Mayo Clinic is a unique place: the culture, the values, the people. "Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences" explores the experiences of Mayo Clinic staff as they navigate life personally and professionally. Sharing these experiences increases understanding of others and ultimately contributes to finding connections, belonging and inclusion at work.

In this episode of "Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences," you'll hear from Alicia, a nurse in neurology, and Aaron Norman, a project manager in Health Sciences Research, as they discuss adoption. Alicia learns more about the adoption process from Norman and whether it could be the right fit for her and her husband. Norman shares his family's journey of becoming adoptive parents to two children. Norman also talks about how Mayo Clinic's Adoption Assistance Program made it possible for his family to adopt.

Listen as Alicia and Norman share their personal stories:

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NORMAN: That to me is the biggest honor of my life — that I was chosen to raise someone's child.

NARRATOR: In this episode, you'll hear Alicia — who is considering adoption — talk with Aaron, who has adopted two children. Listen as Aaron shares his experiences as a father, and Alicia shares her hopes of becoming a mother.

ALICIA: I have been married to my husband for almost nine years now. In 2009, I got pregnant and we lost our baby at 6 ½ months gestation, and since then we've been unable to conceive. We had a very complicated process. I had a fallopian tube rupture. We've seen many specialists. Every answer has been, 'There is no medical reason why you can't get pregnant.' I recently saw the reproductive endocrinologists here at Mayo, and they suggested in-vitro fertilization, which is expensive: $15,000. The medications for that can easily go up to over $20,000 for a chance that might not be successful. I'm just not sure that I want to invest $20,000 on something that might not even work. I've always had it in my heart that we would consider adoption if it ever came to something like that.

NORMAN: When I was dating my wife, she explained that she had really been blessed to enjoy so many people who have been adopted and see such beautiful children come into their families. She wanted that for herself someday. So I had to get on board. About a year after we were married, we started talking about having kids and I said "Wow. There's a Mayo benefit here. This is incredible. We need to take advantage of this if we're really going to adopt cause where else can you get benefits like this?"

We knew that adoptions are expensive. We said, "Let's see what happens. If we get pregnant first, great. But let's put our hat in the circle to try to adopt, too, and see what happens first. So we got ourselves approved and went through the entire process, and ended up getting placed with a baby before we got pregnant.

ALICIA: That's amazing.

NORMAN: How does your husband feel about it, because I was not quite ready yet at some points and I'm curious how he was? 

ALICIA: It's hard. He wants to be a dad, and he finds himself saying things like "When I have children they're going to have this or they're going to have that. I want them to experience these things, and I want to give them the best life that they can have." But he also knows that it's been a struggle for us. He kind of emotionally tries to shut himself out of it and say "If we don't have kids, it's OK. We have our family. You're my family." He wants kids, but he doesn't want the emotional letdown. He's always had that fear that if we were to adopt, somebody could come and take his baby away. So it's an emotional blockage, but he'll get there. 

How many times have you adopted now?

NORMAN: Twice domestically. Our son Isaac was born in Georgia in 2010. Haddie was born in Ohio in 2013.

ALICIA: What type of adoptions did you have with Haddie and Isaac?

NORMAN: There are three kinds of normal adoptions. First, you have closed and open. Closed means you have no contact with the birth parents. Open is when you have open contact with the birth parents. We have what's called a semi-open adoption with both of our kids' birth mothers. In those cases, if you want to have any contact, it has to go through an adoption agency. What we do is we send letters to the adoption agency, and they can pass that on to the birth mothers and vice versa.

ALICIA: That's interesting.

NORMAN: It's not as normal but it's worked okay for us.

ALICIA: Is there like kind of an awkwardness about it — knowing this person is a mother to your child or your children but not present? There's the fear of what happens if they want to — all of a sudden — come and say, "I'm your mother, I'm here for you."

NORMAN: That brings up a lot of different points. But from a legal perspective, once the adoption is finalized, it's legal and that child is your child legally. That cannot change.

ALICIA: So, no takebacks?

NORMAN: No takebacks. Once the judge has declared it to be official, it is official. That cannot be reversed. But as far as having that conversation with your children, we talk about it all the time with our kids. We talk about how they have their birth mothers and we pray for them all the time, because we think of them as being some of the biggest heroes in our lives and in their children's lives. They chose life for their children. They could have chosen something else. They've chosen to give their children life and went through such an incredibly hard process because they wanted something better for their children. They entrusted us to be their children's parents. It's not something I take lightly at all. We love them. We're so thankful for them.

ALICIA: That's amazing. It's a blessing, for sure. I think talking to someone who's been through the process, to hear other people's stories would be super helpful.

NORMAN: Totally agree with you. That was something we did not have when we were first going through the adoption process. Looking back, that's something I wish we had been more thoughtful about trying to pursue. The biggest obstacles that we felt were the unknowns involved with the adoption process. The waiting period was really hard. The feelings of rejection — we had two placements where they weren't placed with us. We had been chosen, but they fell through. Going through those was really hard. We understood what had happened. We were thankful in both of those cases that the birth mothers were with their children. But for us, it was still a loss. 

ALICIA: I'm glad that you mentioned that. I think I will take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program because they have the counselors and people who can also help talk through things. It sounds like I'll definitely need those because with rejection and ultimately things falling through, you have to grieve for a baby that's not yours now. But it was supposed to be so.

NORMAN: You can contact me and my wife anytime, too.

ALICIA: That will definitely happen. I think I'm most nervous about what happens once I have the baby or once the baby — the child, not necessarily even a baby — is adopted. How do I actually be a mom? 

NORMAN: We're still waiting for the manual about how to take care of the kids. They didn't provide that with all the other paper work. I think for us — the moment we saw our children, the moment we heard about them even — we fell in love with them. After the first time we adopted, I thought I could never love a child as much as Isaac, and then Haddie's placed in our arms and it's like, "Oh my goodness, I really love this child." It was crazy how quickly that happened and just how your love for them grows. 

ALICIA: I am most excited about the opportunity to nurture the child and give the child a chance to flourish and to become who they want to be. I think adopting will definitely fulfill that need.

NORMAN: It's amazing. My kids are two of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life. We get to have so much fun together. Isaac is a brilliant kid. He's now in the gifted program at school and really loves and excels at sports. He's a great friend to other kids. We just see him as being just this fine young man. Haddie is the type of girl that just brings a smile to everyone's face. She's beautiful, but she's also beautiful so much on the inside where she just brings out life in every situation. She's constantly singing and coming up with songs and is so musical and artistic and is a leader. She and I get to go on daddy/daughter dates often.

ALICIA: It sounds like you and your wife are setting great examples for your children and showing them a beautiful life.

NORMAN: We're thankful that we had great parents that were able to model that to us.

ALICIA: Would you guys think about adding a third addition to your family?

NORMAN: We have talked about that a lot. At this point in life, we're holding off. But as the kids get older, we are very interested in doing foster care of older children. Older kids in foster care are not likely to be adopted. What happens is they age out of the system. Then, they have no family for their entire lives. That's heartbreaking to think about.

ALICIA: I can't imagine going through life with no one. I think the fear regarding adoption is the price point because it's so much. 

NORMAN: I encourage anyone who wants to adopt and is interested in adoption to not let the cost that you see out there stop you. There are ways to find adoptions that don't cost as much. What costs the least from a financial perspective is foster care. In many cases, the costs are covered by states 100%. Not always, but most of the time. For international adoptions, the costs are generally between $30,000 and $50,000. For domestic, private adoptions, which is what we did, the range is generally between $8,000 and $40,000. In each of our cases, it was less than $25,000 total. With the Mayo money and the tax breaks and the garage sales, we honestly ended up only having to pay a couple thousand out of pocket each time, which was reasonable for us. 

ALICIA: I mean that's almost the price of a hospital bill for delivery and pregnancy. Mayo benefits is $10,000 reimbursement per adoption, correct?

NORMAN: Per adoption. It's amazing.

ALICIA: That's amazing.

NORMAN: It's such a generous benefit that we are so thankful for, because I don't know that we could have adopted without that.

For timing with international adoptions, they generally take on average about two to three years. Domestically, the wait time can vary a lot. If you're wanting a child that is likely to look just like you and have the same traits as you, that process can take a long time — three or four years in some cases. If you're open, the process can be really a matter of months. For us, we were open to any race, and we were open to most scenarios. We just said we wanted a newborn. Our son is African American. It took about six months. For Haddie, it literally took a month after we were approved. It was very fast. You can ask your adoption agency, "How many children have you placed in the last two years? Also, how many families do you have on your waiting list right now?" 

ALICIA: My husband and I have always said that we would be open to adoption of any race, any gender, pretty much anything. Did your family give you any pushback regarding the fact that Isaac did not have the same color skin as you?

NORMAN: They didn't. Our family was always super supportive and was so excited for us when we adopted. They love our children just the same. My grandma, who is 102 years old, and has seen very few children of color in her life, absolutely adores my kids. People can change. It's one thing to be theoretical. It's another when reality hits. Not many people are going to stand their ground on some of those types of beliefs once a child is actually presented in their face. They see how beautiful it is and that it's a child. It doesn't matter what color they are. They can see that my family just got more beautiful and more colorful.

NARRATOR: If you have been through the adoption process, consider sharing your story with friends and colleagues. You never know who it may help.

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