Recently my middle child Cierra, who has always had a fully open arrangement with many members of her extended birthfamily, has begun seeing her birthmother again. So far we are about a year into renewed visits and there have definitely been some not so subtle changes in our daughter as a result.

Right after the adoption we had contact with R, but our daughter was still a newborn and does not recall to much from those early visits. Unfortunately soon after things happened in R’s life that prevented her from visiting even though she desired too and... more

Wikipedia describes

Regret is an intelligent (and/or emotional) dislike for personal past acts and behaviors. Regret is often felt when someone feels sadness, shame, or guilt after committing an action that the person later wishes that they had not done. Regret is distinct from guilt, which is a deeply emotional form of regret — one which may be difficult to comprehend in an objective or conceptual way. In this regard, the concept of regret is subordinate to guilt in terms... more

Part One

After finding out the hard way that not everyone shares a new adoptive mother’s enthusiasm about her route to parenthood, I began to share less and less. At the very least I began to scrutinize a person before I shared. I had to feel them out to gage whether their response would be good or not so good.

I had to wonder if that is part of why closed adoptions were so popular years ago. Sharing sort of sets’ you up. A lot of people... more

Fellow blogger Jenna wrote a really great series about her “coming out of the closet” so to speak as a birthmother. It makes sense that presenting yourself in this little understood light can be difficult and you would expect to be unfairly judged and scrutinized. I am really glad she shared that aspect of her situation. I as well as a few others were surprised to learn that she was not always so open because she presents such a strong voice online.... more

At my house all the Christmas decorations are put away. Some of the many gifts from the day already broken.

Broken gifts. What do you do?

Well if they are the typical type you can stand in excruciatingly long lines at the retailer to hopefully return for pennies on the dollar of the original price that was paid. That is if you have a receipt. In either case expect a headache.

The fractured gifts I refer to however are not the mass-merchandiser variety. This year was a fresh disappointment for me because it was the first Christmas... more

I thought I’d interrupt my support network series in order to bring you some real life drama that occurred last night…

One of the BirthMom Buds contacted me because she’d had a truly horrible day and needed to talk. I asked her if I could share with all my readers why her day was so terrible and she agreed.

Let me begin with a little background information on this birthmother, whom we will call K. K placed her son in an open adoption about sixteen months ago. She was supposed to receive yearly visits along with update letters and photos... more

Being open about adoption doesn’t mean you have to fully disclose everything about the process and the reasons why your child was placed to others.

Being in an open adoption means you probably know more about your child’s birth family than you would in a closed adoption. There are some privacy boundaries that need to be established when talking about adoption.

However, I’m still figuring them out. It’s not always clear-cut what’s okay to share and what’s not. Here are some of the general questions I’ve asked myself when trying to figure... more

During the water ceremony at church, I announced to about a 150 people sitting in rows, with my little plastic bowl of water in hand, that my water represented family and that our family became a ‘forever family’ on Friday, September 8. Then I poured it in the collective bowl.

My family’s summer journey happened right in our home, so the water I brought came from my kitchen sink. I thought it was fitting since it was the water that nourished us, our pets and plants. Others had brought water from far-away places they had visited over the summer... more

When I search open adoption in Google I get a list of happy well-oriented stories on agency sites. They talk about how it’s ‘best’ for your child and how the potential birth parents get to see the child grow up. As an adoptive parent you’ll be happy to know your child will not have that ‘hole’ in their heart from closed adoption. You all become one big happy family.

Not to say this can’t be true, don’t get me wrong. I support open adoption and feel extremely blessed that my youngest son will grow up knowing all the people who love him. We do actually function as one big extended family. I just think there is a major lack of education and support for the people and children involved... more

The first time I met my son’s paternal biological grandparents was on the opposite side of the courtroom. The second time was during a court ordered visitation with my son.

We weren’t supposed to meet in person then. The visitation facility was very careful about how we should proceed when arriving and leaving so that wouldn’t take place. I expressed to the employee (they might have been a social worker) that I was open to being in the same room with them if needed.

Later on I found out they expressed the same sentiment.

That didn’t mean we liked each other at that moment. I only knew second and third-hand information about them. My first-hand experience was through... more