Tweeting Tueday

A sampling of adoption related posts floating around on Twitter this week

We're pulling for the R house. Hopefully next week, their contested adoption will FINALLY be finalized.
therhouse only EIGHT MORE DAYS (full days) to endure before the appeal period is officially over. single digits, baby!

therhouse Bawl with me ....Gavin's birth certificate just came in the mail. Almost makes finalization seem real. Almost.

Saturday was National Adoption Day!
mydadjosh Happy National Adoption day! Today I'm very very grateful for the blessing of adoption in my life.

Izziland Izzi and I would like to wish all the families brought together through the blessing of adoption a very happy National Adoption Day!

natadoptionday After tomorrow, 30,000 foster care children will have been adopted over the 10 yrs of Nat'l Adoption Day!

There were quite a few thought-provoking tweets.
MyAdoptionAdvsr Spoke about adoption at local high school. Someone always asks, "Who named the baby?"

aalexisi A thought...if we make abortion easier to get, then shouldn't we make adoption easier to do too? I mean, multiple choices.

memoriadei: There are unwanted pregnancies but no unwanted babies. adoption the best choice

Kathy_Johnson One in five children who are waiting in foster care to be adopted will have to leave the system without a family at age 18 or 21.

jasonkovacs What are your thoughts on disrupting birth order in adoption? Good, bad, unsure? I have no idea, I'm sincerely asking.

Kathy_Johnson November is National Adoption Month. 129,000 kids in the US are waiting for a family. http://bit.ly/DOoMQ

Everyone is raving about the new adoption/foster care related movie, The Blind Side.
MarcAndreas I loved The Blind Side which brought in $34.5 million in its first 2 days w/ high ratings. Go check it out. What a great adoptionstory!

Some were worried that ABC's new show "Find My Family" would disregard the role of the adoptive family when reuniting adoptees with their birth families. The show premiered last night and most people had positive feedback on it.
ReneeDeLuca I don't think I can watch that "Find My Family" show every week. Five minutes and I was a mess. Plus, I've lived it!!!

MollieK Watching Find My Family. I didnt want to like it. Darn it!

Izziland I hope when Izzi wants 2 meet her birth family it will be done with more dignity This seems so staged, not organic. Really didn't like intro

The show Glee (yeah, we love it too) has a storyline right now where one of the Glee club members is pregnant. The Glee club teacher's wife is pretending to be pregnant to keep her marriage together. She wants to adopt the girl's baby and pretend she delivered it herself. It's weird and impossible, so it always stirs a few comments.
firemom I'm fully caught up on the Glee season. Any other people touched by adoption having an issue with certain things? But, gosh, I love it.

There were some great blog posts related to adoption.
yarnnation Blog post on how to avoid adoption scams. http://tr.im/FgVk

KatieBQ Finally blogged about FSA Regional Conference in Portland...read all about it! http://tinyurl.com/yacoj9y

As always, people shared small, but meaningful pieces of their own adoption stories.
coffeetalkwc Almost aborted; adopted & given great life instead & parents died 2008; reunited w/ entire bio. family since 1998

erinannie *deep breath* just put in application to foster to adopt one specific girl. 4 weeks before I can expect to hear back!

jamieworley Not one, but two caseworker visits today. But less than a month til Lindsey's adoption!

vitafamiliae Last home study interview, TONIGHT! And this time, she's talking to the kids. I want a voice recorder...

mattbooshwaa It's getting hard 2 keep my heartless image when I'm crying every week @ our after school prog. b/c we r watching Lifetime adoptionmovies

angeecolvin So grateful for the spirit and how I have been led to the point I am at. SOOO grateful for adoption and the joy I feel when I talk about it.

yarnnation still working away on our new profile. It has to be printed first thing tomorrow am. adoption is a lot of work.

adoptionart Just got done writing a Christmas letter to my youngest child's birthmom in Guatemala

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Spotlight Saturday - Michigan won our hearts

Matt & Courtney - a fun-loving couple in Michigan hoping to adopt

This week's spotlight is especially meaningful to us because our sweet Ruby was born in Dearborn and we spent our first two weeks with her in Michigan as we waited to bring her home. We met some very loving and generous families while we were there that helped the miracle of her adoption happen.

Please take a moment to get to know Matt and Courtney. You can find out more about them and contact them by visiting their online profile:

http://tinyurl.com/mattcourtney

or their adoption blog

http://flyboynshutterbug.blogspot.com

Please let us introduce ourselves. We are Matt and Courtney. We want to share more openly who we are as a family. We want to share the things we do that make us Matt and Courtney.

Well, we might as well start at the beginning! Here's our story of why we're hoping to adopt someone special! We decided a few years ago that we wanted to expand our family. We, of course, started trying...We heard it's supposed to be pretty easy. lol But about 18 months later we found out that we aren't physically able to conceive children. After numerous doctor visits and many hours in prayer we decided that our family would grow through adoption.

We felt that it didn't matter if we aren't physically able to bear children...we are physically, spiritually, and emotionally able to be PARENTS! We strongly believe that family is what you make it! That you don't have to be born into a family to belong there. And by the sealing powers of the priesthood, the children that we parent, will enjoy the blessings of an eternal family.

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Finding Friday - Part 3: Pass-Along Cards

Before I start, I'll reiterate the love and respect we feel for our children's birth mothers, and for the many birth mothers we've met along our adoption journey. The purpose of these efforts in "finding" is to help make a connection with an expectant mother who has chosen to place her child for adoption, not to pressure or judge any woman who has found herself in the difficult position of an unexpected pregnancy. Choosing between adoption and single parenting is a very personal and sacred decision in our eyes.

Finding Friday - Part 3: Pass-Along Cards
In Finding Friday part 1 I talked about letting all your friends and family know that you are certified to adopt through an email blitz and/or a holiday newsletter. This is a great first step, and probably the most important.

Getting yourselves online (see part 2) by setting up your online agency profile, as well as an adoption website or blog is also essential. Having information about yourselves online makes it easy for people to pass on your information, and allows a prospective birth family to find out a little about you without the need to contact you first.

It can also be helpful to set up a non-identifying email address specifically for adoption. We chose an address that doesn't include our last names, and most email accounts let you change the settings so that your last name doesn't show up in emails you send out. We have no problem sharing our names, email addresses, cell phone numbers, etc. with our children's birth mothers, but we are careful about what we make available to the whole world.

We also set up an 800 number through Kall8.com so that anyone can contact us from any phone - even a pay phone. We don't have our number posted online for privacy reasons and to avoid prank calls, but having an 800 number played a crucial role in Ruby's adoption and we were so glad we had one set up.

Pass-Along Cards
Once you have a variety of ways in place for people to contact you, pass-along cards are a great way to spread the word that you are hoping to adopt. We included our adoption website, email address, and agency online profile. You could also include your 800 number. We loved our cards designed by spacesforfaces.com for our cards, and weve heard of others using vistaprint.com.
You can pass these cards out everywhere you go. We included a few in each of the Christmas newsletters we sent out so our friends and family can have them handy if they hear of an expectant mother considering adoption.

You can leave them with your check at restaurants. I've left them at bus stops/bus seats, redbox kiosks, gas pumps, rest stops, and in free newspaper boxes. We never had a contact come from leaving them at these random places, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen, and we wanted to open any doors we could.

You can also ask to post them on bulletin boards at libraries, grocery stores, laundromats, apartments, cafes, car washes, etc. Leave some with your health care professionals - OB/GYN, pediatrician, dentist, etc. Hair dressers are great resources as well (Here is an example of a recent successful placement involving a hair stylist and pass-along cards). Get creative! At around 5 cents a piece for your cards, it's not a big investment to spread them around.

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WE MADE IT INTO THE FINALS!!!

Don't tell me you can honestly look at this face and not go vote for her! ;)Thank you!

Because of our dear friends and family, we managed to make it into the top nine of the Ohdeedoh Small Kids, Big Color 2009 competition. Please help Ruby Jane stay in the top three by clicking on the link above and voting for us in the semifinals within the next 24 hours!
Here is one of our entry pictures. If you are having trouble voting, see the instructions in the next post. To see the original entry click here.

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How to Vote for Ruby

The voting process has been a little problematic and it's not very clear how to go about placing a vote once you get to the site, so I put together some instructions to make it easy for everyone.

Go to the ohdeedoh website. You'll see the contest post.

Scroll down a bit and you'll see the voting buttons in the form of a poll:

Click on the "Register" link.
If you voted before in the semifinals, you can skip this registration step.
(I wish you didn't have to register, but it's the only way they have to control the voting).

Choose a username. Enter your email address and choose a password.
The email signup boxes are unselected by default so you won't get any email solicitations.
Check the Terms & Policies box and click "Sign Up"
(If the registration box doesn't come up, you may need to disable your pop-up blocker).

A confirmation message will show up. You can close this window.

Check your email for a message like this:

Click on the first link in the email to verify your account.

Now go back to the ohdeedoh website.
Scroll past all the comments to the very bottom of the page to log in to your account.

Once you are logged in, go back up to the top section of the page with the voting buttons.

Pick Ruby's Room (if you like it), and click on "answer survey".
The button in this picture is greyed out because we've already voted.
Yours shouldn't be at this point. (If it is still greyed out after logging in, try using a different web browser, or a different computer. For some people (me included) this has been a problem if they voted in the first round. The site seems to think you've already voted in the finals.)
Thanks everyone! It's a tight race. Yours could be the swing vote!

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Myths and Misconceptions About Adoption Part 2 (by Tamra)

I've heard Tamra talk about these very things many times, and yet I never tire of her candid honesty as a birth mother. Here is her second set of responses to common myths and misconceptions about adoption.

"people who choose adoption are very young, have drug problems, are very poor, and have very unstable lifestyles"

i wish this WERE true but as a result of these instabilities, in my observation, such women generally lack the clarity and presence of mind to choose adoption. on the contrary, i've seen conscientious, selfless, responsible people who, for those qualities, would make the best parents (in fact by putting their child's needs above their own, that's just what they're being).
while women of all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and circumstances have chosen adoption, the average age is 22. a young girl's frontal lobe is not fully developed and she often won't have a very clear sense of the reality of tomorrow or the needs of another person outside of herself. so she's going mainly on instinct, which of course dictates that she does not separate from her offspring. even at 18 it was nothing short of divine intervention that got me to, and through the decision. that said, i have known girls, young as 12, wise beyond their years and they are my heroes!
one of my many resistances to the idea of adoption was that i thought i didn't fit the bill. i thought adoption was for "those girls", the ones who would clearly be terrible parents. but i knew i was a good person, i would be a good mom. i thought, if you CAN raise your child, you do. i now know, it's a matter of good, better, best.

"adopted kids are always screwed up, if you place for adoption, your baby will be too"

i think it's funny now that i actually worried about this. there are several factors playing into this misconception. one is that people don't make the distinction between foster, international, and birthparent or infant adoptions. which is not at all to say that children adopted through the state or internationally WILL be "screwed up" but it certainly comes with a different set of challenges. the study i've seen showed that children adopted within the first 6 months of life (barring any abuse or neglect) showed no negative repercussions as a result of having been adopted. when compared to their peers they did as well or better in areas of academics, behavior, identity, or feelings of belonging. then when compared to those raised by single, biological parents the gap widens.
i think another factor is, yet again, the influence of the past. in the "dark ages of adoption" there was no openness, no information, no communication from a birthparent, and there was alot of shame and secrecy. we've learned from these mistakes and we now see that those things contributed to feelings of abandonment and inferiority. in this day of open, real, working relationships between birth and adoptive families, a child knows they came from love to love. they were not unwanted. they have EXTRA family who cherish them. there are no gaps in their identity. this is something that makes them special. we don't whisper about adoption anymore. there is nothing to hide!
furthermore, you cannot imagine the screening and procedures a couple goes through to adopt these days. and infertility can be quite the refiners fire. i think these folx are the cream of the crop! and after their work and wait and worry, and knowing the sacrifice it came from, they don't take parenthood lightly and they don't take their children for granted.

"the birthmom might try to take back the baby"

this is the stuff of Lifetime-made for TV-movies.
in GA i had 2 weeks after placement to change my mind. this added to my hell. i know some states allow up to 6 months. in UT the moment relinquishment has been signed it is already binding. even where it's possible, it is rare that a mother will change her mind after placement. adoption is not something that a person chooses half hearted or on a whim. my thoughts, while feeling that crushing loss, were that i would NEVER want them (his parents) to feel it. knowing what i knew, that that family was his, that they were better, even than my best, that THAT was the life that he was SUPPOSED to have, how could i take it away from him.
and again, things are not what they once were. if i'd chosen adoption because of social, religious, or family pressure instead of my own conviction that it was right for us. if i never held him or said goodbye. if i had to wake up every morning wondering where he was, with who, does he get enough kisses, is he fed well, etc. under these circumstances i can see how a person would have no peace and i'm certain i would have lost my mind. but this is NOT adoption today. as a birthmom sees the family she helped create, sees her baby laugh, sees the love his parents have for him, her decision is confirmed and solidified.

"no parent can love a child like their biological mother"

the instant i first saw him....words fail. i recognized immediately that i had never felt love before that moment. i felt my heart grow inside of my chest. i would've given my right arm for him, i'd've stepped infront of a bus for him. there was NOTHING i wouldn't have done for him. the world stopped....for moments while i tried to understand how he could be real. i recognized him. that moment is preserved in my heart. i feel it now as i shed even more grateful tears.
i regret i wasn't there the first time Debbie saw her Justin (but my heart still melts at the thought of it). i have NO doubt...no doubt that HER heart grew! that SHE knew him! that HER gratitude has spilled out through her tears for 13 years. she IS giving her life for him! day by day.
while the the blood we share is real and significant, it is not as real and as significant as is the sealing covenant. and biology does not have to exist for genuine family love to. i know that they COULD not love him more if he had their genes. i believe he was theirs before he was mine.


(these are my own views and commentaries. i only represent myself in these statements. opinions may very, even among my adoption peers)

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WOWZERS! Wednesday #3: Guest Blogger Desha

This is Desha:

She has graciously agreed to be our guest blogger today in order to share a little bit about her perspective on adoption as a birth mother. We are grateful she was willing and appreciate her voice for good! You rock Desha! Her story follows.

I often find myself discussing adoption, especially with others personally involved in adoption. news flash to self- adoption is my life! I couldn't get away from it if I tried. I embrace adoption and all it's many wonders- the good. the bad. and yes even sometimes the very ugly. But even with it's many flaws and imperfections, adoption, for me, is still the shiniest gemstone in the store window.

Adoption has always been a part of my life. I don't think I’d be able to list all the little streams that feed into the river that is my life that were sprung from adoption. This being said, when it came my turn to play a leading role in the adoption world (finding myself unexpectedly pregnant and not really suffering from malaria as originally presumed) I was shocked to find endless websites and blogs and books and resources etc ..... about how AWFUL adoption is.

I was feeling sorry for myself one day while reading ‘what to expect while expecting’ - it's an awful book, even if you are going to parent your child. It was all sorts of husband this and husband that and preparing for this and planning that, it just didn't apply to me and my pregnancy because the entire book assumed I was going to bring my baby home from the hospital with my husband and we would live happily ever after. I just wanted to know what could help me stop being so damn nauseated and stop losing weight and perhaps a tidbit or two about what my lil fetus might be doing/body parts it might be growing right about now. I didn’t need all this other mumbo jumbo so I hit the internet with my google skills. SURELY, I thought, there is a book out there about what to expect while your expecting with an adoption plan.

I was on amazon dot com I believe and had about 100,000 hits for pregnancy and adoption, after scrolling thru about literally 20 pages of books and not finding A SINGLE ONE that had ANYTHING positive to say about ANY aspect of adoption, I stopped looking. Talk about discouraged. With nauseousness. And definitely self pity. No bueno.

desha and "lil pokepoke"

That's when I started googling adoption support/birthmom support in general. Again couldn't find anything remotely positive or encouraging besides birthmombuds dot com. how could there not be anything positive out there? I was aghast at the drastic imbalance. I had friends who placed babies, friends/family who have adopted babies, they all knew people in the adoption world and it branched out from there, so where were all the happy success stories? Why couldn't I find them? I knew from personal experience that they existed, but couldn't understand why when I googled ‘adoption’ it was only negative. I was very surprised at how close-minded our society still was towards adoption - even with Angelina Jolie. I guess I hadn't realized that this topic was still so taboo. What a shame I thought and I immediately 'knew' that I would be forever involved in sharing how amazing adoption has been for me, and for those in my life - and I wasn't even out of my first trimester yet. (feb 2008)

(maybe when I am done with medical school and am also a practicing midwife I will write 'what to expect when you are expecting with an adoption plan'!)

I have since started a birthmom blog for my local pdx birthmoms, I also coauthor on a birthom blog and I started a facebook group page about adoption and have found other places, like adoptionvoices dot com that encourage and celebrate the positive things about adoption. I still think it’s too bad that there is so much more negative out there than the positive. I have been talking about this a lot lately with both fellow birthmoms and adoptive mom friends.

first visit after placement

We are frustrated that every time we try to tell our story, try to share our positive experience, there are several sharks just lurking in the dark waters ready to bite, to try to convince us that we did a horrible thing, that we are in denial, that we are NOT happy and that adoption is evil, they throw studies and statistics and links at us and promise that one day we will see the truth and that they will be waiting, to tell us I told you so, not waiting to help or support us. These sharks are usually birthmoms and/or adoptees who for whatever reason have hurt anger sadness grief loss misery and a host of other emotions that they have not been able to process, accept, and move forward with. It is sad. I feel sad for them that they cannot find happiness in their lives. But I feel that it is their choice to cling onto these negative emotions. It is my choice to feel happy and at peace and get joy from my adoption experience and it is my choice to want to share that with others. But in sharing my positive experience, thoughts and feelings, I don’t try to tell them that they have to be happy and I don’t need to convince them to be happy so I often wonder, what entitles them to attack me and others like me and tell me that I need to be miserable?

second visit

In one of my discussions over this past summer with a birthmom friend, I commented ‘man if I had all the time that they (bitter birthmoms and adoptees) spend being bitter, I would be a happy girl, that’s a lot of time to get a lot of things done and I have a lot of things on my plate!’ As our discussion continued we talked about how they try so hard to instill the negative, how they are so determined to ruin it for the rest of us, that they have to enlighten us about the ‘truthful horrors’ of adoption, how they are so hurt and so angry and so sad, yet they chose to remain this way. We tossed around some ideas as to why, acknowledged the different and very valid circumstances of closed adoptions, and we asked each other some rhetorical questions, we talked about the publicity of the negative and the absence of the positive and then one of us said, pretty sure it was her, yes it was her, ‘we don’t hear from the happy ones because they are busy, living their lives.’

It was like a light bulb- yup, we are busy, living our lives, moving forward, embracing the journey, riding the emotional waves that come with being a birthmom and doing the best we can… but we are living our lives, not drowning in our bitterness and misery. I guess misery loves company, just like the saying says.

A short time later I was chatting with another adoption friend, this time an adoptive mother struggling with birthparent issues and she was feeling down and out about how the ‘bad side’ (my words, and I’m not implying that birthparents are bad or that there are ‘sides’ in adoption) seems to always win, that the negative seems to always drown out the positive, why is this she asked me, and I told her what my birthmom friend had told me, we don’t hear from the happy ones because they are busy, living their lives.

second visit

I have a voice, and I’ve chosen to use it, for good. I want the world to know that I placed my baby for adoption and I am HAPPY about that choice. I can honestly say that I know I always will be. I am moving forward, on a constant journey that is my life with an amazing adventure waiting behind every bend in the river, and even though I’m busy, very busy indeed, I feel I need to stop and share the positive emotions I have experienced and seen countless others experience with adoption, as often as I possibly can.

getting ready for placement

There just aren’t appropriate words to adequately describe (my) adoption. People try, they say things like amazing, awesome, miracle, hope, love, faith, blessing, gift, strength, beautiful … but all these are just words, they can describe anything, adoption is not just anything. I decided a long while ago, after my wonderful and delightfully happy placement, that the words needed to describe what I had just experienced were too beautiful, too sacred to be used here on earth, those words are safe with the angels, and all I was left with were to express my tender experience, were tears.

Many many adoption luvs to all.

desha

My adoption story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IdPtGZ-3oM

Chapter 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKPOlsvusT8

blogging as birthMOM:

http://birthmothers4adoption.blogspot.com/

Desha Wood’s adoption friends and family:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82019623067

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Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
(This is hard because we don't really buy gifts for Christmas. Last year we only spent $20 or $25 each I think, and the two years before that we went to Mexico, so we bought each other stocking stuffers only.)

• Music by Lenka, Ingrid Michaelson and others
  
• Dream Item: An iPod maybe...
  
• Another pair of jeans (I only have one pair right now)
  
• Another Dream Item: A double jogging stroller (Shane really wants this too)
  
• Yet Another dream item: A sewing machine (I have always wanted one!)
  

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?

• My sister Marci has made me several handmade things and I love her gifts SO much. Right now I especially love the patchwork framed in Ruby's room that Marci made me. I think it was for Christmas a few years back, but it could have been for my birthday.
  

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?

• I have been trying for a few years to gather all the favorite family recipes, make them and photograph them, and get them into a cookbook for my siblings and friends. This year I am actually making something (for a few people on our list) that I have always wanted to learn how to. I can't tell you about them yet though because it's a surprise for the recipients!
  

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?

• I remember being pretty stoked about my red Barbie Ferrari.
  

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?

• CJ: Transformers that really transform (Bumblebee specifically)
  
• CJ: Toy Guitar
• RJ: Diapers, wipes, formula, and toys!
  

6. What is your favorite holiday food?

• Traditional foods my family ate every Christmas include clam chowder, homemade rolls, Danish pastries, and shortbread cookies.
  

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?

• Like I said before, it's a secret! Check back to see pictures after the recipients have gotten them. I will say this -- I am sewing them.
  

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?

• Christmas Story is a classic -- "You'll shoot your eye out!"
• I also love all the cheesy ABC Family Christmas movies on every night in December.
  

9. Favorite holiday song?

• Love almost all of them, but I never tire of hearing O Holy Night.
  

10. Favorite holiday pastime?

• Hanging out with family and friends, driving around to see Christmas lights, eating yummy food and warming up by the fire with warm beverages.
  

To enter to win all these cool prizes below simply answer the questions in this meme, make sure to post links back to TodaysMama.com and Provo Craft (use this link: http://bit.ly/4ikY3c ) and tag your friends!

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