Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome back to Katie's Crib. So this
Speaker 1: is a big one. November is National Adoption Awareness Month.
Speaker 1: Did you guys know this? We're doing a deep dive
Speaker 1: on this a very important subject. What's the adoption process? Like,
Speaker 1: what's it like to be an adoptive parent? What are
Speaker 1: some of the challenges over the next two episodes. That's right,
Speaker 1: this is a two episode special of Katie's Crib. We're
Speaker 1: going to get into all of that and so much
Speaker 1: more in this episode. I'm talking to my dear, dear
Speaker 1: friend and birthday twin, Dan Buka Tinsky. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember him? He played James Novak on just this scene
Speaker 1: of this little show called Scandal, and in addition to
Speaker 1: being an actor, Dan is a producer, a writer, and
Speaker 1: an author of the book called Does This Baby Make
Speaker 1: Me Look Straight? After Dan, I talked to the adoption
Speaker 1: attorney David Boum. David has been practicing adoption law for
Speaker 1: over thirty five years and is an adoptive parent himself.
Speaker 1: He breaks down everything we need to know about the
Speaker 1: adoption process. So let's get started. Sitting with me on
Speaker 1: my couch right now is literally one of my favorite
Speaker 1: fucking people on the planet. By far. We are birthday twins.
Speaker 1: We are birthday twins. We met at Scandal, and it
Speaker 1: was like we had known each other since the beginning
Speaker 1: of time. Ladies and Gentlemen, the one, the only Dan
Speaker 1: Buk and we've never ever, ever acted together on the
Speaker 1: screen in all those years. We never got one scene,
Speaker 1: not one scene when we're in together, when you came
Speaker 1: back in a flashback, even in an alternative reality. That's
Speaker 1: because Quinn just didn't Existlin didn't exist in the in
Speaker 1: the world that I was in the bedroom the entire time,
Speaker 1: naked with Jeff Perry for the most part, like maybe
Speaker 1: up your but I had a couple of true I
Speaker 1: don't even get me started on that, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for the most part. Now, I worked with Tony and
Speaker 1: Bellamine and Josh and Kara. You had never Darby folly
Speaker 1: shot me. So I've worked with everybody but you, Darby
Speaker 1: and Garmo actually and nobody on the Nobody. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: your work on Scandal is literally like the you and
Speaker 1: Jeff Perry scene is literally like probably one of my
Speaker 1: top three Scandal scenes of all time. Thank you for
Speaker 1: saying that You're acting is incredible and referring to my
Speaker 1: body that too. That took guys, it is I did
Speaker 1: not know this actually, and I we are informing you
Speaker 1: now if if you do know, wonderful. But it is November,
Speaker 1: and November is adoption Awareness month. Um. And Dan Bugatinski
Speaker 1: is a father of two adopted children. Correct and also
Speaker 1: wrote a genius book about the experience, Does Just Baby
Speaker 1: Make Me Look Straight? Which is a freaking amazing title, so, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know? Also available on audiobook. Yes, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Do you do the audio? Actually need to download that?
Speaker 1: How do you and Don, your incredible husband, who I'm
Speaker 1: also such a fan of, How did you guys come
Speaker 1: to the decision to adopt kids? Well, you know, we
Speaker 1: we decided to become parents first, and when we did,
Speaker 1: obviously for two guys that you have so few options,
Speaker 1: it's either surrogacy or adoption. UM. And you know, Don
Speaker 1: had a really strong feeling about not wanting to not
Speaker 1: wanting to go through this surrogacy for a bunch of
Speaker 1: different reasons. I didn't have as strong a feeling about
Speaker 1: wanting that or not wanting that, um, But he he
Speaker 1: had this feeling about not wanting there to be some
Speaker 1: kind of even if it, as it turns out, you know,
Speaker 1: these things really fade away. But the feeling at the
Speaker 1: time had to do with one person being biologically tied
Speaker 1: to that child and one of them not, and how
Speaker 1: that would be different. And now, of course both of
Speaker 1: us have no DNA in common with our children and
Speaker 1: cannot imagine loving them more than we do without smothering
Speaker 1: them to death. The only type of thing you think, like,
Speaker 1: how is this going to work? And will I feel uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: And you're the sm and I'm not the shot, And
Speaker 1: I think it had exactly I think it was this
Speaker 1: fantasy of like when I look in the eyes of
Speaker 1: my children and I see you in there, where will
Speaker 1: I be? Will I disappear? So there's and that's a
Speaker 1: very completely normal and completely understandable feeling. There was this
Speaker 1: other aspect of it, which was we were unbelievably aware
Speaker 1: he has a niece and a nephew who are adopted,
Speaker 1: and there was a huge awareness of the number of
Speaker 1: children currently and babies currently born every day and who
Speaker 1: are currently in the foster system, And it was a
Speaker 1: desire to try to make a home for what is
Speaker 1: already what's already on our planet as opposed to creating
Speaker 1: new life given the state of the planet that we're in. Um,
Speaker 1: so you said you already knew adoptive So Don's sibling
Speaker 1: was also an adoptive parents that was probably and well
Speaker 1: as like an inspiration or what was certainly in that
Speaker 1: in the knowledge of that it was it was around us.
Speaker 1: Did you use a public or private agency? Independent opener
Speaker 1: clothes like, tell me the specifics of your adoption. And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: And the bottom line is adoption is a wonderful thing,
Speaker 1: but you have to do a version of it that
Speaker 1: works for your family. You cannot judge yourself based I think,
Speaker 1: based on the choices that you want to make. You
Speaker 1: have to do make choices that will work for you
Speaker 1: as a as a family. And um we worked with
Speaker 1: a private lawyer UM in Los Angeles who we had
Speaker 1: been referred to by many people who had used him.
Speaker 1: And we used a public, you know, nonprofit social services
Speaker 1: agency called called Vista del mar Are, which I'm a
Speaker 1: huge I'm on the board of now, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: at the time. And in conjunction, the two things, in
Speaker 1: conjunction with each other was like a perfect mix because
Speaker 1: the resources we got from the Family Services agency, which
Speaker 1: was a social worker to talk to us, a parenting
Speaker 1: class that we joined, which is a hilarious story, and um,
Speaker 1: it was so funny because all right, well, and that
Speaker 1: alongside with someone who you're paying to basically do the
Speaker 1: outreach to try to match you with a birth mom,
Speaker 1: those two things in concert with each other. And at
Speaker 1: California birth which is a state that allows two men
Speaker 1: to adopt jointly at the same time, because in other
Speaker 1: states one parent has to adopt and then a year
Speaker 1: later the other one can legally be put on. But
Speaker 1: we for many reasons, we wanted the adoption and we
Speaker 1: wanted the birth to happen in Los Angeles, and this
Speaker 1: was a lawyer that was going to facilitate that. But
Speaker 1: this is Delmar was an amazing organization that allowed not
Speaker 1: only social services and a social worker to talk to us,
Speaker 1: but gave that birth mom a resource that she normally
Speaker 1: would never have. And I can't talk more highly about
Speaker 1: the experience of adopting when you're doing open adoption where
Speaker 1: you're going to meet a birth mom before the baby
Speaker 1: is born, right, So just explain quickly, like open adoption
Speaker 1: is like you're involved with the you know the mom,
Speaker 1: you're chosen, and then afterwards you can even stay open
Speaker 1: as far as communication, it's completely It is a decision
Speaker 1: you all make together as as a team, and open
Speaker 1: adoption is one. And it's called open because you know
Speaker 1: who the birth mother is, she knows who you are.
Speaker 1: You have an open line of communication, and the decision
Speaker 1: to place that child with you is as decision made
Speaker 1: by her, whereas many people have this idea of adoption
Speaker 1: of walking into an orphanage and pointing to the baby
Speaker 1: that you want and being and carrying it away, which
Speaker 1: is a very it's not how it happened, And so
Speaker 1: a closed adoption would be the files are closed. The
Speaker 1: files are closed. You're like, you're told your baby is born,
Speaker 1: and it's all through like legal or birth mother does
Speaker 1: not really want any more ties for emotional reasons. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to place this child. I don't want them
Speaker 1: to know I want I don't want them to contact me.
Speaker 1: This is a decision I want to make. I know
Speaker 1: they're going to be in better hands, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to be contacted. And that's just a personal emotional decision.
Speaker 1: And so a closed adoption is one where you are
Speaker 1: given access to a new baby and that information is sealed.
Speaker 1: So take me through the process of your adoption, Like, um,
Speaker 1: how long was it? What was the process? Like you,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you going to fill out the most paperwork ever,
Speaker 1: like we had to fill out. I mean, here's the
Speaker 1: most ironic thing, which is when you're not when you
Speaker 1: have a child biologically, you don't need to be fingerprinted,
Speaker 1: you don't need a background check, No one does a
Speaker 1: home study. You could literally be living in a nest
Speaker 1: with a giant ostrich and no access to child proofing
Speaker 1: at all anywhere, and no outlets to even put childproofing
Speaker 1: on in your giant nest, and you're allowed to do
Speaker 1: so because you you are literally three visits from social workers,
Speaker 1: absolute checking to make sure and then background checks, fingerprintings
Speaker 1: and they know yes, but that's they don't really base
Speaker 1: adoption on that as much as well your ability to
Speaker 1: care for the child for sure, but they they really
Speaker 1: screen you, you you really and you start to think about
Speaker 1: it and you think, well, I think every parent and
Speaker 1: is it like boy or girl or no? But but
Speaker 1: you do make decisions. You make decisions where you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're both white men. It's gonna be enough.
Speaker 1: This is the way we thought, it will be a
Speaker 1: challenge enough for this child to grow up without a
Speaker 1: mom and with two dads. That on top of that,
Speaker 1: for them to not look like either one of us
Speaker 1: and to feel like an ow side or even in
Speaker 1: how they look or feel or what the culture that
Speaker 1: they grew up in or whatever their ethnic ties are
Speaker 1: wasn't something that we were comfortable with, and we felt
Speaker 1: like to stack the deck in their favor. We would
Speaker 1: make the only obstacle for them is to live with
Speaker 1: the idea that they are coming from the same set up,
Speaker 1: same sex couple. Now I have family from Argentina and
Speaker 1: I speak Spanish, and so I was really open to,
Speaker 1: you know, raising a Latin American kid. We tried everything
Speaker 1: to be able to adopt a Latin American kid, and
Speaker 1: the it was it's very closed for religious reason reasons.
Speaker 1: The gay community is not open. It's very rare for
Speaker 1: an Latin American so far birth mother to choose. To guys,
Speaker 1: what's the most common is sort of what happened to us,
Speaker 1: which is a single mom to that process. What happened. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 1: you know when you talk to a lawyer, what most
Speaker 1: of the resources that you give to a lawyer in
Speaker 1: addition to his fee, is he spends money for out
Speaker 1: to allow people in this country to know if they
Speaker 1: are pregnant and do not want to carry the baby,
Speaker 1: but they don't want to choose termination, that there's another way.
Speaker 1: And so he you know, advertises in yellow pages and
Speaker 1: online they make no this is an attorney that makes
Speaker 1: it very very easy for someone to try to be
Speaker 1: able to make that choice. And what he does is
Speaker 1: he takes all the people on his list, all the
Speaker 1: prospective parents, straight, gay, single marriage, all the types, and
Speaker 1: he will give each birth mother three choices. And what
Speaker 1: we have to present is a birth mother letter. Just
Speaker 1: one letter is which is it's a brochure, so a
Speaker 1: whole packet to the life that just so you know,
Speaker 1: this was fifteen years ago. So know that now most
Speaker 1: of the stuff is digital, although there are there are
Speaker 1: people who still to this day feel like you you know,
Speaker 1: you make no better impression than if then real photographs.
Speaker 1: That to just some you know, digital is so easy
Speaker 1: and so quick, and so that in a way, anything
Speaker 1: to give yourself anything to give yourself up to FedEx
Speaker 1: them and envelope with a letter that makes reference to
Speaker 1: what your phone call with them was about. Believe me,
Speaker 1: you get you get trained in all of this. You
Speaker 1: get told this whole process taking guys from like the
Speaker 1: conversations to having adopting a child to win she I
Speaker 1: mean when she was we had one false alarm, which
Speaker 1: is all detailed in my book. Not to make people
Speaker 1: go out and get it, but there's a very detailed
Speaker 1: story about the first birth mother we were involved with
Speaker 1: and what and how that went down a path that
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable for us, so we ended it. And
Speaker 1: then on our birthday September, the year before my daughter
Speaker 1: was born, so two thousand four, we got a phone
Speaker 1: call from a birth mom and it was set up
Speaker 1: by the lawyer. He's like, she's going to call you
Speaker 1: at this time, and she did, and we were both
Speaker 1: on different extensions and we had a long conversation. And
Speaker 1: then from that September, by March, she was already three
Speaker 1: months pregnant. By by March, we were in the delivery
Speaker 1: room with her. So she picked us pretty quickly, and
Speaker 1: she told us that she chose us because she was
Speaker 1: a fan of the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Speaker 1: So to this day, every time I run into David Collins,
Speaker 1: who created that show, I'm like, he goes, I know,
Speaker 1: I know you have me to thank for your family,
Speaker 1: because I say to him every time, but I always
Speaker 1: get teary when I see him. Wow. What was in
Speaker 1: your brochure? We have? Ours was? Um, let's see, it
Speaker 1: was like six pages, and we showed lots of photographs
Speaker 1: us with our dogs, us traveling, us at home. We
Speaker 1: described what each of us liked to do. We exaggerated.
Speaker 1: Don may have lied about how much she exercises or
Speaker 1: goes outside. Maybe it's just the time we did. I
Speaker 1: may have oversold how much tennis I play, um, but
Speaker 1: for these small things. And neither one of us are
Speaker 1: very religious, but both of us consider ourselves fairly spiritual people.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned that because we certainly didn't want to
Speaker 1: close ourselves off to someone who was looking for a
Speaker 1: religious family, except that we were clearly not a very
Speaker 1: religious family. So if that's what you're looking for, wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be us. So we we tried to give
Speaker 1: a full picture of who we were as a couple
Speaker 1: and what kind of home we were hoping to create
Speaker 1: for a family and um. And the other thing we did,
Speaker 1: which was something that had been told to us, which
Speaker 1: is really important, is you take copious notes when you're
Speaker 1: on the phone with the birth mom, and you ask
Speaker 1: them as many questions as possible about them and their interests.
Speaker 1: One of the things you don't want to do is
Speaker 1: make someone feel like you hold the key to our
Speaker 1: future as parents. So just tell me what you've been eating,
Speaker 1: tell me how much you smoke, tell me if you drank,
Speaker 1: tell me, like if they feel like they're on trial.
Speaker 1: It's not a great way to start that relationship. And again,
Speaker 1: and the truth is that baby isn't yours until it's
Speaker 1: in your arms and a waiver has been signed. So
Speaker 1: the tense part of it, you can't tell her or
Speaker 1: judge her. However, the pregnancy, you can have as many
Speaker 1: thoughts as you want. During the pro says our birth
Speaker 1: mom smoked a pack a day the whole time, and
Speaker 1: she kept promising me that she would quit the minute
Speaker 1: the baby was born, and she didn't seem to understand
Speaker 1: that I didn't want her to quit for her sake.
Speaker 1: I want her to quit for my baby's sake did
Speaker 1: an intensive screening process of them. Of the when you're
Speaker 1: filling out all the paperwork that you are one of
Speaker 1: these couple that is going to be shouted from the rooftop.
Speaker 1: As I said before, you have to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of Uh you have to do screening, visit to your house, uh,
Speaker 1: fingerprinting and then fingerprints. Oh yeah, I wasn't kidding. A
Speaker 1: background check. You can't sign up and have a you know,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe you can get a lawyer to help
Speaker 1: you find a baby, but you're not. Just makes sense.
Speaker 1: You don't want something to be like and also just
Speaker 1: also to spell Another myth is that this this is
Speaker 1: not baby buying. That's illegal in this entire country. You
Speaker 1: never pay a fee to a birth mom to give
Speaker 1: you a baby. You pay her medical expenses and they
Speaker 1: and what usually happens is you put money in escrow
Speaker 1: with the attorney and the birth mom has to sit
Speaker 1: meet her bills to the attorney and they get paid
Speaker 1: out of that scrow account. But they have to be
Speaker 1: pregnancy related. And why that is is very very smart
Speaker 1: because if at any point in the future she could
Speaker 1: prove to a judge that there had been money exchanged
Speaker 1: just for the exchange of the baby, she could claim
Speaker 1: that she was coerced, So everything has to be documented.
Speaker 1: And it's it really is this unbelievably touching moment when
Speaker 1: you're chosen by someone else to be entrusted to become
Speaker 1: the parent of their of their unborn baby, and it's
Speaker 1: a decision that they don't really actually sign off on
Speaker 1: until after the baby has been born. So you're really
Speaker 1: very tense until until that's finished. Because you hear these
Speaker 1: stories about moms saying not signing, or your stories and
Speaker 1: they don't they change their mind, say I changed my mind.
Speaker 1: It is one of the listen So how did you
Speaker 1: prepare to welcome Eliza? Like emotionally psychologically, how did you?
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like you were like cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 1: I will say in the similar ways that any conventional
Speaker 1: couple that that where the mom is expecting a baby
Speaker 1: is you know, you know your first you know your
Speaker 1: first three months, so you don't want to tell anybody
Speaker 1: because you're like, what if something happens, So you don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody. Well, in many ways, we we have that
Speaker 1: for nine months, although we found out a three months,
Speaker 1: so we had that for six months. There were so
Speaker 1: many ways where we were like, why are we going
Speaker 1: to paint an entire room and get ourselves this ready
Speaker 1: and make the birth mom feel like she really the
Speaker 1: only reason we value her or care about her is
Speaker 1: because of this thing she's going to give us. We
Speaker 1: downplay it because, as I said in my book and
Speaker 1: I say all the time, this is one of those
Speaker 1: rare transactions where the happiest day of your life quite
Speaker 1: possibly could be the saddest day in in a woman's life,
Speaker 1: and you can't not look at that, you can't not
Speaker 1: be sensitive to that. It's like this very very strange
Speaker 1: passing over of caring for this woman, this young she
Speaker 1: was in our our birth one was nineteen at the time,
Speaker 1: so we have a very paternal relationship towards her, and
Speaker 1: you're caring for her and wanting her to emotionally trust
Speaker 1: you when you take me through when you got the
Speaker 1: call that like she was in labor. And as I
Speaker 1: said before, one of the reasons we wanted to have
Speaker 1: this baby in California is because it's California is a
Speaker 1: state where the fact that the baby is born in
Speaker 1: a hospital in l a allowed both of us to
Speaker 1: be in the delivery room and allowed us both to
Speaker 1: be on the birth certificate when when and when, which
Speaker 1: was an amazing thing for us, came out. Yes, as
Speaker 1: was my friend Mary. It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable,
Speaker 1: I mean, to be in that room and to have
Speaker 1: that baby. And I was petrified by the way you
Speaker 1: were going to faith at the site up to a
Speaker 1: day before. It was like, this is don is so
Speaker 1: not He didn't look. He didn't. Did he say to section?
Speaker 1: He didn't. That's and there's a mirror of the ceiling
Speaker 1: so you cannot look up, so he just kept his
Speaker 1: eyes down. I cut the umbilical quarter. He would have
Speaker 1: passed out and um. And as soon as she was
Speaker 1: I think was it an appointment like she had a
Speaker 1: scheduled Yes, except that with on my first with Eliza,
Speaker 1: what happens is in the last three weeks of the pregnancy,
Speaker 1: the birth mom comes to Los Angeles at least this
Speaker 1: is the way we did it, and she stays in
Speaker 1: l A. We put her up somewhere and she was
Speaker 1: here with her two twins who are a year and
Speaker 1: a half old, and we were very much involved in
Speaker 1: taking care of her and her one and a half
Speaker 1: year old twins in preparation for her gave birth. So
Speaker 1: every visit to the O b g y N we
Speaker 1: did together. Um, every cigarette break in between those O
Speaker 1: b g y N segments we were dealt there with her.
Speaker 1: We did together. Nothing like being on the streets of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills with a nine month pregnant woman chugging up
Speaker 1: just ripping smokes and the looks on the on the
Speaker 1: faces of the people walking by were fascinating, and she
Speaker 1: loved every minute. Um. But what happened was we were
Speaker 1: going to the grove. I was spending the morning with
Speaker 1: the twins and her, and we went to the grove
Speaker 1: and we had a smoothie and she after the smoothie,
Speaker 1: she absolutely swore to me she was going into labor.
Speaker 1: She was like having unbelievable contractions, or so she thought.
Speaker 1: And so it was like, oh my god, code red
Speaker 1: and I threw her in the car and I was
Speaker 1: like driving to the hospital, and um, it's happening. It's happening.
Speaker 1: And we were looking for someone to watch her twins
Speaker 1: while we were going to the hospital. Like, we were
Speaker 1: not prepared because the plan was a scheduled sea for
Speaker 1: a week later from that, her mother had a ticket
Speaker 1: to come to Los Angeles to meet us, that she
Speaker 1: would have her mom and also help with her because
Speaker 1: it's emotional, and she would fly and she would stay
Speaker 1: for a week and then fly back to Wisconsin with her,
Speaker 1: and all that was in the planned. We did not
Speaker 1: plan for one week early. And so there we were
Speaker 1: in the hospital and we called O O G y
Speaker 1: N and he was like, we have to wait for
Speaker 1: that smoothie to pass through her, so we can't do
Speaker 1: this until tonight. But you know, and I know, but
Speaker 1: we out came a laza a week early. Wow, And
Speaker 1: we were not prepared for that. And I was in
Speaker 1: the middle of shooting a pilot and so I had
Speaker 1: to take a couple of days off. Like you had said,
Speaker 1: was the nursery, So like you guys weren't really prepared
Speaker 1: at home because they were being cautiously optimistic because and
Speaker 1: when the nursery wasn't painted, there wasn't like cribs. And
Speaker 1: she showed up for the last month. She was like,
Speaker 1: are you guys insane? Do you guys not understand what
Speaker 1: you need to do? You have a baby coming, where's
Speaker 1: the crib? How come you even painted the baby's room,
Speaker 1: and we realized that it would help her to know
Speaker 1: that you have done some preparation, so very quickly with her,
Speaker 1: we kind of got that baby's room ready enough, but
Speaker 1: we were doing it to protect ourselves from potential, like
Speaker 1: we just didn't want to go too far. And everybody
Speaker 1: understands first child she gave up for adoption or was
Speaker 1: their siblings placed for adoption, We don't say gave up
Speaker 1: to anymore. Thank you, very true, that's that's something that
Speaker 1: not that people. But it's not a very it's negative.
Speaker 1: It's a negative. Everyone says that, but really making it
Speaker 1: make an adoption plan is what people prefer. People say,
Speaker 1: but placed made an adoption choice. Those are all the
Speaker 1: PC ways of saying it. But the gave up thing
Speaker 1: put stigma on the birth mom and again I said
Speaker 1: it for years ago, and also the kid, like my
Speaker 1: mom gave me up for adoption. It's just like not
Speaker 1: said anymore. So it's a good thing to know even
Speaker 1: that people are using that terminology. Now, did you ever
Speaker 1: feel at the beginning like, oh shit, what did we do? Yes?
Speaker 1: I felt that way. That's similar to when I like
Speaker 1: and I was like, what have we done? Don't shock
Speaker 1: because I feel like, I mean, this is a no district.
Speaker 1: I just feel like you're of more maternal definitely, like
Speaker 1: you're more maternal. You're the crier, You're like the you're
Speaker 1: very like emotionally available. Your milk comes in at his side.
Speaker 1: Coke shows up, but my milk comes in for sure.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm just talking about it. I feel like, like
Speaker 1: like a little bit, but no, I'm definitely more maternal.
Speaker 1: I was definitely more panicked up until like, I think
Speaker 1: we've made a big mistake, like this is not gonna
Speaker 1: we can't do this, we absolutely can't do this. And
Speaker 1: then the minute of lives was put in my arms.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you just It was
Speaker 1: fantastic and lucky for me, but sadly for him. Don
Speaker 1: was very much in taking care of birth mom mode
Speaker 1: for the next forty eight hours after the baby was born,
Speaker 1: very aware that he did not want her to feel like, okay,
Speaker 1: thanks by when she signs that waiver, are you for
Speaker 1: the release? Like that that makes the whole thing final,
Speaker 1: like the moment of the actual signing. The one thing
Speaker 1: that we talked to a social worker about with her,
Speaker 1: which was really smart, was something that not everyone does,
Speaker 1: but it's called an entrustment ceremony, and you have to
Speaker 1: you have to just be the kind of person that
Speaker 1: you have to ask the birth mom if that's something
Speaker 1: that they would like, and it has to be something
Speaker 1: that you would And we talked to her about what
Speaker 1: would you like to do in an entrustment ceremony, and
Speaker 1: she talked about candles, and she talked about handing the
Speaker 1: baby too. Oh, Danny, I love you. Sorry, I haven't
Speaker 1: put about this. I haven't thought about this in so long.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Okay, in the hospital, we were still
Speaker 1: in the hospital, and I think a few other people
Speaker 1: were there, and we stood there. Dan is crying. We're
Speaker 1: having an emotional moment. My kid is just screaming in
Speaker 1: the other room as you can hear him. And obviously
Speaker 1: duty right now is we're having a very emotional experience here.
Speaker 1: I had not thought of that so long, and that
Speaker 1: maybe even an entrustment ceremony. And she paid together and
Speaker 1: she in her own way, she wanted each of us
Speaker 1: to hold a candle and then each of us to
Speaker 1: hold Eliza. And it was a moment where she was saying,
Speaker 1: I want this is my moment to hand the baby
Speaker 1: over to you guys, and we did that in the
Speaker 1: hospital and then Eliza pooped. We'll never forget it. We
Speaker 1: all joke about it. Now, let loose. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: remember doing one for Jonah because the circumstances were different. Explain,
Speaker 1: this is your second, this is biological brother. Correct. So
Speaker 1: two years later, our birth mom got pregnant again, and
Speaker 1: we had already told our adoption lawyer that we wanted
Speaker 1: to maybe have a second and we talked about that
Speaker 1: a lot. That both Don and I had siblings, Both
Speaker 1: of us had sisters and that were very close to us,
Speaker 1: and we felt that whether or not, even though we
Speaker 1: felt very complete as a threesome with our baby, we
Speaker 1: felt like, for the good of our kid, they will
Speaker 1: really benefit from having a sibling. And oh my god,
Speaker 1: is that not true of my two kids, Mike. I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine them not, I cannot imagine them without
Speaker 1: each other. Like it's now, it's Unfathomi Jontah have the
Speaker 1: same mom and dad, as it turns out. So, so
Speaker 1: you got a call from your adoption agent. We called
Speaker 1: the lawyers and we're like, we want we want to
Speaker 1: be put on the less and he said, just so
Speaker 1: you know it's a tough market. It was sort of
Speaker 1: like what my talent agent was telling me at the
Speaker 1: same time. It's gonna be tough to get a job
Speaker 1: right now, is it You mean it's tougher to get
Speaker 1: another Wait, if you've adopted one child, does that better
Speaker 1: or lesson your chances of getting another one? You're lower
Speaker 1: on the list. A lot of birth moms like to
Speaker 1: feel like There's two things that we learned about birth moms.
Speaker 1: One thing to learn birth moms is that many times
Speaker 1: gay gay mail couples are second in demand after straight couples.
Speaker 1: Many times because a single birth mom likes to feel
Speaker 1: forever like she was the only mother. It is harder
Speaker 1: for some, not all, but just number of moms to
Speaker 1: want to see another woman. But that's not for all. Still,
Speaker 1: the number one is like a conventional straight couple, but
Speaker 1: second is a gay couple because it's a very common phenomenon.
Speaker 1: It certainly was true with us, so then she But
Speaker 1: some dr parents will be like, no, I want my
Speaker 1: kid to feel specially only one and not compete. And
Speaker 1: many wants to be the one to give the first
Speaker 1: child to a family that hasn't had a baby so too,
Speaker 1: so he tells you it's going to take longer. But
Speaker 1: around that time, we were on the list and we
Speaker 1: were getting zero calls, like not even prospective. How old
Speaker 1: was Eliza at this point too? And we Eliza had
Speaker 1: a heart issue that had to be fixed, so we
Speaker 1: had a reparation to a heart surgery and she had
Speaker 1: a heart surgery earlier in that year. It was a
Speaker 1: tough two thousand and six seven where it was an
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult year. Again, I talked a lot in detail
Speaker 1: about that in my God, fine, thank God, she's fine.
Speaker 1: It was tough to go through. My father was terminally
Speaker 1: ill at the same time, and we knew that we
Speaker 1: were having another child. Like it was a very intense
Speaker 1: time us and that's how we got through it now
Speaker 1: that I think about it. But right around that time,
Speaker 1: we had heard that our birth mom was pregnant, and
Speaker 1: both Done and I looked at each other were like,
Speaker 1: it's only a matter of weeks before we get a
Speaker 1: call we thought she did, and those like once the entrustment, yes,
Speaker 1: we skipped this, let's go back to that. In the
Speaker 1: first year, we did another thing, which is the reason
Speaker 1: why we worked with an agency like like this site.
Speaker 1: More family Services is. One of the things they help
Speaker 1: you with is what's called if it's called a something agreement,
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Let's let's say it's called a visitation agreement.
Speaker 1: It's not really called that. It's it's contact agreement, and
Speaker 1: it has to do with what you're agreeing to. It's
Speaker 1: not legally binding, but it is an agreement made amongst
Speaker 1: the three of you as to what your first choice
Speaker 1: would be as to how much contact you're going to
Speaker 1: have with that child after the baby is born, and
Speaker 1: before the baby is born, yes, and the birth mom
Speaker 1: goes in in private and makes a draft of what
Speaker 1: she wants, and then we separately make a draft of
Speaker 1: what we want and we see how close they are. Afterwards.
Speaker 1: We don't want to do it in front. They never
Speaker 1: want them done in front of each other, because you
Speaker 1: don't want to impact each other, and you compromise, and
Speaker 1: we came up within an agreement that had to do
Speaker 1: with a once a year visit until lies it was three,
Speaker 1: and then after that not until that fild was old
Speaker 1: enough to ask for another one, so it could have
Speaker 1: been until ten. So once a year she we flew
Speaker 1: her to Los Angeles, and we spent time together, and
Speaker 1: again there wasn't a lot of bonding with there was
Speaker 1: never really it was hard because it was always a
Speaker 1: concern just not that that not that anything would happen.
Speaker 1: There was no legal risk, but it just was a
Speaker 1: very stressful time. It's emotional and stressful, and it's you're
Speaker 1: reminded of all of it and and and it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing, and it's also kind of a side thing.
Speaker 1: So it was very hard. And we had three of
Speaker 1: those visits. Ironically, by the third visit, there was a
Speaker 1: second pregnancy happening and we were going to adopt the brother,
Speaker 1: so but she was married to someone at the time,
Speaker 1: and so that man had to also sign away his
Speaker 1: rights as the presumed father. There is something called an
Speaker 1: alleged father, and there's something called the presumed father. They're
Speaker 1: presumed father is anyone married to the birth mother. Alleged
Speaker 1: father is anyone else who could potentially be the father.
Speaker 1: And in a legal adoption, you need to get assigned
Speaker 1: release from the presuming father and any alleged fathers. So,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, so the presumed father was this
Speaker 1: guy was her husband, and he was there with us,
Speaker 1: and they made the choice together and it was a
Speaker 1: little bit more complicated because it was more people involved.
Speaker 1: We presumed right through the time that they left Los
Speaker 1: Angeles that her husband was the father, but deep in
Speaker 1: our souls we did not feel because that was not
Speaker 1: Eliza's dad, that was it. So did you do like
Speaker 1: a praternity test? So when they had left, I DNA
Speaker 1: tested the kids and found out that they were full siblings.
Speaker 1: WHOA So when you when Jonah was born, you didn't
Speaker 1: know that he and Eliza had the same father. It
Speaker 1: was a feeling we had, but but it wasn't We
Speaker 1: did not. Now take me through how you have discussed
Speaker 1: adoption with Eliza and Jonah. I love this, like now
Speaker 1: that they're old enough to really they understand. I mean
Speaker 1: they're thirteen and ten. And how was it the same
Speaker 1: agreement that she came out once a year for the
Speaker 1: first three years of Jana's life, we went to we
Speaker 1: did two years. Is that way Aliza would be five
Speaker 1: and Jonah would be three, So we went we went
Speaker 1: two more years in that in that contact agreement and
Speaker 1: UM and then after that we didn't we there were
Speaker 1: no visits after unless the kids ask for them. Is
Speaker 1: when you are going to entertain the idea correct and no.
Speaker 1: At ten, Aliza's not thirteen. At ten, Aliza did ask
Speaker 1: about when she was ever going to see her birth
Speaker 1: mom again. And we were always taught we always always
Speaker 1: always told the story. I'm just remembering this now. We always,
Speaker 1: even before she could speak, we would tell the story
Speaker 1: of how um of how she came to be you
Speaker 1: and don like agree what that was or did you
Speaker 1: come up with it kind of then and there and
Speaker 1: it felt right or we told this story and I'm
Speaker 1: embarrassed to say now that I can't remember the way
Speaker 1: we told it. We told like a little fairy tale
Speaker 1: that there were two guys who you know, there was
Speaker 1: to Poppy and Daddy love and we really really love
Speaker 1: dan is Daddy and don is Poppy. I know this
Speaker 1: because I hang out at your house. That is That's
Speaker 1: that's true. Poppy and Daddy and we love each other
Speaker 1: very very, very very much. But there's only one thing
Speaker 1: in the world that we didn't have that we wanted
Speaker 1: more than anything in the world than that was a
Speaker 1: little baby. And then we met someone and wed. We
Speaker 1: told the story of how she loved her baby so much.
Speaker 1: But but and we wanted to find the perfect perfect
Speaker 1: She knew that this baby was meant for these two guys,
Speaker 1: and she chose them. And it really is true. It's
Speaker 1: a decision made by three people. It's not one made
Speaker 1: by one or by two, you know. And we would
Speaker 1: tell the story of how she came to be, and
Speaker 1: we told that over and over and over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. And we were very open about the adoption,
Speaker 1: but didn't really say it that much. We didn't say
Speaker 1: the word adoption for a really long time. And I wrote,
Speaker 1: I wrote, I don't remember when it was, but I
Speaker 1: wrote a piece about the A word. I think it's
Speaker 1: called the A word. And it's just felt uncomfortable to you.
Speaker 1: Were weird, like a weird to I had. I had
Speaker 1: this weird feeling about not wanting to say the word,
Speaker 1: and it was so important to say the word. There
Speaker 1: was nothing wrong with that word. It's old baggage that
Speaker 1: that those of us. There's old jokes that people used
Speaker 1: to like gave up for adoption, Like it does sound
Speaker 1: like negative in the way we're like in the old
Speaker 1: school way of thinking about adoption, the ways kids used
Speaker 1: to teach each other in the schoolyard. Can I have something?
Speaker 1: Of course? Um, we'd be like, yeah, tell me he's adopted,
Speaker 1: Like that would be a way of teasing something. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that's not the way people teach each other anymore,
Speaker 1: Nor would it fly because how great you're adopted. Like
Speaker 1: we're in a different world now, certainly where my kids are. Um,
Speaker 1: so so embracing the word and starting to use it
Speaker 1: more in the house. Oh, I remember what happened. We
Speaker 1: were walking buy a pet adoption day at a park
Speaker 1: and we're like, how that word means something? And we
Speaker 1: have to talk about what that word means. Our family
Speaker 1: is going to adopt a bait, a dog or a puppy.
Speaker 1: We need to talk about what that word means and
Speaker 1: bring something into your family. And how is it different
Speaker 1: your adoption with a child and with adoption of a pet.
Speaker 1: And we had to start using the word and we
Speaker 1: and we did. But it really wasn't until Eliza turned
Speaker 1: ten that she asked very casually if she when she
Speaker 1: was going to see her birth mom again. And at
Speaker 1: that point I said to Donnego, I think we need
Speaker 1: to plan a trip to Wisconsin. And we two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago, we flew to Wisconsin, and it
Speaker 1: was the first time we even really had the kids
Speaker 1: learn from the mouths of their full siblings, because the
Speaker 1: existing twins are also full siblings, and they called. We
Speaker 1: never used to refer to those two kids, and we
Speaker 1: refer to them by name all the time with our kids,
Speaker 1: but we never referred to them as a brother or
Speaker 1: sister because to us, your brother is your brother, the
Speaker 1: one that lives in the house. We didn't want to
Speaker 1: use the same term. So but the minute we arrived
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, there was a bonding of these four kids
Speaker 1: that you really can you cannot deny, instantaneous and it
Speaker 1: was lovely. And I remember driving through this corn feels
Speaker 1: scared like when they were going to see her again?
Speaker 1: Did did Eliza or Jonah feel like? Were they excited?
Speaker 1: Were they nervous? I mean to get on a plane
Speaker 1: and like, we're gonna meet our birth mom. Was it
Speaker 1: like a thing? You know? I don't. They didn't talk
Speaker 1: about it. They were excited to to to go visit.
Speaker 1: And when they got there, they were all about their
Speaker 1: siblings and now they still talk about them more than
Speaker 1: they do about the birth mom. But they were excited
Speaker 1: to see her. They were excited to connect again. And
Speaker 1: now we every two years now we just go. We
Speaker 1: we just take a family trip every two years. You go,
Speaker 1: we've done twice. We've done it twice, but every other
Speaker 1: year now lately. And so we did it last year
Speaker 1: and then we would probably go again next year. Um
Speaker 1: to do a quick thirty six hour trip to Wisconsin
Speaker 1: amazing and see the whole family. Are there any resources
Speaker 1: that you recommend for people that are interested? I mean,
Speaker 1: besides Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? Which is
Speaker 1: an incredible book by Dan Bukatinsky. Um, it sounds like
Speaker 1: this Vista and Angel and looking for other foster, foster,
Speaker 1: adopt and adoption. Now, there are a lot of adoption
Speaker 1: websites online I do look forward to. I do recommend people,
Speaker 1: uh check checking them out, just for even just for
Speaker 1: information and in a more emotional mental way. Is there
Speaker 1: any advice you would give to someone who's considering adoption?
Speaker 1: Good luck? Well, certainly good luck, but but certainly the
Speaker 1: biggest piece of advice I would give anybody. And I
Speaker 1: always talk about this and I wrote a lot about
Speaker 1: this too. I think people do not choose adoption often
Speaker 1: because of this, of this disconnect they feel that it's
Speaker 1: not going to feel like mine. They won't feel like
Speaker 1: there is a desire to have your baby genetically yours
Speaker 1: because it will feel different. And I absolutely felt that way.
Speaker 1: I absolutely felt like that would be the case until
Speaker 1: my baby, until my daughter was in my arms, and
Speaker 1: I can't quite imagine feeling more tied to my child.
Speaker 1: So I do encourage people to certainly talk about that
Speaker 1: feeling with anybody. Don't pretend you don't have it, and
Speaker 1: don't be afraid to say anything that is what you're
Speaker 1: feeling or fearing, because those are real feelings and you
Speaker 1: can't deny them if you do only want to a daughter,
Speaker 1: like we were hoping would have a daughter first, and
Speaker 1: we were lucky that we had a daughter first, or
Speaker 1: we were hoping that you know, whatever your feelings are,
Speaker 1: that you're creating a family that's forever. So you have
Speaker 1: to be honest with yourself. I was very concerned about,
Speaker 1: like what it would feel like, Well, I feel like
Speaker 1: she's mine, I feel like smell like me? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I've actually heard that before. I was like, you
Speaker 1: realize that your kids smell like you because of the
Speaker 1: home that they live exactly, but like it was just
Speaker 1: but it's really more code I think for people feeling like, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm holding someone else's baby. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Is there something you wish you would have known before
Speaker 1: you made the decision? Um, oh gosh, there are so
Speaker 1: many everything. Yea, yeah, there's a lot about the experience
Speaker 1: that you can't quite prepare for. Part of it is
Speaker 1: if you're doing an open adoption, is in fact the yes.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing is just basically over preparing
Speaker 1: for something you cannot prepare for. That's exactly right. Have
Speaker 1: you said that before? I don't think that is exactly right.
Speaker 1: You are over preparing for something you cannot possibly prepare for.
Speaker 1: Can you prepare in the sense like you read a
Speaker 1: lot of parenting, researching, assessing your feelings, you're trying to
Speaker 1: talk about it, you're talking, you're reading books, and then
Speaker 1: guess what. It never goes the way you think. It's
Speaker 1: always different and better and more challenging. Every parent will
Speaker 1: have advice for you, and I will tell you this,
Speaker 1: and this is absolutely true. Every parent will will claim
Speaker 1: that their way is the right way because they're invested
Speaker 1: in their way, because it's the way they're raising their kids.
Speaker 1: And nobody wants to say to you, I am raising
Speaker 1: my kids wrong. So in a way of affirming their
Speaker 1: own choices as parents, it's important to them that you
Speaker 1: do what they do. And what you have to realize
Speaker 1: is your way is your way, and you have to
Speaker 1: do a way that works for you and read lots
Speaker 1: of different books and you pick and choose what works
Speaker 1: from this that something might work one day, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't work the episode fucking it's fucking crazy because
Speaker 1: you watch someone else and you're like, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of parent I want to be, and then you see
Speaker 1: them actually have a nervous breakdown in front of you,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, that clearly doesn't necessarily work for everybody.
Speaker 1: You have to do what works. But the biggest thing
Speaker 1: I wish I had done is talk about what kind
Speaker 1: of parents each of us want to be with each
Speaker 1: other before we became parents. I will never The only
Speaker 1: thing I can tell you that I wish I had
Speaker 1: done more is talked with my spouse about what our
Speaker 1: philosophies are, because we only learned after we had our
Speaker 1: kids how absolutely different we are, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people could relate to that. And I think that finding
Speaker 1: that place of compromise of how you want to approach
Speaker 1: the whole thing is a good thing to do before
Speaker 1: the babies come out, because I'm still doing it my
Speaker 1: kids and the routeen and eleven. Hey, at that time,
Speaker 1: there's still in your rout to what at least eighteen
Speaker 1: in this day and age, probably longer, but my friends stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was very it's very rewarding, and it's the hardest,
Speaker 1: most rewarding thing you'll ever do in your life, is
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling. And I'm only one fucking year in
Speaker 1: Dan Bukatski. You are you are. You are an incredible daddy.
Speaker 1: I have seen you and Don is an incredible poppy.
Speaker 1: Well now they're not supposed to realize it right now,
Speaker 1: they're just supposed to hate you. You're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: My kids wake up and they're like, you're the reason
Speaker 1: my life is miserable. I hear that all the time.
Speaker 1: You did it. They're preteens. Um, this is so wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on Katie's Crib, and thank you
Speaker 1: could be part of our adoption Awareness Month and for
Speaker 1: sharing your stories and experiences and I just I have
Speaker 1: learned so much actually in like I have, and I
Speaker 1: read your book and I just which is hilarious and brilliant, beautiful.
Speaker 1: But I've learned a ton and thank you for thank
Speaker 1: you your time, thank you for having me. I love you,
Speaker 1: I love you. UM, this is so exciting you guys.
Speaker 1: We are here with David Boum, who's from the law
Speaker 1: offices of David H. Boum. Well done. He's had over
Speaker 1: thirty five years of experience as an adoption attorney. UM.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what
Speaker 1: you do and how did you find your way into
Speaker 1: adoption law. Well, I've been practicing in the field of
Speaker 1: adoption for just shy a forty years. I started in
Speaker 1: UH in an office doing all sorts of different law,
Speaker 1: real estate law, personal injury law. And the office had
Speaker 1: clients who came to the attorney I was working with
Speaker 1: and said, can you help us with a step parent adoption?
Speaker 1: Can you help us do this adult adoption? And he
Speaker 1: didn't want to do them, but he had a young
Speaker 1: associate in me, and I was a go getter and
Speaker 1: anxious to do anything, so I took it on in
Speaker 1: In nine nine, we adopted our child and I had
Speaker 1: been looking at finding a practice that was a little
Speaker 1: more fulfilling because at the end of the day, in
Speaker 1: the civil practice which I had been involved in, you
Speaker 1: you did your job, you got paid, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: a huge amount of personal set as faction in building
Speaker 1: families really seem to fill the bill. So that's what
Speaker 1: I've been doing now for all these years, is helping
Speaker 1: build families, one step at a time, Blended families by
Speaker 1: step parent adoption, LGBT families with second parent adoptions, single
Speaker 1: parent adoptions, adult adoptions. There are people who adults who
Speaker 1: adopt other adults, and then independent and agency adoptions, helping
Speaker 1: people find newborns to adopt, screening the adopting family and
Speaker 1: the birth parents, trying to make sure the match is good,
Speaker 1: facilitating that adoption, dealing with the hospitals, the social workers,
Speaker 1: the state agencies that are involved in approving an adoption
Speaker 1: plan and an adoption placement, and then completing the adoptions
Speaker 1: and having the pleasure of going to court and finalizing
Speaker 1: those adoptions, which is the big payoff. How many do
Speaker 1: you think you've done? Oh my god. In the thousands,
Speaker 1: we used to keep books of pictures with families together,
Speaker 1: and after about six or seven volumes. Mercifully, the digital
Speaker 1: age descended upon us, and so now we're able to
Speaker 1: digitize these things. And uh, but it is it's the
Speaker 1: children who I deal with always are the same age,
Speaker 1: They're always newborn. And to then get a picture at
Speaker 1: the holidays from any number of my clients who send
Speaker 1: a picture of their children, and my god, these children
Speaker 1: are sixteen years old, eighteen years old, years old, they're
Speaker 1: married themselves, and they have children. It's it's really you
Speaker 1: feel at the end of the day as a lawyer
Speaker 1: that you actually made a difference. You make me cry.
Speaker 1: Usually it's the Usually it's the guest that cries on
Speaker 1: Katie's grip. I mean, I cried too, But this one,
Speaker 1: this is this is a good morning. The only other
Speaker 1: thing I would say about that is that you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I approach every adoption
Speaker 1: as though it was my own, because when my wife
Speaker 1: and I went through the adoption experience, we definitely discerned
Speaker 1: things we liked and things we didn't. And we approach
Speaker 1: our clientele with this notion that you come to us
Speaker 1: for advice, and I want to give you the best advice,
Speaker 1: and I want to guide you along the way. If
Speaker 1: clients will take my advice and will follow my instructions,
Speaker 1: our success rate is about But there are clients who
Speaker 1: just sort of pay the advice lip service and they
Speaker 1: want to do it their way, and they may not
Speaker 1: have the same quality of results. Sometimes they do. I
Speaker 1: don't need to take all the credit for it, but
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that when you slog through
Speaker 1: this stuff for several months with a potential birth mom
Speaker 1: or with the placement to go to court and have
Speaker 1: the judge say congratulations, it's a multi kleenex event almost
Speaker 1: every single time. And now we're gonna greg it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what are the different means of adoption? Can you explain?
Speaker 1: I mean where we've been talking about this before, but
Speaker 1: public or private agency and dependent, open, closed, domestic, international.
Speaker 1: And you said you deal mostly with newborn now, but
Speaker 1: your firm, are there people who deal like you were saying,
Speaker 1: with adult or I'm a solo practitioner. Most adoption attorneys
Speaker 1: are solo practitioners because people come to hire us because
Speaker 1: they believe we have the mojo or the expertise to
Speaker 1: do it. But let's talk about the adoptions. It's fairly simple.
Speaker 1: I don't deal with international adoption. It's a separate skill set,
Speaker 1: and people who want to go and do an international
Speaker 1: adoption owe it to themselves to do the research and
Speaker 1: find attorneys who do international adoption specifically. It's quite different.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the difference between going to a cardiologist
Speaker 1: and a dentist. They both may be doctors, but the
Speaker 1: expertise and skill sets are completely different. So in my field,
Speaker 1: we either have agency adoption where the birth mother relinquishes
Speaker 1: the baby to the agency in the agency then places
Speaker 1: the child for adoption with the adoptive family, or we
Speaker 1: have independent adoption and independent adoption the birth mother actually
Speaker 1: places the child directly with the parents and the paperwork
Speaker 1: that is signed is a little more direct. Why do
Speaker 1: people go to agency adoptions? It isn't that the baby
Speaker 1: goes literally to the agency and then the agency takes
Speaker 1: it out of a bassinetta hands it to the parents.
Speaker 1: Is that the agency will provide home study services and
Speaker 1: social services and support services all at one location, whereas
Speaker 1: an independent adoption we bring in the social worker and
Speaker 1: we bring in the therapist or the corn the package deal.
Speaker 1: Do you find that you have huge amounts of both,
Speaker 1: or do most people use an agency right now, it's
Speaker 1: it's it is really a cost driven. Independent adoption tends
Speaker 1: to be cheaper than agency adoption because the agencies charge
Speaker 1: for services which you may not need. There are some
Speaker 1: wonderful agencies out there, and they offer classes in parenting
Speaker 1: and and they offer classes and how to talk to
Speaker 1: your teenager about being adopted. And most of my clients
Speaker 1: went faced with that as a possible road to travel, say,
Speaker 1: would you mind terribly if we got the baby first
Speaker 1: before we started talking about what we're supposed to I
Speaker 1: always say to the clients, make a financial determination. If
Speaker 1: the services are essentially the same, look at what is
Speaker 1: most fiscally responsible for you, because no one wants to
Speaker 1: end up being bankrupt, right and you're about to have
Speaker 1: a baby, which is super expensive. So, like you know,
Speaker 1: it would be wonderful if some of your dough went
Speaker 1: to the baby once you got him or her. Well,
Speaker 1: it has to go to the diapers, that has to
Speaker 1: go to formula. There. There are relatively few adoptive parents
Speaker 1: who actually breastfeed. There are some because there is this
Speaker 1: technique available where you can do that, but it's very rare.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, so there are there are means that a
Speaker 1: woman can contact her gynecologist and get onto some program
Speaker 1: to be able to lactate and then breastfeed to child,
Speaker 1: but most end up paying for formula, and formula baby
Speaker 1: ain't cheap. No, no, um. Can you hear my baby
Speaker 1: right now? It's his naptime, everybody? Albi, Adam is on
Speaker 1: My husband, Adam is on Albi duty this morning while
Speaker 1: I talk to you, and Albi is obviously not wanting
Speaker 1: to go down for his nap. So can you walk
Speaker 1: us through, like, walk us through what an adoption process
Speaker 1: looks like. I mean, I know that's very big and
Speaker 1: and sort of a large topic. That's a manageable question.
Speaker 1: People come to you first. Ideally a person is going
Speaker 1: to come to an attorney, because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, adoption is a legal process. They'll meet with
Speaker 1: the attorney and decide on a game plan. Are we
Speaker 1: going to try to do an independent adoption or an
Speaker 1: agency adoption? Are and what are we looking for in
Speaker 1: terms of birth parents, racial shoes, employment issues, age, health, um,
Speaker 1: physical attributes, intellectual attributes. So we define what we're looking for,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, we have to define budget. What is
Speaker 1: it going to likely cost? What are the parameters that
Speaker 1: we have to work with in terms of money, because
Speaker 1: not every adoptive parent is able to spend endless amounts
Speaker 1: of money adopting and some work on a budget. So
Speaker 1: you determine the budget, and then the next step is
Speaker 1: we make sure that the adoptive parents will be able
Speaker 1: to adopt. UH. So, if you have a past criminal record,
Speaker 1: no matter how minor it is, we need to know
Speaker 1: about it in advance so we can make sure that
Speaker 1: we can deal with it appropriately. And you understand what's
Speaker 1: involved with that. Once you find a birth mom, then
Speaker 1: we start the outreach to look for a birth mom
Speaker 1: and advertising Dear birth mother, letters, portfolios that put together
Speaker 1: what is that well, advertising, maybe you're not going to
Speaker 1: find it here in California because it's for a bid
Speaker 1: by law to or a newspaper ads advertising to adopt
Speaker 1: a baby. But outside of the state, yes it is,
Speaker 1: so it might be an ad in the adoption section,
Speaker 1: believe that or not in newspapers out of state, something
Speaker 1: along the lines of UH, Southern California couple urns to
Speaker 1: adopt newborn expenses paid as permitted, legal and confidential. We
Speaker 1: promise your child a future of uh, happiness, love and security.
Speaker 1: Call Tanya and Bill toll free any time, or our
Speaker 1: attorney Dave at such and such number. Wow so um. So.
Speaker 1: After that, make contact with a birth mom. There's paperwork
Speaker 1: that's exchanged back and forth. Birth mom is advised by
Speaker 1: a social worker and LCSW and counseled as to her
Speaker 1: rights and evaluated to make sure license clinical social worker UH.
Speaker 1: And then if everyone's an agreement and they meet and
Speaker 1: they like one another and they want to proceed, the
Speaker 1: hospitals notified, the doctor is notified. When the baby is
Speaker 1: born UH, and it's ready for discharge from the hospital,
Speaker 1: the adoptive parents are there to receive the baby. Then
Speaker 1: the legal paperwork has begun in the court and ultimately
Speaker 1: the Department of Children and Family Services in California or
Speaker 1: a private adoption agency will complete the post birth and
Speaker 1: post placement supervision of the case, and they have meetings
Speaker 1: and make sure everything is in order. They present a
Speaker 1: final report to the court saying we recommend that the
Speaker 1: adoption be approved, and then you have that celebratory final
Speaker 1: hearing with the judge where the judge confirms and approves
Speaker 1: the report, grants the adoption, changes the child's parents already
Speaker 1: have the baby before that happens. Yes does sometimes that
Speaker 1: doesn't get finished her. Well, we're much better now in
Speaker 1: California than we were. Many states have a very short
Speaker 1: change of mind period. California's at thirty days. Some have
Speaker 1: it as as little as forty eight hours. But uh,
Speaker 1: if you get to that stage most most of the
Speaker 1: time they do. We have. Every state in the United
Speaker 1: States is quite independent, and each one believes they have
Speaker 1: the best adoption laws and none of the other adoption
Speaker 1: laws are any good in any other state. And this
Speaker 1: is the key element if if if anybody gets anything
Speaker 1: out of the time I'm spending with you, it is
Speaker 1: that you must do your homework and start with a
Speaker 1: team of people who know the law and know enough
Speaker 1: to ask questions when they don't know the law about
Speaker 1: another state. Because many of the adoptions that occur involve
Speaker 1: a birth parent in one state and adopted parents here
Speaker 1: where you are in a different state. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know those laws and you start spending money on
Speaker 1: that birth mother and the state where the birth mother
Speaker 1: is says you may not do that, you could end
Speaker 1: up screwing up your own adoption and getting into trouble
Speaker 1: with the authorities for it. In California, if you pay
Speaker 1: improper expenses to a birth mother as a doctor parents,
Speaker 1: it's a felony, but it's only a misdemeanor for the
Speaker 1: birth there to take the money. So it's important to
Speaker 1: get good quality people. So how do you know how
Speaker 1: do you not mess that up? It really just depends
Speaker 1: on the lawyer you get it does that. They really
Speaker 1: have to be educated and skilled and know all those
Speaker 1: laws wearing. All you have to know is how to
Speaker 1: dial a telephone. That's all a lawyer really has to
Speaker 1: know in that regard. Because I go and when a
Speaker 1: person comes into me and they say we we are
Speaker 1: working with them, and we find a birth mother in
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. I don't know the law in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: But I call a colleague of mine who I trust
Speaker 1: from the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and I say,
Speaker 1: you're in Rhode Island. I have a adopted parent here
Speaker 1: in California. What do I need to know so that
Speaker 1: we don't run a foul of your laws. Then we
Speaker 1: have the discussion that I'm able to go to the
Speaker 1: client and say if we can work with her in
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. And here's the reason why the success rank
Speaker 1: or the success rate on adoptions in the United States
Speaker 1: is about end of adoption matches are successfully concluded, but
Speaker 1: there are those ten percent that are not, and it's
Speaker 1: devastating for people. It is no reassurance to an adoptive
Speaker 1: family to say, well, of the cases go fine, if
Speaker 1: you're in that tent, that that's all. That's all I heard.
Speaker 1: In my office. We we average nine success But that's
Speaker 1: just because I am very, very conservative about things, and
Speaker 1: I insist on really good communication with clients. Clients need
Speaker 1: to share with the attorney whenever their conversations with the
Speaker 1: birth parents that they may have outside of the earshot
Speaker 1: of the attorney, they need to share with the attorney
Speaker 1: what is said, because that's where you discern inconsistencies. And
Speaker 1: as soon as you discern an inconsistency in the story,
Speaker 1: are the things the birth mother is telling you, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've never been pregnant, but on her form she says
Speaker 1: she's been pregnant twice since she's had two abortions. If
Speaker 1: they're lying about the small stuff, the odds are they're
Speaker 1: going to be lying about the big stuff. And you
Speaker 1: want to have really good communication with your turns. Wonderful tip.
Speaker 1: Do you find it there's difference? Have you worked with
Speaker 1: single parents or versus married couple, same sex couples? Like,
Speaker 1: what is the are their differences are there? Well, I'll
Speaker 1: say this, there are some birth parents who only want
Speaker 1: a big Osmond or King sisters family. I mean, they
Speaker 1: want hundreds and hundreds of family members for their child
Speaker 1: to go into this big, broad embracing sort of Italian
Speaker 1: thirty people at the table families. There are others who
Speaker 1: just want their child to be the prince or princess
Speaker 1: in the home. They want the child to be the first,
Speaker 1: the last, and the only child in the home. There
Speaker 1: are some who say it doesn't matter, and there are
Speaker 1: some who bring their prejudices to the picture. I've had
Speaker 1: single women clients who the birth mothers say, oh, she
Speaker 1: must be a lesbian because she's single. And I have
Speaker 1: to remind the birth mothers of that old glorious Steinhum
Speaker 1: quote that a woman needs a man like a fish
Speaker 1: needs a bicycle. Uh, you know, and and and and
Speaker 1: say them, don't assume that, because there are plenty of
Speaker 1: women who choose deliberately not to be married and that
Speaker 1: they wish to raise single parents raised children as single parents,
Speaker 1: So the birth mothers come in with their own prejudices. Similarly,
Speaker 1: adopted parents come in with their own prejudices. I've had
Speaker 1: adopted parents match with birth moms based on cone heat.
Speaker 1: That's the senter the heat at the center of a
Speaker 1: kiln when you're firing pottery. I had a birth mom
Speaker 1: who came in the adoptive family. Sheep was interested in
Speaker 1: were people who were saramusis, and they spent the better
Speaker 1: part of the hour we spent together in my conference
Speaker 1: room talking about the variation of cone heat in kilns.
Speaker 1: I've had birth mothers select adoptive parents because the birth
Speaker 1: mother comes into my office wearing a cool lot outfit
Speaker 1: and the picture of the adoptive parent has the identical outfit,
Speaker 1: beer can stock, sandals, astrological signs, like the same spotch
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's completely like random, random, and like
Speaker 1: just I don't know if you believe in fate or
Speaker 1: whatever that is. It's shared, which you would completely say,
Speaker 1: but yes, it's but shared. It's like that unknowing, like
Speaker 1: that you can't put a word to it. It just
Speaker 1: it just happened. It just happened, well, right, And so
Speaker 1: I'm always saying to clients, you must be honest with
Speaker 1: your attorney, but more importantly, you must also be honest
Speaker 1: with yourself, because if you try to make yourself into
Speaker 1: the perfect attractive adoptive parents, it's a charade that's impossible.
Speaker 1: They take because it could come down to lot, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: or kill me, kill me. How does the adoption process
Speaker 1: take from start to finish? After the birth of the child,
Speaker 1: you're looking at six to eight months if everybody is
Speaker 1: doing what they're supposed to be doing in a timely manner,
Speaker 1: if you're taught. And that's what about from start to finish?
Speaker 1: I'm talking like when they come into your office, it's
Speaker 1: usually nine months to two years. It's usually nine months
Speaker 1: to two years. But but sometimes I had a case
Speaker 1: fairly early on in my career where the adoptive family
Speaker 1: came in and met with me on an initial consultation
Speaker 1: in the morning, and in the afternoon I got a
Speaker 1: call from the hospital and they said, do you have
Speaker 1: a family, and this is exactly what we're looking for,
Speaker 1: And it was this family And I called them up
Speaker 1: on the phone and the wife answer the phone and
Speaker 1: I said, Liz, are you interested in adopting a baby boy?
Speaker 1: Here are the statistics. The child was just born and
Speaker 1: has at such in such hospital here in the San
Speaker 1: Fernando Valley. And I heard a thud and the floor,
Speaker 1: and then I hear this man's voice. It was clearly
Speaker 1: her husband, and he says, who is this. I said,
Speaker 1: it's Dave Bomb calling. He said, what did you say
Speaker 1: to my wife? I said, I just told her I
Speaker 1: just heard about an adoption situation. The hospital is waiting
Speaker 1: to know whether you would like to come get a
Speaker 1: baby boy. He said, I'll revive for and we'll be
Speaker 1: down there in thirty minutes. So it can It can
Speaker 1: happen that quickly. You know, you have to be prepared.
Speaker 1: I have a colleague who says, are you ready for
Speaker 1: your star moment? He says, you have to be willing
Speaker 1: to say to me, if you call me tonight, I
Speaker 1: will get to the hospital and be there for the baby.
Speaker 1: If you're not ready, if you still need to go
Speaker 1: through therapy about your infertility or things like that, then
Speaker 1: it's not time to start this process. Wow, that's a
Speaker 1: great piece of advice. So really, parents should come and
Speaker 1: be do all the work for working with you or
Speaker 1: an adoption attorney, if they're like, I'm ready to I
Speaker 1: would like to have a baby, like as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: Well true, because what happens is when I sit across
Speaker 1: the desk from clients who come in and meet with me,
Speaker 1: they just see my two eyes, but I see their
Speaker 1: four eyes, and I can see and I have seen
Speaker 1: at times in consultations with clients the wife is waxing
Speaker 1: poetic about the thrills of parenthood and the husband is
Speaker 1: literally rolling his eyes and and giving all the facial
Speaker 1: expressions that say I'm not there yet. And at the
Speaker 1: end of those consultations, I will say to the clients,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think I can be of help
Speaker 1: to you because I think the two of you probably
Speaker 1: need to do some talking with one another because we
Speaker 1: all have to be on the same page. You know,
Speaker 1: as a parent that parenting is a tag team event. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so is adopting. It is also a tag team event.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when one parent is feeling, oh, is this ever
Speaker 1: gonna happen, the other is there to say, of course
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. This is next step we're going
Speaker 1: to do. And when they're not on the same page
Speaker 1: and one is rowing across the pond and the other
Speaker 1: is drilling holes in the back of the boat. It's
Speaker 1: not a good situation. A single adoption in person, who
Speaker 1: do they go to family? Ideally they will the clients
Speaker 1: that I have from the LGPT community or the single
Speaker 1: parents who just want to be single parents usually have
Speaker 1: their own family. It may not be blood family, yes,
Speaker 1: but they have their support systems sing them through this
Speaker 1: whole thing. Do you find that they bring a friend
Speaker 1: to Rarely it's it's we've come a long way, and
Speaker 1: adoption is much more out there and open than it was.
Speaker 1: But none of us walk around and introduce our children
Speaker 1: as oh, this is my adopted son or this is
Speaker 1: my adopted daughter. These are just my children. And so
Speaker 1: I had such an old school way. I mean when
Speaker 1: we were talking to Dan Bugatinsky and I had such
Speaker 1: I said, oh, given up for adoption, and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't say given up, we say placed. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, my gosh, like being a child in
Speaker 1: the eighties like that that's what we said, Oh you're
Speaker 1: given up for adoption or that child, you know, that's
Speaker 1: like how you phrase it. And it's not you're a
Speaker 1: chosen child. That's another one that well, why didn't my
Speaker 1: mother choose to keep me? It's the lingoes all different,
Speaker 1: now different. Um, what would you say is advice for
Speaker 1: a dooctive parents if they're going to hire an attorney, Like,
Speaker 1: what is there? Is there a list of questions or
Speaker 1: something or or is it just a gut feeling that
Speaker 1: this is the person I want to go through? This
Speaker 1: can be very challenging and long process. Well, my advice
Speaker 1: would be there are two resources that I think are invaluable.
Speaker 1: The first is the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys because
Speaker 1: that's nationwide and they have the preeminent adoption attorneys in
Speaker 1: the United States. The entry requirements and the legal ethics
Speaker 1: requirements to maintain fellowship in those are in that organization
Speaker 1: are very, very significant. So you start with a group
Speaker 1: of people who are already well educated, well informed, and
Speaker 1: well connected to help you adopt. The second resource here
Speaker 1: in California is the Academy of California Adoption Lawyers. I
Speaker 1: served as president of that academy for sixteen years. It
Speaker 1: must that I was such a great president. It was
Speaker 1: more than no one else wanted to do. It, but
Speaker 1: we have in our academy. I think it's now about
Speaker 1: forty two of the pre eminent adoption and family formation
Speaker 1: attorneys in the unit in the state of California. We
Speaker 1: teach other attorneys how to do adoption law. We meet
Speaker 1: and we have continuing education programs. We are we author articles,
Speaker 1: we lecture, and we have standards again for admission two
Speaker 1: D adoptions at a minimum, and you have to have
Speaker 1: Our ethical standards are higher than the state bar imposes
Speaker 1: upon lawyers practicing in California, and we have very rigorous
Speaker 1: continuing education requirements. So you start with that. Then you
Speaker 1: ask the questions that you want to ask, and and
Speaker 1: don't be shy about it. If you only want to
Speaker 1: adopt a Hispanic child, say I only want to adopt
Speaker 1: his spani child, is that problem? If you want to
Speaker 1: be gender specific, ask the questions you feel like asking.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head, Kittie. It's you have to trust
Speaker 1: your gut. If you sit down with the attorney and
Speaker 1: all the diplomas look magnificent and the brochures look lovely,
Speaker 1: and you don't feel comfortable, you need to trust your
Speaker 1: gut with that, because it's it is a partnership vulnerable
Speaker 1: for a long period of time. And if you're gonna
Speaker 1: always worry, Oh my goodness, if I call the attorney,
Speaker 1: he's going to he charges by the hour, and many
Speaker 1: of us don't we charge on a flat fee basis.
Speaker 1: He charges by the hour. It's going to cost me
Speaker 1: money every time I ask a question. Then you're gonna
Speaker 1: feel I don't maybe I shouldn't ask the question, and
Speaker 1: you're depriving yourself as something that maybe you really need
Speaker 1: to have the answer to that. And it's also true
Speaker 1: with regard to the adopted adoption situation. I had a
Speaker 1: client who we presented an absolutely magnificent birth mother too,
Speaker 1: absolutely magnificent, And the client said to me, that's not
Speaker 1: my baby. And I hung up the phone, and I
Speaker 1: had thought to myself, you gotta be kidding me. If
Speaker 1: you went uh and you programmed the perfect birth mother academics,
Speaker 1: physical health, emotional well being, stability, intellectual curiosity, uh, the
Speaker 1: quality of her pregnancy, her do date, her lack of expenses,
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine anyone would turn the child down. Well,
Speaker 1: we had no trouble matching that birth mother with another family. Now, ultimately,
Speaker 1: this client went on to adopt, and they invited my
Speaker 1: wife and me to a party at their home to
Speaker 1: celebrate the arrival of the child. And we walked through
Speaker 1: the door and the wife came out and said to me,
Speaker 1: it's so good you're here. You're like family to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, we wouldn't have a family were enough for you.
Speaker 1: And I turned her and I said, looking back at
Speaker 1: the situation that you turned down, do you feel any
Speaker 1: differently now about that than you did then? And she said, no,
Speaker 1: that was not my child. This child that I have
Speaker 1: here is that it was the child for me. Wow.
Speaker 1: I still when I think of adoption. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's because of movies or something, but you still
Speaker 1: think of orphanages. Did it exist anymore? Really? They don't.
Speaker 1: They don't know. I mean maybe in outside of the US,
Speaker 1: and they exist in the world of Charles Dickens. They
Speaker 1: exist outside of the United States and in the musical Hamilton's.
Speaker 1: But with those with those relatively few exceptions, they don't. Well,
Speaker 1: if you think about it. Vista del Mar, which one
Speaker 1: of your guests used, was originally called the Jewish Orphans Home,
Speaker 1: and when it was first formed back I think it
Speaker 1: was in the nineties. It took in Jewish orphans, but
Speaker 1: we don't have that anymore. Even the adoption agencies really
Speaker 1: are not orphanages like the child is there and you
Speaker 1: can come get a child. It doesn't work that way. Wow, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's good. What are the typical costs? This is
Speaker 1: where I really want to get into, Like, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they vary. Okay, there's the ala carte version versus the
Speaker 1: agency version. But what is in your fourty years experience,
Speaker 1: and obviously money has also changed in the last forty
Speaker 1: years of what things cost at this day and age,
Speaker 1: what is the least amount and what is the most amount.
Speaker 1: I think that what you have to figure realistically is
Speaker 1: the lowest amount is going to be in the vicinity
Speaker 1: of about ten thous dollars. Because if you're here in
Speaker 1: California and you have to do a home study under
Speaker 1: California law, the state mandates a fee of so right there,
Speaker 1: and that's for someone to come in and and study
Speaker 1: your house to make sure that you are right that
Speaker 1: you They have all these things that they look at
Speaker 1: to make sure that your home is going to be
Speaker 1: a safe right for me, but it's it's really it's
Speaker 1: also and perhaps more importantly, to study you because I've
Speaker 1: had clients who have adopted who have shared a studio
Speaker 1: apartment and that's what they've had to raise a child in.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have a certain level of income
Speaker 1: to be able to adopt. You just have to have
Speaker 1: a safe living environment. And for young couples, a studio
Speaker 1: apartment is just fine. Okay. But to answer your question,
Speaker 1: in my office right now, we are quoting people a
Speaker 1: range of eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars to complete for
Speaker 1: adoption for everything except outreach, because we don't know how
Speaker 1: much money we're going to be spending running newspaper ads
Speaker 1: or being on the internet to find adoptable children. When
Speaker 1: you go over the hill and you go into more
Speaker 1: expensive areas like Beverly Hills, for example, or you go
Speaker 1: to the East Coast to places like Philadelphia, the cost
Speaker 1: of adoption goes way up because the attorneys pay higher
Speaker 1: amounts for rent and because the market will bear it.
Speaker 1: So it is not uncommon for people to have adoptions
Speaker 1: which run ten thousand dollars to fifty fifty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: In California, we have laws that govern what can and
Speaker 1: cannot be paid for birth mothers. They have to be
Speaker 1: medical or living related expenses of a birth mother during
Speaker 1: the period of her confinement or her pregnancy, and so
Speaker 1: that brings some control over it. But there are other
Speaker 1: states where you can pay for virtually everything. So when
Speaker 1: we are talking with potential birth parents on behalf of
Speaker 1: adoptive parents, one of the things that we're doing is
Speaker 1: we're asking them to tell us what their financial needs
Speaker 1: are so we can make sure that you don't go
Speaker 1: into Chapter eleven proceedings trying to adopt a child. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm providing you with some resources for places where adopted
Speaker 1: families can get some financing to assist them for with
Speaker 1: the domption. It does, and remarkably so in this present
Speaker 1: environment politically. The one thing that the White House and
Speaker 1: Congress has not disturbed, thank God for it is the
Speaker 1: Adoption Tax Credit, which is a national adoption tax credit,
Speaker 1: and it is over fourteen thousand dollars of acceptable adoption
Speaker 1: expenses which come off of your tax liability dollar for dollar,
Speaker 1: and that is a major relief because if you get
Speaker 1: a birth mother who's due in two or three months,
Speaker 1: she's living at home, she doesn't have a lot of expenses,
Speaker 1: she has health insurance through her parents. Your adoption is
Speaker 1: going to run more in the ten thousand to eighteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollar range, including that home study and any co
Speaker 1: pays for the hospital and things like that. And with
Speaker 1: that tax credit, you could actually do an adoption that
Speaker 1: may not cost you more than four or five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars out of your pocket ultimately. And the last thing
Speaker 1: to say about that is that if you suffer the
Speaker 1: misfortune of having an adoption go south and fail on you,
Speaker 1: that adoption tax credit is available to you as well.
Speaker 1: Oh thank god, well the money, you know, the money
Speaker 1: comes back. But really the place that's irreparably harmed is
Speaker 1: the trust level. You know, you you put your trust
Speaker 1: in the birth parent and you hope they'll follow through,
Speaker 1: and then when they say I've changed my mind, Um,
Speaker 1: you don't know that you'll ever be able to trust
Speaker 1: a woman who says I'll place my child for adoption
Speaker 1: with you again. And you have to sort of pick
Speaker 1: yourself up. And if at least you can regroup in
Speaker 1: the money department, you have a fighting chance to try again.
Speaker 1: Um you just mentioned I mean that's the biggest hurdle, um,
Speaker 1: I think is it's not working out in the end.
Speaker 1: Are there other hurdles that you, like, you know, may
Speaker 1: warn well. I think that. I think it's about I
Speaker 1: think it sounds a lot like yours, a court system,
Speaker 1: your relationship, Like you said, when one person is ruling
Speaker 1: holes and one person's you know, but that when the
Speaker 1: going gets tough or something and people get discouraged, it's
Speaker 1: like you have people around you to pick you up.
Speaker 1: It's something's taking too long, or the birth mother doesn't
Speaker 1: work out and you have to start all over again,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure happens in the middle of the process.
Speaker 1: Can sometimes it happens at the very end. I early
Speaker 1: on in my career had a birth mom who was
Speaker 1: morbidly obese and an adoptive family of a dentist at
Speaker 1: his spouse, and they were a lovely couple, and the
Speaker 1: birth mom was a really good person, she was just
Speaker 1: morbidly obese. In an effort to make sure she got
Speaker 1: the best possible medical care, we hooked her up with
Speaker 1: a doctor who was a professor of obstetrics at a
Speaker 1: major teaching university hospital so that she could get the
Speaker 1: extra level of care for someone with her weight. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: she did not pay any attention to fact when she
Speaker 1: stopped feeling the baby move about three or four weeks
Speaker 1: before the due date, and she didn't report anything to
Speaker 1: the doctor. So when the doctor when the baby was born,
Speaker 1: the baby had insufficient brain development, and the adoptive family
Speaker 1: had to make the choice that they were not going
Speaker 1: to proceed with the adoption because of that. The young
Speaker 1: woman took the baby and and has raised the baby herself.
Speaker 1: But that's that can happen. And you can get birth
Speaker 1: mothers who go to hospitals because they don't have the
Speaker 1: guidance of an attorney to say this is not the
Speaker 1: hospital for you, where the hospital nurses have an agenda,
Speaker 1: and they actually will say to the birth mother, how
Speaker 1: can you do this? How can you place give away
Speaker 1: your baby if you shouldn't be doing that. You have
Speaker 1: a hard time, lots of people have a hard time.
Speaker 1: Suck it up, get over it, and they will talk
Speaker 1: the birth mother out of the placement. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: how do you how did I mean that is? And
Speaker 1: you know what happened. The adopted family is upset. They
Speaker 1: don't go back and notify the director at the hospital
Speaker 1: that this is going on. It is an unreported assault
Speaker 1: on the birth mother. When our daughter's birth mother gave birth,
Speaker 1: we were not told about it until after the baby
Speaker 1: was born. But our attorney, since I didn't handle my
Speaker 1: own adoption, called us and said a nurse came into
Speaker 1: the room and said to your birth mother, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this. And the birth mother said, I will
Speaker 1: give you five seconds to get out of this room
Speaker 1: before I cock you. That talk about it in power.
Speaker 1: So now when I look at my twenty nine year
Speaker 1: old daughter and I see I see some of her
Speaker 1: biological mother in these moments where she isn't going to
Speaker 1: be pushed a wrap. There's no doubt about it. Love it.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Um. Have you worked with birth parents
Speaker 1: who placed their child for adoption? Yes, I never worked
Speaker 1: with both. So I think it's malpractice to say we're
Speaker 1: all striving towards the same goal. Let's have you all
Speaker 1: everyone represent together. I have worked with birth parents and
Speaker 1: they have run the gamut. I have had birth parents
Speaker 1: who have two degrees from universities and speak four languages
Speaker 1: who just found they were pregnant and an inappropriate time.
Speaker 1: I had a high school health teacher who mistook the
Speaker 1: science of pregnancy for being perimenopausal, uh, and discovered when
Speaker 1: she went to her doctor that she said, I have
Speaker 1: this mass and it's developing in my abdomen and I
Speaker 1: think I need surgery. And he said, oh, there will
Speaker 1: be no need. In about six months that mass will
Speaker 1: come out as a baby. And she said, that's impossible. Um,
Speaker 1: what are some of the questions that anyone who's interested
Speaker 1: in adoption to ask themselves before they go down the road?
Speaker 1: You know? We said, like you can tell in their eyes,
Speaker 1: like some times if you guys aren't there yet, or
Speaker 1: I think you have to ask yourselves if you're single,
Speaker 1: Am I ready to make the time commitment and I
Speaker 1: have a game plan thought out? I'm going to bring
Speaker 1: the baby home. I still have a job. Have I
Speaker 1: interviewed pediatricians. Have I talked to people who are single
Speaker 1: about how they manage it? Am I ready to make
Speaker 1: the sacrifices they come with being a parent? Because the
Speaker 1: ability when you are not a parent to say, let's
Speaker 1: go away for the weekend. Let's just you know, have
Speaker 1: the neighbor looking on the dog and we'll go to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, or will fly away. You can't do it,
Speaker 1: and you have to recognize that you can't be the
Speaker 1: center of attention anymore because the child will need your attention.
Speaker 1: I think in marital relations, if your marriage is not
Speaker 1: strong and your relationship with one another is not rock solid,
Speaker 1: bringing a baby in is not going to help it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people feel, oh, baby makes three and that
Speaker 1: will be wonderful, So they really need to look at that.
Speaker 1: And then you need to look at will I be
Speaker 1: able to get past the feeling that I'm adopting a
Speaker 1: child I'm not having my own. Well, I be able
Speaker 1: to deal with that. Some parents can't. For those who
Speaker 1: feel that if it's not genetically mine, I will not
Speaker 1: be able to ever love it the same way, they
Speaker 1: need to come and talk with me about assisted reproduction
Speaker 1: and family formation through surrogacy. That's what's necessary. You want
Speaker 1: to have those discussions ideally before and think those things
Speaker 1: through before the baby is born, and you try your
Speaker 1: best to do it. I know I tried my best
Speaker 1: to do with my wife when we were looking at
Speaker 1: the process of adopting. But I'll share this little story
Speaker 1: with you. Our daughter was born out of state and
Speaker 1: we went up in the morning to pick her up
Speaker 1: at the hospital, and we flew home that night and
Speaker 1: brought her home to our little condominium in Encino, and
Speaker 1: uh the parents, grandparents came over and spend time OUI
Speaker 1: and I and how beautiful she was, and the Godfather
Speaker 1: came over, and the god there came over. And then
Speaker 1: at about nine o'clock at night, my wife and I
Speaker 1: were really exhausted, and they graciously took the hint and left.
Speaker 1: My wife takes Jesse into the room, her into the
Speaker 1: nursery area to change her diaper, and I went to
Speaker 1: the kitchen to grab a glass of water. And it
Speaker 1: hit me as I was walking back towards Jesse's room
Speaker 1: that I was not so certain that I was up
Speaker 1: to this task. And I walked my wife and I
Speaker 1: said to her, ah, I don't know if I can
Speaker 1: do this, and she said to me, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's a little too late now, Suck it up, you know.
Speaker 1: But that she got back to the business of diapering,
Speaker 1: and I got into the business of parenting with her,
Speaker 1: and I realized, You're always going to have that nervousness.
Speaker 1: Every person who brings a newborn in their homehouse. It
Speaker 1: isn't unique to had I definitely had without a doubt,
Speaker 1: and I didn't you know, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: I berthed my son, but I definitely brought him home
Speaker 1: and thought, who is this stranger in my house? And
Speaker 1: what did I do to my life? And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm up for the task either,
Speaker 1: and suck it up, you know, like this was you
Speaker 1: got yourself in and you wanted, you know, to be
Speaker 1: a mom of course now you know, but I feel
Speaker 1: great about the choice. But well you can't when these
Speaker 1: huge life things are do people ever start the process
Speaker 1: and then say to you, you know what, I really
Speaker 1: I'm scared that I'm not going to connect to the
Speaker 1: child because the child is adopted, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: look at the baby's face and they're not going to
Speaker 1: look like me or my partner or whatever. It happens,
Speaker 1: And some absolutely back out of the process. Mercifully it
Speaker 1: usually happens before a match is made. I do not
Speaker 1: think I've ever had a situation. No, I'm fairly certain
Speaker 1: I've never had a situation where after a match a
Speaker 1: couple says we've changed our mind, we don't want to proceed.
Speaker 1: But pre match, oh yes, because part of the problem
Speaker 1: is when you're adopting. You never as an adoptive parent.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not going to speak as an attorney, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna speak as an adoptive parent, which I am. You
Speaker 1: never allow yourself any of the pleasures of the experience
Speaker 1: of a pregnancy. If you can be quite pleasure with pregnancy,
Speaker 1: never allow yourself any of those pleasures going through the process,
Speaker 1: because in the back of your mind is that what
Speaker 1: if she changes her mind? Dan, It's like you can
Speaker 1: only be super cautiously optimistic. You don't dare indulge the
Speaker 1: real big dreaming, and so suddenly it all comes upon you. It.
Speaker 1: People in the supermarkets will turn turn to us. When
Speaker 1: our daughter was little and we used to go to
Speaker 1: the grocery store and bring her with us, and they'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: that baby is so cute. Uh, but she has no
Speaker 1: hair and or she looks this way. How is she
Speaker 1: your child? And we say yes. And for a while
Speaker 1: we used to say we adopted her, and they'd say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: at least you didn't have to go through labor. My
Speaker 1: people say the most ridiculous ship, that is absurd that
Speaker 1: you know what, we didn't have physical labor. I acknowledged
Speaker 1: that we didn't. Instead, we had no real moments of pleasure.
Speaker 1: You had mental and you had mental and emotional pregnancy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you have that window,
Speaker 1: however long. It takes some people two years of pondering
Speaker 1: and dreaming a little bit, but then keeping it at
Speaker 1: bay right, and then you found her baby and you
Speaker 1: have the baby in sight. Now the do data is
Speaker 1: approaching and at the time we adopted, a birth mom
Speaker 1: had six months to change her mind for any reason.
Speaker 1: It didn't even have to be a good reason. So
Speaker 1: we went out of state where we could finalize in
Speaker 1: ten days. In Oregon, we were able to do it
Speaker 1: in ten days, and so we didn't have all that stress.
Speaker 1: But there were good moments in the grocery store too.
Speaker 1: You'd be in the grocery store and someone to come
Speaker 1: and look at Jesse and say, oh, she's so cute.
Speaker 1: How old is she? And my wife would say, oh,
Speaker 1: she's six weeks old, and they'd say unbelievable, or we
Speaker 1: get The Other one, which was always good, was she
Speaker 1: has the most beautiful blue eyes and where does she
Speaker 1: get those eyes? And my wife would say from her mother,
Speaker 1: and they look at my wife who does not have
Speaker 1: blue eyes, and they look at the baby again, they
Speaker 1: didn't know what to say. Hilarious. I love that. Can
Speaker 1: you recommend any helpful resources for those considering it? I
Speaker 1: would just also add that there are sites which I'll
Speaker 1: give you information for about where you can go as
Speaker 1: a resource for good lawyers and good agencies to work with.
Speaker 1: There are also sites that talk about funding and financial
Speaker 1: assistance for people who are looking to adopt. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's about doing your homework
Speaker 1: and making sure that you're working with the right people.
Speaker 1: As I approached the year, in my practice, I'm shifting
Speaker 1: the way that I practice in the field of adoption
Speaker 1: law and now what I'm doing more as I'm sitting
Speaker 1: down with clients who are thinking about adoption and talking
Speaker 1: with them about the concept of adoption and the avenues
Speaker 1: available for adoption, and helping match them up with those resources,
Speaker 1: with the attorneys or the agencies that would best suit
Speaker 1: their personalities, their budget, and their expectations. So it's a
Speaker 1: more of a concierge service that I am offering now
Speaker 1: rather than finding babies for people. Because not every attorney
Speaker 1: is right for every adoptive parent and so that that
Speaker 1: initial matches I think the most important thing. So you
Speaker 1: recommend people may be meeting with a few lawyers or
Speaker 1: absolutely or working with someone like myself for others who
Speaker 1: do this work, who will sit and talk to the
Speaker 1: clients and find out what their look king for and
Speaker 1: what their expectations are, and say, you know, with your
Speaker 1: personalities and what your desires are, these are the people
Speaker 1: I would recommend you interview. These would be the short
Speaker 1: list of one or two. I used to early on
Speaker 1: in my practice. Clients would come in and meet with
Speaker 1: me and we would give them the fee agreements, and
Speaker 1: we had a fairly good amount who signed up with
Speaker 1: me on the spot. I stopped doing that about maybe
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and part of it was because my
Speaker 1: fee agreement was thirteen pages long because it has to
Speaker 1: cover so much material. But also it was because I
Speaker 1: really felt that after a consultation, no matter how enthusiastic
Speaker 1: you are, you need to go home and talk with
Speaker 1: your spouse or your support group or if you're a
Speaker 1: single person, or your family or your friends and make
Speaker 1: sure you feel right. And you're not doing it because
Speaker 1: you're enthusiastic, but you're making a business decision one, Tea.
Speaker 1: That's why you're a good lawyer. That's why you're amazing well,
Speaker 1: because like you have to give people you know you're
Speaker 1: not looking to let's do this right here and now,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work that way. It is such an emotional
Speaker 1: legal thing. But that is exactly the you've hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head. No one wants to talk about
Speaker 1: adoption as a business transaction. They want to talk about
Speaker 1: it as an affair of the heart. But it is
Speaker 1: a business deal first and foremost. You are going to
Speaker 1: be asked to put out some money, and you best
Speaker 1: make sure that you've hired the best people who will
Speaker 1: give you the best bang for your buck and do
Speaker 1: the job that you need done. If not, it's a
Speaker 1: terrible choice. And if it's if if they're enthusiastic about
Speaker 1: their meeting with me and they read the the agreement
Speaker 1: and they talk and they're still enthusiastic, that's a good match.
Speaker 1: Being enthusiastic because I just need to do something. I
Speaker 1: need to sign something right now. I just need to
Speaker 1: get that ball rolling, and then going home and saying
Speaker 1: I wonder if I should have considered something else. I
Speaker 1: wonder if I should have met with just another attory attorney,
Speaker 1: swat some to compare, compare, some comparison, and then of
Speaker 1: course you get people who come by referral. I've been
Speaker 1: very blessed to have people who I've done adoptions for
Speaker 1: who refer their friends and their family and their colleagues.
Speaker 1: And not every person who they refer hires me, not
Speaker 1: every person as someone I can help, but those referrals
Speaker 1: are really what builds the business. You are wonderful. I
Speaker 1: cannot thank you enough for lending us your time and
Speaker 1: your experience. She was so eye opening, and thank you
Speaker 1: for all of your time. Thank you for being on
Speaker 1: Katie's Crib. Thank you guys so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Katie's Crib. In the next episode, my guest is shot
Speaker 1: up freaking rhymes. Okay, you heard it right. She's going
Speaker 1: to share her experiences as a mom and how she
Speaker 1: navigated the adoption process twice. Oh you guys, she has
Speaker 1: so much wisdom to share. Keep your eyes and ears
Speaker 1: open for that one next week. Make sure you're subscribed
Speaker 1: to kate Is Crib so you get that and every
Speaker 1: episode as soon as it's released. You can find Katie's
Speaker 1: Crib on Shawn Lynn dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Okay by watch, I Want you,
Speaker 1: Want You Want You