While the amount of contact with B. has increased as time has passed, I’d always considered ours an open adoption. Even from our Day One in both her and Maeve’s lives.
Dawn’s written a wonderful post about open adoptions that not only covers some of the varied ways it’s defined — a nice primer for those [...]
Last night we were wrapping up a small present to send to someone in Maeve’s first mom’s family. While the unwrapped present (a friend of mine’s aunt makes these super-adorable child and adult necklaces! See Maeve wearing one here) sat on our kitchen counter a couple days, Maeve would occasionally point it out and reference the [...]
I chatted online with Maeve’s first mom tonight. IM’d as the cool kids say.
Although I’ve been steadfast in my sometimes impatient desire for more — more contact in any and every which way — I’m having to remind myself here, right now in the blogosphere, to be happy for these small steps. Because these steps face forward. She’s [...]
Tonight my local adoption group hosted Hollee McGinnis of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. A most-interesting presentation indeed — and I’m not just saying that because she drew my name as winner of the raffle for a signed copy of Adam Pertman’s Adoption Nation. Really.
I’ve got more to say on the evening, but I just [...]
Thanks to a fellow blogger and adoptive mom for reminding me that there are reasons to celebrate adoption. (Sound strange to some? Let me explain.) Although this is National Adoption Month, “celebration” hasn’t been a word I’ve been throwing around much.
After all, adoption is a very serious subject. There’s so much to consider, so much involved, [...]
My latest column is up over at AFTH, and as usual, the link to it remains nestled in my sidebar. But in the interest of saving you a click or two, here’s what I had to say in the Fall installment of Musings of an Adoptive Mama:
Changing Leaves, Changing Minds
Some use the start of the [...]
If you can, tune in to NPR today at 3 pm (Eastern time) for its “Talk of the Nation” program which promises to be a lively discussion about access to birth and adoption records.
Panelists are Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, Tom Atwood of the National Council for Adoption as well as [...]
With all the hubbub today after the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute released its white paper, “For the Records: Restoring a Right to Adult Adoptees” — which recommends every state provide adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates — and news organizations picked up the report, thought I’d offer up the link to the full white [...]
“Keeping [birth] records closed perpetuates the myth
that open adoption is a fringe movement,
flirting with the potentially dangerous idea
of not cutting adoptees off from their families of origin.”
***
“Closed records play into the fiction that there is something
shameful in adoptees’ pasts. … They reinforce the idea
that first parents should disappear into the shadows
after relinquishment if they know [...]
As noted in a comment to yesterday’s post (thanks, Lauren!), not only is November NaBloPoMo, the month also is dedicated to promoting adoption awareness.
Let me be clear. For me, promoting adoption awareness doesn’t mean making people aware of adoption. It means making people aware about the issues in adoption.
This means talking. Talking about the absolute importance of ethics in [...]
