My son and I were talking a walk around the neighborhood when we came across an "It's a Girl" balloon on a mailbox. Nicholas pointed to the balloon and said, "Look, Mom! They adopted a girl!" Of course, we do not know these people and have no idea whether that baby joined their family through birth or adoption, but I think it is really cool that Nicholas immediately assumed that the baby joined the family through adoption. This tells me that he sees adoption as normal rather than as an anomaly that makes our family different.

What makes this doubly... more

If you have a family pet, then you have a wonderful way to help a younger adopted child understand adoption. The family pet is clearly not blood-related to the other family members, but he is a welcome and beloved member of the family. Such a complex concept as adoption can seem much more simple with a concrete example like the family pet.

I have used our dog to help my son understand why his birthmother would choose to "give him away." I explained that his birthmother did not give him away. Instead, she wanted my son to have the life that he does,... more

I am curious about how fellow adoptive parents feel about receiving fundraising letters from adoption agencies. We periodically receive letters from the agency that handled my son's adoption, telling us about financial woes and asking for financial support. The letters talk about how many children now have homes thanks to them and say that they need more financial support in order to continue finding homes for more children.

I have mixed feelings about those letters and, from what I have seen, I am not alone in this. On the one hand, I support... more

Author Patricia Dischler is a birthmother who is dedicated to improving the lives of children, including adopted children. She has added me to the distribution list for her electronic newsletter, KIDSAKE, which is very informative. She has such a way with words, and her love for children shines through her writing.

In the December 2007 issue of her newsletter, she talks about how she and her birthson's adoptive mother worked together to make their open adoption successful. Here is how she defines... more

In my post, Adoption Regrets: Level of Openness, I talked about the importance of following through on the promises you made to the birthfamily before entering into the adoption. I ended that post with the following advice:

Try to make the best of your situation and focus on the reasons you chose the arrangement in the first place. Those reasons still exist. Even if you do not now believe it is the best situation for your family, it is what it... more

In my last post, Reasons to Tell Adopted Child About Adoption, I shared a link to an insightful post called What About MY Rights? that was written by an adoptee named IzzyMom. IzzyMom's post provides a lot of insight into the mind of an adult adoptee. I think that we adoptive parents can learn a lot from her post.

I have talked with adoptive parents who feel insecure about their adult adopted child... more

We had some discussion going on my post, Adopted Child and "Not My Real Mom" Comments, about my son using the term "real mom" when he is referring to his birthmother. I have chosen to let him call her whatever he wants. I refer to her as his birthmother, and I am not taking offense when he calls her his "real mom" because I know he does not mean it as a slight to me. He is just a little kid, and having "two moms" is a big concept to grasp.

However,... more

My six-year-old son had several questions about his birthmother over the summer, and he still continues to pepper me with questions about her, usually when I least expect it. However, he has never raised the topic of a birthfather. I guess I should not be too surprised because, at six, he has not had many questions about where babies come from. I guess he figures that they come from birthmothers!

I am not even sure that he realizes that a birthfather had to be involved to create him. When asked how babies get into a woman's body, I have told him that a married... more

As an adoptive parent, you might struggle with feelings of anger toward your child's birthparent. If your child's birthparent abused or neglected your child, you might feel very angry about the damage that the abuse or neglect inflicted upon your child. Also, if you adopted a child whose birthmother's prenatal choices resulted in physical damage to the child's body, you might feel angry toward the birthmother.

It is normal for an adoptive parent to feel angry about having to deal with the aftermath of bad choices that a birthparent made that damaged a child.... more

In my last post, Semi-open Adoption: When Birthparents Walk Away, I shared that my son's birthmother, T, chose to close our adoption when my son was four years old. She did this passively by moving without leaving a forwarding address. Our agency will not try to track her down because she knows how to reach them if she chooses to start receiving pictures and letters of her birthchild again.

One issue I wrestled with was what to tell my son about this.... more