Monday, June 06, 2005

New Project

My lady and I have embarked upon a new big project. Bigger than when we bought a condo! Bigger than replacing the thermostat! Almost as big as the laundry pile!
We're starting the process to adopt some kid. HOLY SHIT BATMAN.
The first thing I did was obsessively scour the internet for information. There is a lot, if you are a rich white straight christian couple. People are practically THROWING babies at you if you are. Taking your money, too. There's relatively little information about gays adopting. There's lots of outdated stuff (I damn well hope it's outdated) and understandably, since it's only been a year, not a whisper about married gays adopting. So, screw the internet.
The next thing was an "information session" at a local social service agency. There were no other couples there--one guy was there alone, and one woman was there alone. That was it. There were two social workers who kept looking at us with apologetic faces. They went through a whole thing about the different kinds of adoption: DSS, private domestic, and private international.
I was eager to show that I wasn't totally ignorant about the system. I GOOGLED, dammit! I know stuff! So when International came up, I tried to show that I knew we weren't allowed to think of this option. (You're not. This was hard information to get, because no one seems to like to come out and say it. But whatever. Other countries don't like the gays any more than the US does. No babies for 'mos!) So I kind of stared aimlessly around the conference room while the social workers kind of talked to the air. I'm not being RUDE, it's just not APPLICABLE. Right? Ok. It was rude.
The basic message of the session was that ANYONE can adopt! You don't have to be rich! You don't have to be married! You don't have to be religious! But, you pretty much have to be straight. Ahem. Sorry. They were apologetic but not encouraging. I could tell they wanted to steer us toward DSS adoption. But I don't feel experienced enough to deal with a teenager or anything, you know? So I'm not sure about that. They basically said (apologetically...they seem good at that) that it would be hard to get a birthmother to pick us out, and the wait would be long, and so on. Still, they wouldn't flat out say Forget it, chumps, so we're going to pretend that we didn't hear all that crap, and go for it. A long wait actually doesn't bother us. Fuck, we waited almost six years to get married.