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When you “matched” with an emom, did you feel like you should interview her? We met H's bmom and her parents the night before H was born, so yes, we sort of "interviewed" each other, but we'd both been given information from the agency about each other beforehand. We knew that she was mentally retarded, we knew about her family setting, we knew about the circumstances of the pregnancy. Bmom and her family had our profile book, knew we were Catholic (our agency only worked w/ Catholic aparents) and some other basic stuff. When we met, we talked about some kind of dumb stuff (what were her favorite colors, foods, things to do) and some more important things (did we think we'd try to adopt again, would I work after baby came home, would they be able to see baby occasionally--more on that in the next answer)
Or consider if you would want her presence in your life and what that meant? I don't think there was time, in our situation, to really get that. And I'm not sure I would have gotten it even with more time. To me, this is kind of like getting married---everyone tells you that maintaining a marriage is hard work, and it is, but I don't think I understood what KIND of hard work it would be (and whether I would mind doing it) until I was actually married. I just don't really think you truly understand the enormity of that involvement until you are dealing with it on a daily basis.
Did the agency help you understand the implications of an OA and having lifelong contact with the emom? Yes, but again, about all they can do is give you an academic understanding of it---every situation is so different that you can't really totally prepare someone for this. They were great about explaining what it was not (co-parenting), they gave us different examples of OAs that different families in the agency had (varying degrees of contact and arrangements.) They were very good about answering our hypothetical (and sometimes paranoid) questions about things like "what if bparents ask us for money?" "what if bparents start showing up unannounced?" etc. One of the best things about our agency is that they're good on post adoption support for EVERYONE---afamilies and bparents.
Also, did you have different emom criteria the second time from the first OA? H's bmom had another baby last fall. We've talked before with her family about whether we'd adopt again and our thoughts at the time were ---probably not, because we could not really imagine trying to handle visits with 2 more sets of bparents (H's adoption is open w/ both his bparents, who are not together). They understood, I think. So when M had her second baby, they approached us about adopting this child as well, and they specifically mentioned our earlier conversation---I was touched by that---I think that whatever our differences, we do listen to and respect each other. We did not wind up taking the baby, as bdad #2 would not consent. You never say never, but we're really OK w/ the idea of H as an only child, so I don't know that we're going to seek out another placement. Which is a very long non-answer to this question!
Great questions, Oceans!
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