suziandben

Congratulations Sara and Andrew!!!!! So happy for you

Wow I'm off the internet for two days and look what happens!!! Wow Charu and Darshan I have tears of joy for you. Blessings and prayers for you and your family!

Oh wow hearty congratulations!!!!!!!!

congratulations!!!!

Congratulations Chris & Danette!!!

Congratulations Jenni and Mike! So very happy for you.

So happy for you Nic and Raj!!!! And Rocco.

Congratulations Paredes family!!!!

How old is Luke? Our guys are 13.5 months apart. While we knew there would be big challenges (hello NO sleep) with them being so close in age, the rewards are HUGE. Sending prayers for you and your family that you will be blessed with such a challenge/blessing soon.

Congratulations Wing family!!!!

I am actually starting to wonder if my kids are going to think there is someting "wrong" with them because they are adopted yet look like their parents (or at least everyone on the planet tells we look like each other). I chaulk it up to our kids birthparents being attracted to familiarity and therefore somehow choosing people (before the kid was born) who would look like their kid. Several times a week the kids and I are reading some kind of childrens book or another about adoption and they all talk about how families don't always look alike. Instead of having (biological) kids who grow up and rebel yelling at me: I had to have been adopted there's no way i'm related to you!!! My kids are going to grow up thinking we lied to them all these years, well how could i have been adopted, when we look alike!!! LOL

I remember a social worker telling us that he always liked to ask aps after placement, would you rather have received a child sooner or would you rather have this child? Universally everyone always says the wait was worth it, this is the child for our family. I think the same is true of birthparents chosing aps. Our son parker's birthmom went through EVERY profile in our agency in wa and was really looking at specific family because they were almost the right family. Then we met at an agency function and she saw our profile after that and I'm so glad that other birthparents didn't choose us so that we were there when jordyn needed us and we needed her.

My understanding is that the adoption credit was created to encourage adoption (from an ap standpoint). whether or not the credit should be around, for childless couples with two income earning potential and huge amounts of motivation its helpful but a deal breaker. the credit definitely helped it be more feasible for ben and I to adopt our 2nd son but I don't think it factored into our decision to adopt either kid. the thing I do wish is that employers and health insurance companies treated aps the same as parents who birth babies. so many do not. elizabeth wouldn't an adoption credit for birth parents just result in the govt paying for babies? The adoption process currently allows for agencies and aps to cover birthparent expenses so any adoption credit from the irs would be profit?

We as taxpayers collectively fund the government and all it's spending. So if we invest our tax dollars into the govt and the govt spends some of it in adoption credits. Then the adoption credit is taxpayer funded. Unless there are donations being made from outside parties or organizations to fund that credit, it's taxpayer money.

It's actually true. Yes we pay adoption fees but we pay them to abrazo (or others). Then the federal govt gives us back about $10k in income tax credits. No special interest group is funding adoption credits for the government. Whatever amount income tax revenues would have been are lower because of the adoption credit. I don't take political stances on all of this just trying to clear up confusion. Let's also remember that the IRS did not cause the change in the adoption credit. Law makers made that change VERY late in year last year and the IRS is juggling as best it can given such late notice. I would encourage everyone to share their frustration with their lawmakers. I am happy to vent about IRS weaknesses anyday but in this case I believe it is not their fault.

God bless u yuli and victor.

congrats whoever you are!!! (erin & john have "new placement" on their profile??)

Congratulations Dale and Jennifer on your precious baby girl and blessings to her first family - your new extended family.

I just love the new placement photo. the look on daddy Jermaine face says "that's right. he's mine." Proud daddys are a beautiful thing! people so often look very different in their placement photo than their avatar or their profile because it's such a candid shot. Tonia - you are even more beautiful! So happy for you!

Congratulations!!!! Looks like a handsome healthy guy!

The bright side is that this is certainly testimony to what you (elizabeth) always tell us ... that birthparents feel protective of the adoptive parents they choose and the family they helped create (by placing a child with that family). I didn't read the article just noticed it was the birthmom who alerted police.

I will add one thing. In line with what Hannah (?? rhsegura I think I am remembering your name correctly) is saying about bonding. While we did not breatfeed, we chose not to allow anyone but me, Ben or first parents to bottle feed either of our sons. We felt that it was precious bonding time. Especially with ben working out of town every week until collin was a year old - i felt it important that there be at least one way in which collin could differentiate that this (ben) was someone special not just a random person he saw every weekend. Yes there were instances when I had to get a sitter and they would bottle but very few. I think my family and friends thought gee he's bottle fed you don't need to do that let us take over entirely. My opinion was that just because he's bottle fed doesn't mean he should lose out on the mom or dad time. I really enjoyed hearing a cousin tell me that when her son (5th biological child) refused to latch at something like 5 months she bottle fed him but did the same as we did - she kept bottle feeding to herself as their special time.

Welcome Jessia! There is a whole thread (more probably than one) dedicated to this topic on the forum. This is something that I thought about a great deal myself at one point in time. In the end we had no time to prepare ahead of time to breastfeed either of our boys. Between match and birth were about a week or two with each of our boys. A friend of mine has always made the argument in favor of a-mom's breastfeeding because birthmoms choose us to make the best decisions for the child involved that includes whether or not baby is breastfed. I totally agree with her. However, I would caution that as Erin mentioned the success for any woman who has not previously birthed/breastfed a baby is going to be limited. Meaning let's say a baby needs 3 oz of milk every three hours, and you are only producing one ounce. You then have double effort every three hours and maybe the tube thing as Erin mentioned. As my boys were little I still ached to have the breastfeeding experience but whenever I thought through the efforts involved vs. the benefit derived, and the fact that the boys food intake was ever increasing, the argument allows came up in favor of not breastfeeding. It also wasn't just me involved - this kind of effort would impact me, my stress level, my time, the boys and my husband. so then it's hard to argue that mom (and dad) being more stressed, more tired and having less time etc was best for baby. In the breastfeeding thread here on the forum there is a post at the end with positive notes about a-mom's breastfeeding but what the poster left out of her post is that she had previously birthed and breastfed two biological children before breastfeeding an adopted child. Even she only produced a small portion of the baby's total food supply. Are there instances when it works, I bet there are, but small percentage. Both my formula fed babies have thrived even despite parker being 9 weeks premature. I think also it's harder for men to bond with a child who is adopted than it is for women. I think bottle feeding helps the guys get there faster. If you attempt breast feeding, it will be such an uphill battle that you should not have dad do any feedings. Realistically you will need baby on boob every three or four hours day and night. Because that is what triggers your body to produce (and increase production) and what will train baby to suck. For me in choosing to adopt, this ended up being one of those things I just had to let go of.