Charlie has a pretty healthy understanding of adoption for the young age of six years old. He knows that he was adopted, that he grew in my tummy, and that I couldn’t care for him at the time so I found his Mom and Dad who could. He knows about other members of his biological family like his grandparents and brother and refers to them as such. He’s not embarrassed or ashamed that he is adopted and openly talks about it to anyone who listens.

I’ve written about this every now and then and after reading those posts, someone recently asked me how A and S have explained things... more

This weekend was another busy one for me. My son’s 4th birthday party was Saturday, and my new sister-in-law had a baby shower on Sunday, both of which I made the decorated cakes for (as well as one diaper cake). Not even a second for me to catch my breath, let alone make a post here!

Sunday I decided to make a ‘girls only’ event. I took along my oldest daughter Danika to the baby shower for her new Aunt and soon to be baby cousin. It was a wonderful time, my mother-in-law did a great job of hosting, and I found that I really like my new sister-in-law... more

Today we were home from school (oh joy!) There were parent teacher meetings going on, but we were not involved because yesterday both my ten year old and I were very sick, and are both still recovering today. Of course she is feeling much better before I, and having her home two days in a row is giving me a big dose of her “tweenage” attitude, or so I first believed.

I was sort of hoping that my oldest would help me with her younger siblings, so I could attempt to feel better myself, but unfortunately she had other ideas (as you can see from the photo, well ok,... more

Most of us involved in open adoptions understand that secrecy in our relationships can be detrimental to everyone involved. Secrets in the closed adoptions of the past were usually kept in order to withhold information from an adoptee about their adoption, or to keep birthparents from knowing how their child fared in their life after placement. Even today a system of closed records, keeps secrets that harm many adult adoptees. Most of us now know that this type of secrecy often destroyed the bonds of trust, and did far more to harm parent and child connections that it actually... more

In my last post, I talked about how I have recently realized that I was unprepared to answer adoption related questions after Charlie asked me a couple of easy questions. That wake up call has got me thinking about how I am going to handle the hard questions when Charlie comes to me asking them.

In fully open adoptions, birthparents and adoptive parents should probably discuss how much to tell when to the adopted child when questions arrive. While I believe one of the big benefits of open... more

One of the positive aspects of open adoption that I often mention is that the birthmother is there to answer questions directly from the child when they occur. Questions don’t have to be held off until birthmother and child meet. Oftentimes, she could be emailed or telephoned when the child begins to have questions. However, are we prepared for these questions?

I guess I thought that these questions would come in the future, maybe more when Charlie was able to understand the birds and the bees. I’m not quite sure when I thought his questions would occur, but the truth is I... more