Finding My Zen State While Waiting To Adopt A Baby

This guest post is by Sarah Farrar, a hopeful adoptive mother and blogger.

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” –Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

I came across this quote by Oscar Wilde on a day when I was really struggling with finding what I like to call my “zen state” in regards to the adoption wait.

Everything was feeling particularly unfair and hopeless.

We all have those days and boy, was I having one.

I read it and something just clicked.

It isn’t all about when and how our baby will find us.

It isn’t only about our battle with infertility or our rather tedious journey to adopt.

Our baby finding us will likely come from a place of loss for someone else. Our happiness resulting from someone else’s hardship.

There is a bigger picture here. Continue reading →

10 Birthmother Stories Guaranteed To Change The Way You Look At Birthmothers

There’s no other way to put it: Birthmothers have gotten a bum rap.

While adoptive parents are praised for “saving” children, birthmothers are attacked for “giving them up.”

But neither story gets it right. Like so many things in life, the reality is a lot more complicated.

All adoptive parents aren’t saints and all birthmothers aren’t sinners.

In much the same way that there are many different reasons why prospective parents turn to adoption, there are many different reasons why birthmothers choose to place. Continue reading →

Open Adoption: The Road Less Traveled, But The Right One For Us

This guest post is by Shannon Guindin, a hopeful adoptive mother.

I often think of our adoption story in terms of Robert Frost’s, “The Road not Taken.”

In this poem, Frost states that two roads diverge in a wood, yet he cannot travel both.

We, like Frost, came to a fork in the road when we faced infertility. My husband and I tried for three years to get pregnant and all attempts were unsuccessful.

After trying on our own for six months, my OBGYN prescribed Clomid, and when that failed to work, he referred us to a fertility center.

After extensive testing, they could not find any structural or biological reason we could not get pregnant, so we started Intrauterine Insemination (IUI.) Continue reading →

Embracing My Inner Adopted Child

This guest post is by Juliana Whitney, an adoptee and adoption advocate.

Let me be real with you 100%.

I consider myself to be introspective and due to education and over a decade of therapy I consider myself to have a pretty thorough and well-rounded understanding of what it is to be an adoptee.

What we feel, what we are triggered by, and why.

I also consider myself to have a healthy level of empathy so even if an adoptee has experienced something I haven’t I am usually able to understand and relate to that person.

I am so grateful for all of this and this is why I put my heart and soul into connecting with anyone and everyone affected by adoption.

Part of putting my heart and soul in to it is showing my triumphs and my struggles. Continue reading →