In Joseph Bentz’ novel, Cradle of Dreams, an infertile California couple decides to pursue independent adoption. The experiences of the main characters, Paul and Laura, paralleled my own in many ways. I related to Paul and Laura’s consternation as they pored over the nine-page questionnaire that was supposed to help them define the parameters of the child they hoped to adopt.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Would they accept twins? Would they accept a child with disabilities? Would they accept a baby from a birth mother with a history of mental illness? With a history of drug abuse? With a criminal record?

What if they said no to all of these possibilities? Paul wondered. Would the lawyer think them too picky and disqualify them or make them wait for years for the right child to come along?

Then there was a whole series of questions dealing with the race of the child. They had to check off what races or what mixtures of races would be acceptable to them. Caucasian? Black? Hispanic? Asian? Part Asian and part Hispanic? Part black and part Caucasian?

Paul and Laura were uncertain how to respond to these, too. Ideally, they wanted a child who looked as much like them as possible. But if they checked off only the Caucasian box, would that be racist? Would the lawyer think so? Would it limit the pool of possible children so much that they would never be matched? Would it be better to check off all the boxes and then decide on each case as it came up?

Then there as a section about their family backgrounds, their hobbies, their religion. Did they have any pets? They did not, and Paul worried about the significance of that. Would a birth mother truly pass them over or choose them based on whether or not they owned a dog or cat? Why was such a question on there?

As they worked through each page, they felt as if they were negotiating a minefield of trick questions fraught with secret significance.

I remember having these same feelings as my husband and I went through The List. What kind of child did we really want? What kind of child did we honestly feel capable of being good parents to? The List forced us to confront deeply ingrained prejudices we didn’t even know we had.

Continued in the next post

I recently chatted with author Joseph Bentz about his book, Cradle of Dreams. To read the interview, please visit my Exploring Adoption blog.