However, I continue to be vigilant against any type of “othering” that may be suffered by non-mainstream groups. As a woman of color I feel that it is critical that we avoid complaisance and continue advocacy to allow for inclusion of all forms of family building.

I have no regret about my advocacy against Amazon’s policy. I hope that my daughter becomes as passionate an advocate against bias as she ages. That would make me very proud.

Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

However, I would like to make a suggestion that might help save your sanity. Although this is something to put your energy into, aren’t there other things that might be worth putting more energy to right now? For example, reading books about attachment, baby care, etc. or dreaming of that beautiful nursery may be more positive ways to emotionally prepare you.

I feel that often times we adoptive parents get into this role of fighters. We want so badly to fight for the world to accept this “step from the norm” that we either choose or are forced into that we lose sight of the joys in preparing for our children. How I wished that I had spent more time learning our children’s language, read more about attachment issues, and researched their culture. How I wished I had spent more time dreaming of the beautiful future ahead of us instead of fighting through the present over things that won’t matter to our children’s future.

Just a thought. Take it or leave it, but I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

Well, why not screw with their heads in kind? Set your due date out by 15 months or so, of course if the program will let you. You can have the longest pregnancy in their database. Hehehehe…..

It all boils down to the bottom line, as usual.

Thank you for your comment. I do understand that the registry system was undoubtedly set up in this manner out of simplicity and not outright lack of concern about adoptive parents to be. Most likely the designers never even considered adoptive parents in any appreciable manner in their baby registry thought processes.

I understand that the CSR cannot effect change. My hope is that if enough people in my situation complain, Amazon’s higher ups will deign to take notice and make a simple change to their systems. Pie in the sky dreaming, I know. But I can hope.

The problem is that Amazon sells their checkout/store as web services to brick and mortar companies that want a profitable web presence. Since the software is a product in it’s own right, Amazon uses things speed and simplicity to market it to other companies. The adoption exception may have been part of the original design at some point, but could have been cut to increase performance. This also means is that there are a lot of other stores that practice the same discrimination, if unintentionally. Chances are, they don’t have a choice. The value in Amazon’s web services is that they’re “turn-key.”

Of course, calling them is a waste of your time. A CSR on the phone has no authority or instructions to do anything other than apologize.

I appreciate your reply here, but there is a point I am trying to make that I’m not sure you completely recognize. One of the hardest things for an adoptive parent-to-be is the not knowing when you’ll match or if you will match with expectant parents who wish to place their child for adoption. I do understand that I can make up a date and change it at will. However, the date is the problem.

Putting in a date causes anxiety about whether we will match before that date. What if we have to wait over 18 months, 2 years? The problem is in having to enter a date at all.

What I am asking is whether there is a means of making the date field optional, period. BabiesRUs has added an “are you adopting” field to their registry. Go the next step and add an “are you adopting” field and then not require a date for those who are adopting. Would that be all that complicated? Considering the fact that you can track my purchases, make recommendations based on my previous orders, and stock everything from groceries to hardware, would making such a change really be that hard?

Although the ‘due date’ terminology doesnt really cater to adoption, you can enter any date you please for that column. Once entered, and information can be changed anytime you want, just like any other customer information on Amazon. This way, you should be able to change your date at any time, to any date.

I tried creating a fictious account to test this, and it worked.

I’ll try to forward this to the people at CustomerService to see that this doesnt happen again.