November is National Adoption Month, which is all about about spreading awareness.
According to adoptionnetwork.com, this is the month to encourage others to learn about adoption, hold adoption-related events and acknowledge the people in this country whose lives have been impacted by adoption.
The mission of National Adoption Month is to celebrate the families who have grown through adoption and recognize the many children who are still waiting for forever families.
One baby girl recently found her forever family in Jackson County.
Seymour resident Sadie Gonzales became a mother a few months ago when she brought her adopted daughter home.
“Linnea was born in Tennessee on June 21, 2022, and I got the phone call the night before and I got to meet her on the 22nd,” Gonzales said. “In order for the parents to sign their release of rights, I had to sign that I would adopt her, and that happened on June 22, but she officially became Linnea Gonzales on Sept. 13.”
Linnea will be 5 months old next week, and her name is of Swedish origin.
The baby started sleeping through the night in August, and her dogs wake her up more than Linnea does, she said.
Gonzales grew up in Seymour, and her parents are Dan and Helen Gonzales, also Seymour residents.
“My family just loves her, and she’s my parents’ second grandchild, the first baby in the family in 28 years,” she said. “My mom takes care of her during the day, and my dad gets off at 1:30 p.m., so he gets to spend a lot of time with her, so they’re over the moon.”
Her sister, Jenny Stout, lives in Kokomo with her husband, Joe, and is excited to finally become an aunt, Gonzales said.
She said her employer, Aisin World Corp. of America in Seymour, has been really supportive of her during this time and threw her a baby shower a couple of weeks ago.
“I let them know two years ago that it was going to happen, and I figured she’d be a surprise baby, so when I got the call on a Monday, I was down there (Tennessee) by Tuesday, and my maternity leave started that next Monday,” Gonzales said.
After she adopted Linnea, she was able to take 10 weeks off work, and her mom helped the first month until the baby was sleeping for five hours.
“I started this journey six years ago and have been on an adoption waiting list for two years, and I first started this when I turned 30 with foster parenting,” she said. “If your primary purpose is to adopt, that’s not the best way to go about it.”
After fostering two newborns and then having them go back to their families, she decided to stop, and because the process is cheaper than adopting, she tried in vitro fertilization, but it didn’t work.
“So I just quit for a couple of years, and they tell you before you start the adoption process you need to grieve, but I didn’t know this before,” she said. “My instinct was just that I’ve got to get over everything I’ve tried and failed, and I found out by accident that was the right way to go about it.”
Right before COVID happened, she decided to get on a waiting list, and a friend had recommended Kirsh & Kirsh in Indianapolis, and she was in a place financially and emotionally to start it.
Gonzales said the plus side of adoption is she’s not healing while taking care of her daughter.
“When my sister had her son, Jon, she had to have an emergency C-section, and so she was trying to heal while she took care of him,” she said. “It also helps that I’m not 20 years old, I’m 36 and it’s a new experience but not completely foreign.”
While waiting on a baby to adopt, Gonzales said something that helped her was the Adoptions of Indiana support group.
“Every other month, we would talk on Zoom with other parents that were waiting, and that was helpful,” Gonzales said. “I would encourage anybody to find other people going through the same experience to talk to about it because no one understands better what you’re going through than other people going through it.”
She found out by accident while foster parenting that it didn’t turn out to be the right way for her, so when she started the adoption process, she realized her goal was family planning.
“I wanted a child and wanted to be a parent, so the best way for me to do that was domestic infant adoption,” Gonzales said. “Other people have different reasons for wanting to take in a child, like if you’re wanting to open up your home to a child that needs extra support, then maybe foster care is better way for you.”
She said people need to figure out what they want and then figure out the best way to go about it.
“I learned from this experience that we all get through it in different ways, like my way to get through it was to learn as much as possible listening to podcasts, reading books and being as informed as possible,” Gonzales said. “Because that way, I felt like I was doing something and working toward being prepared, but for other people, that might stress them out because they wouldn’t want to think about it, so you need to do what your heart is capable of doing and lean into that.”
Originally, she had planned to wait until she was 36 to start the process because by then, she’d have the money saved up.
“I figured the process would take a couple of years, so I took a gamble and went ahead and signed up to be on the waiting list in 2020,” Gonzales said. “Thank goodness I did because it took exactly 23 months and I had the money then, and when they called about her, the lawyer said they’re not taking singles anymore because the wait time is five years now.”
Gonzales said one of the most important things about this process is making sure you have a good support system, and her mom especially but both of her parents have been very helpful.
“Adoption isn’t the right answer for everybody, and you need to the research and understand what you’re wanting out of this process and figure out what’s the best way to go about it for you,” she said.