karen&scott
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Posts posted by karen&scott
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A warm welcome to Jim and Laura AND Beth and Jim!
Best of luck as you explore all your options.
Karen
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Liza Minelli says she wanted to become a mother but chose to not adopt in order to help others more:
Elizabeth,
I could not get link to open. Would like to read this though.
Karen
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Warm and cozy hugs to a little guy who has found home, thanks to all the parents who love him.
Karen
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I heard about a special Grandparent to be, who has shared her homecooking with an expectant Mom in Austin. How thoughtful (and Yummy)!
Karen
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Blessings to all. The sunset was especially beautiful this evening.
Karen
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Dale, I just love your posts, and this is another thought out one as well. You make some very good points.
You're right, we hear comments all the time, that we can choose to take either way.
I do think the grief work and loss that many experience through infertility, pave the transition to adoption, especially open adoption. Possibly gifting us with a greater understanding of the losses which are borne in adoption too. (I know for me, it did.) But I suppose it should not be an absolute prerequisite to adopting, because every situation is personal.
In fact, most life experiences gift us with better understanding and compassion (I believe).
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for your post.
Karen
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This was too soon. They had plans to meet this summer.
Heartbreaking.
Keeping all of Adrian's family(s) in my prayers.
Karen
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The only thing I can add here is, most of us have been through alot of pain through/with infertility before (and even after) we came to adoption. Our infertility paved the way to adopting and being accepted by an agency, and ultimately becoming the family we are today. Different paths, yet just as fulfilling to the parents we are today.
So maybe it comes across as Plan B, we failed at conceiving but are successful at adopting.
For me, it's how our family was mean't to be...yet could not fully explore/embrace this option until we journeyed to it.
But to trivialize that "adopting" is an option for anyone, for any reason...is an insult to my family.
I do think that celebrities tend to think that adoption is always an option for them.
And maybe it is?
Karen
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Oh no, this is shocking. I am so sorry for your and Emily's loss.
Do you have contact with your birthdaughter's family? Are you able to reach out to one another in this time of overwhelming grief?
Again I am so sorry to hear this news.
All are in my prayers.
Karen
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I love that she knows so much about Abrazo and is learning so much about open adoption. She reads portions of the forum out to my dad, too, and a friend asked me a question about adoption the other day... and my dad jumped in and answered before I could! I'm a huge fan of grandparents being a part of this. My mom's username is GrandMimi!
Just a little encouragement for GrandMimi... I'll be excitedly looking for your first post! Don't be shy, we'd love for you to join in anywhere you feel comfortable. The first post is always the hardest and then it get's easy. There are lots of friends here.
Karen
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I wish I could answer your question officially, but unofficially I feel like it should not matter. It saddens me to read a post like yours because of all the hoops adoptors (think) they have to jump through to be able to adopt. Hopefully though, renting or owning your home is not one of them. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
More importantly it should be your ability to make sound financial decisions and to make sure your home is safe and conducive to parenting.
Best of luck to you (and your move)!
Karen
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Thankful blessings for two first families and two tiny infants who are now surrounded by the love of an expanded family through adoption.
Karen
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I was at my daughters school yesterday having lunch. I ran into another Mom, who is pregnant, due in December. I know this lady pretty well and really like her. Our children are in the same class and good friends. I know how long she's been trying to have a second child. Her first is 8 years old, so they've had lots of years of patience and praying. I secretly always thought they would be a great adopting family. But God had another plan for them, another home grown miracle.
I told her how glad I was that God had answered their prayers and how I know it's been a long road for them and then I boldly told her my secret. She thanked me and said, my husband is not open to adoption, all the kids he knew growing up who were adopted were the type that ran over the cat with a lawnmower.
After I picked up my jaw, I was glad we do not have a cat or a lawnmower.
Anyway, I have thought and thought about our conversation. I felt insulted when she first said it because is that how she sees my child? I know she did not mean anything personally because she really is a nice person, in spite of what she said so casually.
So I wonder how our childhood experiences with peers who were once adopted affect our attitude toward adoption and/or wanting to adopt (or not) as an adult?
Growing up, my best friend was adopted. I heard all the secret questions/fantasies about her adoption she could not talk to her Mom about. I felt her intense curiousity about her birthfamily. Her parents were a little different but wasn't everyone's. Basically she was just a normal friend with normal parents. She never ran over the cat with a lawnmower.
So my childhood experience with learning about adoption was fairly positive.
Does anyone have other circumstances as a child which has possibly affected your attitude/expectations towards adoption?
Karen
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Wow, sometimes it takes a village (and a God powered GPS). Congratulations Ric and Teresa!
Karen
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Susan, love this topic! Gosh, I could fill up pages of this thread with caring countless hours of work the Abrazo chicks put into making our adoptions happen. Believe me, they are there "for you" when the time comes. That's important for all parents in waiting to know and believe!
I am somewhat privey to some of what's gone on this past weekend, the Abrazo chicks are making my head spin, covering South Texas, all for the love of what they do and the children and parents they bring together!
Abrazo is like a well oiled machine that can speed up or slow down, depending on the needs of their clients. And this machine never stops, it's working 24 hours a day.
Go Chicks!
Karen
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Kristal, I was hoping you'd come back to this topic.
I encourage others to chime in!!!! This is an important discussion for all of us touched by adoption.
Karen
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I don't think this woman doubts that her mother loves her though, that's the root of her problems according to her statement. The problem is that her mother "loved her so much she gave her away" That hearing that made her think that loving someone meant getting rid of them. Honestly I can see where that could be a problem.
Me too, which is why I prefer to say "your birthmother loves you very much" and not tie it to "that is why she placed you for adoption". If pressed I prefer to say, I know this because I was there when she made this very difficult decision.Again, Laurel was hearing this from her adoptive parents. Would it have made a (less negative) difference if she could have heard it from her birthmother?
I think its hard for you to hear of disgruntled adoptees for the same reason it is hard for me. Because someone very important to us was adopted and we played a huge role in making that happen. Its terrifying to think that maybe we did wrong by that person who we only wanted the very best for.
You're right about this.Thanks Kristal!
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Thanks again Natalie, for sharing morning tea with me. I appreciate your honesty in saying how you feel. I value this conversation too.
Let me clarify my comment about using natural parent interchangably with birth parent because my feeling is my children need to feel "natural-ness" even though they do not live with their first parents. The general public uses this language therefore I need to be able to use this term without it threatening who I am to my children. And it doesn't have to imply we are an un-natural family. Because my feeling is, it doesn't. But I've had lots of years to come to this realization. And that's not to say your opinion should be discounted because it's just as important as mine.
I dont' know, maybe I'm way off base.
There just has to be a way for everyone to have a label/term of endearment that's comfortable; honest and respectful of everyone in the triad.
Karen
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Thanks Natalie, I agee it's about the child, and it's also about significant people in the child's life who need to feel validated as "real parents" as positively as possible.
By incorporating the term "nurtural parents" it does not add any negativity (as I see it), it is honest about the relationship. It is not the opposite of natural, they simply go hand in hand.
Because most of us parents, by adoption or by birth, feel like we are natural and nurtural, so it's just a way to define the origins of the legal relationship. We can still feel both. One does not take away from the other.
It's also another idea in trying to make birth certificate more inclusive, more honest, more open by including both, parents of origin (natural parents if you will) and nurtural parents.
Let's keep talking because everyone's point of view is important!
Karen
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I looked it up too and was surprised to find this word existed, however the definition needs to be expanded to include a legal parent, though not by origin.
So my children do not inherit my DNA but they inherit my heart (and everything I have in this world)! It works for me.
I also think it's good to use "natural parents" interchangeably with birthparents so that our children hear the work natural, because most assuredly they are perfectly natural too!
(But I am not sure this is looked upon as positive adoption language?)
Any newbies have any opinions on this subject?
Karen
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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:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--fonto:Courier New--><span style="font-family:Courier New"><!--/fonto--><b>Posted by Laurel @ 5:45 AM Wed, May 27, 2009 </b>
Yes. 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?
<!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For more on this subject and the public response to it in Dallas, <a href="http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/05/wording-critica.html" target="_blank">click here.</a>
One of the things that bothers me about disgruntled adults who were once adopted, is that they may not take into account that their birthparents may have had another option which may have been considered, the other "A" word. And after weighing all their options, made a decision they could live with and their baby could live with. Maybe this is love, maybe it's not? It's all how you look at it, I guess.
Why is it so far-fetched for an adult adoptee like Laurel to come to the realization that just maybe her birthmother does love her, even if her placement decision goes contrary to Laurel's way of thinking?
And in the case of rape or incest and the subsequent decision to place, is love automatically out of the equation just because of the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy?
Karen
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I will admit that at first some of the labels applied in Honest Adoption Language made me wince... but then I began to try and sincerely appreciate why someone might hold to that perspective, and I paused and let the loss become my own for a moment... and I was thankful for the grace I have received, for the good fortune given to me, for the privilege and honor of becoming a part of someone else's life at the point of such a complex decision.
Every adoption is different just as every person is unique. So whether I choose to use Positive Adoption Language or Honest Adoption Language, or both as the situation dictates, I hope I am able to always use Gracious adoption language. I do not want to offend the people involved with, or distort the realities of adoption. I doubt anyone on this forum would, considering we are all involved one way or another with adoption. I want to always be truthful, accurate, curtious, and considerate.
I guess there are good adoption situations and bad ones, good agencies and not so good ones, honorable motivations and selfish ones. How one views the language of adoption is all about personal experience with adoption. Thus the need for grace and truth.
-Dale
I completely agree. At first I thought "Oh no, here we go again" and then I tried to look at it from all perspectives, without my emotions as best I can. Then, it wasn't so bad to hear some of these labels. For some reason, natural parent doesn't bother me anymore, because at least when you say it, everyone knows you mean biological connection (through the course of nature). Of course I say this while feeling like I, too, am a natural (nurtural? not sure this is a word but maybe it could be) parent by adoption (through the course nurture). Anyway, I do not feel like an un-natural parent by using this label when referring to my child's birthparent. I am not sure what has changed for me.
Always striving to find and use the most gracious adoption language too.
Karen
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Given that many mental health issues in children and adults are never diagnosed, for different reasons, that information obviously could not be passed on with their offspring to the adopting parents, if it's unknown. However the blueprint may be there genetically.
You're right, there are no guarantees. What happens when your mentally healthy child takes a detour, about the time of puberty?
You certainly don't think of returning your child.
This is life, you deal with it.
Donna, I really like when you say you wanted to be parents so badly that health issues of a birthparent did not set you back. There are many who want to be parents, only under certain conditions. The truth is ... this is rarely controllable. Conditions can and do change.
So many adoptions are done with very little medical information. Is it better to know or not know?
As scary as it is to read this birthmother's struggles, at least whomever adopts this baby will have some knowledge about what possibilities might be in their future. Instead of blindly taking your mentally unhealthy adolescent child, who was always just fine before, to Dr after Dr. trying to figure out what is wrong. The parents with this much knowledge will be better prepared and not lose time in getting the help their child/family may need.
Karen
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This nursery note breaks my heart. This dear Birthmother did not stand a chance, given her environment, to get the kind of help she really needed(s), for herself. Mental health issues require a management team, stable family, good health care, lots of compassion...to oversee medication, whether they are working or not; therapy, whether or not the therapist is a good fit or not; lots of patience and understanding because this is an illness you cannot see from the outside.
There are good Dr.'s and there is good accessable public educational options such as special ed which can provide additional help for your child, if needed. However it takes all of this and more to give any child stuggling with these kinds of issues the chance to feel normal. A parent must become an advocate for their child, all the while maintaining and balancing other needs within the family and marraige. Not impossible but may feel that way at times.
Love and a healthy environment is a good start, definitely a foundation which can be relied upon by any child, something this birthmother did not have (sadly). However, be ready and willing to seek outside professional help if and when the need becomes apparent... start building a management team as early as possible to oversee your child into adulthood, so that maybe one day he/she can have a family of their own and be a healthy parent, despite their illness.
Karen
Baby Announcements 2010
in New Arrivals
Posted
The picture is beautiful.
Baby Charlie has a halo of love surrounding him.
What a Blessing!
Karen