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Birth parents

Searching for a Birthmother – Part III: Writing a Letter and Choosing Photos for the Birthmother

Submitted by LisaS on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 16:25
  • Adoptive parenting
  • Birth parents
  • domestic adoption
  • International adoption

 Hopefully you have read my previous two blogs on preparing for a birthmother* search and are now ready for the next step in this process: writing a letter and choosing photos to send with the searcher to the birthmother. In my opinion this is a very enjoyable part of the birthmother search process, but also one that requires carefully consideration and tact.

I want you to consider this: this may very well be the only communication there will ever be between you and the birthmother; some birthmothers will not want continued contact. You cannot take your words back so here are some points to consider when you are writing this letter:

1. Write from the heart, not the head.

2. Keep the language simple if it is going to be translated into another language otherwise much of what you say will be lost in translation.

3. Be culturally sensitive – no need to mention, for example,  that you live in a fancy house, have a private yacht, several vehicles, etc., but simultaneously reassure the birthmother that your child has all that they need to thrive.

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Everything You Wanted to Know about Birthparent Searches: Part I: What to Consider Before You Start a Birthparent Search

Submitted by LisaS on Thu, 01/28/2010 - 09:55
  • Adoptee rights
  • Adoptees
  • Adoption Ethics
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Birth siblings
  • Closed adoption
  • Guatemalan adoption
  • Human Trafficking
  • Intercountry adoption
  • opening a closed adoption
  • Searching for Birthfather
  • Searching for Birthmother
  • searching for birthmother in Guatemala

Recently I shared that I completed a successful birthmother search for my adopted daughter. Since posting that blog I’ve received questions regarding how to do the search and which searcher to use.

Regardless of which country you are searching in to find your child’s birthmother* take the time to ask yourself a few questions before you begin a birthmother search. By doing this you will perhaps prevent heartbreak and stress up the road.

1. Why are you doing the search? Has your child asked you to search for her birthmother or have you taken the initiative? Are you just curious or is this a serious enterprise?

2. Are you going to tell your child about the search only if it is successful of if it is a failure as well?

3. What knowledge do you want to gain from this search? Personal information? Medical information? Continued contact? 

4. Finding a birthmother will be emotionally and possibly physically traumatic for the birthmother, particularly if the adoption was intentionally closed. As the person who has initiated the search, you are setting off a chain of events that cannot be reversed. Can you handle the responsibilities that will accompany this birthmother search?

5. Searches in some countries, like Guatemala for example, can be dangerous for the searcher. Are you ready for the responsibility of paying someone to do something dangerous?

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Guest Blog: Doing the Right Thing

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 21:07
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Special needs
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

Continued from here…

I get very torn when considering all of this. My whole adult life has been about caring for children, as a preschool teacher and owner and being a mother and birthmother. They have always come first for me. It is the most impossible thing for me to imagine NOT putting a child’s needs first. I admit I get very angry when I hear of parents who do not. My heart breaks for these children. I would do anything to be able to scoop them all up in my arms and hug away all the bad in their lives. I highly doubt I could have had such a quiet and respectful encounter with a drug addict parent as Leigh Anne did in the movie. I’m not even sure I could act out a scene like that with other actors with any believability! But watching that scene, and witnessing the quiet but powerful encounter, I realized that it was the right thing to do. Horrendously difficult, but right, movie or not.

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New TV Show: “Life Unexpected”

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 07:42
  • Adoptees
  • Birth fathers
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Brittany Robertson
  • Foster care
  • Kristoffer Polaha
  • Life Unexpected
  • Shiri Appleby
  • TV show Life Unexpected

Plant (c) Lynda BernhardtIf you liked the TV show Gilmore Girls and/or the movie Juno, then you will love the new CW TV series Life Unexpected. You will doubly love this show if you have any connection to adoption/foster care, which is why I am telling you about it!

Here is the basic storyline: Cate (played by Shiri Appleby) was a high school “nerd,” and Baze (played by Kristoffer Polaha) was a popular jock . They hooked up one night during a school dance and had a crisis pregnancy. Baze would not admit to having had sex with Cate at all, much less that he was the father, and he always assumed that Cate “got rid of it” until his almost-16-year-old birth daughter Lux (played by Brittany Robertson) showed up on his doorstep at the beginning of the pilot. Baze peaked in high school and is now an immature bar owner. Meanwhile, Cate went on to become a very popular morning disc jockey at a local radio station.

Cate placed Lux for adoption as a newborn with the foster care system and was assured that there was a long wait list for people wanting to adopt a blonde haired, blue eyed newborn. However, unbeknownst to Cate, Lux was born with a hole in heart and endured multiple surgeries during her first three years of life. By the time she was declared healthy, nobody wanted to adopt her as an older child, and she has lived her entire life in the foster care system.

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Guest Blog: The Sake of the Child

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 21:06
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Special needs
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

Continued from here…

That’s what it really boils down to: the sake of the child. Right or wrong, children love their parents – even if these parents abuse and neglect them. They are still their parents. They may come to hate the choices made, but rarely do they come to hate the person. It’s this separation that I think can help those who are working to rebuild what was broken, the counselors and the adoptive parents. Birthparents that make choices that hurt their children are often in situations that prevent them from putting the child’s best interest in the forefront. Drugs, alcohol, mental illness, these all bring them to a place where their priorities are their own needs. They simply are not capable of changing this priority at this time. But this doesn’t mean they don’t love their children, it’s more that they just aren’t sure how to do it at that time.

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Guest Blog: The Movie “Blind Side”

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 21:02
  • Adoptive family
  • Birth Family
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Patricia Dischler
  • Sandra Bullock
  • Special needs
  • The Blind Side
  • Traumatized children

Patricia DischlerPatricia Dischler is the author of "Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption", a speaker, child care professional and birthmother. Read more from Patricia here.

I recently saw the movie “Blind Side” with my husband. Aside from the great message that when a child is given the chance, they can go on to successful lives, I was particularly touched by one scene. The mother in the family that took in the boy, Leigh Anne Touhy, played beautifully by Sandra Bullock, has decided she wants to gain guardianship of Michael. But before doing so, Leigh Anne finds his mother. This scene not only took me by surprise, it left me examining my own feelings of respect towards birthmothers.

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Adopted Children's Birth Relatives Are Their People

Submitted by JuliaFuller on Mon, 01/18/2010 - 23:12
  • Birth Family
  • Birth fathers
  • Birth grandparents
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Birth siblings

This is the promised continuation of “When a Birthparent Get Scammed They Lose a Child.”

We all understand that sometimes visitation is not in the best interest of the child. For example, if the birthparents are actively and currently involved with any type of addiction or illegal activity that is a sound reason to discontinue visitation. However, adoptive parents should still honor the agreement to send updates and pictures even if actual face-to-face visitation is not possible.

Unfortunately adoptive parents may not realize the affect they have on the lives and adoption choices of others. Recently, a young mother whom I have known personally for seven years wanted to place her unborn child for adoption. She went so far as to actually match twice and almost match a third time.

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When a Birthparent Gets Scammed They Lose a Child Forever

Submitted by JuliaFuller on Sun, 01/17/2010 - 17:00
  • Adoption Ethics
  • Adoption Scams
  • Birth parents
  • Birthparent Scammed
  • Honor Adoption Agreements
  • Open Adoption Agreements

An interesting discussion was taking place last week on the yahoo adoption scam group to which I belong. I found one member’s comment to be particularly profound so I asked her if I could share it with my readers. Actually, she has written a guest blog for us here at ouradopt in the past about her special needs adoption experience. Sherry Dittmar has adopted through foster care, but her special needs private adoption has really changed her life. This is because her youngest child was born of a different culture, country, and is blind, opening Sherry’s eyes to a whole new world  you might say. Ironically, my family also applied to adopt the special need's infant who would become Sherry’s daughter, although we did not know each other back then. We waited several months thinking we might be chosen to parent her, while Sherry’s family also waited. We met on the adoption scam yahoo group. After many discussions, we realized the connection.

The conversation was about adoption scams, duh, it is a yahoo adoption scam group. But Sherry felt compelled to point out that birthparents who are scammed suffer more or worse than potential adoptive parents who are scammed by adoption. What could she mean by that?

Sherry said, “Birthparents get scammed, they lose a CHILD! Far worse in my opinion.

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Guest Blog: Prospective Adoptive Parents Emotionally Scamming Birth Mothers by Committing to Multiple Birthmothers

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 19:47
  • Adoption Ethics
  • Adoptions of Indiana
  • artificial twinning
  • Birth parents
  • Bobby Binko
  • Commit to More Than One Birth Mom at the Same Time
  • Commit to Multiple Birthmothers
  • Guest Blog
  • Guestblogger
  • Infant adoption
  • PAP's scamming birthmom
  • Prospective Adoptive Parents

Bobby Binko shared great thoughts on the topic: “Should Prospective Adoptive Parents Commit to Multiple Birthmothers?” Bobby gave Adoption Under One Roof permission to reprint the comment made at the yahoo adoptionscam group, noting that “they are, in fact, my opinions, and not facts, nor me preaching.” Bobby is a PAP, Potential Adoptive Parent. My partner and I, together for over 16 years, reside in south central Pennsylvania and have been working towards adoption for the last four years. We have been in our agency's waiting pool for 3 1/2 years.

I disagree. It is just as deceitful [as a birthmother pretending to place.] When a PAP is working with three or four bmoms at a time, they are manipulating lives. They are leading three of those bmoms to believe that they are building a relationship with their childs adoptive family. Only to be dumped like garbage if they happen to not be the first one to go into labor.

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Pre-Adoption Fears

Submitted by FaithA on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 07:45
  • Adoptees
  • Adoptive family
  • Adoptive grandparents
  • Birth Family
  • Birth fathers
  • Birth grandparents
  • Birth mothers
  • Birth parents
  • Foster adoption
  • Infant adoption
  • Older child adoption
  • Open Adoption
  • pre-adoption fears

Plant (c) Lynda BernhardtAdoption is filled with many pre-adoption fears. I was incredibly fearful before I adopted my child. Will I pass the home study? What if I am never matched with an expecting mother? Would the adoption fall through? Would the birth mother come back into our lives while my child was still a minor? Would my adopted child reject me when he is grown?

These were all fears that I felt from the perspective of an infertile woman who desperately wanted to adopt a baby, but what about the pre-adoption fears of an expecting mother or father? I can only imagine their fears: Am I making the right decision? Will the adoptive parents love my baby? Will my baby be safe? Will my baby understand why I placed him for adoption? Will I ever see my baby again? Will my baby want to see me when she is grown? Will the adoptive parents honor the terms of the open or semi-adoption?

My extended family had their own fears.

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