Adoptions plummet as families wait for a baby

Jul. 11—All of their married life, Andrew and Bridget Olsen have dreamed of having four kids. They envisioned for themselves a family of both adopted and biological children.

Now, 15 years into their marriage, they are closing in on their goal. The couple adopted at birth their daughters Halley, 11, and Mady, 9, and have their biological son, Layne, 7. The Mankato area couple has been on an adoption waiting list for their fourth child for 2 1/2 years.

"Our vision was to have a beautiful family, and that's what we have," Andrew said.

The couple went through Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota for Halley's and Mady's adoptions, and are using the agency again for their fourth child. They are one of 10 families on a waiting list for adoption, with more families wanting to adopt than there are babies to adopt.

Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota specializes in domestic infant adoptions and also does home studies for international adoptions.

The Mankato region mirrors the nation with a sharp reduction in adoptions, said Sarah Vetter, director of pregnancy, parenting and adoption with Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota. Adoptions are down 50 percent since the start of the pandemic, she said.

Many birth parents might not be familiar with how adoptions are done these days and have outdated visions of what adoption looks like. Even the language surrounding adoption has changed, Vetter said, with "giving up a child for adoption" changing to "make a plan for adoption" or "place a child for adoption."

It's an intentional plan and many birth parents stay in touch with their child after adoption, as open and semi open adoptions have become more common.

"Birth parents love their child and want what's best for their baby," Vetter said. "And they don't feel they can provide that for various reasons. An adoption is always out of love for the baby.

"It's still certainly a loss," she said. "Birth parents grieve their child and the loss of raising that baby even with an open adoption. It's difficult. Women who stay in touch with me say they don't regret their decision, but it's hard. It's the hardest thing they've ever done. But their child has the life they hoped for for them."

Birth parents come to Catholic Charities to learn about adoption at various stages of the pregnancy, from right at the beginning to when the child is born. The Olsens have experienced both, with Halley's birth mom meeting with them early in her pregnancy and Mady's birth mom seeking out adoption as an option as she was in labor.

"People have asked us why we don't adopt older kids," Bridget said. "But I love babies."

For Halley's birth, Andrew and Bridget drove to the hospital and got settled in the waiting room. It was then that they were invited into the delivery room, which hadn't been a part of the birth plan.

The couple eagerly accepted and were bedside when their first child was born.

"We were the first to hold Halley after she was born," Bridget recalls.

They stayed overnight in a small hospital room designed for families like theirs. A room with a fold-out couch greeted them and they had Halley with them throughout her first night.

The next day, Halley visited her birth mom and her birth mom's family to say goodbye. Halley's birth relatives gave her a necklace, a letter and a poem, which are treasures she still has.

It wasn't farewell forever, though, as the birth mom and Andrew and Bridget agreed they would share information regularly about Halley. For her first year of life, they sent updates every three months to Halley's birth mom. Then it was every six months, and now it's every year.

Mady's arrival, meanwhile, was a complete shocker. Bridget got a call from their Catholic Charities social worker, who said a woman was in labor six weeks early. The social worker asked if they wanted to adopt the baby.

"I called Andrew and said, 'You need to come home,'" Bridget said. "We went out for lunch and he said, 'Why are we even talking about this?'"

Deciding they would welcome a second adopted baby into their family was an easy decision for the couple, they said, but then the search was on for preemie baby supplies.

Andrew set off to find a suitable car seat and Bridget called her mom about watching Halley while they went for the second time to Mayo Clinic'sMethodist Hospital.

This time they met their baby a few days after her birth, and soon after brought Mady home. There they got into a sleep schedule where they woke preemie Mady every two hours to eat.

Two years later, along came another big surprise: Layne. After seven years of trying to conceive, Bridget was finally pregnant with the couple's first biological child. "Everything got blurry," Andrew remembers of the day Bridget showed him a positive at-home pregnancy test.

Nowadays, the three Olsen kids are very tight and have a regular, busy schedule of sports, sleep overs, time with cousins and camping. At bedtime, Halley and Mady sleep together — ignoring a second loft bed available to them — and Halley reads to Mady until her younger sister and "best friend at bedtime," as Bridget says, falls asleep.

All in all, it's the life the Olsens had envisioned for themselves long ago.

"Some people want to have two kids," Andrew said. "I guess that's not us."

Sam and Ben Olsen of Cleveland adopted Luella, 4, at birth in La Crosse, Wis. They are now on the Catholic Charities waiting list for a second child, and have been waiting for three years.

"You never quite know when it's going to happen," Sam said. "You are always in a state of limbo. We continue to live our lives and hope that someone will find their way to our family."

She said she loves "everything" about her little family. "Luella is super adventurous and curious, she loves going on different adventures. She is always up for finding something to do. Everyone who meets Luella thinks she's the coolest kid. She's super social and goofy."

The family opted for an open adoption, where the Olsens and Luella's birth mom are in "constant communication through texts and pictures," Sam said. "We don't have a traditional adoption where you send a picture on this date. We're always checking in on each other. We consider Luella's birth mother to be a part of our family."

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