Author

Why do adoption grant organizations want you to share your story anyway? Adoption grant organizations are looking for compelling stories that makes a family stand out from the rest of the other applicants. Five tips to help you share your story for adoption grant applications: 1.  What sets you apart? – Before you begin writing your family story, sit down, brainstorm and write down at least three to five areas that set your family apart from other families.  Every family has unique qualities and circumstances.  You need to consider all areas of your life and focus on what makes your story compelling and personal.  Think beyond what your life and finances look like on paper.  For example: children with special needs, urgency of child's medical or emotional needs, your small business successes or… [more]

My Chinese-born daughter has been cast as an orphan in a school production of "Annie." She sings the songs until they are constantly cycling through my head. "No one cares for you a smidge when you're in an orphanage," she sings. "Empty belly life. Dirty smelly life." The other members of the orphan troupe were never orphans. They're just playing them on stage. And of course, "Annie" is a 1930s period piece based on a comic strip, with cartoonish, larger-than-life heroes and buffoonish villains and fun, catchy songs, far removed from the Chinese orphanage where my daughter once lived. We've been back there twice. The first time, the babies were squirmy and curious. They reached for us and other visitors and nibbled on our fingers… [more]

In the last ten years and through the completion of three international adoptions, I learned a great deal about adoption financial planning and resources.  I would like to share some of what I learned with you. Here are the three things that you must know before looking for adoption grants: 1.  Application Eligibility Criteria Nearly all adoption grant organizations have some sort of application criteria.  What are eligibility criteria anyway?  Eligibility criterion says who is eligible to apply and who is NOT eligible to apply.  If you are single and applying to an organization that only offers grants to married couples, then you would be wasting your time.  If you are not a Christian and you are applying to an organization that only offers grant… [more]

F-E-A-R-L-E-S-S  Letters spelled out in splashes of bright paint across the soft brown sides of the little horse.   A four legged canvas for the word that she wanted to stay forefront in her mind as she thought back to her time at the Ranch.  Words attached to memories.  Memories that she tucked away like treasures to be brought out in times of struggle and darkness.  Memories that would give her the strength to break free. Those memories threatened to flood her even now, fresh on her mind, as she stepped back to admire her art.  The intimidation at the size of her partner for the week- how the little mare seemed so large that first day.  She remembered her uncertainty the first time… [more]

I am a birth mother; a name I kept hidden from everyone except my parents and my sister and my husband for over 30 years. I was told that I would forget. I never did. This is my story. I dated a boy, K, who was a year older than me, when I was a teenager. My mother didn’t meet K until we had been dating for a little while. As soon as she met him she forbade me from seeing him. So, I snuck around behind her back to see him. I got pregnant when I was 15. I hid the pregnancy from my parents until I was 6 ½ months along and could no longer hide it. K and I wanted to get married, but we were young and… [more]

Eighteen years ago, when I went to my first adoption seminar, so many things came to mind: meeting "my" child for the first time, holding him or her in my arms, providing a safe home, giving all the love I had to heal any wounds the child might have. What I never considered was how the adoption of a traumatized child would affect me. For years I had imagined my prince carrying me off into an idyllic world where I would bear children perfect and happy. But then, at 37, why was I still single? Ah, because I was too overweight or too weird or too ugly. As it turns out, no. When I took the hand of my little 3-year-old Abel for the first… [more]

By the time I was ten I was doing my own laundry, caring for an aged and ill grandmother who lived with us, and I did my homework without assistance or even prompting. She's not going to be that way. By the time I was my daughter's age I was a grade level ahead of where she is now, enrolled in the honors courses, and was an avid reader. She's not going to be that way. As I grew I continued to shine academically, received accolades for my abilities as a writer, and was easily mistaken for being older than my chronological age based on my maturity. She's not going to be that way either. And that's just fine with me. Growing up as a child of trauma… [more]

Change is hard, at times it may seem almost impossible. When I found out I was pregnant, I was 19 years old and not married. I knew I was heading down a path that would not lead to happiness.  Being a single parent wasn't what I had in mind for my future, but my decisions had quickly put me on that path. I made the most important decision to place my baby for adoption. This decision was, by far, the most difficult. This would be life altering. However, it was the best decision and brought on the lasting change I needed. When I held my precious little butterfly in my arms, I knew things were going to change. I knew I wanted to… [more]

How much nesting is considered overboard? Most couples when they decide the time is right to have a child get a nine month waiting period.  As adoptive parents, we are constantly bombarded with the more open ended question: when?   It's frustrating enough not knowing how long, let alone friends and family asking all the time. My husband and I have been working with our open adoption agency in New Jersey for a year, and between the oodles of paperwork, parenting courses, and home study, it took us until this August to finally get our profile turned in.  We've been stuck in "limbo" for the past three months waiting for "the call."  I call it "limbo" because to me, it's been the hardest step of… [more]

I can’t answer whether I’m a good birthmom to my 19 year-old son, and I’m not sure if there is anyone qualified to answer that question.  I’m not sure I know what a birthmom is in the first place.  A lonely and sad mother.  A mother who lives a different life, far from where her child is real, and growing.  A mother who can never heal, because her child truly lives and yet has died for her.  There is no Hallmark card for that. I’m adopted too – unlike my son’s, mine was a closed adoption.  I know what my birthmom is like.  She is too little, too late.  She is an open wound, hidden behind thick walls, and whatever comfort she finds… [more]