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How adoption is helping Tulsans complete their families.
When one interviewer asked entertainer Marie Osmond how many of her children were adopted, she said she didn’t remember.
“They know that some came in mommy’s tummy and some didn’t, and they all have different circumstances,” she says. Five of her eight children are adopted.
About 2 percent of all American families include adoption, each with a unique set of options and expectations. Yes, adoption has the potential for complications, risks, roadblocks, financial commitment and emotional upheaval — and so does parenthood by birth. But there are other differences and considerations.
For instance, which of the eight kinds of adoption — domestic infant, special needs, foster care, international, stepparent, relative, interstate and adult — is right for you? Are you starting, expanding or completing a family? What’s your timetable? What’s your tolerance for risk?
How prospective parents come to the adoption option can affect their perspective.
Cindy Bayles always knew she couldn’t have biological children, so when she and new husband Mike wanted to start a family, adoption was their first choice. They were the hopeful, enthusiastic and eager twosome at a meeting of would-be adoptive parents. The other couples — the ones who’d struggled with infertility for years — showed up with frazzled nerves, strained marriages and depleted bank accounts. Adoption was their last resort.
The question becomes: Does a couple want to raise a child or create a blood relative?
“People are happiest who just want to build a family,” Cindy Bayles says.
Getting started
The two big buckets are international and domestic adoption. International adoptions can take from 12 to 36 months and run up quite a tab. However, at the end of the process, couples do end up with a child. The domestic option is likely faster and less costly, but birth mothers can change their minds and adoptions don’t always work out.
The Bayleses wanted an infant, which meant domestic.
“Wait time was important,” Cindy Bayles says. “We were both over 40.”
Next, they had to pick an agency. After networking with adoptive families and researching several adoption services, they met with three agencies. One they didn’t like, one was too expensive and one — a la Goldilocks — was just right. The Bayleses chose Crisis Pregnancy Outreach, based on the organization’s support of the birth mother.
“The more the birth mothers are nurtured, the better prepared they are to make a decision,” Cindy Bayles says. “The more informed they are, they’re less likely to change their minds during the process.”
The Bayleses also chose open adoption, which means birth mothers can maintain some level of communication with the family.
“To me, it’s truthful and empowering,” she says.
The Bayleses know most of their boys’ medical and behavioral histories (their sons were both adopted from Crisis Pregnancy Outreach).
“I can explain why they like to draw or like music or sports,” she says.
But make no mistake — the Bayleses and the birth mothers are not co-parenting.
“We’re in charge,” she says.
Some agencies use “lifebooks” to help a birth mother decide where to place her child. Couples prepare “family résumés” that can include biographies, education, occupations, hobbies, talents and, for some religious groups, information about the family’s faith. Pictures of weddings, vacations, other children, extended family, pets and even the nursery are helpful. Also, a letter to the birth mother describes what the family can offer the child. Agencies advise couples to get help with creativity, grammar and proofreading. They recommend fonts and type size, and suggest using an online publishing site for the final product.
Rules to adopt by
All adoption services have rules. Some require heterosexual couples; however, single heterosexual women living alone may adopt from Haiti, Hong Kong or Russia. Some agencies list minimum and maximum ages for adoptive parents, as well as minimums for number of years married. In certain cases, couples must have wills, life insurance and medical insurance coverage. One organization requests “no arrests within the three previous years.”
Couples wanting a child from China should consider hopping on the treadmill first. That government requires a body mass index of less than 40 for adoptive parents. Applicants for Korean children cannot be more than 30 percent overweight. To adopt a Haitian child, a couple must be married at least 10 years, unless they have documented proof of infertility. The age span between husband and wife can be no more than 10 years to adopt a Korean child or 15 years for a boy or girl from China, India, Haiti, Ethiopia or Russia, according to Tulsa-based Dillon International, known worldwide for international adoption.
Rules can be downgraded to “guidelines” on a case-by-case basis. When one birth mother chose a newly married couple, the agency waived its minimum-length-of-marriage requirement.
Katie and Ron Petrikin had adopted a bi-racial son just one year earlier when they got a call about an available bi-racial girl.
Katie Petrikin says politically correct terms have a place in adoption. A birth mother doesn’t “give away her baby”; she “makes a plan for adoption.” And when someone asked Petrikin whether her two youngest children were “real” siblings, she politely inquired, “Do you mean, are they ‘biologically related’?”
By the numbers
According to the Adoption Center of Northeastern Oklahoma Web site, 129,000 U.S. children are waiting for a “forever family” while watching “another precious day of childhood slip away.” One in five of those children will never be adopted.
In Oklahoma, almost 3 percent of all children are adopted; more than 10,000 boys and girls are in foster care; and 2,600 children are on the state’s adoption list.
Nationwide, 75 percent of waiting children are minorities. “They wait because they’re older; of minority heritage; part of a sibling group that needs to stay together; or because they face physical, mental or emotional disabilities,” according to the Adoption Center.
Children of African-American, Hispanic or Native American backgrounds can wait twice as long as Caucasian boys and girls. Financial assistance and Medicaid may be available to the adoptive families of these children. Also, when older children in state custody are placed into families in other states, most of those states agree to pay 100 percent of placement and agency fees. There is no exact price, although adoptions can range from no cost to tens of thousands of dollars.
Dillon International says couples don’t have to be wealthy to adopt. To help finance adoption, the organization suggests taking advantage of state tax credits ($250 to $2,000, depending on the state), grants, home equity loans and credit cards, or asking relatives for help. Dillon families have made “lifestyle adjustments,” such as refinancing a house or car, having a garage sale, skipping vacations, avoiding restaurants and taking a second job.
Many employers provide adoption benefits, which could include financial assistance for adoption expenses or parental leave — either paid or unpaid.
Beyond borders
Deniese and Jerry Dillon founded Dillon International in 1972 in response to a request from a missionary working in Korea — and to a calling from God. Deniese Dillon says she and her husband thought they would spend a few years placing Korean children into families and be done, but 37 years later, the Dillons are still at it. Today, the organization has placed more than 5,500 children from seven countries in all 50 states.
International adoption requires patience. The average waiting time for a child from China is three and a half years; from India, one year; and from Korea, a year and a half to two years. Korea allows children to be escorted out, although Deniese Dillon encourages families to pick up their child and learn about their culture. China requires a stay of 10 days to two weeks; Korea and India require less time.
Why, when there are children here in the United States, do couples adopt internationally?
“Many of our families say they feel called to a particular country, so they choose to adopt internationally,” Deniese Dillon says.
Some Dillon families have had unfortunate experiences with birth mothers with domestic adoptions. Other families who adopt with Dillon go on to adopt domestically.
“The adoption community is cooperating more,” she says. “We’re working in a unified effort … to help the children in need.”
Forward past
One common issue for older adoptees is whether to seek out their birth parents. For Will and Henry Bayles, there is no mystery and there will be no moment of truth, as they’ve always known the details of their birthparents.
Katie Petrikin has already assisted her son, Aaron, with contacting his birth mother, and she is prepared to help daughter Amy if she chooses to contact her birth mother (both are now older than 18). Her husband, an adoptee himself, came to their marriage with three boys.
“Every single one of my kids has another mother somewhere,” she says.
For another adoptee, now an adult, the issue of pursuing his birthparents is unresolved. Eric Gibson, artistic director of Light Opera Oklahoma, was adopted as an infant by a couple who had lost a 6-year-old son to cystic fibrosis. He feels his adoption “saved” his mother, and he never would have looked for his birth mother while his adoptive mother was alive.
But she died a decade ago. His father has since remarried, and step-siblings have fulfilled Gibson’s lifelong wish for brothers and sisters. So what keeps him from finding his birth parents?
“As an adult, there hasn’t been a void,” he says. “I know I was conceived in love.”
His birth mother never told his birth father, a medical student, that she was pregnant. Gibson imagines they later married and had children.
“This could be her big secret,” he says, and he doesn’t feel it’s his place to “interrupt” her life.
Ultimately, Gibson admits to fear of rejection.
“You never know what you’ll find,” he says.
Praiseworthy
Around Mother’s Day each year, Catholic Charities celebrates a mass for birth mothers at local Catholic churches.
“We honor those women who allow other women to become moms,” Katie Petrikin says. She was instrumental in establishing another special mass “for people touched by adoption — either as adoptive kids or adoptive parents.”
For nine years, Christ the King Catholic Church has held an adoption mass in November, during Adoption Awareness Month.
Although November is a special month to increase awareness of adoption, Petrikin says her story and others are worth celebrating all year long.
At the end of every adoption, another child gets a “forever home,” and another family grows by one member.
Because, after that, it’s just parenthood as usual.
“You love them the same,” Petrikin says. “You worry about them the same.”
Tulsa adoption organizations
Dillon International
Places homeless children from China, Haiti, India and Korea; new adoption opportunities in Ethiopia and Russia. 749-4600, www.dillonadopt.com.
Catholic Charities
Licensed service for domestic infant adoptions. 949-4673, www.catholiccharitiestulsa.org.
Adoption Affiliates/Connecting Hearts
Private, nonprofit, child-placing agency licensed in Texas and Oklahoma, working with birth mothers from all states. (800) 253-6307, www.adoptionaffiliates.org.
Adoption Center of Northeastern Oklahoma
Finding “forever families” for kids in foster care, including “cost-free” adoptions. 748-9200, www.adoptioncenterneok.org.
Heritage Family Services
Private, nonprofit, committed to Christian values. 491-6767, www.heritagefamilyservices.org.
Oklahoma Adoption Coalition
Statewide organization of adoption professionals, educating and promoting quality adoption services. (405) 949-4200, www.oklahomaadoptioncoalition.org.
Crisis Pregnancy Outreach
Adoptions to Christian families since 1983. 232-2326, www.crisispregnancyoutreach.org.
Birthright of Tulsa
Nonprofit crisis pregnancy center, providing for needs of pregnant women and their babies. 481-4884, www.birthrightoftulsa.com.
On Nov. 8, Dillon International will be part of a nationwide event, OrphanSunday, which encourages churches to host events that will spread awareness of the needs of orphans worldwide.
