Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 29, 1990 TAG: 9004260514
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TRACY WIMMER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Two months ago, Debi gave birth to their first son, Charlie. Two years ago, another woman gave birth to their first daughter, Maggee.
The Dorseys live a spacious two-story home on Crystal Spring Avenue. Maggee has a big back yard, a room full of toys and her own little library. The night she posed for photos, she couldn't decide whether to wear her opal, pearl or gold cross necklace. She decided on the cross.
High-school sweethearts who married in 1978, the Salem couple initially had trouble conceiving a child.
Eight years ago, Charlie, a lawyer, and Debi, a speech pathologist, began seriously thinking about adoption. It wasn't until six years later they actually got Maggee.
While they both loved children, Charlie explained, they didn't feel their lives would be unfulfilled without them.
"But everything being equal, we wanted kids," he said.
"And as a female," Debi added, "your friends are constantly telling you they're pregnant and you're constantly being invited to go to baby showers. So I think when you can't have a child, you're hit in the face with it a little more than a male."
The Dorseys explored every avenue to find a child. While they began fertility testing, they also began reading everything they could about the adoption process and calling adoption agencies in and out of state.
What they found among adoption agencies were vast differences in costs, in restrictions on prospective parents and in the time it would take to get a child.
They decided they wouldn't take out any newspaper advertisements or pay any phenomenal fees. When a South Carolina lawyer told Charlie he could get them a child fairly easily for $25,000 to $30,000, the Dorseys declined.
"That didn't seem much more than baby buying to me," Charlie said.
Because the Dorseys wanted a white, healthy infant - the preference of most American adoptive couples - they were immediately setting themselves up for a long wait.
Had they been willing to accept a special needs child - a racially mixed, handicapped or older child - they could have cut the process of adopting possibly to a day.
Such children are hard to place. As a result, adoption agencies have fewer restrictions for prospective parents willing to adopt them. Older couples and singles find it easier to adopt special needs children.
If you want a healthy white infant from a Roanoke agency, just getting on a list even to be considered can take two years or more.
The Dorseys found this out at Catholic Charities, then called Catholic Family Services. The application list is generally opened every two years, and about 50 applications are kept on file.
When the list finally opened, Charlie went to the agency's 6 a.m. sign-up call. What he didn't realize getting at the head of the line was also important.
Their final try, Charlie left his house at 5 a.m. His recollection is comical - a porch full of people on Campbell Avenue all staring at their feet.
"It was pretty wild," he said. "There are a lot of people who are anxiety ridden about adoption, and they all were there. You see, there is the issue of anonymity but everyone seems to equate the desire to adopt with infertility. And when that is the case, and it often is . . . well, it seemed like the people there thought they were going public with their infertility problems."
When the Dorseys did make the list, they were told their wait for a child would be five years or more.
"But we didn't worry about it," Debi said. "We were too busy enjoying life."
By 1985, the couple had managed to get their names on a number of lists. Consequently, in 1987, they came up for evaluation by two Roanoke agencies at the same time. The lengthy evaluation process is called a home study.
They soon found that the attitudes of agency workers were as different as the children they placed. Children's Home Society, for example, told the Dorseys that if they did not agree to a home study at that time, their names would go back to the bottom of the list.
Social Services was different.
Social worker Janice Weaver "told us that we ought to do whatever we think would help us get a child," Charlie said. "But whatever route we chose, we needed to get going and be aggressive."
They were so impressed with Weaver that they scheduled their home study almost immediately.
Overwhelming. That's how a lot of couples have described the three four-hour sessions designed for social workers to intimately get to know prospective adoptive couples. But few couples would turn back at this stage - even if some of the questions are a little, in Charlie's words, "touchy-feely."
Each spouse is required to write an extended biography, to answer personal questions about his or her childhood, their marriage and their reasons for wanting children. They must also disclose their financial and medical backgrounds, submit to a police background check and supply three references.
"I don't think we found it soul-searching," Debi said, "but the home-study definitely made us appreciate each other and think about why we really wanted a family."
After a home study is completed and the couple approved, all that's left is the wait. Hardest is not knowing when the baby will arrive. Adoptive couples rarely set up nurseries, throw showers or even tell people they're waiting - for it could take a month or it could take years.
As luck would have it, five months after their home study was completed, Weaver called the Dorseys with a child.
That afternoon, they rushed out to a baby store and frantically began filling a cart - a scene Charlie likened to a game show. That night they set up the nursery.
The next morning, they went to pick up their little girl at the foster home where she had stayed since her birth. Weaver met them there.
"I remember it was raining," Debi said. "And we cried. And Janice cried. And then she took some pictures." They stayed so long at the foster parents' home that eventually Weaver had to remind them it was time to go home. "For a minute we couldn't understand it . . . like - are they really giving us this baby?"
That evening they watched Maggee sleep, sparring over who would get to feed her. Friends and relatives visited non-stop. And Charlie's co-workers decorated his office.
"It was great," he said.
After placement, Weaver made three mandatory visits to the Dorsey home within a six-month period to make certain everyone was adjusting. The adoption became official in June 1988.
The Dorseys said they know a great deal about Maggee's background - mainly non-identifying information on her birth parents. They even have a sonogram photo taken of Maggee while still in the womb. In turn, the birth parents know a lot of non-identifying information about them.
At one point during the adoption, Weaver asked if they wanted it to be an open one, meaning that both sets of parents know the others' identity. The Dorseys declined.
"Intellectually, I find some sort of attraction to that," Charlie said. "But emotionally, I will be the first one to admit that there is some sort of safety in anonymity."
Debi said she "couldn't even conceive of setting up visitation rights." When parents put a child up for adoption but want to stay in touch, "it's kind of like you're saying you don't want all the responsibility - the 2 o'clock feedings, for example - but you want to have all the fun.
"Adoption is a wonderful experience, but it's definitely intense," she added, cradling little Charlie against her while Maggee rang the bell.
Nothing was said. But eventually she stopped and crawled onto the lap of her father.
"I guess I felt a little guilty," Charlie said. "When I first saw her, I thought I would have this warm gush of love but I didn't. I have to get to know someone before I love them."
That guilt ended as soon as they got Maggee home and the doorbell rang.
"Flowers for Maggee McNeal Dorsey," the man said, handing over a bouquet.
"I felt it then," the first time he heard a stranger speak his daughter's name, Charlie said. "One day you're two people wanting a child, and the next time you come into your own home, you're a family."
by CNB