Adoption Blogs » Russell

Happy Mother’s Day to All the Mothers In My Life

Russell — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:33:29 +0000

Back in the 1990’s I spent some time in Guatemala. Completely surrounded by a foreign culture and a foreign language (both of which became second nature to me while I was living there a while), I was a long way away from home and away from that wonderful lady who gave birth to me and raised me- my mother. I know the 90’s don’t seem like that long ago, but technologically it sure was. Email hadn’t yet become popular, so our main form of correspondence was by snail mail. And when you’re that far away it took about 2 weeks for a letter to travel from one to the other, then 2 more weeks for a reply. International calling still cost us an arm and a leg back then (or as the Guatemalans say, un brazo y una pierna), so it was rare that I was able to pick up Alexander Graham Bell’s invention and hear her sweet voice. That voice is just what I think of when I think of the tenderness of my mother, though. I called her one day, having been about 6 months since I’d last talked to her and all I needed to say was hello before she recognized my voice and said, “Is that my boy?”

I’m hardly a “boy” now, being literally twice her size and now a father, myself. Still, I will always be “her boy.” My mother was the kind of person who would split her piece of pumpkin pie with me even though I’d already eaten my piece. She sat cheering in the stands for every pitch I threw from the pitcher’s mound all growing up. She was the tender voice that guided me to reason when I was confused and even calm whenever I messed up. She was always there.
I left home when I was 17 to go to college and I’m now 34, so I’ve lived away from my mom just as long as I lived with her. Times change. My mom doesn’t play the same role in my life that they did when I was learning to walk or learning to throw a baseball. She doesn’t even play the same role she played back when I was single. I’ve moved on, and in so doing my concept of motherhood has changed.
In a big way, I guess the majority of us are take a gamble on each other when it comes to parenting. I mean, I knew that the beautiful girl I proposed marriage to was good to me and she made me a better person, but she wasn’t a mother when we were dating and I didn’t know how good of a mother she would be. So, I put my silver dollar in the coin slot and pulled the lever to my life’s slot machine to see how things would turn out and… what do ya know!? I hit the jackpot! Jammie is not only the most amazing wife, but my gamble paid off and she’s the most amazing mother to my children.
Our children came to us through the miracle of open adoption. So, not only am I given the chance to watch my wife excel in her role as a mother, but I’m also able to watch our relationship grow with the birth mothers of our children. They are such amazing women. They add a piece to the puzzle that is our home, supporting us and loving us. The fact that my wife and I haven’t been able to have our own children biologically doesn’t mean that we have missed out on blessings. Learning to love these beautiful birth mothers has taught us a whole new type of love- a love that we couldn’t experience anywhere else in life.
My life is truly blessed by the wonderful women that surround me. They may not carry that Y chromosome that I have, but they all have helped shape and mold me into the man that I am. I shudder to think what my life would be like without them! I love you birth moms, Mom, and especially my wife, Jammie. Happy Mother’s Day.

Russell Elkins, author of Open Adoption, Open Heart

Evolotion of Open Adoption (part 2)

Russell — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:16:12 +0000

By the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s, adoption agencies began to experiment with open adoption. The days when adoption was kept a secret began to dissolve and people began to embrace the idea of adoption. As adopted children and biological parents began to show an increased desire to have a relationship, that brought on a desire to have a relationship from the very beginning of the child’s life. Having an open adoption from the very beginning made it possible to avoid the disappointment and difficulty of trying to find one another later on in life.

Relationships between adopted children and their biological parents were still very uncommon in the early 1980’s since the practice was viewed as radical, risky, and experimental. Gradually, throughout the decade, seeing that there were a lot of benefits to the relationship for all parties involved, the number of open adoptions increased. By the time the early 1990’s rolled around, although the percentage of open adoptions were still small, the practice wasn’t considered so experimental or risky.

Still, the number of open adoptions hadn’t risen very high. This was largely due to the fact that adoption agencies preferred to have the control over where babies were placed, and giving that power over to the birth parents meant that the system they had been working with for decades wouldn’t work anymore. During that period of time, most agencies still didn’t even offer open adoption as an option. Through the mid 1990’s and into the later half of the decade, though, birth parents began to grow more aware and knowledgeable about the possibilities of open adoption. With this knowledge, they chose to place with agencies that offered open adoption. Those agencies that didn’t offer open adoption began to be compelled to offer it or suffer from lack of interested birth parents. And, of course, if birth parents had no interest in their agency, they would quickly go out of business.

Around the turn of the century almost all adoption agencies now offered open adoption, and throughout the next decade that change lead to the majority of adoptions choosing that option. At first, adoptions started out open with very little information passed between parties. Birth parents were able to choose the adoptive couple and received pictures once in a while, but the relationships were usually not very intimate. A large percentage of the open adoptions were mediated by a caseworker who would serve as a middleman to pass information between the adoptive parents and birth parents. Once correspondence became more common and more comfortable, though, the different sides began to sidestep the mediators. Open and personal relationships began to be more common, leading to where we are today.

The experiment that was open adoption was considered a big success. No results are ever universal, but children of open adoptions tend to have a more favorable view of their adoptive history. Children also have an easier time accepting who they are when they know their biological parents because they are able to see the choices made were done out of love rather than abandonment or shame.

A recent study showed that only about 5% of adoptions now have no contact between the adoptive parents and biological parents after placement has occurred. Of the 95% open adoptions, there is an estimated 55% that have a direct and ongoing line of communication between the different parties. 40% of the open adoptions are still kept open with a mediator between the different sides. Even as recent as 5 years ago, that wasn’t the case.

The Evolution of Open Adoption (part 1)

Russell — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:24:58 +0000

Before World War 2 there were few laws regarding adoption. Child trafficking and other problems arose because there were no regulations to keep them in check. War has a way of changing society, though, and after The Good War was over and the baby boom era began, the number of babies born to unwed mothers rose. With the increased number of unwed pregnancies, the government stepped in and created laws to make adoption more possible and desirable. Unexpected pregnancies were still considered something to keep hushed up, so the new laws made it so a biological mother could place her child up for adoption and the records would be sealed up from public access, making it possible for a woman to carry on with her life like nothing had ever gone on (sort of).

The number of unwed pregnancies continued to rise and both the percentage of unwed women choosing adoption and number of babies placed for adoption peaked in 1970. In 1970 almost 9% of unwed mothers chose adoption. Shortly after those numbers peaked, and with the close of the Vietnam War, the United States experienced another shift in social norms. Roe vs. Wade changed the laws regarding legalized abortion. Government assistance programs made it more possible and more common for single parents to raise children, which also lead to a wider acceptance in society of fatherless households.

Over the course of the next 15 years or so, the percentage of unwed mothers choosing adoption dropped to around 2%. And ever since the early 1990’s, the number has consistently remained below 1%.

These changes in society not only lead to the adoption numbers going down, but also made it so people who chose adoption were more likely to “choose” that path rather than feel there was no other way. In other words, lack of financial security or social pressures were less likely to force a woman to choose adoption. Rather, women were more likely to choose adoption because they actually wanted to. Women preferring adoption lead to a shift in the way adoption was viewed. The idea that adoptions should be kept quiet was quickly becoming a thing of the past. And with people beginning to view adoption in a more positive light lead to adopted children having a greater desire to discover their biological roots. The same happened in reverse with biological parents having a greater desire to seek out the children they placed for adoption years before.

The change in social views made way for a change in the laws, which made it possible to unseal the adoption records which had been kept locked away for so long. Connections began to be made. Relationships began to form. The seeds for open adoption were planted in the late 1970’s.

Is There Anything Worse Than Waiting?

Russell — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:40:42 +0000

I’m not really big into roller coaster rides, but there is one particular ride at Lagoon Amusement Park in Utah that I really enjoy. It’s not really a roller coaster since it doesn’t follow a track, but it sure is thrilling.

What happens is they strap you into your seat and raise you high high high into the air. Getting raised up and up and up is exciting, watching the people on the ground getting smaller and smaller, because we all knew what soon would be happening. Other than the seat you are sitting on and the bars holding you firmly in place, you have nothing else around you. Your feet dangle lazily beneath you without a floor to rest them on.

The concept of the ride is simple. You free fall until you get near the ground, then you bounce back up like a rubber band, go up, then down and the ride is over. The fall is scary, yes, but it’s not the scariest part. What gets you the most is the WAIT! Once you are at the top, sitting 20 stories up or so, you just sit there. You know you’re in for a crazy ride, but you don’t know when it’s going to happen. There’s no clock. There’s no countdown. There’s nothing but time to wait until suddenly, without any notice at all, your ride has begun.

When my wife and I started out on our journey the first time, we didn’t know just how similar our life would be to that ride. Even though the paperwork was a horrible tedious pain, it was exciting to know that we were actually working on something that would bring us closer to parenthood. Once we finished our home study and papers, though, we sat there dangling. Sure, we worked on networking and we spread the word the very best we could, but for the most part we were stuck wondering how long it would take for our ride to really start.

After we had been waiting for what felt to us like a century, my wife jumped on the adoption agency website and started browsing through the different couples just to see when our profile pop up. We were way down the list of couples and it seemed like it would take us another century before anyone even noticed we were there.

So there we sat without a clock, without a countdown, without any way of knowing how long we would have to sit and dangle our legs. Suddenly, without warning, when we were on our way to buy a new frame for our bed, my wife’s phone beeped to let her know that she got an email. She checked the email and our life has never been the same since.

The wait was horrible. The wait was torture. The ride was just as intense. Afterward, though, we got to where we are now with a wonderful feeling of triumph and joy. My heart no longer has trouble regulating itself and my life isn’t bouncing up and down the way it did in the beginning. What a crazy and wonderful ride it was, even though we had to go through that horrendous waiting period.

In the Delivery Room

Russell — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:19:04 +0000

She was the most beautiful little girl I had ever laid my eyes on! There are a lot of things that have made my life as an adoptive father unique. One of those differences that I love is the fact that both of our adoptions were blessed by women who let us be part of the hospital experience.
For both adoptions, we were both in the delivery room. I imagine that adoptive parents are the only ones who are able to experience the joy of standing together, hand in hand, over the newborn child while the nurses suck out the baby’s nose, squirt goo into the child’s eyes, poke and prod and do all the things they were trained to do. Usually it’s the father that gets to watch while mom is still over in her bed. That’s one lucky thing we got to experience together as adoptive parents.

The birth of our first adoption took place in a big hospital that we had chosen specifically because they were more accustomed to adoptions than the other hospitals in the area. Those nurses were wonderful and treated us all with such wonderful loving care that we will always remember their treatment of us. With our second adoption, we were at a small town hospital that was obviously not used to our circumstances.
The nurses with our second adoption would not stop congratulating us after our little girl was born. We were in a delicate situation where we weren’t even sure if the birth mother was going to choose adoption, so all of the congratulations right there in front of her made my wife and me really uncomfortable. It was almost like they had a “congratulation button” that just couldn’t be turned off. Even after so many reminders, they kept doing it. It’s just what they had always done, I guess, and they couldn’t help but do it.
Being congratulated right in front of our daughter’s birth mom made it feel like we were rubbing it in her face that we were going to go home with the baby and she wasn’t. She was facing what is likely to be one of the most difficult decisions and times of her entire life, and we didn’t want to celebrate it right in front of her while she was still numb from the epidural.
The nurses kept asking us the questions and talking to us about the care of the child while still right there next to the birth mom. We knew that there would be a time to celebrate the adoption, even with our birth mom, but the first seconds and minutes after the birth wasn’t the time.
Even with our first adoption, with the birth mother having already decided that adoption was what she wanted, a celebration right in front of her when our son was just seconds or minutes old wasn’t the right timing either.
We knew there would be a time and a place for all of that, and it did come. The birth mothers who have blessed our lives are able to celebrate our family with us. Still, there were some awkward moments at the hospital, especially with the hospital that wasn’t accustomed to an open adoption.
I’m so glad that the birth mothers were willing to let us be a part of that day. With both circumstances, I think the birth mothers were able to brush off the awkward moment pretty easily. I’m so grateful for the wonderful women who let us share so much of their experience even though not everybody around understood fully what was going on!

Bad Days Happen

Russell — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:42:07 +0000

I sat typing at the computer, eavesdropping on the conversation that my wife was having with a good friend. Her friend, like my wife and me, has adopted a couple kids. The topic of their conversation was about the hard day that this friend was having. She had a visit with one of the birth parents over a video chat and it hadn’t gone as she was hoping it would. The point of the conversation, though, was the fact that other people were making her feel like she wasn’t allowed to feel upset or frustrated with anything regarding adoption.
Not all people do this to us adoptive couples, but there are people that do. A lot of the people who do don’t even realize that they’re doing it. For example, here’s a conversation that I had once with a family member- someone that loves me and fully respects my role as a father:

“So, how ya doin’?” he asked.
“Great,” I said. “Pretty tired, though.”
“Why, what’s going on?” he wondered.
“Oh, just the usual,” I answered. “Newborn baby keeps us up most of the night. Ya know how it is.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but you are happy to have her.”
That’s not the best example. He might have even said it if the child were born naturally to us. Still, that type of this is common. Just because I was griping about something doesn’t mean that I’m not appreciative about the gift my wife and I were given.
After all, someone gave us the most amazing gift that could possibly be given from one mortal to another. Because of the sacrifice and love of some selfless birth parents, my wife and I are known as Mommy and Daddy. We know that it’s the most wonderful thing that has, or ever will, be done for us, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have bad days. We struggle just like any parent would. I mean, just because my kids were adopted doesn’t mean that my 2 year old doesn’t draw on the wall with a crayon when I turn my back. And just because I get upset that my wall has red scribbles on it now doesn’t mean that I’m any less appreciative of the gift that we were given.
Or, in the case of my wife’s friend: she needed someone to vent a little frustration to because the birth parent she was trying to have a video chat with was more interested in texting friends during their conversation than looking at the computer screen. She called my wife because she knew that if she said something to one of her other friends, she’d get, “well, just don’t chat with them anymore” or “maybe you should close the adoption” or “well, they did give you a baby”.
I guess with all my rambling and complaining, the bottom line is this: Open adoption is not easy. We have bad days. We’re parents; of course we have bad days. Just like other parents, we’re entitled to them. My wife and I don’t really get used to people implying that we should be more grateful rather than complain about our difficulties, but we do get a little more accustomed to not expecting other people to understand what we’re going through.

Did You Know Men and Women Are Different?

Russell — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:17:44 +0000

When I was soon to get married, one of the leaders in my church sat me down to have a good talk with me. There had been a lot of people like me that he had cornered through the years, especially since I was living in a college town where lots of us youngsters were getting married. And the conversation that we had, I assume he had had 100 times before. Still, he wasn’t the easiest guy to talk to.
“Are men and women different?” he asked me.
“What do you mean?”I wondered.
I assumed there was some sort of trick to the question. Of course I knew that men and women were different. How could someone not think that?

“I mean just that. Are men and women different?” he repeated himself.
“Uh… yes?” I answered, more as a question than an answer.
“Yes,” he told me. “Men and women are different.”
That was quite an uncomfortable way to start a conversation, especially since he wasn’t the most comfortable personality to be around in the first place, and our little chat went downhill from there. I left the conversation frustrated, but I think I understood his main points about what he had learned about marriage throughout the years.
Men and women are different. I couldn’t expect my soon-to-be wife to respond to life the same way I did. Most importantly, though, we needed to find a way to support each other in what the other person would be going through.
In nothing is the difference between men and women more evident in our marriage than with our adoptions. The frustrations with infertility affected my wife differently than me. Most importantly, though, is that the relationship with the birth families is very different for her than it is for me just because of the simple fact that she’s a woman, and I’m a man.
The birth father from our first adoption is not in the picture. We offered him pictures and some contact, but he doesn’t want it. The birth father from our second adoption loves us, enjoys the pictures and contact we have had with him, but for the most part he lives his life very separate from ours. The birth mothers from both of our adoptions are both very interested and very involved in our lives. That puts more pressure on my wife than it does on me simply because it’s more natural for women to have a tighter relationship with each other rather than it would be for me to be as close to one of them, being a man.
Women just process things differently. Women’s brain are based on emotion- how does something make her feel? Men’s brains are based on problem solving- how can he fix what’s in front of him? So my wife and I are always facing the same problem with different eyes. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong. They’re both just different, not that saying that makes it any easier.
I wish there was a way to split the stress and split the amount of effort needed to put into the adoption. I wish I could take some of the burden that my wife bears. And who knows, maybe some couples have figured out how to do just that. But just the simple fact that she has two X chromosomes and I’ve got this Y chromosome makes it so that we come at each situation differently.
I love my wife and she does an amazing and fantastic job being a mother, friend to the birth mothers, and primary care giver in our home. She’s amazing and I hope she knows how much I appreciate what she does (even if I’m thinking of solutions to her problems when all she wants is for me to give her a good listening ear).

Birth Mothers- Our Perfect Fit

Russell — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:28:47 +0000

“No, actually,” she said. “That’s the only thing that’s been going right.”
The birthmother from our second adoption was talking to her caseworker recently and told her that everything in her life was going crazy.
“A lot of case workers have to work out the issues with the adoptive couple,” her caseworker told her. “Don’t worry, you guys will get it figured out.”
And that’s when she said that we were the only thing going right at the time.
We appreciated that more than she knows- knowing that she thinks we were a little ray of sunshine in her cloudy days. That was a few months ago that she told us that, and now that placement is a little further into our past, her days have been a lot brighter and she has been able to find some peace of mind in her regular activities. Still, it’s times like that that when I’m especially grateful for two women who were able to find themselves the perfect match. And that we are- a perfect match.

After we had gone through the adoption process once, we better realized that we weren’t just bringing a new child into our family, but we would be brining in a whole new branch to our family tree- the birth parents. So when we met for the first time, we were actually a little more focused on what the birth mother was like than trying to anticipate what the child would be like. She slid right into our family circle. She was a perfect fit and I’m glad she felt it enough to choose us for a permanent match. And here we are, growing closer every day and forever grateful that she found us- not only because our home is a little more full with a baby girl in the nursery, but because we love what she brings to our home as a birth mother.
The relationship we have with our son’s birth mother is completely different from with our daughter’s birth mother because, well, the two ladies are completely different. They were different ages, come from different backgrounds… they’re just different from each other. Just like any relationship that comes into our life, they both bring different personality traits and different qualities to the table as well. We love that. We don’t wish they were the same. And the best part is that both birth mother’s are everything we hoped for. Sure, we’ve had our issues that we’ve needed to sort out. I would expect that every open adoption needs to iron out the wrinkles. Still, both sides have always been open and willing to tackle things together.
I’m so grateful that they found us. They made the right decision. I’m not saying that we are the perfect couple or that we’re even anything out of the ordinary, but I’m so grateful that they were in tune enough to find the couple (us) that fit what they needed. We’ve been good for them, and they’ve been good for us. This is just the beginning of a lifetime relationship.

Guests At My Son’s Birth

Russell — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:17:34 +0000

When I was a single college student, being a musician, I used to host what we called “Acoustic Night” once a month at my house. My friends and I would invite a bunch of people over to listen to a variety of people play songs on their acoustic guitars and we’d make an evening of it. It was a lot of fun.
One evening, though, after the whole shin-dig was over and I thought everybody had left, I could hear some voices coming from my kitchen. I walked in to find three guys helping themselves to my fridge and my cupboards, preparing themselves some food and laughing about it the whole time they did it. I snatched the sandwich right out of the ring leader’s mouth and had to threaten them to get them to leave. They were never invited again. Actually, they weren’t even invited by any of my friends in the first place. They were invited by someone we had invited, and that person got an earful from me.

I fully realize that what I’m about to equate that experience to is completely different, but I was just looking for a humorous way to say- don’t invite someone to an event unless you know it’s okay.
This week we celebrated my little boy’s second birthday. Throughout the entire day, even more than I did on his first birthday, I found myself reminiscing, asking myself, “two years ago at this very minute, what was I doing?” thinking about when we were awakened at 3:30 AM, taking a nap in the delivery wing’s lounge, when the birth actually happened, etc. One thing that was hard for a lot of our friends to understand was that it wasn’t our event. It wasn’t our party. We felt very privileged that we were invited to witness such a personal and special event, but that entire hospital experience belonged to the birth mother of our son. There are a lot of delicate feelings bouncing around for everybody involved, but especially for the birth mother. We didn’t feel right inviting other people to her event while everything was still so delicate.
With our first adoption, after 12 hours or so, we did invite my brother and his wife as well as my mother. Still, even though we had a bunch of friends who wanted to bring by some flowers and come see the new baby, the time wasn’t right. We knew that our situation wasn’t meant to have a big party going on while our son’s birth mother was nearby beginning the process of learning how to deal with the separation.
With our second adoption, the situation stayed delicate and we never let anybody come by, not even members of our family. It wouldn’t have been right for that situation, and it was hard for some of our family and friends to understand that. It wasn’t our event. It wasn’t our party. We, ourselves, were guests.
There would be lots of time to celebrate and there would be lots of time to visit with our friends, but there at the hospital with the birth mother wasn’t that time. We will be forever grateful to the birth mothers from both of our adoptions for allowing us to be part of their special day.

Adoption, the Alternative To… Pregnancy?

Russell — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:33:05 +0000

My heart aches for a friend today. She is having to make a very tough decision, which I’m glad I never had to make. I’ll get back to that in a bit…
Last week I was at the bank, opening a new account. I have recently started on the path of being a writer and I needed to have a new bank account in order to keep my author dealings separate from my other banking needs. When the banker started to ask questions about my book, which is about adoption, he said that he and his wife were considering adoption. When I probed a little further into his thoughts, he told me about how his wife hated being pregnant so much that she wanted to skip all that difficult stuff and go right to the new baby part- i.e. adoption is easier than being pregnant.

So I took it upon myself to share experiences from both of my adoptions. I told him about how we were never sure whether or not the adoption was going to go through until so many months after the children were in our home. I told him about how the birthfather from our first adoption showed no interest until right before we were supposed to finalize, then he caused problems. I told him about the guilt that adoptive parents feel, especially with open adoptions, because they are on the joyous receiving end when the birthparents are hurting so much from their loss.
“I’m not trying to talk you out of adopting,” I told my banker, “I’m just telling you that you and your wife should read as much as you can about modern adoption before you make that decision.”
I could see it in his face. I could see his eyes steadily growing wider as I told him about how adoption isn’t just a matter of filing paperwork and sitting by your front window to watch for someone do pull into your driveway with a new baby for you. I could see him wondering if he wanted to have a second child at all.
Back to my friend that I mentioned before… I ache for her. Before the child was born, they emphasized to the birthmother that it was her decision and that nobody else could make the decision for her (and the birthfather). She made her decision and she placed the child with my friend’s family. She relinquished her rights and everything went through all the right channels. The problem is that now, six months after the child was placed into their home, and days before everything is to be finalized by a judge, the birthmother has decided to change her mind. Legally, the birthmother has no say, but she has a lot of emotional pull. In order for the child to go back to the birthmother, the adoptive couple has to relinquish their own rights, since they are the ones with custody. What a horrible situation to be in. My daughter is the exact same age as my friend’s little boy, so I can’t help but think how I would feel if I were in her shoes.
My purpose for writing this post isn’t to tell you what she should do- I’m not even going to tell you what they have decided (although I feel she made the right decision). I’m not interested in sparking some controversy. I just want people to understand that adoption isn’t as easy as filing some paperwork, writing out a check for the process, and smiling all the way to the courthouse to finalize. It’s not easy, and some situations are harder than others. On the other hand, I’ve never done anything more worthwhile in my life!