A Sad Statistic

I (Angie) learned recently that only 2% of pregnant teens choose adoption for their children. One of the Bethany trainers made the point last Friday that they are very careful to use the phrase "parent the child" instead of "keep the baby" when talking about options with expectant mothers.

A Sigh of Relief

We spent seven hours with the NC Bethany staff yesterday, and our brains are FULL. On the three-hour drive home, our discussions were something akin to letting air slowly out of a balloon. We had to process in tiny "releases" to avoid exploding in a willy-nilly outburst of overwhelmedness. The greatest take away for me (Angie) was a better understanding of the services our money will pay for. I didn't realize how much of our fee went toward counseling for the birthparents. Both birth and adoptive parents get services for life through Bethany, and that's pretty amazing . . . and even more rare. We met several other couples who will be going through the process in the same time frame we will, so it's nice to meet people who can commiserate and encourage. Stan's take away was an appreciation for Bethany's embryo adoption program. We heard from a 44-year-old physician who just gave birth to twins through the use of a donor couple's IVF embryos that they decided not to use. Today in the United States, there are over 400,000 healthy, screened embryos in frozen storage. Amazing. We turned in about three inches of paperwork during the lunch break, and that felt SO GOOD! The next steps will be a four-hour training in May; while we wait for that to happen, we're working on Shutterfly.com to put together the portfolio birthparents will use to "shop" for the family they want for their child. My one discouragement yesterday was learning that most birthparents look for couples in their 20's or 30's; however, birthparents in their late 30's tend to look for older, more stable couples.

Training

One of the things that attracted us to Bethany Christian Services is the organization's commitment to teaching prospective parents how to deal with the issues that arise with adoption. We head to Arden, NC on Friday for an all-day (9-4) training on the adoption process. I'm particularly excited about the section on the portfolio because it is Bethany's philosophy that the birth parents, when possible, choose the adopting parents. We have been putting together a "scrapbook" of sorts for distribution to the three NC Bethany sites, so birth parents will be able to get to know us before deciding to place with us. So far, it's a PowerPoint about our backgrounds, passions, beliefs, home, families, and (of course) pets. Rudy, Spencer, and Gidget play starring roles in the portfolio so far.