What Growing Up In An Open Adoption Has Taught Me

For Juliana Whitney, her adoption was never a secret. In fact, she doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t know about it.

Adopted at birth, she has had contact with both of her birthparents, most recently when her birthfather and many of his family members attended her college graduation last May.

Juliana says living in an open adoption has allowed her to find answers to questions that she would never have found in a closed adoption such as: Why was I placed? Did my birthparents love me? Why did they choose adoptive parents? Continue reading →

Telling Adopting Parents You’ve Changed Your Mind About Your Adoption Plan

Breaking up is hard to do.

It’s hard to do in any relationship. But it’s especially hard when your relationship involves adopting parents.

That’s because hopeful adoptive parents don’t fall within any neat or familiar category.

They’re not family. They’re not friends.

And yet depending on how well you’ve gotten to know them, your relationship could be as strong and as deep — or perhaps even deeper! — than any one that you have with a family member or a friend. Continue reading →

Will Getting A Dog Help Me Get Chosen By A Birthmother?

It happened more than 15 years ago, but the moment is still fresh in my mind.

We had just started our open adoption journey and were at an education session with five or six other couples when the social worker asked us the question that we had all been asking ourselves: how do you get a birthmother to choose you? Continue reading →

The Biggest Mistake I Made Creating My Adoption Profile (And What I Learned From It)

Do you remember your reaction when you first heard you had to create an adoption profile?

I do? Clearly.

“An adoption what?” I asked. “What’s an adoption profile?”

When someone explained what it was, I was nearly speechless.

My wife and I had just come out of our fertility treatments empty-handed and we were scared but excited about this brave new world that we had heard about called open adoption. Continue reading →

How To Optimize Your Open Adoption Facebook Page

I recently got a request from an adopting parent who needed help creating an adoption Facebook page.

Judging by the number of news stories over the last few weeks about parents who have adopted after finding their child’s birthmother through Facebook, I’m sure she isn’t the only one who is adding the social networking site to her networking toolbox. Continue reading →

How Finding Adoptive Parents For My Baby Changed My Life

When Tamra Hyde found herself pregnant at 17, placing her baby for adoption was the last thing on her mind. The way she saw it, adoption was about bad people giving a baby to good people.

But the more she learned about the process, the more she realized that everything she thought she knew about adoption was wrong.

She wasn’t poor. She wasn’t a drug addict. She wasn’t cold and uncaring. Her child wasn’t unwanted or unloved. She had a loving boyfriend and came from a good family. Continue reading →

Failed Adoption Matches: Are Adopting Parents Really Told The Truth By Their Agency?

Are hopeful adoptive parents really told the truth about their chances of finding an successful adoption match by their agency? Are they really told about their chances of failure?

Those are two questions that I first asked myself 15+ years ago when my wife and I had a failed match, and ones that I found myself asking again just the other day.

What got me thinking about the subject now were two recent incidents. The first was an email I received from a hopeful adoptive mother whose match through our parent profile page fell apart. After creating an adoption plan and going to the hospital for early labor, the expectant mother changed her mind and decided to parent. Continue reading →