Adoption Blogs

This is the third post in a series of Adopting in the 50 States. Today, we're in Arizona, the 48th state and home of the Grand Canyon. Remember, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. Consult an attorney or other adoption professional with specific questions. If you have adopted in Arizona and would like to share your experience with others, please leave a comment or email me at RobynC@adoptionblogs.com. Who May Adopt In Arizona? Any adult resident of the State, whether married, unmarried, or legally separated, is eligible to adopt. A husband and wife may jointly adopt. When May Consent Be Signed? Consent may be signed no sooner than 72 hours after the birth of the child. The consent… [more]

Our trip to Disney World gave me a lot to think about.  Some of these things to think about aren't easy topics with easy solutions, but tough questions that have no answers. Mita is going to be ten in a week (on paper anyway, she looks about 13!).  In her years on Earth she has lost a mother to AIDS, lost a father through relinquishment and lost her country, culture and language through adoption.  That is  more than most of us ever lose in a lifetime.  I do treasure the fact that they can remember Ethiopia and their family, but with those memories comes the feeling of loss and the very real feeling of pain. If you add the pain of budding puberty… [more]

I recently read the Newsweek article, "Coerced Reproduction", and it threw me for a loop. First, I had never thought of abusive relationships in this light. Second, a similar situation may be playing out for a friend of mine and her child's birth mother. The article discusses women in abusive relationships. Some men want to control women to the point that they force them to stop using birth control. The article states that men even track their partners' periods to be sure they're not on Depo-Provera shots. Teenagers may be more susceptible to reproductive coercion, especially if they're in relationships with much older men. This study of 1.300 female patients in North Carolina may help explain previous findings of "higher rates of… [more]

This is the second in a series about Adopting in the 50 States. We're going alphabetically, so today, we're in Alaska. Although it may be close to Russia, it's really nothing like that. Remember, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. Consult an attorney or other adoption professional with specific questions. If you have adopted in Alaska and would like to share your experience with others, please leave a comment or email me at RobynC@adoptionblogs.com. Who May Adopt In Alaska? A husband and wife, an unmarried adult, or the unmarried mother or father of the person to be adopted. When May Consent Be Signed? Consent may be signed any time after the birth of the child. The consent must be signed… [more]

I had to think quite a bit about how I wanted to approach this edition of the Open Adoption Roundtable, which deals with disagreement about open adoption—between those on the same side of the triad. Initially I thought: I’m completely unqualified to even begin to answer this one. While George and I weren’t entirely on the same page with regard to openness when we first started out, we came to a consensus fairly quickly and easily. And certainly the “classic Hallmark movie of the year scenario” doesn’t apply to us; the few close relatives who had concerns early on in the process proved to be wonderfully open to learning about it, and with good communication we were able to dispel some of the myths and allay some of their… [more]

An article published recently lets us know that most of our eggs are used up by the time we hit 30. What does that mean? It means that if you wait to try and conceive until after that age, or later, you may have difficulty, need intervention or be unsuccessful. Of course, if you're reading this blog and under the age of 30, you're likely thinking, "Well, this article doesn't apply to me now and certainly won't matter in my life." Not so fast and not so true. In working with the agency through which I placed, I was told, time and time again, that I could go on to have babies later in life, when the time was right. What no one… [more]

This is the first in an ongoing series about Adopting in the 50 States. We're starting with Alabama, home of the first 911 call. Remember, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. Consult an attorney or other adoption professional with specific questions. If you have adopted in Alabama and would like to share your experience with others, please leave a comment or email me at RobynC@adoptionblogs.com. Who May Adopt in Alabama? Any adult person or husband and wife. Alabama does not discriminate based on age, marital status, or if a parent is employed outside the home. When May Consent Be Signed? In Alabama, consent can be signed anytime before or after the child’s birth. If the biological mother's consent is taken… [more]

My children are daredevils. No, really. Okay, so they're not fearless, but they definitely like to try things out.  "Things" sometimes mean doing something that causes my heart to stop beating for just a second, though. But for the most part, they just tend to dive into any adventure. This pleases me greatly. Here's where my concern lies: Bear is almost four, and he has great balance, speed, and agility. Beauty, however, is almost three and has the speed down-pat, but lacks both balance and agility. This is chiefly due to the fact that she is a toe walker at all times. She is currently enrolled in an occupational therapy program that seems to help out a little bit, but she naturally… [more]

At work, my manager recently hired a new part-timer, and his job is to help me with my job. I'll call him Oswald. He called me, we chatted... and some weird remarks were made. I told my husband, he said I'm overreacting, and thus, a blog post was born. The first strange comment came when I told Oswald that the product's user interface was written by developers in China. I said, "I'm sure that their English is better than my Chinese, but -" then he cut in with a really bad Asian accent "I wanna numah six" - as though he we ordering Chinese food. O... K... Towards the end of the call, he said that he usually tries not to… [more]

They say that loss is always involved on all sides of the triad—to the first parent, the loss of the placed child; to the adopted child, the loss of the first parents and of one’s own biological roots; to the adoptive parent, the loss of the biological child who might have been. But only the first two of these are strictly adoption-related losses: Had George and I never adopted, we still would have experienced the loss of our biological children who were never born; conversely, some parents come to adopt even though they are perfectly able to bear children (and often with biological children already part of their families). So while it is often true that there is loss on all sides, the losses of the first parent and the adopted… [more]