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Dear Child: Four Journeys To Successful Open Adoption
Dear Reader,
We are four friends who found our babies through adoption. In our book, each adoptive mother describes to you, in her own honest and heartfelt words, an adoption journey that was startlingly different from the others.
Three of us live in California, one in Colorado. We started trying to...
The Unbreakable Bond of Birth Families
Open adoption is an important topic these days, with many families opting for ongoing contact such as visits and phone calls. But what about those who, due to circumstances beyond their control, are unable to have an open adoption? How do you maintain a connection with your child’s birth family when...
Navigating Your Open Adoption During The Holidays
When we were waiting to adopt our first child ten years ago, we swiftly checked the “semi open” adoption box. We figured this was a safe and easy option, a compromise between closed and open. However, the day we went to court to gain custody of our first child, the cracked door swung open: We came f...
Bonding With Extended Family In Your Open Adoption
Back in 2010, I visited my son Scotty’s birthmother Kerri at her home. She “picked us” through our agency in January. Scotty was due in May. It was March; she invited me to her house. After six years of infertility treatments and eighteen months as a waiting adoptive mother, I was nervous. I was cur...
The WIDE Open Adoption Conversation
A few weeks ago, I took my son Scotty to a friend’s birthday party. An acquaintance remarked at how Scotty has grown, and mentioned that her friend recently adopted through the same agency we used. We naturally compared my child’s adoption with her friend’s child’s adoption. Same agency. Same years...
They Tell Us Open Adoption is the Way to Go
When I meet with people beginning the adoption process, they often say to me, “Everyone tells us we should do open adoption—that it’s the way to go these days.” I usually surprise them with my cautioned response, especially since it comes from an adoption social worker. “Yes, open adoptions can go v...
Moving Beyond “Color Blind” Parenting To Value The Human Rainbow
Adoption is complicated. Transracial adoptive families face additional challenges in their adoption journey. They must learn to juggle the issue of race and how it operates in their children’s lives, as well as their own. To convey that their love is not diminished by racial differences, parents wil...
Transracial Adoption: 5 Awkward Situations You May Face
I’m a mom of four via domestic, open, and transracial adoption. With each child we added to our family, we faced circumstances related to both adoption and race. Because the transracial part makes any adoption far more obvious, both adoption and the transracial aspect are intertwined, sometimes crea...
Five Reasons You Should Consider Transracial Adoption
In my first book, Come Rain or Come Shine: A White Parent’s Guide to Adopting and Parenting Black Children, I shared a list of why transracial adoption may not be the best choice for certain individuals. I certainly don’t want to be the Debbie Downer of transracial adoption, but there are specific c...
Understanding The Need For Positive Adoption Language
Whether “Open” or not, adoption joins adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents in a life-long relationship. As surely as our children are grafted to our family tree, they are also the fruit of their biological family tree. Our kids carry the DNA of their ancestry. When we treat their birth famil...
Adoption Age Requirements
Adoption laws are set by each state in the U.S. and by each country which allow adoptions. Age requirements for those who wish to adopt are sometimes specifically stated, and other times there are no age restrictions. In general, most adults over the age of 18 in the U.S. are eligible to adopt.The a...
What Is Adoption?
What Is Adoption?Adoption is when someone permanently and legally becomes the parent of a child who was not the child’s biological mother or father. All of the parental rights of the biological parents are terminated and transferred to the adoptive parents, who then become responsible for the child’...