Adoption Blogs

Ten years ago, I was swollen, pregnant, and wondering when my son would make his way into the world. In May, I would go to the hospital at least half a dozen times thinking it was time, until it was really was time. I would spend three short days, three of the most vivid days to date, and three of the saddest days I have yet to survive. Here I am, ten years later, in the same city. You see, after the adoption, I tried to erase my past, the days before I had my son. I didn't want to deal with the idea that life existed before him, so I numbed myself, and I moved out of the… [more]

Getting custody of Alan, the little boy I'm hoping to adopt, became a real option for the first time earlier this year. Alan's mother was in crisis, and something was going to have to be done to ensure his well being. I originally put myself forward as a kinship carer in the hope that we could keep him out of the non-kinship foster system. His mother and father would rather have me care for him than a stranger or another family member. While I would have always preferred to adopt him outright, I agreed to foster Alan for up to two years while his biological mother, to whom… [more]

What exactly does it mean when we say that we adopted embryos? We “adopted” one batch of embryos directly from the genetic parents back in 2011. We transferred two of them into my uterus at a time, but both attempts failed. I mourned the loss of those little ones as though they had lived in my home before passing on. I made a special tribute for them, named them, and collected little mementos to remember them by. At the time, I remember thinking that they may have been as close as I’ll ever get to being a mother, so it was important for me to have something tangible to remind me of this fact.

Then… [more]

I'm not sure what special needs my ten-year-old has. He was two-plus when we adopted him, so by definition, he has "special needs." Clearly he's never met a rule he wanted to follow or a boundary he wanted to respect. But he's so cute. At first the therapist thought he was just spoiled, as in, you've been distracted by the problems of his older siblings, and he's so cute, he's been allowed to get away with too much for too long. That was hard to believe. I'm a very strict mom. My own mother called me Captain von Trapp without the whistle. She meant it in the nicest possible way I'm sure. So initially we worked on the temper tantrums and disobedience… [more]

In our society we label everything. We even have label makers and electronic tags to help us keep the things we've labeled organized. While labeling things isn't necessarily a bad thing, we have applied this same principal of categorization to people - in many ways. I have been labeled as many things in my life, some hurtful and others I am proud of. Mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend, honor student, graduate, smart, funny, and attractive are some I'm more proud of. Slow, overweight, below average, unpopular, and crabby are some of the more hurtful ones. One label I have grown up with and will never change is adopted. It is a label that is so much a part of who I am that… [more]

Earlier this week, I found myself browsing a local bookstore for some new reading material. This is something I do often, a way of relaxing almost as I drift from book to book, touching each one as I go. Occasionally, I'll pick one up that piques my interest and I'll read the short synopsis, take note of the author and either move on or place it in my pile to take to the register at the end of the visit. It's always been incredible to me how adoption seems to stick out in almost any novel, even when you least expect it. Last month, I finished reading The Casual Vacancy, and there was, of course, a minute storyline about adoption. I picked up… [more]

I was adopted at age 18 months by my foster parents. They had received me as a foster child at age 4 months and in the 1970's, foster parents weren't encouraged to adopt the children they cared for so this was an anomaly at that time. My parents continued to take foster children my entire time growing up at home and my Mom is still a foster parent today (she has been for 37 years).  I am the only child they adopted. They told me that once they got to keep me, it was easier to let go when it was time for other children to move on or return home. I always wanted to adopt a child to have the… [more]

I am so very frustrated with my seventeen-year-old son. Ever since we adopted him nine years ago, he pulls the same stunt a dozen times a school year. He lies, says he doesn't have homework, ends up with multiple missing assignments which he must then make up, and digs himself a deep dark hole of no TV, no Playstation, and no friends while he catches up. In nine years, he has had only two or three real holiday breaks from school because he usually has to spend all that time catching up. We've tried counseling, heavy structure, essays to help him connect with the feelings that drive this behavior, meetings with teachers, positive rewards when he stays caught up, and negative consequences… [more]

I am really excited to have joined the Adoption.com team as a blogger and content writer! To lend credibility to my posts and perspectives, I think it's important to let all of you get to know me and my story.  I was born in 1978 in Seattle, Washington to a young, single mother.  I was her first child and she tried to make a life for me.  She had married another man, who was enlisted in the Navy and was not my biological father, and we lived with him in Navy housing on the Whidbey Island base in Oak Harbor, WA. When I was three months old she left me in his care for an evening.  According to police reports, I was crying inconsolably and… [more]

I wrestled with the notion of searching for my birth family throughout much of my formative years. My adoptive parents always told me they would support a desire to search and do whatever would be necessary to assist me in this process.  During my younger years, I could not imagine ever wanting to know my biological parents. After all, they had given me away so why would I want to know them - and more importantly, they obviously did not want to know me. In my early teens, a life shattering event occurred that started to change my thinking.  When I was 14 years old my adoptive father died suddenly leaving me with a hole in my soul and a longing for something… [more]