November is National Adoption Month

July 2000 may not recall anything special for most Austinites, but for the Horn family, its significance is nothing short of historical.

"Our birthmother selected us in July of 2000," says Joyce Horn, of South Austin.

That was nearly two years after Joyce and her husband, Al, realized that in order to have children, they would need to adopt.

After completing a lot of paper work, mandatory training, and filling out a personal profile, the Horns were accepted by an adoption agency with only a vague promise of a child sometime in the future.

"We received several calls about 'special circumstances' that we were asked to consider, and we did," Joyce recalls. But the birth mothers chose someone else and so the Horns had to continue their vigil. "There is nothing easy about this waiting period; adoption is an emotional roller coaster for all involved."

Adoption laws in Texas are, for the most part, forward thinking with emphasis on the welfare of the child. The state has a long history of being involved in caring for children whose parents couldn't or wouldn't care for them. From the orphan train days to modern times, lawmakers looked out for children, making decisions that haven't always been popular with contemporary thinking-like ruling in favor of open adoption.

For decades, information about the biological parents was kept secret from children because it was deemed to be in the best interest of the child. But in the late 1970s, people who were adopted as children started making noise as adults. They appeared on the Phil Donohue Show saying they deserved to know where they came from and why they were given up for adoption.

Janie Cravens, an Austin-based independent adoption consultant, was just starting her career in adoption placement services when she saw that television show and started asking her own questions about adoptive children's rights.

"At the beginning of my career, I was heavily criticized by the old school, the old way of social work," Cravens says. "But that has passed by the way side, so it's gratifying to be in the business so long."

Cravens was instrumental in changing Texas law to allow for open adoption, which is now practiced in almost all cases today. Open adoption is not a free-for-all between the birth parent and adoptive parent. Rather, it allows for some kind of communication and contact between the two families that have created the child.

"It might just be in the form of letters and an exchange of information," Cravens clarifies. "Or the birth mother and adoptive parents may meet once or twice around the birth and not see each other after that ... And it might be an on-going adoption." That could include visits by the birth mother, but it doesn't have to; on-going open adoption also could be a birthday card sent to the child once a year and nothing more.

The rules change slightly when children are adopted after Child Protective Services removes them from their parents' homes. Like all other states, there are more Texas children "in the system" who are available for adoption than there are adoption-ready newborns. However, Texas is one of the few states left in the country that still has quite a few babies given up for adoption each year. But the reasons are not particularly positive, says Cravens.

"We do not have very good social programs that help women keep their children with them," Cravens points out.

Other reasons Texas has enough infants to keep adoption agencies in business, says Cravens, is because the state is located in the Bible belt.

"There's still a lot of strong religious values here that prevent women from having an abortion ... and Texas has a high rate of unplanned pregnancy and teen pregnancy," Cravens says. Limited resources devoted to sex education and pregnancy prevention, says Craven, mean more women and girls are giving birth to babies they don't want or can't afford.

Then there's the flip side of the coin: making adoption affordable. It costs an estimated $25,000-$28,000 to adopt a newborn in Texas, which prices many middle-class couples out of their dreams of adopting a child. That the fee extends to international adoptions, too, says Cravens who, after seeing a quarter century of policy change, says its time to put real change in parents' pockets.

"Adoption fees are high because they're passing on all the costs for caring for the pregnant woman," Cravens says. Finding ways to reduce the adoption price tag is an important and necessary next step. While there are no easy answers, implementing social programs that offer medical care and subsidized housing for pregnant women would alleviate a large portion of the costs related to adopting a newborn.

For the Horns, who went through the process and spent the money, their primary concern is less financial and more emotional. Texas law requires that a birth mother wait 48-hours after giving birth before she can sign the paperwork to relinquish her child. This allows birth mothers an opportunity to change their minds once the child is born; however, but it can also create undue stress on all parties concerned, says Joyce.

"Our birthmother was committed to the adoption plan and, at one point, said she wished she could sign the paperwork before going to the hospital," Joys says. "From her perspective, it is such an emotionally difficult waiting time."

It is also emotionally difficult for the adoptive parents. Many hospitals release mother and child less than 48 hours after birth. The Horns took their daughter, Emma, home but had to wait until the following morning before the adoption was legal.

"If she had changed her mind overnight, we would have had to give our daughter back to the birth mother," Joyce says.

The Horns would like to see the law amended to allow the birth mother an option of signing the paperwork prior to delivering the baby.

Furthermore, adoption in Texas is not finalized until six months after the child is born-this means the possibility of having the baby removed from the adoptive parents' care does exist. The Horns would like to see that time shortened to at least three months. But these changes are more for the general public than for any concern they had about keeping their daughter; the Horns' birthmother was committed to the process and both families were committed to a very open adoption.

"Our birth mother invited us to the hospital and we were able to be with her, her mother and some friends while she was in labor and then we were literally glued to the door of the delivery room, listening to every movement and that first cry," says Joyce.

The couple also collaborated with the birth mother to select a name for their daughter, and they continue to be involved in each other's lives today.

"We have a very open relationship with the birthmother and her extended family, including biological grandparents, great-grand parents, sister and many others," Joyce says. "We were invited to attend her sister's wedding this summer."

So in the process of adopting their daughter, the Horns discovered, her family adopted them.