When you are going through an agency to do an adoption, at some point during the process they will talk to you about what kind of social and medical history you feel comfortable with.  This includes anything from the medical and mental health history of the birth family to things that occur during the pregnancy to medical issues that your child might have at birth.  Even if you are not going through an agency, I would encourage you to discuss the issues mentioned in this article to decide what kind of situations you feel comfortable with and which situations you would not feel comfortable with.  Discussing these issues ahead of time is important because when you are finally chosen by a birthparent it is hard to think clearly about whether or not you can turn down a placement when there is already a baby in the picture.

Before I begin, let me say that there are some couples that feel comfortable with any situation from older children to birth parent drug use to children born HIV positive.  If you are one of these families, at this point you are wondering why I am writing this article.  The truth is, it takes more than love to raise a child, especially if they have special needs.  A family needs to feel equipped to handle a situation before bringing a child into the home or it is the child who will suffer in the end.  For this reason it is imperative that couples discuss these issues so that they can provide their child with the safe, stable, nurturing home that they need.

Medical history should be considered not only for the birthparents but the extended birthfamily including children, parents and grandparents.  When considering medical history for a child, you should not only think about their medical history but your own as well.  If asthma, diabetes or hearing problems run in your family, then it more than likely won’t bother you if it runs in their family as well.  Other medical issues to consider include cancer, blindness, tourette’s syndrome and dwarfism.  While some medical conditions such as asthma or diabetes are not known at birth, other conditions such as missing limbs, downs syndrome and HIV are known from the beginning.  Some medical conditions can be fixed surgically whereas others are lifelong conditions.  Even though your biological child would have a chance of having some of these medical conditions, you need to discuss which conditions you are willing to consider and which conditions you don’t feel comfortable with.

Just like medical history, mental health history needs to be considered for the birthparents’ extended families.  Does depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorders run in the family?  Is depression more the result of situational circumstances or does it seem to be a recurring trend in the family?  If there is a mental health diagnosis in the family, you should discuss it with a local psychologist or psychiatrist to find out if it is hereditary and whether or not it can be treated.

By social history, I am talking specifically about the birthparents and the pregnancy.  Are you comfortable if there is no prenatal care?  Are you willing to accept a placement where the birthfather is unknown or unwilling to give any medical history?  Do you feel comfortable with a birthmother who smoked marijuana or cigarette’s or drank during the pregnancy?  Before you say no, consider two different scenarios about this one question.  One birthmother might have smoked marijuana 2-3 times before she found out she was pregnant and only smoked 2 cigarettes per day during her pregnancy while another birthmother might have smoked marijuana and cigarettes throughout the entire pregnancy.  Sometimes it is better to consider a situation before you shut the door on it.

In fact, for most situations from medical to mental health to social history you should be willing to keep an open mind.  Obviously in such situations as an HIV positive child, there are no unknowns, you know what the condition means.  But, many of the situations are specific to each case and should be reviewed on a case by case basis.  Get all the facts you can before making a decision.  Just because a birthmother had multiple partners or a birthfather used drugs does not mean that they are not going to have a perfectly healthy baby.  Along the same lines you can work with a birthmother who took wonderful care of herself during the pregnancy and a birthfather who is very much involved and the baby can be born with a serious medical condition.

Probably the most important thing to discuss before accepting a placement is whether or not you feel comfortable with doing a transracial adoption.  This means if you are a Caucasian or African American couple wanting to adopt a child of any race is your environment, family and community ready to accept a child of another race.  You need a community filled with diversity and a family without prejudice. You also need to be ready to handle the additional comments and questions that come with adopting transracially.  Like I said before, it takes more than love to raise a child and you need to take a good look at your surroundings before adopting transracially.

These are just a few of the many issues to discuss before adopting.  Don’t feel bad if there is a situation that you don’t feel equipped to handle.  You need to be honest about your answers to these questions.  By being honest, you can be sure that you will be able to provide your child with the safe, secure and nurturing home that they need and deserve.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 4:10 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.