Garden of Hope

Congratulations Linda! Get as much done as you can before the orientation. Sometimes the stork visits before you can even participate in the amazing weekend. That was the case with me and I think some others too. May is just around the corner and so is parenthood!! Jean

Congratulations Sugarfamily! I'm very excited for you as well! You're in for an amazing experience that will change you and your lives forever. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Welcome to the Forum! Keep reading and posting. It will help the time pass more quickly and will provide you with a wonderful support system of caring and intelligent people with lots of varied experiences. I wish you the best and assure you that you have selected the best agency in the entire country! Good luck and keep us posted! Jean

Get ready to be parents because at Abrazo things move along very quickly!! Congratulations on choosing them. Of course, the more open you are to race, gender, etc, the faster your match usually occurs. Look at some of the previous posts and you might want to check out some of the posts on Rainbow Families. Abrazo is very good about looking at their needs in relation to the babies that will be born and needing placement and the needs of the adoptive families. I wouldn't be surprised if you heard from Angela or one of the other ladies in the office just any day. Good luck future mommy and daddy and welcome to The Forum! Keep us posted! Jean

opps got the initials reversed. sorry!

WELCOME drn to the parents of tomorrow and Abrazo Forum. You are among friends and surrounded by many who have been exactly where you are now. I am so very excited for you and your husband. You have made the wisest choice to enlist the help of the Abrazo Angels to help you realize your dream of becoming parents. Kelly is the beautiful individual that I worked with and she is the very person who brought my son and I together. My son was a baby on the ground and from start to finish, my process took only a little over four months. My son and I attended a portion of the orientation weekend together, which was really special. You are in for the journey of a lifetime and you will meet and grow to love so many special people both at the agency and within your orientation group. Please keep us posted and may your wait and experience be as joyous and fast as mine was! God Bless you on your journey!

Your pain comes through in your honest post. Perhaps if you expressed exactly what you said in your post to your daughter she would understand. Your post expressed the acceptance of a "mistake" made, the pride you take in the decision to give this child life, and the recognition of the choice of good adoptive parents. You have a need to keep the events private. It is your need to maintain comfort in your community and workplace. Your need for privacy should be respected just as you respect your daughter's need for continued contact with her birthchild and the adoptive family. The connection they have is real and does make them family. Is it your wish that you not have contact, not have any information, never see photos or hear of milestones? Perhaps you could reach a compromise. Maybe you could agree to view pictures and listen to your daughter's proud rendition of her birthchild's latest accomplishments at predetermined intervals. This will be as difficult for her as losing your privacy would be for you. I hope that you and your daughter can come to an understanding so that both of your needs are met. Believers in open adoption feel that a child's needs are best met when they know their history with full disclosure. The fact remains that you do have a grandchild. You do have a choice to be a part of that child's life or not. Your daughter is now a mother and she has a choice to be a part of that child's life, too. It is in the child's best interest to be loved and cared for by as many people as possible and for them to know how their life came to be as it is. It isn't as you had hoped and dreamed it would be, but sometimes the best things come from what seems to be the worst at first. Thank you for being so open and honest with your feelings. I hope that you and your daughter can continue the open honest communication and that you reach a compromise that benefits everyone involved. God bless you and your family.

Dear Lisa and Steve, Congratulations again. I just wanted to say, I love the name you selected. It's very pretty. May God continue to bless your family and bring the newest Abrazo daddy home quickly and safely.

I have goose bumps! What an awesome blessing Abrazo is to everyone associated with it. Two placements in 10 days. Miraculous and the fast matching, amazing. May God bless these new families and birthfamilies as they begin their lives together. And may God continue to guide and bless the beautiful ladies at Abrazo that facilitate the miracles. Ahhhh, what a joy to be a part of these joyous beginnings.

Very cool link. THhanks for sharing! Happy New Year to all and may each day be filled with recognized blessings!

I think there are many people who question open adoption in just the way you did, Nico. My mother still thinks open adoption is "confusing" for the child. (She sort of shakes her head when I tell her about close friends who have ongoing relationships with their children's birthparents) Open adoption makes perfect sense to the child when it is part of their personal history that grows with them. It is a part of who they are. I feel that adopted children have a right to know their personal history. It isn't confusing, it's just the facts. I wish I had more facts to share with my son, but he will know everything that I know about his birthmother and how he came to be a part of my family. Will he grieve and feel loss? Only time will give us that answer, but I would much rather help him deal with the honest emotional issues related to adoption than to have him find out later and wonder why his entire concept of his life, where he comes from, and who he is was based on a lie. I'm not sure a relationship could recover fully from that one. I surmise that most people who don't feel that open adoption is the best way to go are those who do not have personal experience with it. I feel a lot of the negativity stems from fear. I personally appreciated the comments from the birthmoms on this subject. Thank you for your thoughts on the subject.

Ditto Christina and S&L. Laura, your husband's answer of time to process and pray is exactly what is right for him and I applaud that response. You, too, will know. Many of us know exactly the pain you feel when seeing friends and even strangers who are experiencing pregnancy and impending motherhood. I hope that you can take comfort in the knowledge that you can and will be a mother if that is what you desire whether through biology or adoption. Dreams of parenting are realized over and over again with the help of the Abrazo Angels and loving birthfamilies. I thought that I would never experience that treasured part of living, but through the grace of God and with the assistance of Abrazo, I am living my dream and have never been happier in my life. When you have Abrazo working on your behalf, it's not IF, it is WHEN and WHEN can be right around the corner. Remain hopeful and faithful and pray with you husband. God will guide you to the path that is right for you. Keep us posted and keep your chin up..............it will happen! Jean

Dear Veronica, Birthmommy is absolutely correct. It works out in the most amazing way. Every birth family is different and each one is looking for things they consider to be important. Your home may or may not be a factor. I remember talking with a birthmom a few years ago that had three questions for me. Number one was, "Do you believe in God?", the other two had to do with discipline. She had thought of two scenerios and wanted to know how I would handle them. As it turned out, she selected us, but later decided to parent. I was so impressed that she had thought long and hard and quite deeply to ask the questions that she did. She didn't want to talk to my husband or meet him. She did elect to meet me and we did talk about twice a month. So, as difficult as it is, just be yourself and by doing that, the perfect birth family will find you. I remember hearing that one birthmom selected a profile/family because one of the photos had a picture of a garden and it had a lot of sunflowers. There is no way to foresee what will "attract" your birthmom, but she will find you and you will look back and think, "What was I so worried about!?" Good luck and keep us posted. Jean

Hi Veronica, Don't waste any time. Call Angela right away! Abrazo helps couples from all over the country realize their dreams. Good luck and remember, when you choose to work with Abrazo, it's not IF it's WHEN.

I have goose bumps! How wonderful it is to share in the miracles that abound!

Call Angela right away and get your paper work started. Abrazo helps families grow, too! Good luck with baby number 2!

Dear Zinnia, I just love your name and the picture you have with it. It shows your sunny, positive attitude. You will find that as you go through the process of infertility and the journey to building your family, that you will meet many empathetic and amazing people who have been exactly where you are. You will find your circle of friends and support system changing and as you begin to educate yourself and see the miracles that happen through adoption, you will begin to radiate that. I am a teacher as well. I am a single adoptive mom, too! My family was shocked to learn that I planned to continue my dream of building a family through adoption even after my marriage dissolved after over ten years of inferility, fertility treatments, and disrupted adoption plans. Frankly, they thought I wasn't grounded in reality and thought I was nuts. Sometimes our families do not see us as we are. Sometimes they have fears for us that they needn't have. They want to protect us from hurt and pain when in reality they add to it. I chose to seek counsel from positive people who had faith in me as a potential mother and could see that although I would face obstacles, I was strong enough and determined enough to make it work. I sought information from recommended literature and professionals that specialize in building families through domestic adoption and a very few select friends. Now, as I look over at my precious son, I am in awe. I, too, thought I might NEVER become a mother. Single, over 40, I'll never be a mom. WRONG!!!! If you believe and have faith, it will happen. Maybe not in the way you might have initially thought, but it will happen. A very close friend of mine who is also an adoptive mom to two Abrazo babes shared with me a book that her second son's birthmother gave her entitled Mothers. In the first part it says I wanted you before you were even conceived. I loved you before you were born. The first time I saw you I'd die for you. It is true of adoptive mothers just as it is true of biological mothers. I wondered if my family would accept my son. I was prepared for either eventuality. I wasn't going to make a choice. I told them that he was my family and they could choose to be part of his life or not. I told them if they chose not to it was okay and I would understand and but that there were lots of other people who love me and want to be a part of his life. They have accepted him and at least to me, they are nothing but positive and supportive. I love him with all my heart and soul and cannot imagine my life without him. He is my family. He is my treasure and my joy. I wish the same for you. Every woman who has the desire to be a mother should have the opportunity, I think. I have no regrets. I did some fertility stuff--medication/IUI/IVF and was at peace when I decided adoption was for us. Then when the marriage ended after the disrupted adoption plan, I still had the dream. I am living proof that dreams do come true if you persue them. Arm yourself with information. Ally yourself with people who have first hand knowledge of what you are going through and align yourself with people who have the ability to help you realize your dreams. Try not to allow random insensitive and ignorant comment to hurt you. There are several things you can do when that happens. You can educate them, ignore them, make a humorous come back or a sarcastic remark. It is up to you and would probably depend on the situation and your mood. It can be theraputic to think of all the dumb things people say and make a list of the comments you could respond with. Probably the stupidest comment I heard was "What, you too lazy to have your own?" I wish I'd had a list then because I was just too shocked to respond with anything other than "No! I CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN OF MY OWN!!!!" But, be that as it may, true to shrug a lot of it off. Then, hang on tight and await the miracle that is destined for you. Once you do adopt, you may find that you are now in a new "club" and it's the most wonderful one in the world. The adoptive parents club. It is full of happy, caring terrific people and their children and no one is likely to make a ridiculous comment. Sorry I've rambled on so, but I feel your pain and want to just reach out and give you a tremendous hug. Then I want to hand you my Nathan (10 month old wonder boy) and let you hug and love on him so that you will truely know your time is coming and we care about you. So, keep your chin up, Zinnia and keep us posted!! Hugs, Jean and Nathan

What a beautiful name!! Congratulations again.

Welcome Cakemaker! I too have a diagnosis of unexplained infertility. I am now the proud mommy of a ten month old dynamo named Nathan. Abrazo is the place where dreams of parenthood are embraced, nurtured, and facilitated. Call Angela and get an inquiry packet, then hang on for the most wonderful adventure of your life!

Congratulations Lisa and Joe! What is your angel's name? Savor every second. It goes extraordinarily fast. Jean

Thank you for sharing this wonderful photos of the Junebuggies. If you are anything like the Great Bambino Fest you have made some life long friends and are on your way to the answer to your prayers! Happy Fourth!

Reading with goosebumps about the miraculous coming together of the newest Abrazo family reminds me of how amazing the entire process is. Congratulations to the new mommy and daddy and God Bless the selfless birthmommy for her unselfish, courageous decision.

Welcome Katy! "Nesting" is part of the process and also a whole lot of fun! What will the mural be of? How neat that grandma is adding her personal touch, too. Hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride! Jean

Congratulations Christina! Hurry and get the application in so you can be in the next orientation group! I am so excited for you. You will meet and make wonderful friends through this process that ends in a beginning as Karen said. What a perfect day to begin, too, Father's Day. A day to reflect on the reasons you wish to be parents and the ways in which you will handle the priviledge and challenges that come along with it. It will be the most amazing experience of your life. Keep us posted! And congratulations on the 12 years, too. That's wonderful! Jean

Congratulations to the newest Abrazo family and the new Junebuggies. That's too cute! As always, it's not if, it's when and sometimes when is just around the corner! CONGRATS! Jean