Another negative aspect of open adoption has to be the fact that we (those participating in open adoptions) are swimming in uncharted waters because of the lack of education, resources, and support for all members of the adoption triad participating in open adoptions.

Many people may think that open adoption is a newer form of adoption, but it’s really not. It’s just making a come back. Until the end of the nineteenth century most adoptions were informal and open. Adoption agencies were not around, so if a young woman became unexpectedly pregnant and could not care for her baby,... more

I am so excited because today the phone company sent a fellow out to finally hook up some DSL service for our home. Yahooooooo!

With a daughter who might be starting virtual school soon, and a beleaguered mom who takes hours to download info and photos for this very blog, we finally decided to cave in, and get up to speed with the rest of the world. I have been living with the antiquated dial-up for so long, I almost forgotten there was another world out there, and a faster one at that. Being able to do things quicker, more efficiently... more

I have been reading online about the experiences of some birthparents in open adoptions, who have come to find out over time, that perhaps they really don't like their kid’s adoptive parents very much. I wonder at times if I, like those adoptive parents in question, am susceptible to some very high, unknown, and unattainable standards myself.

I will be the first to admit that it scares the pants off me. I always come away from reading something like that from a birthparent, however justified in their personal situation, and wonder if my own children’s birthparents think... more

Another positive aspect of open adoption is the fact that Charlie has the ability to ask me any questions he may have related to adoption.

Charlie has always known he is adopted and his parents have done a terrific job of explaining adoption to him, but when those questions arise that involve why I made the choices he did, I prefer to the person answering them. As a birthmother, this is comforting to me because he gets the answers right from the source instead of second hand. His adoptive parents and I have discussed all of this before he was born and all came to the agreement... more

It seems all the current talk about National Adoption Awareness Month has also brought out the ranting and full-blown, mouth foaming raving of the anti-adoption factions too.

I really hate that, but hey if they can rant, so can the rest of us, right?

All these folks do when they shove the sum total of the adoption world into a huge bag and label it all as completely unethical and always unnecessary, is just give reform in its purest sense a really bad name, and further harm the children in question. So many of us really do... more

Another negative aspect of open adoption (again, this could work for any adoption situation) is the “what if” factor.

I kind of blindly placed Charlie, I didn’t research my options much, I didn’t really look into parenting. I just thought that I would never be able to successfully parent two children as a single mother and that Noah’s special needs would make parenting two children much harder. I also really wanted my baby to have a stable home with a mother and a father, neither of which I could provide at that moment in time. I also had financial concerns to worry about... more

A few days ago I ran across this interesting article about Madonna’s return to the African country of Malawi sometime this month. The article mentions a planned visit between Madonna, her adopted son David Banda, and David’s biological father, Yohane Banda.

Could Madge be turning some tides in the world of International and Open adoption? Could she be starting something, very visibly that will help others think more compassionately... more

In my last post , I wrote about the things that I don’t know about Charlie being a huge negative aspect for me personally in my open adoption situation. It tears me up inside that I don’t know all the little things about Charlie that I do know about Noah. Piggybacking off that post and looking at the positive aspects of open adoption today, I’d like to talk about the things that I do know about Charlie.

Because of open adoption there are many little things about Charlie that I am able to... more

One of the negative aspects of open adoption (again, this would apply to adoption in general from the birthparent’s point of view) that is really difficult for me personally is the things that I do not know about Charlie. . Granted because I have an open adoption there are so many things that I do know about Charlie, that other birthmothers who do not have open adoptions probably do not know about their birth children, but it’s the little things that I do not know that eat me up sometimes.

I know so much about Noah; so many things that only a mother knows about her own child.... more

Invisible >adjective - unable to be seen, either by nature or because concealed. treated as if unable to be seen; ignored.

Ok, so just how do I know anything about the birthfamily perspective, and how it feels to be invisible in the adoption scenario? Well, hang with me here, I can explain.

Sometime back I shared that not only am I am adoptive mom, but I am also a birthfamily member. Several (yes several) of my middle brother’s kids were all... more