From donor embryos to Ethiopia: Tales from an adoption conference

Finally, here's the what's what on the adoption conference we attended at the end of November:

There were hundreds of attendees and 90 different talks to choose from, so Will and I split up and attended some different talks throughout the day to get a sense of things.

We don't know whether we're even headed to adoption as a next step, should IVF #6 be a bust, but just in case, we wanted to arm ourselves with as much info as possible.

Here's the scoop on what we learned:

Talk #1: China's waiting child program - super long waits at this point to adopt from China unless you get a "special needs" child. "Special needs" can mean everything from cleft lip/palate to heart defect to club foot/feet to Chronic Hep B, etc. You can specify what you can deal with and wait times are reduced considerably.
What did we think? Kind of an attractive option. Since we're medical folks, we aren't intimidated by some of the medical issues (cognitive issues scare us more). Three of our nephews are half-Japanese/half-Caucasian descent so an Asian child would have cousins who look similar (and who are learning Mandarin at school), which is a plus.

Talk #2: Private domestic adoption - Listened to attorney discuss private adoption. Legalities differ from state to state, depending on where birthmom is. You place your own ads and hope for the best. You also pay birthmom's medical expenses and in some states living expenses. If she changes her mind, you're out of luck.
What did we think? Kind of scared me, honestly. After all of our losses, the idea of meeting a birthmom and getting attached to the idea that I would be able to parent the child she is carrying and then possibly having that child NOT go home with us...well, it makes me want to puke. Not sure I can do it. Somehow, although I know many people have happy stories to tell about it, this one felt really iffy to me.

Talk #3: Ethiopian adoption - Discussion by two large agencies on status of their orphanages and how their programs work. Thought wait times for this country might be less but they still hover around 2 years - unless you go the "special needs" route. Bummer.
What did we think? Things are rough enough in Ethiopia in terms of poverty and malnutrition that it would really feel like we would be making a huge impact on a child's life to adopt them from here, which appeals. Liked that the two orphanages discussed have small staff:child ratios and good nutrition. Really liked that you often get to meet the birthmom or family and can take photos, video, etc., which you could then share with child to help them understand where they came from, and that you can often stay in touch with birthmom/family sending letters/cards (no money/goods allowed). But the malnutrion/parasite/infection issues sounded alarming.

Talk #4: International adoption medical review - International adoption physician spoke about common medical and cognitive issues with international adoptees. He said that the kids have lots of physical issues (parasites, malnutrition, delayed growth and motor abilities, etc.) as well as cognitive issues (50-75% have cognitive delays). Basically, the way he put it, all international adoptees are special needs kids. So the ones labeled special needs have problems on top of problems. At the end of his talk, he said, "Most of these kids should eventually be able to hold a job as adults. And that's all you really want as a parent, really."
What did we think? Um, "holding a job" actually isn't all we hope for for our kids. Yikes! Of course, we'll love our kids no matter what but we hope for the best for them. Bottom line, this talk scared the bejeevers out of us in terms of international adoption. It was really hard to get a sense of whether we could expect our kid(s) to ever be able to approximate "catching up" over the years or how longlasting the impact of malnutrition, orphanage conditions, etc. would be. And the need for these kids is really great. No easy answers.

Talk #5: Embryo adoption - Not really "adoption" in the legal sense of the word, but this one was a talk on how to find donated embryos - supposedly there are a lot out there through various agencies and clinics. You have to do a homestudy and apparently sometimes you write an intended parent profile and the embryos' family "picks" you. Some of these are open arrangements to some degree, so that your child can know their genetic siblings. Costs are much less than donor egg, which is a plus.
What did we think? Intriguing option. Sort of cool, sort of another loss, to image that Will's genetics would no longer be a part of this. Questions about the religious/right-to-life agenda of some of the agencies. Don't want to support anything that might ultimately lead to narrowing options to women trying to conceive or deal with an unwanted pregnancy. We're Catholic, but obviously not too strictly practicing or we would never have done IVF (since it's verboten). Feel sort of excited and frightened by prospect of child knowing their genetic sibs. Also feel absolutely terrified about the gamble of adoptiong embryos (although apparently many are from donor eggs, which helps). Wouldn't the family have already used the best embryos to create their family? What if whatever is left doesn't work? We've made almost 40 embryos ourselves and have no kids. So, it's a scary prospect to gamble yet again.

So, overall, what did we learn? We learned we need to research a lot more as well as explore our own hearts to figure out where to go from here. There are many ways to adopt a child, from the blastocyst stage on up, but they involve what feels like considerable risk in terms of what that poor child may have gone through before they come to us and how that may strongly impact the person they will become. All of the options would require us to tolerate a great deal of uncertainty, which if anything as we've gone through IVF, has gotten harder for me. I feel like if I'm giving up on the idea of my genetic child, then getting a child should be an easy, straightforward process with minimal risk. But - ha! - of course, it is not. It looks to be a whole other roller coaster.

If you have any knowledge of any of these options, please chime in - the more the merrier. One thing I learned at the conference is that for me, hearing about specific situations trumps the abstract in terms of feeling more clearheaded about these options any day.

Thoughts? Experiences? Speak up!

Mo