Anne Owens

Congratulations Tony and Linda!!!! This is tremendous news! Best wishes to you. We send our loving prayers for Andrew, you, and your birth family We look forward to meeting your new blessing. Gene, Anne, Josh and Michael

I am a 19 month brain tumor survivor and tumor free! Thankfully it has not stopped me from being mommy to two awesome boys! Anybody else out there?

We are also an interfaith family. My husband, Gene is of the reform Judiasm faith and I am Roman Catholic (and from a large Irish Cathoilc family). My step-daughters were raised Jewish and our 2 sons, Josh and Michael are being raised Catholic. This is a great topic. As a family, we try to honor the traditions of both faiths -- and blend our spiritual values --- and model those values for our children. It is not always easy. Early on in our marriage, I attended an Introduction to Judiasm class at Gene's temple. I learned about both the history and the cultural traditions of the Jewish faith, which in turn helped me to understand and participate in the Jewish holidays and to be an active member in helping Gene carry-on the Jewish traditions with our family. My in-laws also taught me some Yiddish, which I enjoy using from time to time. A big challenge for us was in finding a catholic church that was more "liberal" in their doctrine and therefore, more accepting of us as a spiritual interfaith family and a multi-cultural family. After some "church shopping", we settled on a church in our town that is very multi-cultural in both the parishoners and in the staff of the church. There are Sunday Masses in both english and spanish and the church offers an array of social and recreational services to the community. It is not a perfect match to family spirtual values, but it is closer than other churches in the area. Josh (age 7) is attending religious education classes at our church, after school one afternoon a week. It is a struggle each week to get him to attend the classes and he resists going to church each Sunday. He is beginning to notice the differences in values between home and the church and he is wondering whether he should be raised Jewish instead of Catholic. I wonder if it is because we are not a strictly Catholic home, as we also honor some Jewish traditions like the Jewish holidays, Friday shabbot dinners, engaging in mitzvahs, etc. And, our family values might be considered more liberal than other Catholic families. So, is our family a successful interfaith family? No, I think we will always be a work in progress. However, that is ok -- it means we continue to explore who we are and what we may become.

Karen, your story of Lexi is similar to our son Josh -- so this topic is also near to my heart. Both of my son's have birthsiblings and no relationship with their birth families. My oldest son, Josh has 3 birthsiblings, that are adults now. They do not know about Josh. I knew at placement, that his birthmother hid her pregnancy from her family. Initially she wanted an open relationship, but because of the secret, there has been just about no contact in the past 6 years. Josh is a wonderful son and he is not a secret as well. I too hope that one day, Josh's birthfamily will get to know him as we do. In Michael's situation, he has 3 birth siblings as well. His 3 half-sisters are have been placed with 2 other adoptive families. We have no contact with those 2 adoptive families, but wish that at some time, we can all get to know one another--enable the siblings to have a relationship and possibly be there for each other.

We are "againers" -- placing with our second son, Michael, just this past May! Our older son, Josh is 3 years old. I agree -- if you have the energy for another, go for it! Josh is definitely having a hard time sharing our time and attention. However, we are adjusting and now that Michael is smiling and cooing, Josh is beginning to see the baby as a real person. And....just so you know, the second time around for us occurred only 2 months after orientation weekend!

Thanks for the update! We are looking forward to hearing from you!