The New Look of American Adoptions!

In Their Own Words: John, Melissa and Amelia's Adoption Story

We had such a positive adoption experience. I guess that's easy to say now that everything is over, but the process wasn't totally stress free. The hardest part is that there is always going to be uncertainty, but you have to go into it knowing and accepting it for what it is; there is no guarantee in this life. However, I can tell you not to hesitate, don't waste another day, move forward with pursuing adoption if a baby is what you want. In the end, it was the best decision we ever made.

We met with our birth mom, a 22 year old woman who already had a 2 ½ year old. We got to know her and let her get to know us. This took some time and trust on both parts. We shared a lot. She wanted us there for the birth and wanted me to share the hospital room with her and the baby, which meant the world to me. We did and it was an amazing bonding experience, the emotions were overwhelming. We keep in touch by sending pictures and updates, which is special for everyone.

Keeping Up To Date

Active waiting families should ensure their insurance information is accurate

In addition to making sure your clearances, home study and physicals are current, all active waiting families are also encouraged to make sure their insurance information is accurate and updated as needed.

Medical insurance companies have varying policies regarding the adoption of a child. While some insurance carriers will begin coverage for the child once he/she is born, others will not pick up the care for the child until the adoptive family receives physical custody of the child and the birth parents have signed their consent to adoption. For many adoptive families, this scenario means all medical costs incurred for the birth of the child and the days leading up to receiving physical custody will be out-of-pocket expenses.

Knowing whether your insurance carrier will cover the baby at birth, or after receiving physical custody, is an important item to keep up on. Since you will be responsible for all medical bills not covered by insurance, this item can drastically influence your adoption budget. Although our agency requires each family to check with their insurance company and provide us with this information during the early stages of your adoption journey, please keep in mind that your insurance provider may have since changed their policies regarding coverage of an adopted child. Also, if you have since changed jobs, or your employer has changed medical insurance providers, you must ensure that American Adoptions has your new insurance information. Please contact your Adoptive Family Specialist if you need to update your insurance information.

Questions & Answers With Megan

Megan
Kautio

Hello everyone, my name is Megan Kautio and I am an Adoptive Family Specialist with American Adoptions. I have had many wonderful experiences over time working with both birth parents and adoptive families. I use this weekly column to try and provide continued education and support to our clients based on questions that have been posed. My current role at American Adoptions is to advocate for and support our prospective adoptive families who are involved in our adoption process. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you.

Q. We know there are times that we could be contacted about situations outside our APQ when a birth mother has selected us from the internet or when a birth mother wants to view more profiles and American Adoptions calls to 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. How often are families asked to consider factors outside of their APQ? We tried to be flexible on our APQ, but we feel there are situations we would consider case by case that we would want to know about. How will these matches happen?

A.

Hello, good questions! It is important for you to understand how your APQ directly affects your exposure to potential birth parents, but also since we are not dealing in an exact science, its crucial to understand that your APQ is simply a tool used for better matching and you may be presented situations that fall outside of your APQ preferences. How we decide to contact an adoptive couple if something falls outside their APQ is not an exact science either. We will first show birth mothers only those families who match with her situation perfectly and many times we are able to find a match. This is why it is important to be as flexible as possible on your APQ so you can be shown to as many potential birth mothers as possible and do not limit your showings.

Sometimes we do not have enough families who match a birth mother exactly and she wants to see more family profiles. Sometimes the birth mother picks a family off of our website who is not an exact match for her. These are the instances where we contact families with a potential match outside of their APQ. Adoptive families should always communicate with their Adoptive Family Specialist about flexibility within their APQ so we can determine when to call them with situations for consideration and when not to call them. For instance, if an adoptive family tells their Specialist their match budget is firm, we would not contact them with a match situation that exceeds their match budget whatsoever, but if a family talks with their Specialist about potential flexibility, we will be able to error on calling them with all the details and allowing them to decide if they are able to move forward or not. We have found often times that families want to proceed with situations that are not within their APQ and as high as 50% of matches that happen may have one factor that didn't match up exactly.

You asked how matches happen and when you can turn down a match and when you cannot. I have broken it down into 3 different scenarios that I think cover most of the possibilities and hope this helps.

Scenerio #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 the adoptive family and everything matches your APQ, so 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. When the match is presented to you, it will typically always happen via a telephone call to you from our social worker who is working with the birth mother.

Scenerio #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 fall 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 despite the known factors outside of your APQ, then you cannot back out later for these same items because you have already accepted them verbally even though they do not fit your APQ. With that said, you are still protected should 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 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. Remember, families cannot decline a match for reasons such as birth mother's state of residence, unknown birth father, hair color or weight of birth parents, etc.

Scenerio # 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 to the birth mother. 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 because it's a close match for you or the birth mother is looking for a family with your characteristics. 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 your APQ and be asked if you want this birth mother to view your profile or not. If you agree that you are comfortable with the situation, then your Family Profile will be shown to the birth mother along with other adoptive family profiles. 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 doubt about the factors shared with you and are not sure you want to move forward, then you should opt not to have your profile shown to the birth mother.

If you agree to have your profile shown and she selects your profile and then you decide you are not comfortable with the match even though you stated you initially did want your profile shown to the birth mother, this will not be received favorably and may lead to some sort of action such as being placed inactive. 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 of these families she is viewing are open to her situation and ready to be the baby's 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 more confusion and doubt for the birth mother to face. If you are emailed these situations by your Specialist, view it as a positive even if you are not comfortable with the situation because it means your Specialist is taking time to get your input and consider you for all possible situations. Also, remember in these situations, this is not considered a match until the birth mother selects you.

I hope this helps makes sense of how matches can work and how important your APQ preferences are to getting your profile out there to birth mothers. I hope this also points out how having flexibility and being open with your Specialist about flexibility you have can also be very helpful when it comes to matches. Thanks for your great questions!

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