Adoption

Visitor's Guide

Jupiter, FL

FL Flora

FL Fauna

You or birth parents you may know can view our adoption profile on the LDSFS potential parents website. You can email us questions or give us your suggestions.

Adoptive profile name:

DavidandElizabeth

(typed exactly like that)

our agent:

Kevin Beecher

LDS Family Services

Orlando, Florida

1-407-850-9141

[email protected]

Dear family and friends:

After several years of trying to have children, Dave and I are please to announce that we are going to adopt. We thank all of you who have been supportive for so long and are praying for us.  We submitted paperwork to LDS Family Services in Orlando, FL, and are waiting to hear that birth parents have chosen us.

And we are terribly excited! Not having children when you want them so desperately is like being a high school senior, and not graduating, year...after year...after year. The whole time your friends are moving on, and you work to correct things, but all the doctors can say is "I don't know why you're not 'graduating', but we could try 'x' for this much money." After a while, you figure out that you can just drop out of high school and get your 'GED'---by adopting!

We came to another realization. While we may still have children of our own, we feel at this rate (six years between each child), we will not have all the children we want. And we know so many happy adoptees, so we feel adoption will work for us too.

You probably have a lot of questions; I tried to answer them below.

You can help

If you know of a couple or woman who wants to give a child for adoption, you can talk to us, or put her in contact with our agent. Kevin Beecher is a fantastic guy who can give them/her letters and pictures about us.  His information is at left.  Please don't give them our personal contact information, or this website address. Instead, refer them to the LDSFS website (http://www.providentliving.org/familyservices/strength).  The adoption agency can facilitate communication until we and the birth parents decide to give personal identifying information.

Please mention it to your bishops, friends, family. It is surprising how many people don't even consider adoption an option for an unplanned pregnancy.

Even if they don't choose us, they may choose to help another adopting couple. The birth parents' location in the US doesn't matter; frequently adopting couples fly out of state to receive a child.  Thanks for keeping an eye out for us!

In the mean time, Dave is building a cradle, and I'm making a baby quilt. We purchased a car seat to be ready for a quick call. But other than telling people about it, we're just in a holding pattern until we get a phone call.

We will certainly keep you posted. Thanks again for ALL your support. All our love,

---Dave and Liz

Adoption is different today

We get a lot of questions about our adopting experience. Here are some things that you might not know:

• LDS Family Services no longer limits the number of children you can adopt through them to 2.

• Birth parents/mothers chose the adoptive couple. They look through a scrapbook of couples, and read our letters, surf our web profile, and can even send emails and ask questions.

• The cost of an LDS adoption is 10% of our income, not less than $4000, but not more than $10,000.

• The federal government as of 2007 provides an adoption tax credit of up to $11,800 per child, for incomes less than $170,000. It carries over for 4 years. This is great to cover the fee, plane tickets, court costs, doctor appointments, and mailings. (It's not enough for those whose agencies charge upwards of $15, $20 or $30,000.)

• We found out a special needs child is not necessarily physically or mentally handicapped. It can be any child who is non-Caucasian, is older, is part of a sibling group, or has health issues. Their parents get the full $11,000 tax refund, whether there were expenses or not.

• Open vs. Closed Adoption. It used to be that many adoptions were closed (the birth parents and adoptive parents know nothing about each other.) Some today choose to be completely open, where the two parents know each other's name, phone number, and location to meet and communicate. We chose closed or semi-open, where we would exchange letters and pictures for a period of time, sent through the adoption agency. Studies show that openness helps birth parents deal with their loss.

• One of the trickiest papers to fill out is the 'Preferences' paper. That's where you check boy/girl, 1 of 6 age ranges/issues, known/unknown father, 7 different races, and 25 different diseases of the father, mother, or child with acceptability levels of none, mild, moderate, or severe. (It's like picking out paint colors combined with choosing a major: you are changing the course of your life, without really knowing how it will look!)

• LDS Family Services gave us an online class and a mentor to learn more about adoption. We learned a lot about birth parents and trans-racial adoption.

What's the same about adoption:

• There is still LOTS of paperwork to fill out. We spent every Monday night for months writing letters, making doctor appointments, getting fingerprinted for the FBI background check, learning about genetic diseases, finding good pictures of us, getting bank records, writing essays about ourselves, etc etc etc! It was more work than our home loan!

• The wait varies. Some couples have waited as short as 3 months, some up to 18 months. The birth parents may choose us long before the baby is born, or, (more likely) we may get a call that the birth mother is at the hospital, and to come as soon as we can.

• We love to hear about your adoption experiences. We have almost ZERO adoptions in our family, but when we mention it, it seems like everyone has been positively affected by an adoption. It's a great eye-opener.

• International adoptions can be less expensive. I believe all countries require you to fly to the country and pick up the child, and sometimes stay for a period of time. That's too much for us right now.

• WE KNOW we may still have biological children. Please do not tell me that adopting children will trigger the universe into making me pregnant. Adoption-induced pregnancies are  a myth. A minority of couples get pregnant after adoption--you just hear about them more. Pardon me, but I am SICK of hearing the HACKNEYED expression: "I know a couple who adopted, and right after..."  Yes, the odds are that infertile couples may have children after many years, coinciding with a decision to adopt.  So we will have a mixed family, so what?  It doesn't negate the adopted child as a waste of time.  We are so happy to answer any questions, just don't say that cliché! unless you want a pop in the shoulder...Thanks...I feel better now...just had to let that out....

• Legal Placement. Birth parents sign over their legal rights to their child at "placement" (when they give the child to us/agency). Florida has a birth father registry, and every effort is made to contact the father and inform his of his rights before placement. Custody battles after legal placement are not common, and a custody reversal is rare, especially after legal adoption.

• Legal Adoption. After about 5 months, we take our baby to court for legal adoption. After that, we can give our baby a name blessing (like a christening), and take our baby to the temple to be sealed to us for time and all eternity. And then we live happily ever after...

• Low adoption rates. Adoption is still an underutilized  option for an unwed mother/couple. Many think the only options are keeping the child and abortion. But studies show that adopted children do better in a home with 2 non-biological parents than in a home with a single biological parent. And in America there are more waiting adopting couples than available children.

Things we've learned about NOT having kids:

• How important and wonderful children are!

• 1 in 6 couples experience some infertility.

• Infertility treatment is expensive, especially when not covered by insurance. (This gets disturbing when you realize that you are paying for insurance that covers others' pregnancy prevention...)

• There are a lot of nice, supportive, considerate people out there! We don't take offense at caring inquiries or innocent questions about plans for kids. We are happy to explain it. People are generally very understanding.

• Dumb suggestions people have actually said out loud:

  • "Relax and you'll have kids."

  • "I know what you're doing wrong..."

  • "Adoption can trigger pregnancy."

  • "Maybe God doesn't want you to have kids."

  • "But doctors/technology can fix all infertility problems now. I know. I have a friend..."

  • "You must be miserable/purposeless without children."

• People who have miscarriages or endure years/ decades of infertility are amazing.

• We appreciate the advantages of no kids: no babysitting, no cutting vacations short, not starting a family during the poor college years, and LOTS  of time to pick out the perfect name! etc, etc.

• The process of conception and the mother's nurturing system are amazingly delicate and complex. It's a miracle anyone gets pregnant. It's no wonder that the tiniest thing prevents it.

• We've learned to be patient. We can do what's in our power to get children, but the rest of the time, relax and find something else to do!

Dave and Liz Robertson Family
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