Surprise, we are adopting a baby boy!
When we embarked on this journey, we figured adoption would be something we accomplished by ourselves. We chose to adopt our second child because we knew there were women looking for loving families to raise their children, and that we didn’t need a child to be ours biologically in order to love it unconditionally. When we made this decision, we didn’t realize how much support and assistance we would need from family, friends, and co-workers - especially when we were paired with a birthmother whose baby was due in less than three days. We are deeply appreciative of everything from adoption reference letters, to the go-bag of newborn clothes and car seat delivered to us right before we headed to Florida to meet the new baby. And we are thankful for the many others who offered support, and are grateful that so many want to be part of our journey.
Private adoption typically costs between $25,000-50,000 USD. A portion of these costs are incurred in the first part of the adoption, in order to get approved as an adoptive family and list your family profile with a licensed adoption agency. However, the bulk of expenses are due after you have been paired with a birthmother and/or up until you finalize the adoption. This includes placement and legal fees, as well as any birthmother living or medical expenses. And as we’ve learned, there are also the expenses of traveling to meet your adoptive baby, often on the other side of the country.
We planned for the financial impact of adoption for many years, but did not expect to be paired with a baby so rapidly or the additional legal requirements for our adoption situation. In lieu of a gifts, we hope you would consider contributing to our adoption fundraiser. We have no expectation of contributions and will be thankful for any amount, no matter how small.
All contributions through AdoptTogether are tax deductible and will be used to pay for the remainder of our legal and birthmother expenses. We also commit that everything raised in excess of our goal will go to the adoption agencies who are helping us through this process. They are doing truly remarkable and selfless work in support of birthmothers, children, and adoptive families. Your contribution would not only support our adoption process, but also their efforts to build extraordinary families.
Thank you so much for being a part of our journey!
Kateri, Drew, Ori, and Baby Rafa
The day finally arrived! Almost two years after he was born, Rafa is now a legal member of our family! Despite attempts to not let the long delays worry us, there was plenty of anxiety throughout the process. As many would attest, most days we just didn’t want to talk about the adoption proceedings at all. Instead, we focused on the fact that Rafa was a happy healthy baby who delighted us daily.
Rafa went from dream baby to dream toddler. He loves balls, cars, and bats and wearing his sister’s necklaces and shiny pink snow boots. He loves to wave hello and goodbye at people and adds new words to his vocabulary every day - but still calls strawberries “ah babies” and kiwis “beebees.” He loves to yell “Yuda!” every time he sees Yoda. And we are still trying to teach him the difference between a truck and a car, and feel like we’re making progress when he tells us something is a “no car.”
Rafa’s adoption was complicated by the fact that he had both a legal and biological father. His birthmother was separated from his legal father for years before Rafa was born, but according to Florida law he still had rights to Rafa. For personal reasons that I strongly agreed with, Rafa's birthmother did not want his legal father to find out about him. However, the judge would not proceed without the legal father’s consent to terminate parental rights. After almost a year and a half of holding our breath, the legal father was found and notified, and he agreed to sign. Many months later, he actually signed. Thankfully after this last milestone, the judge moved quickly to finalize the adoption. And today we all sat in a virtual zoom hearing and heard the words from the judge, Rafael is now your child and no one can take him away!
This whole experience has taught us many lessons. We have learned first-hand that love is thicker than blood. Our lives are so much richer with Rafa in them, and we love him as deeply and as fiercely as we do our biological daughter. We feel very fortunate to be on the receiving end of an adoption, and will be forever thankful to the birthmothers on the other side. Adoption is hard, and long, and can have lots of unexpected turns. Unfortunately, it seems as though no one in the system is looking out for the best interests of the birthmothers - especially when they are both poor and immigrant. We tried to fight for the interests of Rafa’s birthmother throughout the whole process, and hope that she will always be part of our lives and that we will give Rafa all the love she would have.
Thank you to everyone for joining us on this journey. We hope that you will share our story with those who want to grow their family, with the aspiration that they too will consider adoption.
As 2021 comes to an end, it’s hard to believe we are still in a pandemic and that COVID cases are spiking again. This year has not been easy for so many of our family and friends. With aching hearts we continue to remind ourselves to be thankful for every moment of joy that the year has brought us. And at top of our list is little Rafa, whose smiles and laughter are pure delight.
But little Rafa is not so little anymore. At almost 11 months old, he is almost 25 lbs and wearing 18 month clothing. He is incredibly curious and crawls at rapid speed when something he wants is in sight - like a ball, Ori’s new LOL doll, or an open toddler gate. He hasn’t made it out a gate yet, but he's tested the chewability of Ori’s rainbow marker bag on more than one occasion. In truth, he tests the chewability of just about everything he encounters, from the speaker system to oak leaves. He has yet to meet something he wasn’t willing to chew twice!
Ori is still just as obsessed with her little brother as she was on day one. She showers him with love and attention and tries to make him laugh every chance she gets. Thankfully, Rafa smiles and laughs at all of her jokes. Ori has also taken it upon herself to teach Rafa new words. Just today she excitedly told us that he now says, “Papa,” bringing his discernible total to four words: Baba, Dada, Mama, and Papa. Thankfully Ori didn’t feel as snubbed as I did that half of his words meant Dad, though it's unclear how much meaning we should attribute to any of what he says at this point.
Unfortunately, there has not been a lot of movement in the adoption finalization since our last update. The birthmother’s situation is complicated and so the adoption case is not straightforward. This has resulted in the legal team being asked to provide a lot of additional information for the court. And it turns out that each bit of information takes time to find. The hearings scheduled this year for the termination of parental rights and finalization came and went, and we do not know when they will be rescheduled. No one believes our adoption is at risk, and so we continue to be patient. We also continue to emphasize our desire for a path that is beneficial to everyone - not just Rafa and us, but also his birthmother.
We thank all of you for continuing to follow our adoption journey, and for your emotional and financial support. We know that this journey is not yet over, and appreciate that there are so many out there helping us along the way.
Well it's hard to believe that it has been 6 months since we brought Rafa home!
A lot has happened in our home since then:
Both Drew and I were able to take advantage of paid parental leave to get Rafa acclimated to his new home (and catch up on sleep). It was not ideal for work to pick-up and leave in the middle of the night, but thankfully our colleagues were incredibly supportive of Rafa's arrival. We were able to take what is called non-consecutive parental leave - meaning we spent the first month off from work completely, and then divided the rest of our remaining hours between work and childcare.
We enrolled Rafa in a fantastic bilingual (spanish/english) daycare nearby our house. They absolutely love him there and he smiles every time he sees the staff.
We also learned that Rafa smiles all the time. He is truly the happiest and most tranquil baby I have ever met. He is a good sleeper who rarely cries, and he loves to smile and laugh. His favorite things to laugh at are funny noises - especially the ones his sister makes.
Rafa's toys have taken over our home, his naps have taken over our social schedule, and it's hard to imagine life before him. We continue to provide updates to Rafa's birthmother, and she is happy to see how well he is doing.
At the same time, not a lot has happened on the adoption front:
We have had three meetings with our post-placements social worker - I think we passed! And we have been in frequent contact with the adoption agency in Florida. Unfortunately, due to some court delays, the adoption still has not been finalized. We were initially hopeful it would occur this summer, but as summer comes to a close we are setting our sights on the fall.
Please continue to send us your positive thoughts! And thank you again for all the support!
After almost two weeks in Florida and our first post-placement check-up, we were granted ICPC and able to start our journey back to Virginia. We were sad to say goodbye to the beautiful weather and beaches, but eager to return home and get settled in. Gma Susan, returned back to the St. Louis area by plane, and as we drove off we realized we were on our own with a 5 year old and newborn... and about to embark on a multi-day road trip.
Spoiler alert, we survived.
Countless rest stops, Starbucks, and gas stations later, we arrived home to Virginia. We were exhausted after driving through five states on two weeks of newborn-induced sleep-deprivation, and decided that we deserved some sort of achievement medal. Ori announced that the next time we went to Florida, we should fly. I couldn't help but agree.
Thanks to our kind friends, we were greeted with banners welcoming the new baby boy, baby clothing gathered from generous neighbors, and animals who were happy to see us return. Unfortunately, it was also like time stood still while we were gone - our house was just as disorganized as we had left it, and now we had to get a nursery in order. Also, someone had forgotten to empty the perishables out of the fridge. I won't say who that person was...
A few days after arriving home, we took Rafa for his two week check-up with the pediatrician. He is a healthy, happy baby boy who spends most of his day (and night) sleeping and eating. We have another virtual post-placement visit on Thursday, and have started to figure out the most ideal childcare options for when our parental leave ends.
And here we are, Rafa is a little over three weeks old and his nursery is no longer piled high with boxes. We are ready for the next step in the journey and immensely thankful for all the generous adoption donations. Please keep us in your hearts and send us positive thoughts that everything will continue to go smoothly!
Drew and I have always dreamed of a family composed of biological and adopted children. Five years ago we welcomed Ori, our biological daughter, into our lives and two years ago we initiated the process of adopting a second child.
The first year of our adoption journey involved research about adoption, adoptive families, adoption agencies, and everything else adoption. It also included the arduous task of filling out paperwork to complete our home study, a requirement in most states to adopt or foster children. In addition, we decided that it made more sense at the time for our family to pursue a private versus public adoption.
One of the main advantages of private adoption is that you have more control over the adoption situation. You can specify the characteristics of a birthmother and the level of openness of your adoption. We did not put many restrictions on the birthmother characteristic. We hoped to be paired with a birthmother without a history of drug abuse, but knew that even the most ideal situation would have its risks. We also hoped for an open relationship with our baby’s birthmother, knowing that open relationships can often be better for birth and adoptive families. We also felt strongly that there is no such thing as too much love in any child’s life.
One month after our adoptive family profile went live, we received a call from our agency to tell us that we had been paired with a birthmother in Florida who was due in two days. This was a complete shock to us, since we were prepared to wait for at least six months before being paired, and another four to six months before the baby was born. But after a wonderful telephone conversation with the birthmother, we frantically began preparations for the arrival of the baby. We let as many family, friends, and co-workers as possible know that we would be disappearing for the next two weeks, and accepted all offers of assistance with clothing, lodging, and much more. We frantically packed bags and tried to remember what newborn babies needed.
Kateri arrived in Florida a few hours after the birth of a healthy baby boy. She was able to connect with his birthmother in the hospital and better understand why she had made the selfless decision to give him up for adoption. Together we gave the baby his name, Rafael, and committed to deeply love him and her as members of our family.
The rest of the family arrived to Florida two days later, and after another day we were named as Rafa’s official guardians/custodians. We will remain in Florida for at least another week, waiting for Florida and Virginia to give Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) approval. And thanks to our wonderful adoption agency and attorneys, we will hopefully finalize the adoption in 6-8 months.
