Any guesses where Pete and Chasten Buttigieg will live in the DMV?

Forum Index » Real Estate

◄ 1 2 3 ... 17 18 19 ► Go

Go to page...

08/17/2021 20:25

Subject: Re:Any guesses where Pete and Chasten Buttigieg will live in the DMV?

Anonymous

Totally understand why they want privacy, but I do hope at some point they talk about the adoption process (I'm assuming based on the wording of the tweet that's what's going on) because it's obvious from this thread and other comments of seen that a lot of people are really ignorant about it.

I am not an adoptive parent but have several family and friends who are and it is such a challenging time and it can be hard to communicate about it with others because there are several milestones and they don't line up with the ones birth parents have in terms of finding out you are pregnant, giving birth, and taking the baby home. Very few adoptions, even of infants, are initiated before the baby is born. More often, infants go into a foster-to-adopt situation weeks or even months after birth. Often adoptive parents get no notice at all because everything happens very quickly and they will have to make a decision about fostering the baby within hours. Often there are issues disclosed (like drug abuse or potential health concerns) and the adoptive parents need to be ready to say "yes, we still want the baby." And then it's not like the baby is theirs. They will foster the baby and there is a longish process where the birth parents can assert their parental rights. It's incredibly what adoptive parents go through -- taking care of a child for the first time while also dealing with all that uncertainty, falling in love with a child knowing they might not stay with you. Often these are parents who have fostered other children who then went back to either birth parents or other family members. It's so tough. These people have such big hearts.

I also know people who have fostered and/or adopted older children, and that brings with it a host of other issues. I would be somewhat surprised if Pete and Chasten did this because I do not think a high profile family would be a good fit in this situation. There are lots of moving parts and birth parents often still have visitation rights during this time and the children are going through a lot. It's very hard.

International adoption can have more clarity when you actually get the child, because there is not a fostering process and you generally don't even meet the child until it is time to sign paperwork, usually after the birth parents have already signed away their rights (a lot depends on the country of origin). But the process before that can go for years. I have a close family member who was in process to adopt their daughter for nearly 2 years. The child was in an orphanage and they were in process with her from when she was 18 months old, but they were not able to go and get her until she was 4 years old, because the child had serious health issues and the adoption agency determined twice that she was not well enough to be adopted before finally she recovered enough for her parents to go get her. Two years! Of seeing photos of their child, knowing her name, getting regular updates, knowing she is going through medical procedures and other issues... but not yet meeting her.

Again, the biggest hearts. I obviously don't know that they are adopting, it could be surrogacy. But the way it is worded indicates adoption because with surrogacy there are fewer unknowns -- surrogates are very thoroughly vetted and it's almost unheard of for them to try and assert parental rights (it has happened, but so rarely that these cases are still heavily debated in family law circles). But adoption is much more complicated. Much love to Pete and Chasten and any parents who go on that difficult journey to give a child a loving home.