ElizabethAnn
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Find more homestate mentors, HERE!
Abrazo is blessed to have numerous alumni all over America who will gladly take "newbies" under their wing, to offer support and guidance throughout the adoption process.
All they/we ask is that you pay it forward, and extend the same assistance to others once you're home with your new son and/or daughter...
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Interesting story... Finding Comfort from Adoption. Granted, most adoption agencies are hesitant to place with those who have current or recent cancer diagnoses not because they question the ability of cancer patients or cancer survivors to be good parents, but because of the need to try to shield children who have already suffered the loss of two parents any additional pain of loss in their early developmental years. Here's hoping this child and the parents she adopted have ample time to enjoy a healthy life together!
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Lighting a candle tonight for the family of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was killed by an armed bigot today in Washington, D.C., at the Holocaust Museum: join me...
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This just in... for all those celebrity adoption watchers who have been waiting with bated breath on this one: Madonna To Be Permitted to Proceed with Adoption of Mercy
And for a bonus round: Nicole Kidman's Adoption Plans.
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Hi All!
This is my first time posting here in the forum.
We sent our application in last week to Abrazo and were told by Audra over a week ago that someone would call us asap and let us know the date of the June orientation weekend.
Well we never got a call from anyone at Abrazo and unfortunately it is now getting so late into June that we doubt my husband will be able to get the time off work. (he'd have to miss a Friday to fly there).
Does anyone have any information on this?
Thanks,
The Yeungs
As of last week, Angela had just begun clearing applications for orientation June 26-27, since we'd had to reschedule it previously due to an insufficient number of childless couples. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused anyone. (And for the Yeungs; your application arrived here on Thursday and Angela sent you your registation paperwork for orientation that same day.)
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When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom... Let it be!
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom... Let it be!
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be!
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, Let it be!
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow, let it be!
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, Let it be!
Let it be, let it be... Let it be, let it be
There will be an answer. let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom... Let it be
-- The Beatles
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Read this: Battle Over Custody of Columbo.
Oh, for Pete's sake!!! If Catherine Falk is 38 years old, she is no longer an "adopted child." Grrrrr!
(More on Peter Falk and his family history, HERE.)
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On the subject of "positive adoption language," here's the perspective of one offended person (herself an adoptee) who shared her thoughts on this with the readers of the Dallas Morning News and who tells it like it is-- for her, personally:
Posted by Laurel @ 5:45 AM Wed, May 27, 2009Yes. Letting someone else raise your child is brave and loving and responsible. That's why everyone does it. In fact, whenever I love anyone very much, I make sure to get them out of my life as quickly as possible, because to do otherwise would be selfish...not.
Actually, I really do tend to push away those who love me. Why? I'm adopted, and I grew up hearing "Your mother loved you so much she gave you up." Think about that. Think about getting raised with the notion that love=removing yourself from the beloved's life forever. It's almost always a lie, and it damages children.
The "reality of the adoption decision" is that your gain is someone else's loss. Adopted children also suffer loss, and we suffer unnecessarily when our adoptive parents tell us lies to spare our(or their own)feelings. There is enough secrecy in adoption. Secrecy causes shame.
But yes, let's do embrace these women--at least until we've got what we want. It's very transparent, this "love-bombing" someone who has or had something you want badly. Something that, if you've already got it, might make you feel the tiniest bit guilty about benefiting from a "wonderful decision" very few women have ever wanted to make.
I do agree that "terminology can make or break attitudes toward embracing adoption." That's why I loathe the term "birthmother" or any variant thereof: it reduces women like my mother to breeding machines for the convenience of the higher-class infertile. It's also often applied to women who have not even given birth yet as a means of coercion. Nobody is a "birth mother" until she has given up her child.
Yes, my mother _gave me up_. There is no better or more accurate term. Had I been born at a time when giving birth out of wedlock was not so heavily stigmatized, I would probably not have been adopted. Now that the stigma is gone, most women keep their babies. I guess they would rather have their own family than help form someone else's. Selfish creatures! Don't they know they could be mature, selfless, courageous soopa-heroines?
For more on this subject and the public response to it in Dallas, click here.
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The Dallas Morning News ran an editorial recently in support of birthparents, which mentioned the opposition that moms-planning-to-place so often encounter from well-meaning friends and family members who don't understand what they're doing and why. Here's an excerpt:
No denying a mother's love in adoption decision
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, May 22, 2009
Michelle Hurst, facing the hardest task of her life, needed all the support she could get.
Instead, her best friend tried to talk her out of it.
"It was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do," Michelle said. "And she said, 'You're making the wrong decision.' "
Michelle was making the right decision. A single mother of two young children, she was unexpectedly pregnant again. She decided to place the baby with an adoptive family.
Her friend came around – eventually, she became a rock of support, staying with Michelle during her delivery and hospital stay – but some women's friends and families do not.
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would find fault with such selflessness, but they sometimes do.
There's sometimes a disturbing undercurrent of bias out there, a disapproving snap judgment that supposes there's something discreditable in a young woman who could "give up her own baby."
Sadly, I have seen it, once or twice, in the courtroom. I saw it in the sickening 2001 case of an 8-year-old Hutchins girl who was rescued after years spent locked in a trailer-house closet, where she was starved, beaten and assaulted.
The little girl's mother, who was largely responsible for her torment, had actually placed her with adoptive parents years earlier. But the mother's own family, fearful of the giving-up-your-own-baby stigma, badgered her into withdrawing from the agreement, and into taking the child back.
The result was a gothic horror of a story, a sick case of abuse in which the only salvageable thread of hope is the fact that the girl survived, and has long since been reunited with the adoptive family.
As a culture, I sometimes wonder why we don't do more to recognize placing an unexpected baby for adoption as an act of profound wisdom.
It's common ground between those who view abortion as a moral evil and those who believe every child should be planned, loved and wanted.
While some groups who promote a pro-life agenda are out shouting at Planned Parenthood clients through bullhorns, [what society needs most] is a triumph of pragmatism over politics, of compassion over self-righteousness.
This view delivers on the frequently voiced but sometimes hollow mantra of the child's best interests, by offering supplemental support to women who have chosen adoption.
A DFW area caseworker says that birthmothers are especially overwhelmed by the weight of their problems.
"It's not like she's living in a vacuum, with just this pregnancy to think about," Jennifer said. "About 85 percent of them have been through a breakup" with the baby's father, she said. "And their friends and family may be struggling with what they're doing."
Michelle's healthy baby boy, Asher, was born six weeks ago.
Placing him in his new mother's arms was so hard that Michelle, blinded by tears, fled from the room.
But she knows he is secure, happy and cherished by his parents. She put her child's welfare before her own.
That's the definition of maternal grace.
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A Silicon Valley computer maven and his wife have adopted successfully as a result of their YouTube video, adoption website and related Twittering: Stork Delivers Via Hi-Tech Methods.
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Mari, you are such an amazing woman and such a prolific writer... even knowing your story as I do, I marvel at your strength and courage, and the resilience of the human spirit. (I see so much of you in your daughter!) I hope you give some thought to sharing your story with a wider audience (perhaps as an article for Adoptive Families magazine?) because I think you have much to teach us all!
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: if money is the only thing motivating someone to make an adoption plan, then they should definitely reconsider all the other options.
Because money comes and money goes, but one should NEVER apply a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
That said, I've often found that prospective birthparents feel it's more "acceptable" to claim financial problems as a reason for placing, as if it's somehow more responsible to place for lack of funding than it is to admit one never really intended to become a mother or doesn't feel stable enough to take on the role or feels more invested in their career or knows that having one more child will completely push their marriage over the edge or cannot forfeit a lifestyle that would endanger a child, or wants their child to have the kind of parent they know they themselves cannot become, or wants to protect their child from a partner they cannot or will not leave, etc.
I watch the media reports of increasing domestic placement needs and the public response with mixed feelings; for all the excitement such stories may raise among those hoping to adopt, the media coverage seems oblivious to the fact that each of those placements represents such an enormous family loss to somebody who might otherwise have been able to make it, were it not for the economy.
I think adoptive parents who find it more comfortable to tell their child/ren "your birthparents loved you but they couldn't afford to raise a baby" may find that explanation raises questions far more difficult to answer, when their children innocently respond by asking "then why didn't you just give them the money so they would be able to keep me?"
(Sigh...)
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Mari, as I read your installments, all I can think is how blessed we are to have you and your daughter as part of Abrazo's community, and how surely your gracious sharing of your story will help other mothers and their daughters out there. I think learning your daughter is pregnant before she's ready is probably every mother's fear, and yet, you demonstrate how such crises can be faced with grace-- and how all the tears shed in the course of such a personal tragedy can help grow a garden of miracles, in time. Bless you, my friend... and bless all those other mothers out there who are reading your words right now and struggling to find a way to support their own daughters in the midst of similar circumstances.
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In Jerusalem yesterday, Rabbi Metzger urged the Pope Benedict to focus on righting the wrongs committed at the time of the Holocaust (see the entire story in The Jerusalem Post):
Metzger then asked the pope to act on the issue of lost Jewish refugees; children saved by Christians during the Holocaust who were never told by their adoptive parents that they were Jews."Your Holiness, as you know, during the Holocaust many parents deposited their children in trust with the various churches throughout Europe," he said. "To our sorrow, six million Jews did not return."
To learn more about this historic tragedy, see
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The English media takes a close look at the family life of one adoptive mom who recently undertook a hunger strike on behalf of the children of Darfar: The Folly of Mama Mia.
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Sad case, out of Michigan, where a 17-year-old is standing trial for the attempted murder of his grandparents, who had adopted him as a very young child: Michael Anderson's Near-Fatal Error in Judgement.
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Not a big surprize, but Calista Flockhart & Harrison Ford Adopting A Daughter.
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This is how we "show" hugs in writing around here... ((((Mari))))... may you feel welcomed and embraced at every turn.
And may you always feel entitled to share your thoughts and feelings freely, and find healing in doing so.
I have the utmost of respect and admiration for you and your daughter, and I am so thankful you joined Abrazo's family.
Whenever your daughter is ready, you can be sure the Forum family will welcome her with open arms, as well!
Happy Mother's Day, dear birthgrandmother!
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From R.M. Bowman:
Definition: ProtestantAny Christian belonging to a sect or denomination descending from those that seceded from the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. Originally it referred to those who adhered to the doctrine of Martin Luther and who protested in 1529 against the decree of the Diet of Spires commanding submission to the authority of Rome. The word comes from roots meaning to testify or witness in public. The term does not include those churches who broke with Rome either before or after the Reformation. It thus excludes the Orthodox from whom Rome split in 1054 and the Old Catholics who split in 1870. Most Anglicans reject the term, although it was used by the "Protestant Episcopal Church" in the United States, which broke off from the Church of England in 1789. Episcopalians today are split on the use of the term.
For a quick summary of what the Presbyterian faith is about, click here.
(This link takes you to a funny little book all about the frozen chosen.)
And here's an interesting analysis that compares Presbyterian beliefs with those of other denominations:How Protestants Differ.
Plus-- as a bonus-- "You Know You're A Presbyterian, If..."
Who's next? Educate us about your Protestant roots!
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At the suggestion of another Forum member, I'm launching this new section for all of us who are of the Protestant persuasion!
So whether you're Methodist or Lutheran or Church of Christ or Nazarene or Baptist or Episcopalian or AME or Unitarian or Pentecostal or Presbyterian (like me) or some other flavor of the sort, pull up a chair and feel free to dish about your faith and why you believe what you believe and what your church says about adoption or anything else you feel inspired to share.
And here are just a couple "appetizers", in case anyone needs some Protestant food for thought to get some stimulating discussion going here:
A Historical Viiew at the Protestant Perspective on Adoption
Where Have All the Protestants Gone?
Does Being Protestant Impact Your Economic Status?
Children of the Reformation: A Short & Surprizing History of Protestantism & Contraception
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p.s. I don't mind the questions because I love sharing about my church but what about other religions?
Hmmm... We've already got a Catholic Corner and a special section for our Jewish Friends, plus an area reserved for Interfaith Families and for Islamic discussions, as well as a Christianity thread and a general Church Chat... but perhaps our "Chapel Potluck" needs a Protestant(s) Dish, as well?
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In the news today: Mormon Church Posthumously Baptized Obama's Mother
In a sense, I guess it's as if the Church of the Latter Day Saints "adopted" Stanley Ann Dunham, which seems comforting on some level, although with her skepticism towards organized religion, one might wonder whether this would have been her desire? I do understand why other faiths are offended by the implication that the baptisms done in their churches were somehow inadequate; I'm wondering if our Mormon Forum members might shed some light on this practice, to help us all better understand it?
And another question-- given the LDS' admirable emphasis on adopting (see this, for example), does the "sealing of the family" ever include birthparents? (And if not, wouldn't that imply that in Heaven, birthfamilies can never be reunited with the children they placed, because they weren't sealed as a family? Surely that's not the intent?) Just curious...
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Here's the news article that appeared in the Austin American Statesman, about the accident that led to Efrain's untimely passing: Austin Accidents Claim Lives of Three Over Weekend.
For those who have inquired about sending memorials, we are awaiting word from the family and will forward information as we get it. Thanks for keepng Bridget and little Lucas in your thoughts and prayers, as these are surely difficult days for all.
A Birth Grandmother's Role
in BirthGrandparents & Important Others
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I am so in awe of your faith and your courage and your strength and your grace in the face of such fearful circumstances... God, too, must be smiling down on you and your daughter and granddaughter, thinking "that's my girls!"