Problems in Domestic Adoption and Purl Filling a HUGE Gap

What a week it has been! Please excuse the rant that follows as I (Katie – CEO/Founder) share some of my frustrations about the current state of the world of domestic infant adoption. Whether it be explaining to an agency director why I won’t recommend their licensed adoption agency that routinely ships the expectant mothers they work with across lines to their “adoption friendly” state, or having to justify the work that Purl is doing as an adoption advisor for prospective adoptive parents in a sea of unethical adoption professionals, I’m frankly exhausted and questioning why I make the huge effort to do the work I do. Today I candidly share some of my thoughts on the problems with the current state of domestic adoption. So please excuse the Jerry McGuire-type manifesto or mission statement that follows, hopefully some of you will be old enough to remember that reference…

Many people ask what an “adoption advisor” is and what we do for families in the domestic infant adoption process. Many in the adoption community wonder why there is a need for an entity like ours, and are constantly challenging us, what we do, and why we are necessary in a world where there are state-licensed adoption agencies, and state-licensed attorneys (notwithstanding the fact that I am a licensed and active as a member of the State Bar of Arizona, while also having an inactive bar membership in CA). It is often hard for me to explain why I have chosen NOT to practice law, but instead focus my efforts on education, even due to my credentials and law degree, I think many question it because there really shouldn’t be a need for someone who does the work we do – it should already be done by someone else. But the reality is that there are very few people, entities, or adoption professionals out there doing the work we do as an adoption advisor to prepare and educate prospective adoptive families about the nuances of the domestic adoption process. There were very few licensed and “ethical” adoption agencies and attorneys that really explain what prospective adoptive families and adoptive families need to know about adoption, the good and the bad, and few that help families navigate the adoption process and life as an adoptive parent post-placement. Yet, there are so many prospective adoptive families in need of our guidance if they are going to pursue such a difficult, complicated and emotional process.

Personally, I was a General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of a company when my husband and I started the adoption process. I had worked for almost a decade in what is known as “Big Law”, working my way up the ladder at prestigious law firms then as an in-house counsel. I sought the in-house job in order to slow down and start a family, at the personal recommendation of someone from my church, I  signed up with a Christian-based adoption consultant to “guide” me through my own domestic infant adoption journey. I had little experience in the world of adoption law and since this consultant seemed highly regarded, I was eager to be led through this process. This consultant recommended using a multi-attorney agency approach, which on its face was not the problem. This entity recommended a home study provider and provided a list of attorneys and agencies to sign up with to begin seeing adoption opportunities directly, professionals they had apparently “vetted”. While they appeared to provide me a path forward, the home study provider recommended by them provided us no adoption related education as a part of the home study, and I learned little about what was happening in domestic infant adoption, about the different crises that led an expectant mother to choose to make an adoption plan for her child. Adoption was just beautiful, adoption was love.

Pursuant to the adoption consultant’s recommendations in our own adoption journey, we signed up with five licensed adoption agencies recommended to us and that we paid THOUSANDS of dollars to become active with. Due to my own connections in law and separate and apart from the consultant’s recommendations, we also consulted with five adoption attorneys, all fellows in the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (“AAAA”). I believe even two of these attorneys received the recognition of “Angels in Adoption”, awarded by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption to individuals and organizations that make  “extraordinary contributions in adoption, permanency, and child welfare.” But still, none of the ten professionals we connected with during our own process provided us ANY education about adoption or even provided any resources to get the education on the nuances of adoption that Purl now provides. None of them required any education to become an active, waiting adoptive family with then, and we were forced to try and figure out how to navigate the complicated domestic adoption process on our own. In fact, none of the adoption professionals we worked with even attempted to prepare us for some of the biggest moments of our lives as adoptive parents. No one prepared me to communicate with an expectant mother after a match, how to prepare for the hospital experience and the waiting period between the birth and the consent signing. None of these professionals we spent thousands of dollars with exposed me to birth parent or adoptee voices, talked about transracial adoption, discussed with us the empathy needed for birth parents, explained how to navigate open adoption, or shared with me how to talk to my child about some of the hard parts of adoption as a baby or as they got older. Knowing what I know now, I could not recommend any of the apparently “vetted” adoption professionals that were recommended to me by this consultant. Don’t get me started about some of the unethical things that occurred with the licensed adoption agency we trusted in our own adoption journey. My own ignorance as a prospective adoptive parent and then a new adoptive parent impacted others in my own adoption triad, including my child’s birth parents and my child through adoption. Luckily, I educated myself after the fact and was able to do things better for all members of our triad from that point on. But how many other adoptive parents are as lucky?

So why did I form Purl? When I became a parent and with the benefit of hindsight and exposure to the reality of the adoption world, I decided I needed to fill a HUGE gap that existed in adoption.  There were already plenty of licensed adoption agencies and plenty of experienced adoption attorneys out there, but very few adoption professionals that provided real education about the adoption process and life after adoption. In my own experience, I saw well-respected adoption professionals pointing at other parties to take on that responsibility, assuming that someone else was providing the necessary education. My home study provider likely assumed my placing agency was doing it, my adoption attorney likely assumed my home study provider was doing it. I’m assuming the judge that signed off on my certification to adopt in AZ or finalized my adoption assumed I had had it. But NO ONE was providing the education – I guess I was expected to just educate myself on this process and its intricacies, no matter the exorbitant cost I had incurred?  That appeared to be the perspective of the adoption consultant, the licensed adoption agencies and attorneys we were recommended to and exposed to throughout our adoption journey. Not only that, all of these adoption professionals we came in contact with were so competitive with each other, so fearful of losing their own territory, that there was no collaboration or networking amongst the adoption professionals to ensure better experiences for adoptive families or birth families seeking adoptive families outside of the agency they were working with. Instead, every adoption professional was quick to point out the wrongs of the other adoption professionals out there, with none willing, and seemingly able, to work together to do better.

When I formed Purl, I wanted to make a difference in what I saw as a very flawed industry. I could have chosen to use my law license to specialize in adoption law in either AZ or CA (I was licensed in both states), but then I would have only been able to ethically educate and serve families in those states since my law license limited me to those states alone. Instead, I wanted to be able to reach as many prospective adoptive parents as possible so that more families had access to the education that I didn’t receive, even though I had apparently worked with at least a few of the most respected adoption professionals in the industry.  I wanted adoptive families to understand the pros and cons of working with different adoption professionals, rather than just giving some list of apparently “vetted” professionals and expecting that they would trust that. I wanted all of these things so that more adoptive parents were really prepared for adoption, and so that other members of the triad had better adoption experiences. I wanted the adoptive parents that were handpicked by their birth families to be better parents to their children – adoptees who didn’t have a say in this whole process. Even while maintaining my active law license in AZ, I consciously chose not to practice adoption law because adoption education was needed more, but maintaining my law license and understanding the law in adoption is important to the services we provide and to make us different in the industry.

I wanted to provide more education to our families and to be networked amongst numerous adoption professionals across the country, so that these professionals could make better matches between expectant families and prospective adoptive families. And I can sleep at night knowing I have done so many of the things I wanted to accomplish for almost 6 years, and that is confirmed by the countless positive reviews Purl have received on Google, Yelp and Facebook. A recent review about our services said “In our whole adoption journey, the best money we spent and the greatest resource we added to our portfolio was Purl. They went above and beyond to be there for us every time we needed them and helped us through some of the hardest moments we dealt with. We truly would not have made it through the ups and downs and now be home with our beautiful baby if it wasn’t for them!”

For context, this particular Purl family used a well respected adoption agency and two licensed adoption attorneys to bring home their child. And this family had a start that is very similar to many families that come to us. Before finding us at Purl, they had paid almost $7,000 to a AAAA adoption attorney and waited for months after paying that fee without any education on next steps. In fact, even though they had paid that attorney so much money, this family didn’t even have an adoption profile to use with other providers (it apparently wasn’t required with the adoption attorney). Luckily, their home study provider finally referred them to us for more support.  Once again, they received little education from any of the other adoption providers they used during their journey and instead the positive review and the thanks went to us. The small amount they spent to engage us, was what apparently got them through their adoption journey.

Sadly, this shows that not much has changed in the adoption world since I adopted 7 years ago. Most prospective adoptive parents come to us now with very little education on adoption, even if they come to us from “ethical” and licensed adoption agencies and attorneys. These families know nothing about drug and alcohol exposure in utero, mental illness in the birth family or open adoption, and little exposure to voices and perspectives from the adoption triad, not to mention any of the other topics I discussed above. This is the case even though many prospective adoptive parents come to us after they’ve already completed their home study, and after they’ve already signed up and been actively waiting with “ethical professionals” – all licensed adoption agencies and attorneys –  for months or even YEARS. This is education they should have received from their home study provider, their licensed adoption agencies, or their adoption attorney at the somewhere in their adoption journey. Maybe those professionals feel it isn’t their job, but then whose job is it??? These professionals haven’t provided this education, so we play catch up to right these wrongs. As a small business and a mom to two young daughters, my small staff and I can only serve and reach a small portion of the prospective adoptive families out there. But we are here and prepared to educate and prepare our Purl families and the members of their triad to have better adoption experiences.

Due to the education we provide to our families and have been providing over the last few years,  home study agencies, adoption attorneys and placing agencies are now referring their prospective adoptive families to us to get preparation and support that is needed in their adoption journey. Adoption professionals are recognizing the need for this education. And that’s great, we are happy to fill that gap for them. But at the same time, we want to be recognized for the good work we are doing, instead of being treated as some type of enemy in the adoption world because we aren’t operating as an adoption agency or an attorney.  Instead, we are doing the important and necessary education for families that others in the adoption community don’t want to or cannot provide. We are glad so many adoption professionals recognize this and are referring to us, and are excited about the number of families that are getting the support needed during their journeys.

In addition to the customized coaching calls we offer our clients on adoption, every month we hold group educational calls with guest speakers to make sure that our Purl families have exposure to the various perspectives and nuances of adoption to better prepare them for their adoption process and beyond as adoptive parents. Here are just a few of the topics and speakers we have brought in:

• Preparing for Transracial Adoption (Guest Speaker Transracial adoptee, Torie Dimartile)
• An Adoption Story to Consider (Guest speakers Erin Mason, Birthmother and Her Daughter whose adoption was open then closed and they later reunified)
• Drug/Alcohol Exposure In Utero (Guest Speaker Pediatric Nurse and Adoptive Mother Amy Stewart)
• Open Adoption Discussion Panel (Guest Speakers Adoptive Parents in Various Types of Open Adoption)
• An Adoption Story, A Conversation with a Birth Mother and An Adoptive Mom (Guest Speakers Janelle, adoptive mom and Emily, birthmother)
• Preparing for Travel/Hospital Experience/Waiting Period (Purl staff)
• The Reality of Mother’s Day (Guest Speakers Rochelle, birthmother and Emily, adoptee)
• Talking to your Child About Adoption (Guest Speaker, transracial adoptee and Attachment Therapist Amy Wilkerson)
• Early Intervention Occupational Therapy (Guest Speaker Becky Brandt, Occupational Therapist)
• In Utero Exposure and the NICU (Guest Speaker Elizabeth Alvis, NICU Nurse)
• Adoption Subsidies (Guest Speaker Jennifer Kelly of Adopting Joy Consulting)
• The Adoption Tax Credit (Guest Speaker Lin Linclair from First Choice Tax)
• A Birth Mother’s Perspective (Guest Speaker, Birth Mother and Adoption Professional, Jess Nelson)
• A Tale of Two Mothers – Power Dynamics in Adoption (Guest Speaker Kathryn Russell)
• Transracial Adoption and Anti-Racist Parenting (Guest Speaker Torie DiMartile)
• Trauma and Adoption (Guest Speaker, transracial adoptee, LCSW and Trauma Therapist Marcella Moslow)

In a perfect world there wouldn’t need to be a need for us and we wouldn’t need to be educating our families or hosting educational calls like the ones above. Interestingly, since we started these calls a few years ago and shared that we were doing this group education on social media, we have seen adoption consultants copy us and begin starting similar, regular educational calls. What do they say,  “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? I’m just glad that it means that more adoption professionals are actually attempting to educate adoptive parents in a world where there has been very little education  – I hope that this imitation continues if it means more educated and prepared adoptive families.

So frankly, my frustration in the adoption world is at an all-time high, and I continue to be amazed at how little education is provided for such high costs in adoption. The problems in domestic adoption don’t seem to be going away. In fact, rarely is any adoption professional providing this education, even when these licensed professionals are charging on average $42,000 for an adoption. So we at Purl, to the small population we can serve, are currently filling a HUGE gap that exists in domestic infant adoption with the education we provide. That doesn’t even stress the importance of the network and collaboration we have created across the country with small and large adoption professionals. However, until the gap is completely closed and as long as us here at Purl can stomach some of the appalling problems we see in domestic adoption,  we will be here educating and preparing prospective adoptive parents and adoptive parents so that when there are adoptions, there are also better adoption experiences. No matter what adoption professionals are out there trying to minimize us and the work we do, I’m afraid we likely are not going away any time soon, even though I hope someday there won’t be a need for us at all!

So if you are an adoption professional who is not providing education on the topics above, that’s okay. That may not be your role in the process. Or maybe you don’t have the resources, staff or ability to provide it. However, are you recommending other professionals who do provide that education? Are you sure that the home study provider you are referring to is actually doing it if that’s where you are assuming it is happening? Are you allowing your prospective adoptive families to be actively waiting with you without having that education from somewhere? If you are allowing families to adopt through you without this education, you are potentially jeopardizing the birth family and the adoptee that may become part of that family’s triad. Don’t just assume someone else you are referring to is doing it, as I think there are very few that are. Either offer that education to them yourself, or make sure you are being collaborative with other adoption professionals, ones like us, who are actually doing it!

To learn more about Purl’s Services, click here. To schedule a free consultation, please complete this form. For more on my thoughts on adoption consultants written earlier this year, click here. For more on my thoughts on adoption facilitators written last year, click here.

Stay tuned in the next few weeks for a new eStitch video-based package that will allow us to serve even more prospective adoptive families, including families with lower adoption budgets but that desperately want/need this education too!