Tough Questions Answered : Support Groups Help in Easing Adoptions

Leslie Satz, an expectant mother, says she is six months overdue.

After a thorough physical examination, months of extensive interviews and paper work, she remains without a child, the crib in the next room remains empty.

Satz, 37, says her condition is not uncommon. She is an adoptive mother.

Her second child, a boy born in India Feb. 3, so far is only a name in an airmail letter from a doctor in that country.

“You will be happy to see him,” the letter said. “He is doing well, gaining weight . . . “

“It has been a long and emotional ordeal,” Satz said. “Adoption is by far more difficult than childbirth. At times, I have become very angry and very frightened.”

Satz is also a single adoptive parent, which according to San Diego county adoption officials, eliminates her chances of adopting a healthy, Caucasian infant from the San Diego County Department of Social Services.

Satz, a nurse practitioner, said that after an initial attempt to adopt from the county in 1980, she realized that as an unmarried person, her only chance of adopting a healthy infant would be through an international adoption agency.

After two more years of paper work, evaluations by social workers and attorney’s fees, she was finally able to board a flight to India to bring home Maya, her then-9-month-old daughter.

Adoption held different sorts of difficulties for Laura Hageman and Tom Bond, a San Diego professional couple.

“Our first attempt was to adopt privately here,” Hageman said. “But the agencies turned us down because of my age. I was 38.”

“One factor can disqualify a couple, and if you’re over 35, you’re disqualified,” she said. “But there is a trend of older couples wanting to adopt because we have waited until our 30s to have families, and infertility is more common among women in their 30s.”

Under county guidelines, couples under the age of 35, unable to conceive, are given top priority for adoptions.

Hageman, who works as a software engineer, said that she and her husband spent $7,000 in attorney fees to arrange for a private adoption several years ago. After the baby was born, the mother changed her mind and kept the baby.

“We had no recourse and it was extremely frustrating,” Hageman said.

Hageman and Bond have since adopted a son and a daughter from Mexico.

Both adoptive families are now members of quietly growing support groups designed to help guide parents through all the difficult stages of adoption.

OURS (Organization for a United Response), a network of 60 families started four years ago, has been a resource of emotional support and practical advice, Satz said.

She recalls a young woman who attended meetings and came to discover that she was not ready to adopt. Others, discouraged by the paper work, have been encouraged to go on.

Feelings are shared in quarterly meetings. Tears are shed. Answers are offered. Parents who have been successful with a certain agency make referrals. Problems and fears of child rearing are also addressed.

“Some of the issues involved, such as having children that do not look like you, are not issues that you can discuss with just anybody,” Hageman said. “It is also important that the children are aware that there are (other) families like theirs.”

Another group, PACK (Parents Adopting Challenging Kids), which consists solely of mothers who meet monthly, is designed to meet the needs of those adopting older children or children with disabilities.

Pam Copeland, 31, who, with her husband Len, has adopted four children, two of them handicapped, said community support has allowed her to become a better mother.

“It (the group) is a shoulder for each other to cry on,” Copeland said. “They were my support.”

For the first time next month, the two groups will be openly recruiting prospective parents for the county’s estimated 1,700 children currently in foster homes. Calling the May 4 meeting the San Diego Adoption Forum, members of the two groups plan to give interested visitors information on all the ups and downs of the adoption process. The forum will be held at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church at 3502 Clairemont Drive in San Diego.

Workshops at the forum will range from “Is Adoption for Me?” to “Multicultural Families,” to “Routes to Adoption.”

“Adoption is definitely the best thing I have ever done,” Copeland said. “I keep saying four is enough but I don’t know. It has definitely fulfilled me as a mother.”