012: Stacy: Diving Deep Into The Adoption Process As A Single Mom By Choice

Stacy is a return guest who shared her story about conceiving a child with a surrogate and adopting a second child. Today, she tells me about her experience with the adoption process and what she wants other women to know about the “illusion” created by the industry. Stacy’s path to motherhood was an eight-year journey. Through miscarriages, a failed adoption, and a failed surrogacy, Stacy had to keep moving forward with the faith that her child was waiting for her. She walks the listener through the process and is very transparent about the average cost of the various stages.

We also discuss the red flags a potential adoptive parent needs to watch for and the various paths to adoption. There are pros and cons to every path to motherhood and Stacy doesn’t shy away from that. She gives incredible details of her own process, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

If adoption is something you are considering, Stacy story should both caution and encourage you.

Some highlights of today’s conversation:

• Welcome back, Stacy.
• The 8-year path to motherhood and all its ups and downs.
• The red flags adoptive parents should watch.
• How Stacy used Facebook to find her adoption match.
• The 3 major paths of adoption.
• The pros and cons of using an agency.
• The home study process and what it means to the adoption.
• Lessons Stacy learned during her first adoption effort.
• Stacy’s nightmarish first experience with birth parents.
• Why adoption attorneys are a simpler path to adoption but also the most expensive.
• The cost of Stacy’s successful adoption.
• The illusion of security agencies give and what to expect.
• International adoption vs. domestic adoption.
• What does “open adoption” mean?
• Stacy’s final advice to women considering this path to motherhood.

Resources

This modern love episode

Mothertobaby.org an organization giving information about drug and alcohol exposure

Michelle Hughes and Bridge Communications adoption attorneys that help Single moms by choice

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Motherhood Reimagined: When Becoming a Mother Doesn’t Go As Planned: A Memoir by Sarah Kowalski

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Quotes

"Much on the same way, that any child you give birth to that might have a disability, might have an illness, would still be the absolute love of your life and joy of your life, so it is with the adopted baby that might have exposure or might have a disability, they're gonna be the loves of your life." -- Stacy

"When you so desperately

want to be a mom, you overlook so many things that you know better than to overlook." -- Stacy

"If a birth parent is going to change their mind, saying no is not going to be the reason. I learned that the hard way." -- Stacy