Adoption 101 w/ Dan Bucatinsky & David Baum (REBROADCAST)

James Novak. I'm just this scene of this little show called Scandal, and in addition to being an actor, Dan is a producer, a writer, and an author of the book called Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? After Dan, I talked to an adoption attorney, David Boum. David has been practicing adoption law for over thirty five years, and as an adoptive parent himself, he breaks down everything we need to know about the adoption process. So let's get started.

Sitting with me on my couch right now is literally one of my favorite fucking people on the planet by far. We are birthday twins. We are birthday twins. We met at Scandal, and it was like we had known each other since the beginning of time. Ladies and Gentlemen, the one, the only, Dan Buk and we've never ever, ever acted together on the screen in all those years. We never got that true one scene, not one scene when we're in together, when you came back in a flashback, even

in an alternative reality. That's because Quinn just didn't exist. Gwin didn't exists in the in the world that I was in the bedroom the entire time, naked with Jeff Perry for the most part, like maybe up your but I had a couple of true I don't even get me started on that, but yeah, yeah, for the most part. Now, I worked with Tony and Bellamine and Josh and Carrie had ever Darby Folly shot me. So I've worked with everybody but you, Darby and Guillarmo actually and nobody on

the open nobody. Yeah. Well, your work on Scandal is literally like the you and Jeff Perry scene is literally like probably one of my top three Scandal scenes of all time. Thank you for saying that you're acting is incredible and referring to my body that too, that too. Dan Bugatinski is a father of two adopted children correct and also wrote a genius book about the experience, Does Just Baby Make Me Look Straight? Which is a freaking

amazing title. So, um, I don't know as available on audiobook? Yes, it's hilarious. Do you do the audio? Wow? I actually need to download that. How did you and Don, your incredible husband, who I'm also such a fan of, How did you guys come to the decision to adopt kids? Well, you know, we we decided to become parents first, and when we did, obviously for two guys that you have

so few options, it's either surrogacy or adoption. Um. And you know, Don had a really strong feeling about not wanting to not wanting to go through this surrogacy for a bunch of different reasons. I didn't have as strong a feeling about wanting that or not wanting that, um. But he he had this feeling about not wanting there to be some kind of even if it, as it

turns out, you know, these things really fade away. But the feeling at the time had to do with one person being biologically tied to that child and one of them not and how that would be different. And now, of course both of us have no DNA in common with our children and cannot imagine loving them more than we do without smothering them to death. That's the only type of thingle you think, like, how is this gonna work?

And will I feel uncomfortable? And you're the sperm and I'm not the s and I think it had a lot of exactly. I think it was this fantasy of like when I look in the eyes of my children and I see you in there, where will I be? Will I disappear? So there's and that's a very completely

normal and completely understandable feeling. There was this other aspect of it, which was we were unbelievably aware he has a niece and a nephew who are adopted, And there was a huge awareness of the number of children currently and babies currently born every day and who are currently in the foster system. And it was a desire to try to make a home for what is already what was already on our planet, as opposed to creating new

life given the state of the planet that we're in. Um, so you said you already knew adoptive So Don's siblings was also an adoptive parents That was probably and helpful to have as an inspiration or it was certainly in that in the knowledge of that it was it was around us. Did you use a public or private agency? Independent? Opener closed, like, tell me the specifics of your adoption, and there are a lot of different ways of doing it.

And the bottom line is adoption is a wonderful thing, but you have to do a version of it that works for your family. You cannot judge yourself based I think, based on the choices that you want to make. You have to do make choices that will work for you as a as a family. And um we worked with a private lawyer UM in Los Angeles who we had been referred to by many people who had used him.

And we used a public, you know, nonprofit social services agency called called Vista del Mar, which I'm a huge I'm on the board of now, but i wasn't at

the time. And in conjunction, the two things in conjunction with each other was like a perfect mix because the resources we got from the family services agency, which was a social work at it to us a parenting class that we joined, which is a hilarious story and it was so funny because all right, well and that alongside with someone who you're paying to basically do the outreach to try to match you with a birth mom. Those

two things in concert with each other. And at California birth which is a state that allows two men to adopt jointly at the same time, because in other states one parent has to adopt and then a year later the other one can legally be put on. But we for many reasons, we wanted the adoption and we wanted the birth to happen in Los Angeles, and this was

a lawyer that was going to facilitate that. But this is Delmar was an amazing organization that allowed not only social services and a social worker to talk to us, but gave that birth mom a resource that she normally

would never have. And I can't talk more highly about the experience of adopting when you're doing open adoption where you're gonna meet a birth mom before the baby's born, right, So just explain quickly like open adoption is like you're involved with them, you know the mom you are chosen, and then afterwards you can even stay open as far as communication. It's completely it is a decision you all make together as as a team, and open adoption is one and it's called open because you know who the

birth mother is, she knows who you are. You have an open line of communication, and the decision to place that child with you is as decision made by her, whereas many people have this idea of adoption of walking into an orphanage and pointing to the baby that you want and being and carrying it away, which is a very hap it's not how it happened. And so a

closed adoption would be the files are closed. The files are closed, like you're told your baby is born and it's all through like legal or birth mother does not really want any more ties for emotional reasons. She's like, I'm going to place this child. I don't want them to know I want I don't want them to contact me. This is a decision I want to make. I know they're going to be in better hands, but I don't want to be contacted. And that's just a personal, emotional decision.

And so close adoption is one where you are given access to a new baby and that information is sealed. So take me through the process of your adoption, Like, um, how long was it? What was the process? Like you I'm sure going to fill out the most paperwork ever, like we had to fill out. I mean, here's the most ironic thing, which is when you're not when you have a child biologically, you don't need to be fingerprinted, you don't need a background check, No one does a

home study. You could literally be living in a nest with a giant ostrich and no access to child proofing at all anywhere, and no outlets to even put child proofing on in your giant kness. You're allowed to do so, and you're allowed to do so because you you adopt

the child. You are literally three visits from social workers, absolute checking to make sure and then background checks, fingerprintings, and they know yes, but that's they don't really base adoption on that as much as well your ability to care for the child for sure. But they they really screen you, you really and you start to think about it and you think, well, I think every parent and is it like boy or girl or no. But but you do make decisions. You make decisions where you're like,

all right, we're both white men. It's gonna be enough. This is the way we thought it will be a challenge enough for this child to grow up without a mom and with two dads. That on top of that, for them to not look like either one of us and to feel like an outside or even in how they look or feel or what the culture that they grew up in or whatever their ethnic ties are, wasn't something that we were comfortable with, and we felt like

to stack the deck in their favor. We would make the only obstacle for them as to live with the idea that they are coming from the same set up, same sex couple. Now, I have family from Argentina and I speak Spanish, and so I was really open to, you know, raising a Latin American kid. We tried everything to be able to adopt a Latin American kid, and then it was it's very closed for religious reason reasons. The gay community is not open. It's very rare for

a Latin American so far birth mother to choose. To guys, what's the most common is sort of what happened to us, which is a single mom, take me to that process. What happened? Yeah, Basically, you know, when you talk to a lawyer, what most of the resources that you give to a lawyer in addition to his fee, is he spends money for outreach to allow people in this country to know if they are pregnant and do not want to carry the baby, but they don't want to choose termination,

that there's another way. And so he you know, advertises in yellow pages and line they make no. This is an attorney that makes it very very easy for someone to try to be able to make that choice. And what he does is he takes all the people on his list, all the prospective parents, straight, gay, single marriage, all the types, and he will give each birth mother

three choices. And what we have to present is a birth mother letter, just one letter is which it's a brochure, so a whole packet to the life that just so you know, this was fifteen years ago. So know that now most of the stuff is digital, although there are there are people who still to the stay feel like you you know, you make no better impression than if

then real photographs. That to just some you know, digital is so easy and so quick, and so that in a way anything to give, anything, to give yourself up to FedEx them and envelope with a letter that makes reference to what your phone call with them was about.

Believe it, you get you get trained in all of this, You get told to this whole process taking guys from like the conversations to having adopting a child to win she I mean when she was we had one false alarm, which is all detailed in my book, not to make people go out and get it, but there's a very detailed story about the first birth mother we were involved with and what and how that went down a path that didn't feel comfortable for us, so we ended it.

And then on our birthday September, the year before my daughter was born, so two thousand four, we got a phone call from a birth mom and it was set up by the lawyer. He's like, she's going to call you at this time, and she did, and we were both on different extensions and we had a long conversation. And then from that September, by March, she was already three months pregnant. By by March, we were in the

delivery room with her. So she picked us pretty quickly, and she told us that she chose us because she was a fan of the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. So to this day, every time I run into David Collins, who created that show, I'm like, he goes, I know, I know you have me to thank for your family, because I say to him every time, but I always get tiery when I see him. Wow. What

was in your brochure? We have ours was um, let's see, it was like six pages, and we showed lots of photographs us with our dogs, us traveling, us at home. We described what each of us liked to do. We exaggerated. Don may have lied about how much she exercises or goes outside. Maybe at the time we did. I may have oversold how much tennis I play, um, but for all small things. And neither one of us are very religious,

but both of us consider ourselves fairly spiritual people. So we mentioned that because we certainly didn't want to close ourselves off to someone who was looking for a religious family, except that we were clearly not a very religious family, So if that's what you're looking for, it wasn't going to be us. So we we tried to give a full picture of who we were as a couple and what kind end of home we were hoping to create for a family and UM. And the other thing we did,

which was something that had been told to us. It's is really important is you take copious notes when you're on the phone with the birth mom, and you ask them as many questions as possible about them and their interests. One of the things you don't want to do is make someone feel like you hold the key to our future as parents. So just tell me what you've been eating, tell me how much you smoke, tell me if you drank, tell me, like if they feel like they're on trial.

It's not a great way to start that relationship. And again, and the truth is that baby isn't yours until it's in your arms and a waiver has been signed. So the tense part of it, you can't tell her or judge her. However, the pregnancy you can have as many thoughts as you want during the process. Our birth mom smoked a back a day the whole time, and she kept promising me that she would quit the minute the baby was born. And she didn't seem to understand that

I didn't want her to quit for her sake. I want her to quit for my baby's sake. Did an intensive screening process of them, of the when you're filling out all the paperwork that you are one of these couple that is going to be shouted from the rooftop. As I said, before, you have to do a bunch of Uh, you have to do screening, visit steer house, Uh, fingerprinting and then fingerprints. Oh yeah, I wasn't kidding a

background check. You can't sign up and have a you know, I mean maybe you can get a lawyer to help you find a baby, but not just makes sense. You don't want something to be like And also just also to spell another myth is that this this is not baby buying. That's illegal in this entire country. You never pay a fee to a birth mom to give you

a baby. You pay her medical expenses and they and what usually happens is you put money in escrow with the attorney and the birth mom has to submit her bills to the attorney and they get paid out of that escrow account. But they have to be pregnancy related. And why that is it's very very smart because if at any point in the future she could prove to a judge that there had been money exchanged just for the exchange of the baby, she could claim that she

was coerced. So everything has to be documented. And it's it really is this unbelievably touching moment when you're chosen by someone else to be entrusted to become the parent of their of their unborn baby, and it's a decision that they don't really actually sign off on until after the baby has been born. So you're really very tense until until that's finished. Because you hear these stories about moms saying not signing or your stories, and they don't

they change their mind, say I changed my mind. It is one of the list. So how did you prepare to welcome Eliza? Like emotionally psychologically, how did you? I mean it sounds like you were like cautiously optimistic because you were in the similar ways that any conventional couple that where the mom is expecting a baby is you know, you know your you know your first three months, or you don't want to tell anybody because you're like, what

if something happens, so you don't tell anybody. Well, in many ways, we we have that for nine months, although we found out a three months, so we had that for six months. There were so many ways where we were like, why are we going to paint an entire room and get ourselves this ready and make the birth mom feel like she really the only reason we value her or care about her is because of this thing.

She's going to give us. We downplay it because, as I said in my book and I say all the time, this is one of those rare transactions where the happiest day of your life quite possibly could be the saddest day in a in a woman's life, and you can't not look at that, you can't not be sensitive to that.

It's like this very strange passing over of caring for this woman, this young she was in our birth mom was nineteen at the time, so we have a very paternal relationship towards her, and you're caring for her and wanting her to emotionally trust you. You take me through and you got the call that like she was in labor.

And as I said before, one of the reasons we wanted to have this baby in California is because it's California is a state where the fact that the baby is born in a hospital in l a allowed both of us to be in the delivery room and allowed us both to be on the birth certificate. When when when, which was an amazing thing for us. So you were fair when she came out, Yes, as was my friend Mary. Feel it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I mean, to

be in that room and to have that baby. And I was petrified by the way you were going to faith at the site up to a day before, like this is don, Don is so not He didn't look. He didn't did he say to section hen And there's a mirror of the ceiling. Oh my god, you cannot look up. So he just kept his eyes down. I cut the umbilical quarter or he would have passed out. And and as soon as she was I think, was

it an appointment, like she had a state scheduled. Yes, except that with on my first with Eliza, what happens is in the last three weeks of the pregnancy, the birth mom comes to Los Angeles at least this is the way we did it, and she stays in l A. We put her up somewhere and she was here with her two twins who are a year and a half old. And we were very much involved in taking care of her and her one and a half year old twins in preparation for he gave birth. So every visit to

the O b g y N we did together. Um, every cigarette break in between those O b g y N segments, we were out there with her. We did together, nothing like being on the streets of Beverly Hills with a nine month pregnant woman chugging up just ripping smokes and looks on the on the on the faces of the people walking by were fascinating and she loved every minute. Um. But what happened was we were going to the grove.

I was spending the morning with the twins and her, and we went to the grove and we had a smoothie and she after the smoothie, she absolutely sore. To me, she was going into labor. She was like having unbelievable contractions, or so she thought. And so it was like, oh my god, code red and I threw her in the car and I was like driving to the hospital and um, it's happening. It's happening. And we were looking for someone to watch her twins while we were going to the hospital.

Like we were not prepared because the plan was a scheduled sea for a week later from that, her mother had a ticket to come to Los Angeles to meet us. That she would have her mom and also help with her because it's emotional, and she would fly and she would stay for a week and then fly back to Wisconsin with her, and all that was in the planned.

We did not plan for one week early. And so there we were in the hospital and we called her O B G y N and he was like, we have to wait for that smoothie to pass through her, so we can't do this until tonight. But you know and I don't. But we out came a laza a week early, and we were not prepared for that, and I was in the middle of shooting a pilot and

so I had to take a couple of days. Like you had said, was the nursery So like you guys weren't really prepared at home because they were being cautiously optimistic because and the nursery wasn't painted, There wasn't like cribs. And she showed up for the last month. She was like, are you guys insane? Do you guys not understand what you need to do? You have a baby coming, where's the crib? How come you even painted the baby's room?

And we realized that it would help her to know that you have done some preparation, so very quickly with her we kind of got that baby's room ready enough. But we were doing to protect ourselves from potential, like we just didn't want to go too far. And everybody the first child she gave up for adoption or was their siblings placed for adoption, we don't say gave up anymore? Thank you? Very true that that's something that not that, but it's not a very it's negative. It's a negative.

We get yeah, everyone says that, but really making make an adoption plan is what people prefer. People say, but placed made an adoption choice. So those are all the PC ways of saying it, and it's way better. But the gave up thing put stigma on the birth mom and again I said it for years ago, and also the kid, like my mom gave me up for adopt it's just like not said anymore. So it's a good

thing to know even that people are using that terminology. Now, did you ever feel at the beginning like oh shit, what did we do? Yes? I felt that way. So that's similar to when I BIRB Like I was like, I was like, what have we done? Done? In shock? Because I feel like, I mean, this is a no district. I just feel like you're sort of more maternal is definitely mommy, like, you're more maternal you're the crier. You're

like the You're very like emotionally available. Your milk coms in a little bit like his Di Cooke shows up, but my milk comes in for sure. In fact, I'm just talking about it. I feel like a little bit, but no, I'm definitely more maternal. I was definitely more panicked up until like, I think we've made a big mistake, like this is not gonna we can't do this, we

absolutely can't do this. And then the minute allizes was put in my arms, I was like, oh my god, you and and lucky for me, but sadly for him. Don was very much in taking care of birth mom mode for the next forty eight hours after the baby was born, very aware that he did not want her to feel like, okay, thanks by when she signs that waiver, are you for the release? Like that that makes the whole thing final, like the moment of the actual signing.

The one thing that we talked to a social worker about with her, which was really smart, was something that not everyone does. But it's called an entrustment ceremony, and you have to you have to just be the kind of person that you have to ask the birth mom, if that's something that they would like, and it has to be something that you would And we talked to her about what would you like to do in an entrustment ceremony, and she talked about candles, and she talked

about handing the baby too. Oh, Danny, I love you. Sorry, I haven't put about this, I haven't thought about this and so long. Oh my god. Okay, she held in the hospital. We were still in the hospital, and I think a few other people were there, and we stood there. Dan is crying. We're having an emotional moment. My kid is just screaming in the other room as you can hear him. And obviously it's so much duty right now.

Is we're having a very emotional experience here. I had not thought about so long, and that maybe an entrustment ceremony. And she paid together and she in her own way, she wanted each of us to hold the candle, and then each of us to hold Eliza. And it was a moment where she was saying, I want this is my moment to hand the baby over to you guys. And we did that in the hospital and then Eliza pooped. We'll never forget it. We all joke about it now,

let loose. Um. I don't remember doing one for Jonah because the circumstances were different. Explain, this is your second, this is biological brother. Correct. So two years later, our birth mom got pregnant again, and we had already told our adoption lawyer that we wanted to maybe have a

second and we talked about that a lot. That both Don and I had siblings, Both of us had sisters and that were very close to us, and we felt that whether or not, even though we felt very complete as a threesome with our baby, we felt like, for the good of our kid, they will really benefit from having a sibling. And oh my god, is that not true of my two kids? I just can't imagine them not.

I can not imagine them without each other. Like it's now, it's Unfathomi, does Jonah have the same mom and dad? As it turns out? So turns out. So you got a call from your adoption agent. We called the lawyers and we're like, we want, we want to be put on the list. And he said, just so you know, it's a tough market. It was sort of like what my talent agent was telling me at the same time. It's gonna be tough to get a job, right now,

is it? You mean it's tougher to get another Wait, if you've adopted one child, does that better or lesson your chances of getting another one? You're lower on the list. A lot of birth moms like to feel like there's two things that we learned about birth moms. One thing to learn about birth moms is that many times gay gay mail couples are second in demand after straight couples. Many times, because a single birth mom likes to feel

forever like you was the only mother. It is harder for some, not all, but the number of moms to want to see another woman. But that's not for all. Still, the number one is like a conventional straight couple, but second is a gay couple because it's a very common phenomenon. It certainly was true with us, so then she but some dr parents would be like, no, I want my

kid to feel specially only one and not compete. And many wants to be the one to give the first child to a family that hasn't had a baby, so too. So he tells you it's going to take longer. But around that time we were on the list and we were getting zero calls like not even prospective. How old was Eliza at this point too? And we Eliza had a heart issue that had to be fixed, so we had a reparation to a heart surgery and she had

a heart surgery earlier in that year. It was a tough two thousand and six seven where it was an incredibly difficult year. Again, I talked a lot in detail about that and my god, it's fine, Thank God, she's fine. It was tough to go through. My father was terminally ill at the same time, and we knew that we were having another child, Like it was a very intense tells us. And that's how we got through it now

that I think about it. But right around that time, we had heard that our birth mom was pregnant, and both Done and I looked at each other were like, it's only a matter of weeks before we get a call we thought she did and those like once the entrustment, yes, we we skipped this, let's go back to that. In

the first year. We did another thing, which is the reason why we worked with an agency like like this to del Mar Family Services is one of the things they help you with is what's called if it's called a something agreement I can't remember. Let's let's say it's called the visitation agreement. It's not really called that, it's it's contact agreement, and it has to do with what

you're agreeing to. It's not legally binding, but it is an agreement made amongst the three of you as to what your first choice would be as to how much contact you're going to have with that child after the baby is born, and before the baby is born, yes, and the birth mom goes in in private and makes a draft of what she wants, and then we separately make a draft of what we want, and we see

how close they are. Afterwards, we don't want to do it in They never want them done in front of each because you don't want to impact each other, and you compromise, and we came up with an agreement that had to do with a once a year visit until Eliza was three, and then after that not until the child was old enough to ask for another one. So

it could have been until ted. So once a year she we flew her to Los Angeles and we spend time together, and again there wasn't a lot of bonding with there was never really it was hard because it was always a concern just not that that not that anything would happen. There was no legal risk, but it just was a very stressful time. It's emotional and stressful, and it's you're reminded of all of it and and and it's a wonderful thing, and it's also kind of a sign thing. So it was very hard and we

had three of those visits. Ironically, by the third visit, there was a second pregnancy happening and we were going to adopt the brother, so, but she was married to someone at the time, and so that man had to also sign away his rights as the presumed father. There is something called an alleged father, and there's something called the presumed father. The presumed father is anyone married to the birth mother. Alleged father is anyone else who could

potentially be the father. And in a legal adoption, you need to get assigned release from the presumed father and any alleged father's So, as it turns out, so the presumed father was this guy was her husband, and he was there with us, and they made the choice together, and it was a little bit more complicated because it was more people involved. We presumed right through the time that they left Los Angeles that her husband was the father. But deep in our souls knew we did not feel

because that was not Eliza's dad. That was it was So did you do like a fraternity test? So when they had left, I DNA tested the kids and found out that they were full siblings. WHOA. So when you when Jonah was born, you didn't know that he and Eliza had the same thought. It was a feeling we had, but but it wasn't we did not. Now take me through how you have discussed adoption with Eliza and Jonah. I love this, like now that they're old enough to

really they understand. I mean they're thirteen and ten. And how was it the same agreement that she came out once a year for the first three years of Jada's life we went to we did two years. Is that way Eliza would be five and Jonah would be three, So we went we went two more years in that in that contact agreement and m and then after that we didn't we there were no visits after unless the kids ask for them. Is when you are going to

entertain the idea? Correct? And no at ten Eliza's not thirteen. At ten Eliza did ask about when she was ever going to see her birth mom again, and we were always taught. We always always always told the story. I'm just remembering this now. We always, even before she could speak, we would tell the story of how um of how she came to be you and don like agree what that was or did you come up with it kind of then and there and it felt right, or we told the story and I'm I'm embarrassed to say now

that I can't remember the way we told it. We told like a little fairy tale that there were two guys who know it was too. Poppy and Daddy love and we really really love Dan is daddy and is Poppy. I know this because I hang out at your house. That is that's that's Poppy and Daddy and we love each other very very, very very much. But there's only one thing in the world that we didn't have. It. We wanted more than anything in the world than that was a little baby guy. And then we met someone

and wed. We told the story of how she loved her baby so much, but but and we wanted to find the perfect perfect She knew that this baby was meant for these two guys, and she chose them, and it really is true. It's a decision made by three people. It's not one made by one or by two, you know. And we would tell the story of how she came to be, and we told that over and over and over and over and over again, and we were very open about the adoption, but didn't really say it that much.

We didn't say the word adoption for a really long time. And I wrote it. I wrote it. I don't remember when it was, but I wrote a piece about the A word. I think it's called the A word. And it's just felt uncomfortable to you, weird, weird to I had this weird feeling about not wanting to say the word, and it was so important to say the word. There was nothing wrong with that word. It's old baggage that

that those of us. There's old jokes that people used to like gave up for adoption, Like it does sound like negative in the way we are, like in the old school way of thinking about adoption, or like the ways kids used to teach each other in the schoolyard. Can I have something? Um, we'd be like, yeah, tell me he's adopted, Like that would be a way of teasing something. Well, you know that's not the way people teach each other anymore, nor would it fly because how

great you're adopted. Like, we're in a different world now, certainly where my kids are. Um so so embracing the word and starting to use it more in the house. Oh, I remember what happened. We were walking by a pet adoption day at a park and we're like, that word means something, and we have to talk about what that word means. Our family is going to adopt a bait,

a dog or a puppy. We need to talk about what that word means and bring something into your family and how is it different your adoption with a child and with adoption of a pet. And we had to start using the word and we and we did. But it really wasn't until Eliza turned ten that she asked very casually if she when she was going to see her birth mom again. And at that point I said to Donnego, I think we need to plan a trip

to Wisconsin. And we two and a half years ago we flew to Wisconsin and it was the first time we even really had the kids learn from the mouths of their full siblings because the existing twins are also full siblings, and they called We never used to refer to those two kids, and we referred to them by name all the time with our kids, but we never referred to them as a brother or sister because to us, your brother is your brother, the one that lives in a house. We didn't want to use the same term.

So but the minute we arrived in Wisconsin, there was a bonding of these four kids that you really cannot you cannot deny, instantaneous and it was lovely. And I remember driving through this court you feel scared, like when they were going to see her again? Did did Eliza or Jonah feel like? Were they excited? Were they nervous? I mean to get on a plane and like, we're gonna bet our birth mom. Was it like a thing? You know? I don't. They didn't talk about it. They

were excited to to go visit. And when they got there, they were all about their siblings. And now they still talk about them more than they do about the birth mom. But they were excited to see her. They were excited to connect again. Um and now we do every two years. Now we just go we we just take a family trip every two years. You go. We've done it twice. We've done but every other year now lately, and so we did it last year and then we would probably

go again next year. Um to do a quick thirty six hour trip to Wisconsin amazing and see the whole family. Are there any resources that you recommend for people that are interested? I mean, besides Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? Which is an incredible book by Dan Bukatinski so much um it sounds like this vista and looking

for other foster foster adopt and adoption. Now, there are a lot of adoption websites online and I do look forward to I do recommend people uh checking checking them out just for even just for information and in a more emotional mental way. Is there any advice you would give to someone who's considering adoption? Good luck? Well, certainly good luck, but but certainly the biggest piece of advice I would give anybody. And I always talk about this

and I wrote a lot about this too. I think people do not choose adoption often because of this, of this disconnect. They feel that it's not going to feel like mine, They won't feel like there is a desire to have your baby genetically yours because it will feel different. And I absolutely felt that way. I absolutely felt like that would be the case until my baby, until my daughter was in my arms, and I can't quite imagine feeling more tied to my child. So I do encourage

people to certainly talk about that feeling with anybody. Don't pretend you don't have it, and don't be afraid to say anything that is what you're feeling or fearing, because those are real feelings and you can't deny them if you do only want to a a daughter, like we were hoping would have a daughter first, and we were lucky that we had a daughter first, or we were hoping that.

You know, whatever your feelings are, they you're creating a family that's forever, so you have to be honest with yourself. I was very concerned about, like what it would feel like, Well, I feel like she's mine. I feel like the baby not smell like me. Well, I mean I've actually heard that before. I was like, you realize that your kids smell like you because of the home that they live and exactly, But like it was just but it's really more code I think for people feeling like well, I

feel like I'm holding someone else's baby. Absolutely not right. Is there something you wish you would have known before you made the decision? Um, oh gosh, everything. Yeah, there's a lot about the experience that you can't quite prepare for. Part of it is if you're doing an open adoption, is in fact the yes, I mean, here's the thing is just basically over preparing for something you cannot prepare for. That's exactly right. Have you said that before? I don't

think that that is exactly right. You are over preparing for something you cannot possibly prepare for. Can you prepare in the sense like you read a lot of parenting, researching, assessing your feelings, you're trying to talk about it, you're talking, you're reading books, and then, yess what, it never goes the way you think. It's always different and better and more challenging. Every parent will have advice for you, and I will tell you this, and this is absolutely true.

Every parent will will claim that their way is the right way because they're invested in their way, because it's the way they're raising their kids. And nobody wants to say to you, I am raising my kids wrong. So in a way of affirming their own choices as parents, it's important to them that you do what they do. And what you have to realize is your way is your way, and you have to do a way that works for you and read lots of different books and

you pick and choose what works. From this also that something might work one day and then it doesn't work. The epist fucking it's fucking crazy because you watch someone else and you're like, that's the kind of parent I want to be, and then you see them actually have a nervous breakdown in front of you, and you're like, well, that clearly doesn't necessarily work for everybody. You have to

do what works. But the biggest thing I wish I had done is talk about what kind of parents each of us want to be with each other before we became parents. I will never The only thing I can tell you that I wish I had done more is talked with my spouse about what our philosophies are, because we only learned after we had our kids how absolutely different we are, and a lot of people could relate

to that. And I think that finding that place of compromise of how you want to approach the whole thing is a good thing to do before the babies come out because I'm still doing it. My kids a routeen and eleven. Hey, at that time, they're still in your root, so what at least eighteen in this day and age, probably longer. But it's tough, my friends. But it was very It's very rewarding, and it's the hardest, most rewarding thing you'll ever do in your life, is what I'm feeling.

And I'm only one fucking year in Dan You are you are? You are an incredible daddy. I have seen you tell them that, and Don is an incredible poppy. Well now they're not supposed to realize it right now, they're just supposed to hate you. You're doing the right. My kids wake up and they're like, you're the reason my life is miserable. I hear that all the time. You did it. They're preteens. Um, this is so wonderful.

Thank you for coming on Katie's crib and I just I have learned so much, actually, like I have, and I read your book and I just which is hilarious and brilliant, beautiful, but I've learned a ton. And thank you for thank you ing your time, thank you for having me. I love you. I love you. UM, this is so exciting you guys. We are here with David Boum, who's from the law offices of David H. Boum. Well done, sir. He's had a thirty five years of experience as an

adoption attorney. UM, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and how did you find your way into adoption law. Well, I've been practicing in the field of adoption for just shy a forty years. I started in in an office doing all sorts of different law, real estate law, personal injury law, and the office had clients who came to the attorney I was working with and said, can you help us with a stepparent adoption? Can you help us do this adult adoption?

And he didn't want to do them, but he had a young associate in me, and I was a go getter and anxious to do anything, so I took it on in. In night nine, we adopted our child. And I had been looking at finding a practice that was a little more fulfilling because at the end of the day, in the civil practice which I had been involved in, you you did your job, you got paid, but there wasn't a huge amount of personal satisfaction and building families

really seemed to fill the bill. So that's what I've been doing now for all these years, is helping build families, one step at a time. Blended families by stepparent adoption, LGBT families with second parent adoptions, single pair and adoptions. Adult adoptions. There are people who adults who adopt other adults,

and then independent and agency adoptions. Helping people find newborns to adopt, screening the adopting family and the birth parents, trying to make sure the match is good, facilitating that adoption, dealing with the hospitals, the social workers, the state agencies that are involved in approving an adoption plan and an adoption placement, and then completing the adoptions and having the pleasure of going to court and finalizing those adoptions, which

is the big payoff. How many do you think you've done? Oh my god. In the thousands, we used to keep books of pictures with families together, and after about six or seven volumes, mercifully, the digital age descended upon us, and so now we're able to digitize these things, and uh, but it is it's the children who I deal with

always are the same age they're always newborn. And to then get a picture at the holidays from any number of my clients who send a picture of their children, and my god, these children are sixteen years old, eighteen years old years old, they're married themselves, and they have children. It's it's really you feel at the end of the day as a lawyer that you actually made a difference. Oh, you make me cry. Usually it's the Usually it's the

guest that cries on Katie's cry. I mean, I cried too, But this one, this is this is a good morning. The only other thing I would say about that is that you know, at the end of the day, I approach every adoption as though it was my own, because when my wife and I went through the adoption experience, we definitely discerned things we liked and things we didn't.

And we approach our clientele with this notion that you come to us for advice, and I want to give you the best advice, and I want to guide you along the way. If clients will take my advice and will follow my instructions, our success rate is about But there are clients who just sort of pay the advice lip service and they want to do it their way, and they may not have the same quality of results.

Sometimes they do. I don't need to take all the credit for it, but I have to tell you that when you slog through this stuff for several months with a potential birth mom or with the placement, and then to go to court and have the judge say congratulations, it's a multi kleenex event almost every single time. And now we're gonna greg it. Okay, So what are the different means of adoption? Can you explain? I mean where we've been talking about this before, but public or private,

agency and dependent open, closed, domestic international. You said you deal mostly with newborn now, but in your firm, are there people who deal like you were saying, with adult or I'm a solo practitioner. Most adoption attorneys are solo practitioners because people come to hire us because they believe we have the mojo or the expertise to do it. But let's talk about the adoptions. It's fairly simple. I

don't deal with international adoption. It's a separate skill set, and people who want to go and do an international adoption owe it to themselves to do the research and find attorneys who do international adoption specifically, it's quite different. It's sort of the difference between going to a cardiologist and a dentist. They both may be doctors, but the

expertise and skill sets are completely different. So in my field, we either have agency adoption where the birth mother relinquishes the baby to the agency and the agency then places the child for adoption with the adoptive family, or we have independent adoption and independent adoption the birth mother actually places a child directly with the parents and the paperwork that is signed is a little more direct. Why do

people go to agency adoptions? It It isn't that the aby goes literally to the agency and then the agency takes it out of a bassineten hands it to the parents. Is that the agency will provide home study services and social services and support services all at one location, whereas an independent adoption we bring in the social worker, and we bring in the therapist or the corn the package deal. Do you find that you have huge amounts of both or do most people use an agency right now? It's

it's it is really a cost driven. Independent adoption tends to be cheaper than agency adoption because the agency's charge for services which you may not need. There are some wonderful agencies out there, and they offer classes in parenting and and they offer classes and how to talk to your teenager about being adopted. And most of my clients

went faced with that as a possible road to travel. Say, would you mind terribly for we got the baby first before we started talking talking about what we're supposed to del I always say to the clients, make a financial determination. If the services are essentially the same, look at what is most fiscally responsible for you, because no one wants to end up being bankrupt, right and you're about to

have a baby, which is super expensive. So, like you know, it would be wonderful if some of your dough went to the baby once you got him or her. Well, it has to go to the diapers, that has to go to formula. There there are relatively few adoptive parents who actually breastfeed. There are some because there is this technique available where you can do that, but it's very rare.

Oh yes, so there are there are means that a woman can contact her gynecologist and get onto some program to be able to lactate and then breastfeed a child, but most end up paying for formula and formula. Baby ain't cheap? No, um, can you hear my baby right now? It's his nap time, everybody? Albi, Adam is on My husband, Adam is on Albi duty this morning while I talk to you, and Albi is obviously not wanting to go down for his nap. So can you walk us through, like,

walk us through what an adoption process looks like. I mean, I know that's very big and and sort of a large topic. That's a manageable question. People come to you first. Ideally a person is going to come to an attorney because at the end of the day, adoption is a legal process. Tell me with the attorney and decide on a game plan. Are we going to try to do an independent adoption or an agency adoption? Are and what are we looking for in terms of birth parents, racial issues,

employment issues, age, health, um, physical attributes, intellectual attributes. So we define what we're looking for, and most importantly, we have to define budget. What is it going to likely cost? What are the parameters that we have to work with in terms of money, because not every adoptive parent is able to spend endless amounts of money adopting, and some work on a budget, So you determine the budget, and then the next step is we make sure that the

adoptive parents will be able to adopt. UH. So, if you have a past criminal record, no matter how minor it is, we need to know about it in advance so we can make sure that we can deal with it appropriately, and you understand what's involved with that. Once you find a birth mom, then we start the outreach to look for a birth mom and advertising Dear birth Mother,

letters portfolio. What is that? Well, advertising, Maybe you're not going to find it here in California because it's forbidden by law to or a newspaper ads advertising to adopt a baby. But outside of the state, yes it is, so it might be an ad in the adoption section. Believe that or not in newspapers out of state, something along the lines of UH Southern California couple urins to adopt newborn. Expense is paid as permitted, legal and confidential.

We promise your child a future of UH happiness, love and security. Call tanyan Bill toll free any time, or our attorney Dave at such and such number. Wow. So um so, after that, make contact with a birth mom. There's paperwork that's exchanged back and forth. Birth mom is advised by a social worker and LCSW and counseled esther her rights and evaluated to make sure license clinical social

worker UH. And then if everyone's an agreement and they meet and they like one another and they want to proceed, the hospitals notified, the doctors notified. When the baby is born UH, and it's ready for discharge from the hospital,

the adoptive pearance are there to receive the baby. Then the legal paperwork has begun in the court, and ultimately the Department of Children and Family Services in California or a private adoption agency will complete the post birth and post placement supervision of the case, and they have meetings

and make sure everything is in order. They present a final report to the court saying we recommend that the adoption be approved, and then you have that celebratory final hearing with the judge where the judge confirms and approves the report, grants the adoption changes. The child's parents already have the baby before that happens, Yes, does Sometimes that doesn't get finished. Well, we're much better now in California than we were. Many states have a very short change

of mind period. California's at thirty days, some have it as as little as forty eight hours. But uh, if you get to that stage, most most of the time is really very still they do. We have every state in the United States is quite independent, and each one believes they have the best adoption laws and none of the other adoption laws are any good in any other state.

And this is the key element if if if anybody gets anything out of the time I'm spending with you, it is that you must do your homework and start with a team of people who know the law and know enough to ask questions when they don't know the law about another state. Because many of the adoptions that occur involve a birth parent in one state and adopted

parents here where you are in a different state. And if you don't know those laws and you start spending money on that birth mother and the state where the birth mother is says you may not do that, you could end up screwing up your own adoption and getting into trouble with the authorities for it. In California, if you pay improper expenses to a birth mother as a doctor parents, it's a felony, but it's only a misdemeanor for the birth mother to take the money. So it's

important to get good quality people. So how do you know how do you not mess that up? It really just depends on the lawyer you get it does that. They really have to be educated and skilled and know all those laws. All you have to know is how to dial a telephone. That's all a lawyer really has to know in that regard. Because I go and when a person comes into me and they say we we we are working with them, and we find a birth mother in Rhode Island. I don't know the law in

Rhode Island. But I call a colleague of mine who I trust from the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and I say, you're in Rhode Island. I have a adopted parent here in California. What do I need to know so that we don't run a foul of your laws. Then we have the discussion that I'm able to go to the client and say if we can work with

her in Rhode Island. And here's the reason why. The success rank or the success rate on adoptions in the United States is about nine of adoption matches are successfully concluded. But there are those ten percent that are not, and it's devastating for people. It is no reassurance to an adoptive family to say, well, of the cases go fine if you're in that, yeah, that's all. That's all I

heard was in my office, we we average success. But that's just because I am very, very conservative about things, and I insist on really good communication with clients. Clients need to share with the attorney whenever their conversations with the birth parents that they may have outside of the earshot of the attorney, they need to share with the attorney what is said, because that's where you discern inconsistencies.

And as soon as you discern an inconsistency in the story, are the things the birth mother is telling you, Oh, I've never been pregnant, but on her form she says she's been pregnant twice and she's had two abortions. If they're lying about the small stuff, the odds are good, they're going to be lying about the big stuff, and you want to have really good communication with your attorney.

Wonderful tip. Do you find it there's difference that have you worked with single parents versus married couple, same sex couples, Like what is the are their differences are there? Well, I'll say this, there are some birth parents who only want a big Osmond or King Sisters family. I mean, they want hundreds and hundreds of family members for their child to go into this big, broad, embracing sort of

Italian thirty people at the table families. There are others who just want their child to be the prince or princess in the home. They want the child to be the first, the last, and the only child in the home. U there are some who say it doesn't matter, and there are some who bring their prejudices to the picture. I've had single women clients who the birth mothers say, oh,

she must be a lesbian because she's single. And I have to remind the birth mothers of that old glorious Steinhum quote that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Uh, you know, and and and and say them, don't assume that, because there are plenty of women who choose deliberately not to be married, and that they wish to raise single parents raised children as single parents. So the birth mothers come in with their

own prejudices. Similarly, adoptive parents come in with their own prejudices. I've had adopted parents match with birth moms based on cone heat. That's the center of the heat at the center of a kiln when you're firing pottery. I had a birth mom who came in the adoptive family. Sheep was interested in were people who were saramusis, and they spent the better part of the hour we spent together in my conference room talking about the variation of cone

heat in kilns. I've had birth mothers select adoptive parents because the birth mother comes into my office wearing a cool lot outfit and the picture of the adoptive parent has the identical outfit, berkan stock, sandals, astrological signs, what not, like the same sports. It's just it's so it's completely like random, random, and like just I don't know, if you believe in fate or whatever that is. It's be shared, which we would completely say, but yes, it's but shared.

It's like that unknowing, like that you can't put a word to it. It just it just happened. It just happened, well, right, And so I'm always saying to clients you must be honest with your attorney, but more importantly, you must also be honest with yourself, because if you try to make yourself into the perfect attractive adoptive parent, it's a charade that's impossible. They take because it could come down to

cool well yeah, or kill me, kill me. How long does the adoption process take from start to finish after the birth of the child. You're looking at six to eight months if everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing in a timely manner, if you're taught, and that's in people's What about from start to finish? I'm talking like when they come in, it's usually nine months

to two years. It's usually nine months to two years. Uh. But but sometimes I had a case fairly early on in my career where the adopted family came in and met with me on an initial consultation in the morning, and in the afternoon I got a call from the hospital and they said, do you have a family, and this is exactly what we're looking for, And it was this family And I called him up on the phone and the wife answered the phone and I said, Liz, are you interested in adopting a baby boy? Here are

the statistics. The child was just born and has at such and such hospital here in the San Fernando Valley and I heard a thud and the floor and then I heard this man's voice. It was clearly her husband, and he says, who is this? I said, it's Dave Bomb calling. He said, what did you say to my wife? I said, I just told her I just heard about an adoption situation. The hospitals waiting to know whether you

would like to come get a baby. Boy. He said, I'll revive for and will be down there in thirty minutes, So it can it can happen that quickly. You know, you have to be prepared. I have a colleague who says, are you ready for your star moment? He says, you have to be willing to say to me, if you call me tonight, I will get to the hospital and be there for the baby. If you're not ready, if you still need to go through therapy about your infertility or things like that, then it's not time to start

this process. Wow, that's a great piece of advice. So really, parents should come and be do all the work for working with you or an adoption attorney. If they're like, I'm ready to I would like to have a baby

like as soon as possible. Well, true, because what happens is when I sit across the desk from clients who come in and meet with me, they just see my two eyes, but I see their four eyes, and I can see and I have seen at times in consultations with clients the wife is waxing poetic about the thrills of parenthood and the husband is literally rolling his eyes and and giving all the facial expressions that say I'm

not there yet. And at the end of those consultations, I will say to the clients, you know, I don't think I can be of help to you, because I think the two of you probably need to do some talking with one another, because we all have to be on the same page. You know, as a parent that parenting is a tag team event, and so is adopting. It is also a tag team event. Sometimes when one parent is feeling, oh, is this ever gonna happen, the other is there to say, of course it's going to happen.

This is the next step we're going to do. And when they're not on the same page and one is rowing across the pond and the other is drilling holes in the back of the boat, it's not a good situation. A single adoption in person. Who do they go to? Family? Ideally they will the clients that I have from the l g PT can anity or the single parents who just want to be single parents usually have their own family.

It may not be blood family, yes, but they have their support systems that's supporting them through this whole thing. Do you find that they bring a friend to Rarely? It's it's we've come a long way, and adoption is much more out there and open than it was. But none of us walk around and introduce our children as oh, this is my adopted son or this is my adopted daughter. These are just my children. And so I had such

an old school way. I mean when we were talking to Dan Bukatinsky and I had such a I said, oh, given up for adoption and he said, oh, we don't say given up, we say placed. And I was like, oh my gosh, like being a child in the eighties like that, that's what we said, Oh you're given up for adoption or that child was getting you know, that's like how you phrase it, and it's not you're a chosen child. That's another one that well, why didn't my

mother choose to keep me? It's the ling goes all different, now all different. What would you say is advice for adoptive parents if they're going to hire an attorney, like, what is there? Is there a list of questions or something or or is it just a gut feeling that this is the person I want to go through? This can be very challenging and long process. Well, my advice would be there are two resources that I think are invaluable.

The first is the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, because that's nationwide and they have the pre eminent adoption attorneys in the United States. The entry requirements and the legal ethics requirements to maintain fellowship in those are in that organization are very very significant. So you start with a group of people who are already well educated, well informed, and well connected to help you adopt. The second resource here in California is the Academy of California Adoption Lawyers.

I served as president of that Academy for sixteen years. It was that I was such a great president. It was more that no one else wanted to do it. But we have in our academy. I think it's now about party two of the pre eminent adoption and family formation attorneys in the unit in the state of California. We teach other attorneys how to do adoption law. We

meet and we have continuing education programs. We we author articles, we lecture, and we have standards again for admission two D adoptions at a minimum, and you have to have Our ethical standards are higher than the state bar imposes upon lawyers practicing in California, and we have very rigorous continuing education requirements. So you start with that. Then you ask the questions that you want to ask, and then

don't be shy about it. If you only want to adopt a Hispanic child, say I only want to adopt Hispanic child, is that problem? If you want to be gender specific, ask the questions you feel like asking. But at the end of the day, you hit the nail on the head, Katie, it's you have to trust your gut.

If you sit down with the attorney and all the diplomas look magnificent and the brochures look lovely, and you don't feel comfortable, all you need to trust your gut with that because it's it is a partnership vulnerable for a long period of time, and if you're gonna always worry, Oh my goodness. If I call the attorney, he's going to charge. He charges by the hour, and many of us don't we charge on a flat fee basis. He charges by the hour. It's going to cost me money

every time I ask a question. Then you're gonna feel I don't maybe I shouldn't ask the question, and you're depriving yourself as something that maybe you really need to have the answer to. And it's also true with regard to the adopted adoption situation. I had a client who we presented an absolutely magnificent birth mother too, absolutely magnificent, And the client said to me, that's not my baby. And I hung up the phone and I thought to myself,

you gotta be kidding me. If you went uh and you programmed the perfect birth mother academics, physical health, emotional well being, stability, intellectual curiosity, the quality of her pregnancy, her do date, her lack of expenses, I couldn't imagine anyone what happened would turn the child down. Well, we had no trouble matching that birth mother with another family. Now, ultimately, this client went on to adopt, and they invited my wife and me to a party at their home to

celebrate the arrival of the child. And we walked through the door and the wife came out and said to me, it's so good you're here. You're like family to us. I mean, we wouldn't have a family were enough for you. And I turned her and I said, looking back at the situation that you turned down, do you feel any differently now about that than you did then? And she said, no, that was not my child. This child that I have here is that it was the child for me. Wow.

I still when I think of adoption. I don't know if it's because of movies or something, but you still think of orphanages. Did it exist anymore? Really? They don't. They don't know. I mean maybe in outside of the US, and they exist in the world of Charles Dickens. They exist outside of the United States and in the musical Hamilton's. But with those with those relatively few exceptions, they don't. Well,

you think about it. Vista del Mar, which one of your guests used, was originally called the Jewish Orphans Home, and when it was first formed back I think it was in theties. It took in Jewish orphans, But we don't have that anymore. Even the adoption agencies really are not orphanages like the child is there and you can come get a child. It doesn't work that way. Wow, Well, that's that's good. What are the typical costs? This is where I really want to get into, Like I'm sure

they vary. Okay, there's the carte version for this is the agency version. But what is in your fourty years experience, and obviously money has also changed in the last forty years of what things cost at this day and age, what is the least amount and what is the most amount. I think that what you have to figure realistically is the lowest amount is going to be in the vicinity

of about ten thousand dollars. Because if you're here in California and you have to do a home study under California law, the state mandates a fee of so right there, and that's for someone to come in and and study your house to make sure that you are right, that you They have all these things that they look at to make sure that your home is going to be a safe place right for me. But it's it's really

it's also and perhaps more importantly to study you. Because I've had clients who have adopted who have shared a studio apartment and that's what they've had to raise a child in. You don't have to have a certain level of income to be able to adopt. You just have to have a safe living environment. And for young couples,

a studio apartment is just fine. Okay. But to answer your question, in my office right now, we are quoting people a range of eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars to complete for adoption for everything except outreach, because we don't know how much money we're going to be spending running newspaper ads or being on the internet to find adoptable children.

When you go over the hill and you go into more expensive areas like Beverly Hills, for example, or you go to the East Coast to places like Philadelphia, the cost of adoption goes way up because the attorneys pay higher amounts for rent and because the market will bear it. So it is not uncommon for people to have adoptions which run ten thousand dollars to fifty fifty five thousand dollars. In California, we have laws that govern what hand and

cannot be paid for birth mothers. They have to be medical or living related expenses of a birth mother during the period of her confinement or her pregnancy, and so that brings some control over it. But there are other states where you can pay for virtually everything. So when we are talking with potential birth parents on behalf of adoptive parents, one of the things that we're doing is we're asking them to tell us what their financial needs are so we can make sure that you don't go

into Chapter eleven proceedings trying to adopt a child. But again, I'm providing you with some resources for places where adopted families can get some financing to assist them with adoption. They have, it does, and remarkably so in this present

environment politically. The one thing that the White House and Congress has not disturbed, thank God for it is the adoption Tax Credit, which is a nash Sational adoption tax credit, and it is over fourteen thousand dollars of acceptable adoption expenses which come off of your tax liability dollar for dollar, and that is a major relief because if you get a birth mother who's due in two or three months, she's living at home, she doesn't have a lot of expenses,

she has health insurance through her parents, your adoption is going to run more in the ten thousand to eighteen thousand dollar range, including that home study and any co pays for the hospital and things like that. And with that tax credit, you could actually do an adoption that may not cost you more than four or five thousand

dollars out of your pocket ultimately. And the last thing to say about that is that if you suffer the misfortune of having an adoption go south and fail on you, that adoption tax credit is available to you as well. Oh thank god, because well the money, you know, the money comes back. But really the place that's irreparably harmed

is the trust level. Know you, you put your trust in the birth parent and you hope they'll follow through, and then when they say I've changed my mind, Um, you don't know that you'll ever be able to trust a woman who says I'll place my child for adoption with you again. And you have to sort of pick yourself up and if at least you can regroup in the money department, you have a fighting chance to try again.

Um you just mentioned I mean that's the biggest hurdle, Um, I think is it's not working out in the end. Are there other hurdles that you like, you know, may warn well. I think that I think it's about I think it sounds a lot like your support system, your relationship. Like you said, when one person is ruling holes and one person's you know, but that when the going gets tough or something and people get discouraged, it's like you

have people around you to pick you up. It's something's taking too long, or the birth mother doesn't work out and you have to start all over again, which I'm sure happens in the middle of the process. Catch sometimes it happens at the very end. I early on in my career had a birth mom who was morbidly obese and an adoptive family of a dentist at his spouse, and they were a lovely couple, and the birth mom was a really good person. She was just morbidly obese.

In an effort to make sure she got the best possible medical care, we hooked her up with a doctor who was a professor of obstetrics at a major teaching university hospital so that she could get the extra level of care for someone with her weight. Nonetheless, she did not pay any attention to the the fact when she stopped feeling the baby move about three or four weeks before the due date, and she didn't report anything to the doctor.

So when the doctor when the baby was born, the baby had insufficient brain development, and the adoptive family had to make the choice that they were not going to proceed with the adoption because of that. The young woman took the baby and and has raised the baby herself.

But that's that can happen. And you can get birth mothers who go to hospitals because they don't have the guidance of an attorney to say this is not the hospital for you, where the hospital nurses have an agenda and they actually will say to the birth mother, how can you do this? How can you place give away your baby if you shouldn't be doing that. You have a hard time, lots of people have a hard time. Suck it up, get over it. And they will talk the birth mother out of the placement. Oh my god,

how do you how DoD I mean that is? And you know what happens. The adoptive family is upset. They don't go back and notify the director at the hospital that this is going on. It is an unreported assault on the birth mother. When our daughter's birth mother gave birth. We were not told about it until after the baby

was born. But our attorney, since I didn't handle my own adopt called us and said a nurse came into the room and said to your birth mother, you shouldn't be doing this, and the birth mother said, I will give you five seconds to get out of this room before I colck. You talk about it in power. So now when I look at my twenty nine year old daughter and I see I see some of her biological mother in these moments where she isn't going to be pushed a wrap, There's no doubt about it. Love it.

Oh my gosh. Um. Have you worked with birth parents who placed their child for adoption? Yes, I never worked with both, so I think it's malpracticed to say, oh, we're all striving towards the same goal. Let's have you all everyone represent together. I have worked with birth parents and they have run the gamut. I have had birth parents who have two degrees from universities and speak four languages who just found they were pregnant and an inappropriate time.

I had a high school health teacher who mistook the signs of pregnancy for being perimenopausal uh and discovered when she went to her doctor that she said, I have this mass and it's developing in my abdomen and I think I need surgery. And he said, oh, there will be no need. In about six months that mass will come out as a baby. And she said, that's impossible. What are some of the questions that anyone who's interested in adoption to ask themselves before they go down the road?

You know, we said, like you can tell in their eyes, like some times if you guys aren't there yet, or I think you have to ask yourselves if you're single, Am I ready to make the time commitment? And do I have a game plan thought out? I'm going to bring the baby home? I still have a job. Have I interviewed pediatricians? Have I talked to people who are single about how they manage it? Am I ready to

make the sacrifices they come with being a parent. Because the ability when you are not a parent to say, let's go away for the weekend. Let's just you know, have the neighbor looking on the dog and we'll go to Las Vegas or will fly away. You can't do it, and you have to recognize that you can't be the center of attention anymore because the child will need your attention.

I think in marital relations, if your marriage is not strong and your relationship with one another is not rock solid, bringing a baby in is not going to help it. And sometimes people feel, oh, baby makes three and that will be wonderful, So they really need to look at that. And then you need to look at will I be able to get past the feeling that I'm adopting a child I'm not having my own. Well, I be able

to deal with that. Some parents can't. For those who feel that if it's not genetically mine, I will not be able to ever love it the same way, they need to come and talk with me about assisted reproduction and family formation through surrogacy. That's it's necessary. You want to have those discussions ideally before and think those things through before the baby is born, and you try your best to do it. I know I tried my best to do with my wife when we were looking at

the process of adopting. But I'll share this little story with you. Our daughter was born out of state, and we went up in the morning to pick her up at the hospital, and we flew home that night and brought her home to our little condominium in Encino, and uh, the grandparents came over and spent time Ouie and I and how beautiful she was. And the godfather came over, and the godmother came over, and then at about nine o'clock at night, my wife and I were really exhausted,

and they graciously took the hint and left. My wife takes Jesse into the room, her into the nursery area to change her diaper, and I went to the kitchen to grab a glass to water. And it hit me as I was walking back towards Jesse's room that I was not so certain that I was up to this task. And I walked to my wife and I said to her, ah, I don't know if I can do this, And she said to me, you know what, it's a little too

late now, suck it up, you know. But that she got back to the business of diapering, and I got into the business of parenting with her, and I realized, you're always going to have that nervousness every person who brings a newborn in their homehouse. I definitely had, without a doubt, and I didn't you know, you know, I have I berthed my son, but I definitely brought him home and thought, who is this stranger in my house?

And what did I do to my life? And you know, I don't know if I'm up for the task either, and suck it up, you know, like this was you got yourself in and you wanted, you know, to be a mom of course now you know, but I feel

great about the choice. But well you can't when these huge life things are Do people ever start the process and then say to you, you know what, I really I'm scared that I'm not going to connect to the child because the child is adopted, and I'm going to look at the baby's face and they're not going to look like me or my partner or whatever. It happens, and some absolutely back out of the process. Mercifully, it usually happens before a match is made. I do not

think I've ever had a situation. No, I'm fairly certain I've never had a situation where after a match a couple says we've changed our mind, we don't want to proceed. But pre match, oh yes, because part of the problem is when you're adopting, you never as an adoptive parent. Now I'm not going to speak as an attorney I'm gonna speak as an adoptive parent, which I am. You never allow yourself any of the pleasures of the experience

of a pregnancy. If you can be quite pleasure with pregnancy, uh, you never allow yourself any of those pleasures going through the process, because in the back of your mind is that what if she changes her with dan. It's like you, you can only be super cautiously optimistic. You don't dare indulge the real big dreaming, and so suddenly it all comes upon you. It. People in the supermarkets will turn turn to us. When our daughter was little, and we used to go to the grocery store and bring her

with us, and they'd say, oh, that baby is so cute. Uh, but she has no hair and or she looks this way. How is she your child? And we say yes. And for a while we used to say we adopted her and they'd say, oh, well, at least you didn't have to go through labor. My people say, the most ridiculous ship, that is absurd. If you want to just you know what,

we didn't have physical labor. I acknowledged that we didn't that instead we had no real moments of pleasure mental and you had mental and emotional pregnancy, you know what I mean, Like you have that window, however long. It takes some people two years of pondering and dreaming a little bit, but then keeping it at bay right, and then you have the baby, and you have the baby in sight. Now the do data is approaching and at the time we adopted, a birth mom had six months

to change her mind for any reason. It didn't even have to be a good reason. So we went out of state where we could finalize in ten days. In Oregon we were able to do it in ten days, and so we didn't have all that stress. But there were good moments in the grocery store too. You'd be in the grocery store and someone to come and look at Jesse and say, oh, she's so cute. How old is she? And my wife would say, oh, she's six

weeks old, and they'd say it looked like unbelievable. Are we get The other one, which was always good, was she has the most beautiful blue eyes and where does she get those eyes? And my wife would say from her mother. And they look at my wife, who does not have blue eyes, and they look at the baby. Again. They didn't know what to say hilarious, I love it. Can you recommend any helpful resources for those considering a doubt?

I would just also add that there are sites which I'll give you information for about where you can go as a resource for good lawyers and good agencies to work with. There are also sites that talk about funding and financial assistance for people who are looking to adopt. But at the end of the day, it's about doing your homework and making sure that you're working with the

right people. As I approached the year, in my practice, I'm shifting the way that I practice in the field of adoption law, and now what I'm doing more is I'm sitting down with clients who are thinking about adoption and talking with them about the concept of adoption, the avenues available for adoption, and helping match them up with those resources, with the attorneys or the agencies that would

best suit their personalities, their budget, and their expectations. So it's a more of a concierge service that I am offering now rather than finding babies for people, because not every attorney is right for every adoptive parent, and so that that initial matches I think the most important thing.

So you recommend people may be meeting with a few lawyers or absolutely or working with someone like myself for others who do this work, who will sit and talk to the clients and find out what they're looking for and what their expectations are, and say, you know, with your personalities and what your desires are, these are the people I would recommend you interview. These would be the short list of one or two. I used to early

on in my practice. Clients would come in and meet with me and we would give them the fee agreements, and we had a fairly good amount who signed up with me on the spot. I stopped doing that about maybe twenty years ago, and part of it was because my fee agreement was thirteen pages long because it has

to cover so much material. But also it was because I really felt that after a consultation, no matter how enthusiastic you are, you need to go home and talk with your spouse or your support group or if you're a single person, or your family or your friends and make sure you feel right. And you're not doing it because you're enthusiastic, but you're making a business decision. That's why you're a good lawyer, That's why you're amazing because like you have to give people you know you're not

looking to let's do this right here and now. It doesn't work that way. It is such an emotional legal thing. But that is exactly the you've hit the nail on the head. No one wants to talk about adoption as a business transaction. They want to talk about it as an affair of the heart. But it is a busy and steel first and foremost. You are going to be asked to put out some money, and you best make sure that you've hired the best people who will give you the best bang for your buck and do the

job that you need done. If not, it's a terrible choice. And if it's if if they're enthusiastic about their meeting with me and they read the the agreement and they talk and they're still enthusiastic, that's a good match. Being enthusiastic because I just need to do something. I need to sign something right now. I just need to get that ball rolling. And then going home and saying, yeah,

I wonder if I should have considered something else. I wonder if I should have met with just another attorney, so I had some compare, some comparison, and then of course, you get people who come by referral. I've been very blessed to have the people who I've done adoptions for who refer their friends and their family and their colleagues. And not every person who they refer hires me. Not every person is someone I can help, but those referrals

are really what builds the business. You are wonderful. I cannot thank you enough for lending us your time and your experience was so eye opening, and thank you for all of your time. Thank you for being on Katie's Crib. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns. Let me know you can always find me at Katie's

Crib at Shanda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from shandoland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.