We signed on with American Adoptions in December 2011. All was going well and we were submitting our Adoptive Parent Questionnaire stuff, editing our profile and waiting for the draft of our video to be sent our way. The holidays had come and gone and we were both back to the grind stone.
I had started a new contract position with the New Mexico Commission for Deaf and Hard of Hearing in January. I was one of the two contract "staff" sign language interpreters. It quickly became routine for some of the staff to take a morning break and all head to "The Bux" (aka Starbucks) as it was only a couple blocks down the road. We all looked forward to and enjoyed this little coffee/chai break from the office that helped kick start our day. Lots of laughter always accompanied these trips.
One February morning we were walking into Starbucks when my phone rang. I recognized the number as one belonging to American Adoptions. Of course I was a little excited and hopeful that this was "the call". Could it be "the call" when it had only been a couple of months? Angie, our adoption coordinator, was on the other line. She asked me if I had a minute to talk (what was I going to say "actually, I am on my way to order my daily addiction so can we talk later!?"?? umm..NO). Angie proceeded to tell me that during the legislative session the NM governor signed and passed a bill. This bill, essentially, tripled our wait time. It was a bill that limited the adoption agencies that worked with New Mexico families. There was no grandfather clause and it was effective immediately and effective for all.
I do not remember a lot of that conversation. I remember my eyes welling up with tears and me trying to maintain my composure, after all I was in public in the middle of a workday morning. It was hard. It hurt. I didn't understand what was happening or what the reasoning for this law was. It made no sense. There are hardly any adoption agencies here in NM and the ONE that I know of doesn't have very many domestic newborn placements but rather older children and international placements. I could not wrap my head around this law and why it was voted in favor of, unanimously, and signed as an emergency bill.
What did this mean for us? Should we just throw in the towel and give up? We JUST wrote a huge check and had invested a lot of time in getting started with a new agency, one that had promise. was this all for not? Are we not supposed to be parents? Is this never going to happen? I didn't get it, I couldn't even begin to understand and process what we were going to do at this point.
When I got back to the office I called Rich. We said we would talk about it when we got home. I started trying to look for this bill and try to find any kind of reasoning or understanding and why it was such an emergency to pass it without anyone knowing anything about it. I couldn't find anything. Later, through a co-worker who knew someone at the Children Youth and Families Department, we received a copy of the bill. It still didn't make sense.
After speaking with Rich about it. We decided that we would keep plugging on. That we had some confidence in American Adoptions and felt good about working with them. After a little more talking about the situation and what it could possibly mean for us, I became angry. Angry at the NM government but even more angry at Heart to Heart Adoptions. American Adoptions called us IMMEDIATELY. They explained everything to us, even if I wasn't capable of hearing and processing all that they told me. The explained the bill as they understood it and how it would impact our family. They called us within just a few days of the bill being signed. American Adoptions even had their lawyers looking into it and possibly suing the state of NM. Heart to Heart, who at the time we were still active with and had not told them to take a hike yet, NEVER communicated with us about this bill. Not an email, phone call, form letter, pigeon carrier, nada, nothing, not a single word. I became angry that they were supposedly working with/for us and helping us start our family and yet they made no attempt in knowing about new laws in the states of their adoptive parents and the impact these laws may have. How is that possible?
It took some time, mainly because I can be rather stubborn, before I finally contacted Heart to Heart. One thing that led to me kicking them to the curb was that, not only had they only asked to show our profile 1 time in 6+ months, but I received an email that was (I believe) an internal email but they clicked on the wrong "Michelle" in their address book. It was an email they received from a prospective adoptive parent inquiring about an adoption situation. The email from the social worker, again meant for another Heart to Heart staff member, said "Really? They are the ones that said they didn’t want baby to be too tan! " That statement in and of itself I was offended by and then the fact that they sent it to me, I am sure by accident, and never tried to retract it or say "please disregard/we are sorry we sent that to you.." SOMETHING would have been nice but nope. I don't want an agency like that working for me! When I contacted them about us no longer desiring to work with them, and that we had decided to work with a different agency, I received an email response back that said "Got it. Thanks". That's it. No "I'm sorry to hear this" or "I'm sorry you feel that way" etc. I explained in the email the frustrations we felt about the lack of communication and our profile not being shown etc. and the only response was "got it. thanks". Hmm. Made me feel like our decision to change agencies really was the best decision and grew my faith in American Adoptions even more.
Despite the new law passed, American Adoptions started contacting us in March asking if they could show our profile to some birth mothers. That made me feel even better about our decision and started to ease my doubts about us ever being able to adopt and bring home a little one.
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