Our adoption blog has gone international!

Wow, our adoption blog has gone international. According to Blogspot, our adoption blog has been seen in the U.S. (the most, obviously), Iran, India, Canada, United Kingdom, and Indonesia. That's crazy! I can't imagine how it has had the far of reach other than to really appreciate the viral nature of the internet (and the niceness of friends and strangers). I have a Facebook friend from Canada who posted our site on her FB wall, so I am guessing that is how those from Canada came about it. Not sure about the others. But, just goes to show you that this method can really raise awareness about our desire to adopt.

Why is this important? Because like Kevin Bacon's 6 Degrees of Separation, everyone knows someone who eventually knows someone who has had an unplanned pregnancy and may want to consider adoption. Just today a friend of mine was telling me about how a friend of hers is in an adoption situation based on knowing a friend who knew a friend who eventually knew the mom of a pregnant 16 year old who wants to place for adoption. A lot of times that is how open adoption happens.

Yes, many of us hire these big agencies to help us find women interested in exploring open adoption, but we know of many open adoptions that happened through a network of friends (and sometimes that network extended far).

We don't know if our networking through this blog will do us any good. We don't know if anyone considering adoption has actually even seen our blog and letter, but at least we know if you are reading this you may remember us if you run across someone who has had an unplanned pregnancy.

Last night I read an article about adoption marketing that had a lot of good ideas, especially if you are going it alone without an agency. I don't think we are ready to go that far because we do have this fancy-pants agency we've hired that is helping us to find a birthmother. But, there are a lot of easy things we can do that might increase our exposure. It's better than sitting around feeling helpless about the adoption process.

In our own adoption story of Maggie, many people are surprised to learn that after working with an agency for 18 months, we actually ended up finding our own birthmother, and she is perfect in so many ways. So, I say this to say you never know how it will happen.

Today, we got to hold precious little baby Adam who was recently adopted through open adoption. He is so cuddly and cute--I really didn't want to give him back, but alas the moms said we had to. Maggie said when we got home how much she wished she had her brother or sister already living here, and I tried my best to remind her that God has a plan for our family, and hopefully we will find out soon enough. It is so sweet to see how nurturing she is with babies and toddlers, everyone else for that matter!

If you would like to help in our journey, please post this to your Facebook wall and ask people to take a look at it.

Maggie flying her first kite!

As far as milestones go, Maggie learned how to fly a kite today. Even with very little wind, she was able to get it up in the sky. She was so proud of herself. And I am so happy she was able to do that today. We can't take for granted the good life we have and how much the simple pleasures can be the best experiences.

Feeling grateful~
Kathy

Busy, busy Saturday

Maggie at her soccer game today!

Busy, busy Saturday. Today, Maggie had karate and a soccer game. Lisa took her to both so I could get ready for a work seminar. Maggie is becoming quite the little athlete!

I spent the afternoon hosting a seminar for gay people who are interested in becoming parents. I love this part of my job--getting to talk with people about the options available to gay people wanting to add children to their family, and helping them figure out the best option for their family.

One of the reasons I enjoy doing this so much is because when we first started thinking about having a child, there was really no information out there. We just assumed that since we were lesbians, we should try to have a biological child. We wasted $15,000, and a year of our time before some friends educated us about open adoption.

Having a biological child was never important to either of us, so adoption was clearly the best route for us once we learned about it. Yes, I am biased--I love to help people learn about open adoption, but I do try to do my best to educate everyone about the option that is best for them. For some people, it is important to have a biological child or to be pregnant (I was never looking forward to getting pregnant, I am too much of a baby!), and so I help them figure out the best course given their situation.

It's an exciting time in their lives, and I feel lucky to teach them what I know to help them figure out their journey. It's fun to help people build their families. Well, at least to me it is :-)

Today, a lesbian couple in their 40s walked in the door thinking they had to try to have a child biologically--this would have been difficult and super expensive given their ages. They said, "we didn't even know gay people were allowed to adopt in Georgia." I was glad to help them, but thought it was so sad that they were thinking this was the case. So, my crusade continues...

Now if I could just teach Maggie's dog to stop barking at the neighbor's dog, life would be great. She is from the Caribbean, so she doesn't understand that in Georgia, we act neighborly to everyone--even the dogs!

Gay or Single Need Not Apply

Back some 7-8 years ago when we first looked into open adoption, we really liked that the birthparents were able to choose the people they wanted to raise their child. Instead of handing over their child to just anyone that someone else picks out, they get to pick a family that they like, and one that may share the values that they think will be good for the child they are considering placing for adoption.

So, open adoption can be very cool in that birthparents get to pick whoever they want. They can pick a single person, a heterosexual couple, two-women couple, two-men couple, someone young, someone old, religious people, non-religious people (you get the drift, it's their choice).

It is true that there are many agencies and adoption attorneys who work with same-sex couples and single people, but there are also a ton who outright refuse to help these people. It is not one of those situations where gay or single people's money is just as good as heterosexual married couples. For these discriminators, they think they know best who birthparents should pick to adopt their children, so they don't even allow birthparents to know about these other people wanting to adopt.

Some 7-8 years ago we were delighted that there were adoption professionals and websites that would work with us as equal human beings wanting to adopt a child. It is hard to believe in all this time there are still so many agencies and websites that refuse to allow same-sex couples and single people to let birthparents know about their desire to adopt. It is hard to believe these discriminators are so hardcore in their discrimination as if they have superior knowledge about who will be a good parent, and who will not.

The other day, I decided to write very nice e-mails asking some of the profile sites why they did not have any same-sex couples listed on their site. These websites are important because so many birthparents find their adoptive families online now. From my e-mail, they could not have known whether I was a birthmother or an adoptive parent. And do you know what, not a one of them wrote me back. You would have thought they could have at least said, we're sorry, our values just don't allow it, or something like that.

Well, despite the obstacles so many of us face in creating our families, birthparents are still finding us, and I think most of us are doing a spectacular parenting job. I am thankful that so many birthparents chose those of us who are gay or single. We just have to work a lot harder to make sure they find us.

Yes, people, we are still adopting

I am amazed how many people have asked me if we are still going to adopt after what happened to us with our February failed adoption. Of course we are! We have made that abundantly clear, yet even as the words come out of my mouth people will say to me "yeah, but with what happened and all, I didn't think you would do it again."

I know I should cut people slack who aren't familiar with the joys and heartache that can go along with open adoption, but I can't always be so perfect as to not get pissed once in a while.

For those not familiar with open adoption, failed adoptions can be a part of the process, and hopefully anyone doing an open adoption is aware of that challenge and can handle it emotionally. We know many people who say they can't handle the possibility of a failed adoption, or even the roller coaster ride that sometimes happens with open adoption.

That is not us. We went into this fully aware of how open adoption works and the risks involved. Hell yes, we were emotionally devastated when our adoption fell apart, but we NEVER, EVER had any thoughts of quitting. We know in our hearts that the right baby and birthparents will find us. I am sorry if you can't understand that or can't bare to watch us go through it because it might not come in a neatly wrapped package.

Open adoption is a journey that leads to beautiful results. Certainly you can see that if you know our daughter Maggie. We are the luckiest people alive to be picked by her birthmother to raise her. Not a day goes by that we don't think about how grateful we are for the little miracle we have been entrusted.

I am so sorry for those who do not understand the beauty of open adoption. We fully appreciate it and know we will find the baby that was meant for us through it.

If you happen to read this post, please don't ask me if we are quitting. We wouldn't be who we are if we quit. We are so tougher than that, and our love for our daughter and future baby wouldn't allow it.

Peace~
Kathy