July 23, 2006

Situations Outside Our APQ

Hey Megan, quick question. You recently told us that we could be contacted about situations outside our APQ when a birth mother has already selected us or when you may want to show our profile and get our approval to do so. Our question is: Can we decline a match for these situations if we are not comfortable with the information? We want to make sure we understand and don't do anything wrong or anything that would be looked upon unfavorably. Thanks for talking with us the other day. We are so excited to be active!

Hello, good questions! You are actually speaking of two different scenarios that can happen. To make it as easy as possible, I am going to break down all the different scenarios that could happen when a Birth Parent Specialist contacts you. If you follow these guidelines, then nothing you do will be construed as wrong or unfavorable. We try to follow every prospective adoptive family's APQ as closely as possible, but there are times when we have situations come up for you that are not within your APQ. In general, we will error on the side of contacting you to present the situation because we have found often times that families want to proceed with situations that are not within their APQ. We don't want to make decisions for you so try to be as clear with your Adoption Specialist about things you might be open to even if they are not not listed in your APQ. OK, now to explain the different scenarios for you.

1. A Birth Parent Specialist contacts you to let you know that you have been selected by a birth mother and she wants to present the match to you. Everything for this match is within your APQ. In this scenario, the birth mother has already selected you to be her family and everything matches up, this is an automatic match and you must move forward with this match given the information we have at present. Remember that you are always protected should something come up later in the match or at delivery that was not known prior and not within your APQ or comfort level. Should this happen you can remove yourself from the match at that time. This interaction (match call is what we term it) will typically always happen via a telephone call to you.

2. A Birth Parent Specialist contacts you to let you know that you have been selected by a birth mother and she wants to present the match to you. However, in this situation it is determined that there are one or more factors that are not within your APQ. The Specialist will explain what factors lie outside of your APQ (ex: cost, race, degree of contact with birthparent etc.) and give you the option to move forward with the match or decline the match.

If you make a decision to move forward with the match, then you cannot back out later for these reasons because you have already accepted them verbally even though they do not fit your APQ. With that said, you are still protected should some new information come up later in the match or at time of delivery that was not known prior and you can remove yourself from the match based only on the new information.

If you make the decision to decline the match because you are not comfortable with the factors that are outside your APQ, you will not be punished in any way or looked unfavorably upon. It is within your right to not move forward with the match when it is presented if it doesn't fit within your APQ.

3. A Birth Parent Specialist or your Adoptive Family Specialist contacts you about a situation we are working on to see if you would be interested in having your profile shown. This usually entails a situation where there is something a little out of the ordinary or outside of your APQ but we want to consider you for the situation. This contact can come via email and/or telephone call. If you are contacted about this type of situation, you will be given the information that does not match up with you and be asked if you are comfortable with it. If you agree that you are comfortable with the situation, then your Family Profile will be shown to the birth mother. If the Birth mother selects your profile, then it becomes a match because you have already agreed to the factors presented to you. If you have any doubt about the factors shown to you, then you should opt not to have your profile shown to the birth mother because if you agree to have your profile shown and she selects you and then you decide you are not comfortable, this will not be received favorably and may lead to some sort of action such as being placed inactive etc. The reason that we have to take this so seriously is because once the Birth Parent Specialist gathers profiles to show to the birth mother she tells the birthmother that all families she is viewing are open to her situation and ready to be her family. Then, if the Birth Parent Specialist has to go back and tell her the family she chose is not going to move forward, it breaks down trust, makes the birth mother feel bad about her situation and ultimately can lead to her parenting instead of choosing adoption so it can cost the opportunity for another family who was very open to the situation the right to adopt this baby.

I hope this makes sense and is not too confusing. Certainly if you ever find yourself in these situations, it is best to ask the Specialist who is presenting everything to you what it means and/or speak with your Adoption Specialist about it before doing anything.

Megan