Hopeful parents-to-be Chet Ritchie and Wes Doolittle of Minneapolis, both 31 and operations managers at US Bank and United Health Care, respectively, said they started to discuss children about six months into their relationship. They’ve finished a year-long application process that costs more than $15,000: they’ve attended pre-adoption classes at Children’s Home Society, completed the required home study, met regularly with the agency’s social worker, and visited with other adoptive families.
The couple, married in Winnipeg a year and a half ago and together for two years prior, is confident they have the means and the desire to parent well and are open to an infant or a sibling group under age 5. “It’s not about saving a child,” says Ritchie. “It’s about ‘This is our family.’ To watch and nurture a human being is a great gift.”
The men are part of small but increasing group of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) parents who are finding adoption more accessible — and closer to home than ever. Adoption experts describe a mini-surge in successful matches of domestic infants and hard-to-place teens with GLBT parents.
Last year, perhaps 10–15 percent of Children’s Home Society’s 100 domestic adoptions were to GLBT couples, says Deb Harter, adoption information coordinator with the St. Paul agency, though the vast majority of its 800 adoptions were completed through the agency’s international programs in countries such as Guatemala, China, India, and Ethiopia.
Gay and lesbian parents have adopted internationally for decades through agencies or private lawyers specializing in adoption, but they’ve usually had to present themselves as single parent applicants.
‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ won’t sell
Reputable agencies such as Lutheran Social Services and Children’s Home Society will not knowingly move a gay or lesbian applicant through the international programs because not only will they be rejected, but to do so could jeopardize entire international placement programs. Both agencies, however, welcome same-sex couples or GLBT individuals to participate in their domestic programs.
“We’re unaware of any countries willing to place children with same-sex couples [through foreign adoption],” says Harter. She understands that these prospective parents want the same thing she does for the children — stable, supportive and loving homes — but she says it’s important to respect other countries’ cultural norms and rules.
“You violate that trust with another country and you could risk [the whole process],” agrees Richard Smith, director of adoption services with Lutheran Social Services. “There is a ton of research that says same-sex couples are fine parents, so we see them as a resource for kids. But we aren’t going to sacrifice the needs of all the kids in China or Russia for the needs of one couple.”
China and Korea are now closed to single-parent adoptions, in part, say adoption specialists, because officials there realized that many “single” parents were, in fact, partnered. Some countries now require single applicants to sign affidavits stating they are heterosexual.
Still, some gay and lesbian applicants will sign such documents fraudulently because for them the end — becoming parents and providing a good home for a child — justifies the means.
But others won’t go back in the closet no matter what the cause. “We were not going to lie about who we are,” said Doolittle. “We aren’t going to start our child’s life off that way.”
Open and open-minded
Today, domestic adoptions in Minnesota are open, with the birth parents, usually the mother, driving the process. Ongoing contact between birth mother and adoptive family is often part of the final agreement.
Birth parents and adoptive parents alike are more open-minded than ever, says Mikki Harris, education and outreach coordinator for domestic adoption with Children’s Home Society. “A lot of couples, particularly our gay and lesbian couples, come in willing to be open to where our birth parents are, willing to accept children of color, from birth families who may have had struggles with drugs and alcohol. They are open to diversity and diversity of experience. People look at adoption as a one-way street — will a birth parent choose us? But it [also] works the other way — will you accept a child from this birth parent?”
More birth parents are willing to choose same-sex couples, especially men, says Harris. “Birth mothers say, ‘If I place with these guys, I will always be the only mother.’”
Justin Newhall, 37, a photographer, and his partner Dave Zucco, 31, an intellectual-property lawyer with Robins Kaplan Miller and Ciresi, are a little farther along than Doolittle and Ritchie; in fact, they were elated when they were selected by a birth mother from the “book” — a kind of catalog of prospective parents that birth mothers use to select adoptive parents for their babies.
Their joy was short lived, however. The couple arranged to meet the pregnant teenager and her mother for breakfast, but when they arrived, the women had to break it to them that the girl had changed her mind about giving up her child after seeing an ultrasound image of the baby.
Newhall said he isn’t sure if he and Zucco can go through that emotional rollercoaster too many more times; he hopes the next match will be a keeper — for them, that is.
Tough-to-place teens
Other couples are finding their keepers by opening their hearts and homes to older children and teens.
Shannon Brumbaugh, 39, development director with an environmental organization and Heather Mathewson, 41, a technology professional, together for 16 years, “felt drawn” to adopting a teen.
“People write [teenagers] off,” said Brumbaugh. Because she had volunteered as a guardian ad litem, or court-appointed guardian, she knew that teenage wards of the state come from tough and traumatic backgrounds. They are not sweet infants or cute toddlers — they’re kids who might talk back, act out, or test parental limits and love. But Brumbaugh hates to imagine that once teens “age out” of foster care, or turn 18 and become legal adults, they will have “no place to call home, nobody to celebrate Christmas with, nobody to celebrate their birthday.”
In Minnesota, 650 children are immediately available for adoption through Minnesota’s Waiting Children; 38 percent are 12–18 years old, the most difficult group to place in adoptive homes. But a five-year federally funded pilot called The Homecoming Project has indeed helped to boost the permanent placement rate in this age group by providing extra support for adoptive parents and teens. Program administrator Michelle Chalmers of the Minnesota Adoption Resources Network says the 35 percent placement rate is “astounding,” and credits two groups — GLBT parents and evangelical Christians — with responding most enthusiastically to the need because they see it as a “social justice” issue.
Last March, Brumbaugh and Mathewson met Robby, now 16, a “sweet” kid with a “good sense of humor” who’s interested in rock climbing, Greek mythology, reading, and movies — and was open to having two moms. On Nov. 30, they finalized Robby’s adoption.
Sure, it’s weird to have someone else in the house after 16 years, said Brumbaugh, but there are perks. “I get to sleep through the night,” she smiled. “I don’t have to change diapers. I get to have intelligent conversations with this teenager.”
There are also financial perks: Brumbaugh notes that the agency home-study fee, which would have cost her and Mathewson $7,000, was waived. Robbie and other adopted teens may retain health care coverage through state-funded medical assistance. Congress recently approved a law waiving parental income on financial aid applications of children adopted as teens.
The Homecoming Project also offers emotional and practical support. Agency and Homecoming Project social workers, Robby’s former foster family, and a support group of adoptive parents have smoothed their transition to parenthood compared to what they’d anticipated.
“I kept waiting for the ‘freak out,’ the panic, for him to really test us. He’s not perfect, but it could be a lot harder,” Brumbaugh said. “When you are adopting a teen, you make the commitment that you are going to adopt this child before you meet,” explains Brumbaugh. “He was already my kid before he moved in.”
Other couples, like Chet Ritchie and Wes Doolittle and Dave Zucco and Justin Newhall, have made that commitment as well, even as they search for the right way to make it happen.
Kris Berggren writes the Teens and Tweens column for Minnesota Parent.
