionally, agencies often slammed the door shut because we were too old; my husband was 40 and I was 30! Agencies turned us down because we were overweight or not married long enough. Others denied us because I owned my own business and wouldn’t be a “stay-at-home Mom”. Sometimes it was that our income wasn’t high enough, we were’t the right religion, we lived in the wrong county, and the list went on.
Nothing seemed to work. I had never had so many rejections in one week. Despite the initial setbacks, I refused to give up. I decided to take matters into my own hands and network to find a solution. Within weeks of starting our adoption search, we had three different birth mothers choose us. We were overwhelmed and delighted.
Through my persistence, I found and contacted sources that led me to other sources until I found my precious son. Many unsettling events would take place before the courts finalized our adoption, many months later.
My Adoption Quest
During my quest, I maintained a detailed spiral notebook, chronicling the doctors, attorneys, counselors, and other professionals who helped me. I even recorded every step I took to reach my goal.
Along the way, I met dozens of others trying to adopt who also met with roadblocks put up for seemingly ridiculous reasons. As I held my son in my arms, calls poured in from other couples who were also striving for parenthood. Soon, I became an adoption coordinator by default. I handled many of my early adoptions while cooking dinner.
Upon selling my manufacturing/wholesale company, I went full steam ahead as an adoption coordinator. Additionally, I applied my marketing background and the same research techniques I had used for my own adoption in 1986. Little did I know that God was training and aligning me for the adoption work I now do today.
I opened Lifetime Adoption, and it became a member of the Better Business Bureau. I also became a Certified and Bonded Open Adoption Practitioner through the National Federation for Open Adoption Education.
Coordinating Adoptions
As an adoption coordinator, I found that each morning could see me in a sudden flight to pick up a baby or on the telephone handling a birth mother in crisis. However, it has been an eventful and rewarding career, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
At Lifetime, we’ve had adoptive families who have welcomed with open arms babies born to drug-addicted mothers—moreover, a family who adopted their child from an HIV positive birth mother. In addition, we help with bi-racial adoptions, and help single women adopt. We have one birth mother who chose adoption for her baby, then wrote a book to share her story with the world. We have an attorney who, after adopting a child through us, became an adoption attorney – and the list goes on!
Adoption Today
Today, hopeful parents can complete all of the legal steps, the home study background check, and necessary paperwork online. Ultimately, this has really sped up the process.
Birth parents and adoptive parents can take an active role in pursuing their goals. A birth mother has the opportunity to look at photos and profiles of available adoptive families in privacy. Families can search for a child with a similar heritage, physical appearance, or religious background, among other characteristics. This information posted on the Internet speeds up the selection process. The term “waiting list” just about disappears, and waiting in obscurity has become a thing of the past.
Today, Lifetime Adoption completes over 120 adoptions per year. We have in-house, 24-hour phone lines and receive over 300 calls a day.
At Lifetime Adoption, we are driven by our love for what we do. The joy and contentment we see on the faces of the families and birth parents we work with keep us going, even through the emotional ups and downs of our profession. We cry and laugh every day, but the fulfillment we derive from our work is immeasurable. We are committed to answering your adoption questions with honesty and transparency, because I’ve been in your shoes and I know it can be done.
My First-Hand Experience
It is my goal to share with birth parents and adoptive parents our resources and to help you in making the right decision for your life. I believe adoption should be a fulfilling and well-thought-out plan for the birth parent and the adoptive family, with the best interests of the child as our focus.
I have also been on both sides of infertility with numerous pregnancy losses and then conceiving by new technology and giving birth to a healthy daughter. I have experienced first-hand the emotional pain of infertility and believe my experience allows me to serve our clients’ needs better.
It is my hope for you, the prospective parents, that you will soon adopt the child you’ve been dreaming of. It is my hope for you, our beloved birth mothers, placing your babies and children for adoption, that the immeasurable amount of love for the child you are carrying will be returned to you over your life again and again. God bless you both in your search for the best for this precious child!
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on February 8, 2020, and has since been updated.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks