Fundraiser Idea: Adoption Parties

I know that as you begin the adoption process, finances is one of the main aspects of the conversation.  Every family raises the funds differently.  We have several friends currently in the process of adopting and I have loved the many different ideas that they have come up with.

I have been invited to several house parties (direct sells organizations), where the proceeds go to the families adoption fund.

If you know someone that sells Pampered Chef, Scentsy, Jamberry, Thirty-One, or any one of the other many different types of parties talk to them about fundraising, and see if they would be interested.  From what I've found, many times, they are willing to give up part or all of their commission from the party and donate it back to the families adoption fund.

A good thing to remember though- that is often a major source of income, so make sure you are conscience of it.  Often the closer the product representative is to your family (and familiar with your adoption plans) the more likely they are to jump at the opportunity so check with extended family and close friends!

As you are inviting people to the party, make sure they are aware that you are treating this as an adoption fundraiser.  I know I get invited to at least one a month, focusing on some sort of product or another... and I often decline.  However, when hearing that one was a fundraiser for a friends adoption, I went, and found items that I could buy for gifts, so I was able to support them, but also cross off some birthday/Christmas shopping.

Have any of you done something like this as you were fundraising for your adoption? How did it go?  Any tips that I can add to this post to help others have successful parties?

Great Birthmother Resource

Our submission today is by Monika, who blogs at Monika's Musings. Monika became a birthmom at 34 years old.  She currently lives near Tacoma, WA, with Nick, her partner and daughter’s birthdad.  They enjoy an open adoption with their daughter and her parents, who live near Portland, OR. Monika will be blogging on occasion at Give1 to help give a valuable birth parent perspective for our domestic page. Today she shares information about an great resource for birthmother's.  

I relinquished my daughter to an open adoption in January 2010. When I relinquished my daughter, I knew no one that was a birth mom, especially since my opinion was that I was unique in choosing to have an open adoption with my daughter and her adoptive parents. In July of that year, my case worker at the adoption agency I used told me about BirthMom Buds (www.birthmombuds.com). She said that it was a community where I could connect with other people that had placed their children with adoptive families. I joined, thinking I might talk with a couple of other birth moms occasionally and that would be it.

I quickly fell into frequently posting on the private forums and chatting with other birth moms in the hosted chats on Monday nights. I also started talking to Coley, one of the founders of BirthMom Buds. Though she and I live on opposite coasts, we started sending long emails back and forth both through Facebook and then through our personal email accounts.

Around January 2011, I started hearing about the annual retreat that BirthMom Buds hosts in Charlotte, North Carolina, the weekend before Mother’s Day weekend. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to go, not only to meet Coley in person, but to connect in person with some of the other birth moms that I’d been talking to online for so long. It was an amazing experience. Though no one that attended had exactly the same adoption experience as anyone else, we all connected through our shared loss. Just as people who have struggled with infertility or miscarriage reach out to others who have experienced similar things, the loss of adoption brings you together in a unique way.

I’ve now been to two BirthMom Buds retreats and am planning to attend my third one this May. Over the long weekend, we laugh. We cry. We forge friendships that last long past the weekend retreat and love each other through the hurt. We learn about the unique experiences of one another, and we learn how we share similar experiences and feelings as well. No matter how at peace we are with our own personal adoption story, we still feel loss. It’s fantastic to be able to really let go and experience our loss with the support of other people who know exactly how we feel. It’s great to talk about our adoption stories without using qualifiers or titles because we all know how each person in our unique stories relates to each other. We don’t get raised eyebrows when talking about our child’s mother or father. For those birth moms who haven’t told many people about the child they’ve placed and the feelings surrounding that placement, it’s a time to really open up and release some of the demons that chase them all year round.

I can’t imagine not attending the retreat. It’s expensive for me to pay for the flight and hotel costs (the retreat itself is free for birth moms), but I wouldn’t want to use the money I spend for anything else. It can be an emotionally exhausting weekend full of ups and downs. But being with people who know how I feel because they’ve been there too is an absolutely priceless experience.

As an aside, I’m coordinating a fundraiser to help fund the hotel costs for two birth moms who would not have been able to attend but for a generous donor who took care of their flight arrangements. If you’re interested in donating to the fundraiser, here’s the link - http://fndr.se/sgWW . Like I said in the blurb about my fundraiser, if I surpass my fundraising goal I will donate the rest to BirthMom Buds to either assist with retreat costs or to help another birth mom pay for transportation and/or lodging. Please pass the link along – you never know who might donate!

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?

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!

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

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

ORANGE You Ready for a New Robison Video Update?

ORANGE you ready? At the end of this post is the video the Robison kiddos submitted this very morning full of Christmas musical cheer! 

The Robisons need to raise $6,000 to pay the agency and program fees before the adoption is finalized. You still have time to help this family with your $1 donation &/or sharing their adoption video with your friends far and wide. As you so generously drop toys in the Toys for Tots bins, canned goods in the food pantry barrels, and coins in the Salvation Army kettles, won't you consider dropping even just $1.00 in the Robisons' Adoption fund to help bring their babies home? 

1) Follow this link to go to the Robisons' Adoption Video post.

2) Scroll to the video (look for the star) & watch.

3) Return to the original link and look for the Green Donate button under the video.

4) Click the green donate button, enter you $$ amount, enter your Paypal password, and click to send! :)

5) Have a few more seconds to spare?? Forward this post link to everyone you know, share it on FB, Tweet it, Pin it, Blog it, email it, whatever you can do is always helpful to our featured families! Thank you Give1 Save1 followers. You are doing a wonderful thing!

Now... If you are sure you ORANGE ready for an update...

Week 2 Day 3 Update from R&S Robison on Vimeo.