Research: Adoptees discuss challenges, advantages, and disadvantages of open adoption

      The article I read this morning was fairly recent (2012) and taken from a small sample who gave in-depth interviews. It was titled "Growing Up in Open Adoption: Young Adults' Perspectives." There were only 11 participants, so the information can't be used to establish any type of trend, but they did give interesting details in recounting their experiences. The adoptees were ages 18-23 at the time of this interview, and had all been in an open-adoption situation. These participants all had very different experiences with their adoptions: some exchanged mail once a year, some had face-to-face visits, some of these visits were frequent and ongoing while some had only happened once during childhood, and some talked on the phone while others used social media. This article referred to the biomom as "birth mother," so that is the language that I will use in summarizing the article.

Small, semi-significant update

    My fingerprint fiasco is finally resolved! The online system shows my official fingerprint clearance, so now I just have to wait for the card and paperwork to come in the mail (hopefully Monday update: they were delivered late in the afternoon on Wednesday). Then, I get that to our social worker, she adds it to our homestudy packet, and everything goes to the court system.
  Our state currently has a 6-8 week processing wait time for family court matters, so we should be officially approved to have our profile shown to expectant moms by mid-May to early June.

7 reasons people fail their homestudy

    The homestudy posts (Part 1 and Part 2) have definitely been the most popular articles on the blog, so I thought I would add one more: What can cause you to fail a homestudy (sometimes worded as "being denied" a homestudy approval)? Here is a quick checklist of questions to ask yourself:

1. Are my partner and I physically and mentally healthy enough to raise a child?
2. Are we financially stable?
3. Do we have a safe and sanitary home, with a bedroom that could be used for a child?
4. Are our records clear from any major (or recent) legal issues? 
5. Have we been honest on all of our paperwork?
6. Are we willing to cooperate with any suggestions that our social worker may make? 
7. Are we both committed to adoption, and have we coped with the grief of not being able to have biological children (if that is the situation that has led to adoption)? 

  Most likely, your homestudy will be approved if you can answer "yes" to all of these questions. Read on for more details about these considerations.