I needed a day to recuperate from the events of the weekend, but now I am ready to share them with you!

In short, our event for birthmothers this weekend was just amazing. Each year they seem to get better. We ended up with a group of about twenty five amazing women. We had young women and old women. We had women who were birthmothers to babies and women who were birthmothers to adults. We had birthmothers who had open, semi open, and closed adoptions.

We always begin our day with introductions and give the ladies a moment to tell everyone a little... more

As with any relationship an open adoption is bound to have a few bumps in the road at some point. Finding support and resources to help you and the others involved work out any conflict can be more challenging in some situations than in others.

If you worked with an adoption agency post placement services may be available to both birth and adoptive families or perhaps even joint counseling through the agency. If you adopted or placed privately and independent of an adoption agency you might find yourself looking on your own for a counselor/counselors... more

Most of us have heard about postpartum depression. The hormones at work in a woman’s body after she gives birth are very powerful and can cause extreme emotions and often a sort of “surge” of depression known as postpartum depression. This depression is treatable and often the mother is feeling more herself in a relatively short amount of time.

When parents adopt a child they do not really ever expect to go through similar depression because the have not gone through an actual, physical pregnancy, but research is beginning to show that... more

In a recent post I was recanting some of my experience with adoption related hate groups online. It is very sad that so many people out there take the hurt and pain that they have experienced and use it as an excuse to criticize and harass others, but it happens. While I used my other post to talk about what happened to me and what I think causes some people to act out anger in that manner, today I wanted to talk about what I personally have done to turn this negative experience into... more

There are often many things around us that we as adoptive moms can use to help ourselves find our way through the more challenging moments of our adoption experience. Some days I know that I forget to slow down and smell the roses so to speak, and to just enjoy my family and the life that I have. When times get difficult we can either become absorbed in the emotions of it all, or we can choose to take a step back and re-focus on what we really value and have been blessed with. For those who might be having a difficult time trying to focus (as I often... more

Hate is a pretty strong word, but a word that sums up some of the extreme views going around in the world of adoption today. A good part of this hate/anger develops because of the highly emotional nature of adoption. Often the feelings of those who were (or feel they were) wronged somehow involving their own adoption experience can grow out of control if they do not learn more productive coping methods. Of course we know that many people were wronged or abused concerning adoption, but there is a difference in the way that some of those people are choosing... more

I received a great email from an old friend the other day! My friend B whom I have not seen in many years, but I remember well some of our many experiences together, one of them being twenty years ago this month around the time that she gave birth to a son whom she placed for adoption. In our emails we talked about the “crazy” time when she was nine months (and thankfully holding) pregnant and we drove an eight hour round trip to go pick up another friend from college. Wow, I still can’t believe that we did that, and that I did not end... more

As much as we like to talk of Christians having compassion (and sometimes even forgetting to have said compassion) how many of you have fallen into the same assumption that I mistakenly made the other day?

I was making a few calls to try and locate a therapist for my daughter and it was quite an emotional process. I got through to one woman who deals with RAD children and she was very comforting and helpful, offering me contacts and even words of support and encouragement. When we had begun our conversation I was in tears from... more

One of my biggest day to day concerns has been tackling the difficult situations in our three open adoptions and making them into something positive and workable for our family. Sometimes I find myself hiding those things and then suddenly blurting something out here when it reaches a high frustration point for me. I have decided that taking those issues and talking about them and what I am doing about them on a more regular basis might make for an interesting Monday series. So each Monday I will be discussing something that has proved difficult... more

Recently my hubby J and I were discussing Charlie, his adoption, different adoption scenarios, and the role that birthparents can or can not play in particular adoption situations.

J is not Charlie’s birthfather. There has never been any involvement on Charlie’s birthfathers part and I don’t foresee that changing in the near future. J was there for me during my pregnancy, the decision making process where I had to choose parenting or adoption, and then once I decided on adoption, he supported me through the adoption process. Had I chosen to parent, he... more