Adoption Anxiety

Adoption and anxiety seem to go hand in hand. The entire process in itself seems stressful and drawn out. What I found interesting is the way in which a heterosexual couple verses a homosexual couple appears to handle this anxiety completely different.
The anxiety that comes with the whole adoption process is seemingly different for every couple. For a heterosexual couple though, the failure of not being able to conceive their own child is a major emotional hurtle that must be dealt with. The gay couple cannot relate to this feeling because they have already accepted their inability to reproduce. However, I think their anxiety is perhaps worse. Savage comments that the “...odds seemed pretty good that someone at the table believed that my boyfriend and I were going to hell, and had no right to take a baby down with us” (Savage 15). A heterosexual couple may feel bad that they cannot reproduce, but no one else feels bad that they are choosing to adopt because of it. Their anxiety stems solely from the process of adoption and the prospect of becoming parents. In comparison, a homosexual couple is content with the fact that they cannot reproduce, but many people are not okay that they are adopting. This additional factor creates more anxiety for a couple like Dan and Ted.
However, while I feel sympathetic towards this additional anxiety, I was mildly concerned about the anxiety Dan experienced as both he and Terry sat in the conference room at Lloyd Center amongst other couples waiting to begin a seminar about the open adoption process. I could imagine what kinds of questions were nervously running through the other couples’ minds:
Will anyone pick to be the parent of their unborn child?
Is open adoption our best option?
Will I be a good parent?
How long will this take?
What kind of mother puts her child up for adoption?
Do I look nervous?
What I found most remarkable about this book so far was that as Dan and Terry sat in the conference room waiting for the seminar to begin Dan was not asking himself these kinds of questions. Instead, he was secretly wondering who among the other hopeful parents was biased towards gays, towards them. “Who hated us? Who could it be? Somebody there must have, but who? The guy sitting next to me who looked a lot like my father? The woman wearing huge glasses in the pink sweater? The couple who looked like they listened to NPR 24/7?” (Savage 15).
Although I personally cannot relate to the biases homosexuals feel, I found this section of the novel a little discomfiting. If Dan and Terry are serious about adoption, shouldn’t they be more concerned about the adoption seminar and what’s to come instead of the potential homophobias sitting next to them? They are grown gay adults after all; chances are they have already dealt with biased heterosexuals countless times. The questions that a heterosexual couple might be consciously battling with might be different than those of a homosexual couple, but I feel as though they should still relate to the actual baby that is about to be adopted.