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

We had a semi-open adoption with our son's birthmother, T. We sent her pictures and letters every other month for the first year of my son's life, and then we cut back to sending the packages twice a year at Christmas and Mother's Day through the adoption agency. She chose to keep the communication one-way.

During the first couple of years, the social worker would call T to let her know that a package had arrived. That social worker left the agency, so I had to remind the agency each time to continue... more

I was reading an article about international adoption in a magazine, looking for ideas to blog about on my Hoping to Adopt blog. I skimmed through the article but did not see anything that piqued my interest: Most of what was said has been said numerous times before (and better, in my possibly biased opinion) by Sandra on the International Adoption blog and Erin on the Transracial Adoption... more

With the holidays rapidly approaching, I am starting to think about what I am going to write to my son's birthmother this year. We have a semi-open adoption, and I write her a letter and send her pictures each year at Christmas.

It takes me a while to put the package together because I want to give her a good sampling of my son's life throughout the past year. That takes some time. I sort through all of the photographs I have taken over the past year and choose some from... more

Sometimes posts about adoption can get me feeling a bit down. Topics like "adoptive grief" or "adoption loss" definitely have their place, but adoption is not solely about grief and loss. Adoption is also about joy! It is about families coming together and agreeing to be related forever even though they do not share the same DNA.

I have experienced pain and frustration while going through the adoption process, but most of what I have experienced has been positive. Without adoption, I would not be a mother today. I would not have my precious son reminding me... more

In my last post, Talking With Teacher About Child's Adoption, I talked about sharing the fact that my son was adopted with his teacher. In that post, I said that I do not view my son's adoption as a secret, but it is also not headline news.

Respecting an adopted child's privacy can be tricky because, while his adoption is his story, parts of his story are the adoptive parents' story, too. I went through the adoption process to become a mother, and I am paid to... more

One issue that adoptive parents face is whether or not to tell the teacher about the child's adoption. I went into the pros and cons in my post, Telling the Teacher about Child’s Adoption.

This year, I decided not to tell my son's teacher until later in the year. I did not want the fact that he was adopted to influence her opinion of my son. Also, I already met with her to discuss his asthma... more

Sometimes people get into a contest about who is a better parent – a biological parent or an adoptive parent. Some people believe that you have to share the same DNA as your child in order to bond fully with your child. Other people believe that, because adoptive parents tend to be older and more financially secure, they are better parents than biological ones. Which is correct?

I know some biological parents who are fabulous parents. Their lives revolve around their children, and they always seem to have an unending amount of patience with their kids. However,... more

When I wrote my last post, Power of Books in Understanding Adoption, I was surprised to find that the Adoptive Parenting blog had no book review of Jamie Lee Curtis' book, Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born. I decided to rectify this with this post.

This book is my favorite adoption book written for little... more

I love to read almost as much as I love to write. Books are my constant companion, and I learn so much through them. I have found that the same holds true for children: They can learn so much through reading a book. Reading books about adoption is a great way for children to understand the difficult concepts involved in adoption in an age-appropriate and non-threatening manner.

My favorite book about adoption is Jamie Lee Curtis' Tell... more