This guest post is by Ashley Mitchell, a birthmother and owner of Big Tough Girl.™
As Birthmother’s Day and Mother’s Day approaches, I am always lost in thought. Lost in past, present and future events as they relate to my kids and the differences in my experiences of becoming a mother to each of them.
I want to share some thoughts that I had in January, when I gave birth to our son. A boy of my own! Continue reading
Haley always wanted to do something related to adoption. Since February, she’s gotten her wish thanks to Adoption: Share the Love, her popular blog and Facebook page that promotes the joy of adoption through interviews with birth and adoptive mothers.
Haley’s introduction to adoption came early. When she was 10, her mother placed her half-brother with an adoptive family. She says the experience helped her see how wonderful adoption could be. But it also opened her eyes to the other side of the process: the pain and the grieving. Continue reading
Over the last 15+ years that we’ve helped hopeful adoptive parents build their families through open adoption, we’ve been asked just about every question you can imagine.
But there’s one question that pops up again and again: What are birthmothers or, more to the point, prospective birthmothers looking for in adoptive parents? Continue reading
Happy Valentine’s Day! Since this is the day for lovers, we figured it was the perfect time to celebrate what people love about open adoption.
Adoptive parents, birth parents, waiting parents, adoptees and adoption professionals–they’ve all weighed in with their thoughts. Open adoption, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. Continue reading
Starting your parent profile? Good luck! And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Next to word of mouth, a parent profile is the best networking tool you have as a hopeful adoptive parent to connect with prospective birth parents.
And that’s a good thing and a bad one.
Good because your profile could be a game-changer in your efforts to become an adoptive parent through open adoption. Bad because…well, if you know anything about writing a profile, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Continue reading
On Friday, I told you about my failed attempt to buy an e-reader. But my experience wasn’t a complete waste of time. After noticing the parallels between my shopping excursion and the experience of writing a parent profile, I managed get a blog post out of it.
Today, I want to return to the subject, although I promise this will be the last time. That’s because I realized that if I thought choosing an e-reader was tough, imagine how a prospective birth mother must feel about having to pick out an adoptive family from what seems like an endless array of parent profiles. Continue reading
I don’t know about you, but once again my holiday shopping plans have taken a turn for the worse. My problem isn’t in finding what I want. It’s in making a decision.
Earlier this month, I set my sights on buying an e-reader. But with so many products, models, and styles to choose from, I got so overwhelmed that I eventually gave up and came home empty-handed. Maybe I should stick to paperbacks, after all.
My shopping experience may have been a bust for me. But if you’re a waiting adoptive parent in the process of writing a parent profile, here are three pointers from it that may be useful for you. Continue reading
