Steven&Melissa

Happy birthday, Mari!!! Love reading your entries on the forum and have learned so much from you. Hope today is a wonderful day full of joy.

Hi, TTC! My mom is also on the forum - GrandMimi (or Jackie!)- so I'm so glad to see another grandmother on the forum. Open adoption is such a wonderful journey and I'm so happy to see you on the forum. We just recently took placement of a little miracle, Oliver, in September and such a large hole was filled in our hearts, but my mother's too. Grandparents have such a special role and how wonderful for this sweet baby to have a grandmother to potentially share a birthday with! We're enjoying reading Amy's thoughts (and are learning so much from her) and really look forward to hearing more from you, too. There's so much to learn on the forum about how amazing open adoption can be. With love, Melissa

Oh, soooooo excited!!!! Can't wait to see photos of these new little ones go up in the gallery. Sending tons of best wishes and congratulations to everyone who loves this little girl so much. Enjoy these first days with both gratitude and excitement.

Welcome, Baby Anthony!!! Congratulations to mommy and daddy and wishes of strength, peace and healing for Anthony's first family. May his life be filled with love and joy from everyone who loves him!

Hi, Amy! I'm so glad you made your first post on the forum. Like you said, there's a huge amount of gratitude we all have to Abrazo for creating and maintaining the forum. We all learn so much from each other here and like (the other) Amy mentioned, there is a thread somewhere on the forum where many people have talked about preferred "terms" - birth mother, first mother, real mother, etc. I agree with you: a mother's love does not end at birth - for both the biological family and the adoptive family, the love skyrockets at birth and BOTH roles are incredibly important. We also had a discussion with Oliver's "Mama B" about what she wanted to be called. Although Oliver is only a month old (today), I talk to him about her all the time. I don't say "your birthmother loves you," but I do say "your Mama B loves you so much." We are BOTH mothers. That's a hard role to share (for both first mother and adoptive mother), but how wonderful for a child to be sooo tremendously loved by TWO mothers! To add an extra element to the importance of first mothers/families: Mama B gives me a reason every day to be a better mother. When Oliver is crying and upset, the first thing that pops into my mind when I'm frustrated is that Mama B would give anything to be there soothing him right then. She gives me a reason to be a better mother: to make her proud and never take for granted the daily role I hold. You've found the right agency who really stands behind open adoption and educating the adoptive parents about what's really involved in an open adoption. There's respect between first parents and adoptive parents that doesn't end at birth, but it's a continual relationship that is in place because everyone loves this baby. Keep writing on the forum and we can't wait to follow your journey and support you along the way! Love, Melissa

After being signed on with a local agency for nearly a year with no activity, we started considering other options. We joined a group at church that gave support to couples who were in adoption or foster programs. When we became friends with the leaders and another young couple, they extended an invitation for us to all get together for lunch on Valentines Day. We sat down after eating and I just poured out the problems and frustrations we were having. This agency wasn't placing many babies at all, yet they kept adding family after family onto their roster. The wait time was 3+ years and that felt like forever to me. In talking through solutions to our problem, a friend mentioned that her social worker had mentioned an agency called Abrazo once who was doing "everything you keep saying you think you agency should be doing." I came straight home and checked out Abrazo. You'll notice under my avatar that I joined the forum that day. The rest was history. The forum won me over instantly. I already had such a wealth of information, such a huge amount of support, access to reading other people's testimonies through their Joyous Journeys (what a HUGE resource to prospective parents), and just seeing how active Elizabeth was on the forum (this told me we'd have a much more hands-on experience than we'd previously had). I heard that a local church once hosted Abrazo for their annual adoption day learning seminar, so I reached out to them and they put me in touch with a Memphis family who had successfully adopted through them. Then I reached out to forum members and Suebee was nice enough to have dinner with me and Steven and mwalker reached out and was my email and phone pal through the journey. We went to a MAMS gathering and met other Memphis couples. All of this was happening during our application process and I can't stress enough how important it is for Abrazo to have loyal advocates out there supporting them... I know it certainly gave us faith to move fully forward (and quickly!!) We turned in our application in February, were invited to the April/May orientation (which turned us into 'Tweeners), and Oliver was born in September - just 7 months after the first time we heard about them and 4 months after officially signing on. Wow. I knew Abrazo would lead us to our baby and they most certainly did. After two sticky situations, we got a call on a Thursday that we were being considered for a baby due to be born on Monday. We found out Friday, hit the road and were there at the hospital for Oliver's birth on Monday afternoon. Having the chance to spend time with his birth mom and show her respect and love during those days - with Angela's help - made us huge fans of Abrazo. We're forever grateful!

Thank God for that tax credit. I'm sure we're not the only ones who feel a tremendous amount of thanks that we're able to put the cushion back in our savings accounts after taking so much out during the adoption process. Though it still requires so much money be saved on the front-end (which is no easy task in this economy), it gives a sense of relief that you can repay a loan or build your savings back up. I've seen a LOT of posting and re-posting from loyal Abrazo families on Facebook, so the word is spreading quickly... hopefully it brings great results!

She certainly has... "J" called me today talking about how much she and the girls had loved digging into a batch of chicken & dumplings my mom dropped by a couple of days ago. I love hearing that someone thinks my mom is as great as I think she is!!

Welcome, Jim and Laura! I can easily remember back to mailing in our application! Congratulations on completing your first step in the process. Keep posting on the forum - you'll meet a bunch of friends to support you along your journey!

Congratulations!!! Welcome to the family, Baby Drake. We can't wait to see your photo and see you grow up!!

And so thankful for the time you've had with his birth family during these first few days! Can't wait to see the photos that result from the the time you spend together.

Not sure where "baby girl" came from, but let me correct myself!! Baby BOY Landon!! Looooove the new photo!!!

Big congrats to Jocelyn and Scott on the "meant to be" birth of baby girl Landon! Can't wait to see photos when you're able to put them up! Hope you're enjoying these first days and grabbing a little sleep here and there!

Welcome Sue/Nate and Allie/Ross! It's exciting to see new families on the forum before orientation! You'll find so much information here and support, too. Can't wait to follow your journies and be sure to ask questions along the way!!

I can see how a newspaper ad would have possibly brought people out from other parts of town, making an even bigger profit. It depends on the cost, but I bet the ROI is there. I'm going to look into it for our next one. We did a Craigslist ad (only putting the intersection, not the address) and a Backpage ad (Memphis Flyer) as well, but they were only online ads - we didn't pay for print in the Flyer either. Lots of people said they saw our Craigslist ad. I made sure to make a short list of the types of things we'd have available. We did have a posterboard up in the front yard w/ balloons on it that said "Adoption Fundraiser," which is what I think sparked so much conversation from people. People commented on 2 things: the bright signs that made them want to stop and the organization of the sale, which made it much easier for them to find things and buy more. We also haggled a lot, so people were coming back multiple times to buy more!! Erin - good luck with your sale!! It's hard work, but such a great payoff.

A few months ago, we wrote a note in our neighbhorhood newsletter and sent out a short email to some close friends letting them know that we'd be having a yard sale to help push fundraising efforts for our adoption and offered to pick up/haul off anything they might have after spring cleaning that they were going to donate. Instead of moving boxes, packing up the car, and unloading at the center, we offered to do all of that for them. We had neighbors contact us who we'd never met before (a great way to meet your neighbors!!), tons of friends show an outpouring of support, and even people who passed along our note to friends-of-friends. Everything we were given was immediately cleaned up, priced, and sorted. We filled up our guest room and garage until they were overflowing and finally made bright signs and posted them all over our neighborhood Friday night. Saturday morning, we woke up and started the sale at 7am. Our front yard, driveway, and entire back yard were FULL of organized sections of items for sale. We expected to close up shop at 1pm, but it was 3:45 before light rain started and we finally had to move the remaining items indoors. It was a great opportunity to let our neighbors know there would soon be a new baby on the block AND a wonderful opportunity to talk about open adoption. It seems everyone knows someone who's been adopted. We were careful not to lead people to believe we were "saving" a baby, nor was this a "cause." This was just us - building a family through adoption and saving every penny we could to make it possible. At the end of the day, we did the final $ count. We raised over $1,600 and still have enough items leftover - and enough people who gave us their info so that we could pick up their spring cleaning left-overs - that we can have yet another sale in a couple of weeks. Consider the fundraising yard sale folks! It's a lot of work and your house will be a mess for a while, but if you make tons of colorful signs to bring in the biggest crowd and organize your sale well, you'll see the money roll in!! I couldn't be happier we buckled down and did this!!

That's right! You'll get a few samples, but you'll also notice quite a few forum members are happy to help out an dshow you their full profiles so that you can see a big variety. The biggest take-away for us was: more/bigger photos, less writing. We came from an agency that stressed putting a lot of info in the profile because you wouldn't necessarily get a chance to meet with or talk to birthmoms. Here, they get a "feeling" about you, or an initial impression, from your profile, which sparks interest in wanting to actually speak to you and get to know you better. So, more visuals, less wording!

Bruce and Andi - LOVE the new photo in the gallery! Your sweet girl is so beautiful and the two of you are just beaming! Can't wait to see more as she grows up.

Erin - I feel exactly the same way. Steven and I had a talk about this just the other night. We're so in love with the miracle of adoption that now we can't imagine growing our family in any other way. I also wanted to add that for us, despite problems with fertility, adoption wasn't anything second best. True - something in my biology craved being pregnant myself and carrying a child, but my family says I started talking about wanting to adopt at the age of 12. My mom says it was God preparing my heart for the infertility that laid ahead, but who's to know? Steven and I had always said that even if we had a biological child of our own some day, we'd still adopt. It's always been so strong in my heart. To be honest, I'd be more disappointed if I found out we couldn't adopt vs. how disappointed I felt when we discovered I couldn't get pregnant!

Ugh. I feel more like :angry:. I just hate to hear people describe adoption as a "last ditch" or "even if I have to..." situation.

This flurry of matches and pending placements is so exciting! Congrats to all of these new families and hopefully the June orientation will be filled with couples who fit the needs that Abrazo has been noticing so that every expectant family can match with a family that is everything they hope for.

That's right... we took a photo of every room in our house (just 1 photo - not every angle) and that included things like the bathroom and the breakfast nook. I think we also included a shot from the front (wide) and one of the back yard. I included (I think) 4 shots of us together and 1 photo of us individually. And yes, there was an orientation sheet in the application that we filled out (it asked for your preference of dates) and also asked for your size T-shirt. We sent that in with payment all at once. Not sure if it was intentional that they left it out this go-around (still determining exact dates, maybe?) but like Suzi said, Angela always knows! Congrats on accomplishing so much so fast! So many will attest that it's not "if," but "when!" and I know it's exciting to be on your way!!