Thursday, January 24, 2013

Fine Line

Have you taken time to meet our Featured Family of the Week, the McMillian Family? They are in process and trying to raise the last remaining funds for their private domestic adoption. Please pop on over when you get a chance and donate $1 this week.

I’m blessed to have several close friends of mine that represent the three different sides of the adoption triad- birthmother, adoptive mother, and child.  I find that my conversations that I have with each of them have become more and more valuable as I travel my path as an adoptive mother.

A friend of mine is the adoptive mother of two little girls.  She has fairly open relationships with both of her girls’ birthmothers, and we often talk about how that impacts their lives compared to the completely closed relationship we have with our son’s birth family.  She has fairly regular contact with each birth mother, so is aware of lifestyle choices that are made.

As her oldest daughter is getting closer to an age where she would become more aware of what’s going on in her birth mothers life, my friend struggles with what information to pass on.  Of course, you want your child to have a positive view point of their birthfamily, but what if you make it too nice and cozy?  Are you then setting the situation up for a tween/teenager fight about wanting to go back to live with their birthparents, because they seem so great?  Remember, I WAS that adoptive teenager who wanted anything except my parents house rules, even though I knew nothing about my birthmother, surely she HAD to be better then my parents. 

It’s also difficult to filter out some of the not so great decisions that are made.  I know that both of us have access to pictures/information of our children’s birth parents making less the wise decisions.  In our case, there is drug use, unsafe decisions, and prescription drug abuse documented in an instagram account.  I don’t plan on saving those pictures for Isaac, but those are the choices that are being made at this time, which depending on consequences, might come out eventually.  I dug through both facebook accounts and instagram accounts trying to find pictures that I could save for when he was older to show him pictures of his birth family.  While doing this, I struggled to find ones that I was comfortable with my future toddler and school age child seeing.  There were very few that didn't have drugs or alcohol in them. 

We understand that these are their own lives, and their own decisions, but my friend and I both agree; these decisions influence the amount of contact and type of information we are willing to share as our children grown up.  In this age of technology and ‘connected-ness’, information is so readily available… but what if you aren’t comfortable with all that information?


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Featured Family of the Week: The McMillian's


                I'm happy to introduce to you our first family of 2013, Brittany and Christian McMillan.  This amazing couple has been married for 8 years, and cannot wait to grow their family through a private domestic adoption.  They struggled with both male and female factor infertility, but through all the struggles, their desire to parents only burned stronger.  Brittany and Christian were in the process of starting the foster care process when they were lead to this adoption through a relative.   They are currently matched with an expectant mother due in February.  This was a very quick match for them, so they didn't have much time to prepare.  As they wait the final month before delivery, they are working on raising money to pay off the final lawyer bills.  Let's kick off this new year with a bang and show Brittany and Christian how awesome this group of supporters are!







For the next two weeks we will be featuring The McMillian's and we ask that our Give1 community donate $1 (or more) towards their adoption costs. You can donate to the McMillian Adoption Fund by clicking the donate button below. Thanks so much!




Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Support For Birthmoms


Our guest blogger today is my wonderful friend Ashley. Ashley and her husband Dusty began their adoption journey by adopting embryos through the NEDC. God chose for those precious little ones to all leave this earth so soon and Ashley and Dusty having such a strong faith that the Lord will bring them children to hold in His timing alone, waited patiently for His answer to see how he would enlarge their family. His answer came sooner than later. A birthmother through their adoption agency chose them to be the forever parents of the baby she was carrying in her womb. 

Today Ashley & Dusty's spunky, creative, and gorgeous little girl with curly locks of blond hair is the joy of their lives. They have a beautiful relationship with Kaylee's birthmom full of respect and love. Ashley posts regularly on her blog and has wonderful sources for those who struggle with infertility, those looking to adopt through Embryo Adoption, and those who want to adopt a child domestically through a birth mother. I encourage you to go visit Ashley and get to "know" her and her family. You will leave inspired and encouraged! Thank you Ashley for sharing today with the Give1 Save1 Domestic readers. 

<3 Shannon


Support For Birthmoms

"In my free time, which is very limited these days, I enjoy finding and reading other adoption blogs, especially those that are involved in or are interested in pursuing open adoptions.  The Open Adoption Bloggers website is a great place to connect with other adoptive parents and even birth parents who are involved in open adoptions.*

Through my searching and blog hopping I have become aware of a couple of online resources that are available to birthmoms and I thought I would list them here in case they might be helpful to anyone reading this.  I think it's important that birthmoms are able to connect with others who understand what they're going through and can support and encourage them when they need it.

One of those resources is a website called BirthMom Buds.  It was started by a birthmom named Coley, who was recently interviewed by another blogger.  You can read that interview HERE.  She had this to say about her organization:

BirthMom Buds (www.birthmombuds.com) is a large web based support organization that provides birthmothers as well as pregnant women considering adoption support through a “been there, done that” perspective. We have many different programs and resources including yearly retreats, a quarterly newsletter, a private forums, weekly chats, our buddy system, a mentoring program for expectant mothers considering adoption, and more!
Another online community for birthmoms is called Blessings in a Basket.  They look to be similar to BirthMom Buds in that they were started by birthmoms and have support groups, retreats, and even chats via skype.  They also have a blog called Big Tough Girls.

I really enjoy reading blogs that are written by birthmothers because it gives me as an adoptive mom insight into the "other side".  While we are blessed to have an open adoption relationship with Kaylee's birthmom, I know there are probably some things that she may not feel comfortable with telling us.  I'm thankful for the honest posts that these women write even if it's not always easy to read.

*Please be aware that not all birth parents have had positive adoption experiences.  I've run across some blogs and websites that are extremely anti-adoption and hostile to adoptive parents.  There are a few of these that are included in the Open Adoption Bloggers list.  It's very sad to read through their posts and know that they label all adoptive parents as "baby stealers" and other such nonsense.

If you know of any other resources for birthmoms please feel free to leave a link in the comments."


--Ashley
Our Family Blog: Expecting Miracles

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Robison Family Video Finale

You guys blessed us so very much. What a testimony to our own children to see God's family reach out to our family and lovingly give, encourage us through prayers and emails, and to share our video to help tell others about Embryo Adoption. We'd love to have you follow us through the rest of our adoption process on our family blog at www.RoomForMoreKiddos.com. Now, the final update video from the Robison kiddos...

                                  The Robison Finale from R&S Robison on Vimeo.


hugs, Shannon