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Guest Blog: Blog for Mothers Placing Babies for Adoption

Tina Tyra has been a facilitator since 1991, with a background in the medical and legal fields before that. While working in Labor and Delivery for 5 years, she was trained as a neo-natal bereavement counselor. Having had her own pregnancy losses - including a late term fetal demise - she felt compelled to help families cope with the aftermath of losing a baby. She now believes that this was no accident. This experience has helped her to understand the aching empty arms of a birth mother and the grief of a family who has suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or potential child due to infertility. Dr. Suess said it best..."A person is a person -- no matter how small". A woman who gives birth, whether in her heart or with her body, is no less a mother.
The agency wanted to have a place where birth mothers could go to air their feelings, share thoughts about placing, and fears. They felt that birth mothers should have a safe place to vent about anything and everything related to their placements or adoption plans.
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Guest Blog: Using a Facilitator, The Do’s and Don’ts

Tina Tyra has been a facilitator since 1991, with a background in the medical and legal fields before that. While working in Labor and Delivery for 5 years, she was trained as a neo-natal bereavement counselor. Having had her own pregnancy losses - including a late term fetal demise - she felt compelled to help families cope with the aftermath of losing a baby. She now believes that this was no accident. This experience has helped her to understand the aching empty arms of a birth mother and the grief of a family who has suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or potential child due to infertility. Dr. Suess said it best..."A person is a person -- no matter how small". A woman who gives birth, whether in her heart or with her body, is no less a mother.
First, if you are working with a facilitator, they should be registered and bonded.
1. A good facilitator would not match you with a birth mom who is in a state that doesn't allow facilitators and shouldn't be working there anyway. When working with a facilitator, you have your own attorney as well, so you should be able to clarify fairly easily if you are able to work with a particular birth mom situation.
2. There are a few facilitators who do business as a "third party" broker, which is questionable as far as I am concerned. A reliable, legitimate facilitator should not just be passing on high-priced situations from agencies. That defeats the purpose. A facilitator should work with you to find you a good situation in a compatible state and should advertise accordingly. I don't pass on third party situations and I can't imagine anyone paying 30-40-50K for any situation.
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Guest Blog: Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall – 850 Miles Away, Is Dad Still There? Part 2

Another honest, real life, older child adoption guest blog from John. He is a retired commercial airline pilot who has adopted five boys, over three decades, from domestic foster care as a single parent. John and his family live in southern California.
Continued from Part 1. Every night he had to fill out a self report on his day. What did he do well, what went badly? What was most frustrating, etc. I was given a copy of them each week. Life was unfair; he was being blamed for things that weren’t his fault. The school sucked. The kids were damaged, and he wasn’t, and the staff was mean. There was another boy there that he truly disliked. Many nights his answer to “What did you do today that you were really proud of?” was, ‘I didn’t annihilate Kyle Goodman’. Kyle was two years older, and somewhat more beefy than Tyler, Kyle would not have been annihilated.
With each week there was progress. He was doing less and less deflecting responsibility, and more searching for answers. It was slow but steady. Nice even happened sometimes. We spent Thanksgiving and his birthday apart. We were going to spend Christmas night together, due to the schedule for the procedure that I needed to do with him.
Christmas night, I picked him up at 9PM, and we drove to the motel. On the way, he told me about something that really upset him.
Guest Blog: Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall – 850 Miles Away, Is Dad Still There? Part 1

Another honest, real life, older child adoption guest blog from John. He is a retired commercial airline pilot who has adopted five boys, over three decades, from domestic foster care as a single parent. John and his family live in southern California.
Tyler had done what he had always been so good at, forcing a move, sixteen placements in five years of foster care. Now, after almost a year of adoption, attachment was happening, he had just forced another move. This time he was in a different state, many miles from home, about to start living in a therapeutic group home. The adoption was final, but Tyler was victorious, the move had happened, Dad was gone, or maybe Tyler was.
I have a Cessna 180 and flew up to his area the day after he arrived, It was beautiful flying weather. The director of the school met me at the airport and drove me to the school with all of Tyler’s belongings from the airplane. Not a large facility, a total of 20 boys, but very much out in the sticks. .
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Guest Blog: Crisis Pregnancy – The Talk with Mom and Dad
Patricia 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…
We sat at the kitchen table. It was a beautiful solid wood circle pedestal table, now stained a soft brown, a large improvement over the lime green it had been painted when I was little. And Mom had recently been able to purchase six chairs that matched, finally throwing out the assortment of garage sale bargain mismatches she had for years. The sun was streaming in through the tall windows. After growing up in a house with 10 foot ceiling and long windows every other home had felt like a small cave.
Dad worn, brown with dried mud, work boots sat by the screen door, a cluster of kittens piled against the other side. Dad had on his firm, "this is YOUR mess, YOU clean it up" look on his face, but his eyes gave him away. One look told me he wanted nothing more than to swing me up in his arms and protect his little girl with everything he had. Mom still looked stunned. I'm not sure if she was thinking anything more than "Oh My God" yet. I got the impression that when she looked at me she saw a four year old version of me in pig tails saying, "Mommy, what would it take for me to keep my baby?"
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Guest Blog: Keep Believing Your Child Will Find You

As many of my adoption friends and family know, my partner and I started on the adoption journey a little over 2 years ago. We have been scammed out of money and emotionally scammed by parents looking to "give up" their unborn child. This is the story of our adoptions and a story of fate. I read April and Jayne’s amazing adoption story on a yahoo group that I belong to and begged them to share it with Ouradopt readers. Their story helps us to remember that when the time and the child are right, our adoption will happen. It can be difficult to keep that perspective when you are the one waiting to be chosen.
Last January, after the loss of our first child place with us (her mom changed her mind and took her home and the child passed away of SIDS), Jayne and I decided that we would become foster parents and foster to adopt. A private adoption would require money that we no longer had due to our failed adoptions. We knew that fostering would take it's toll on us emotionally but we were ready for it. We began our long and frustrating road down getting our license.
It was also last January that we received a phone call that changed our lives. A co-worker called about a baby boy being put up for adoption by a family member. Nolan was born three weeks later. We love our son he is the light in our lives but we knew we had more love to give so we continued on our foster licensing quest. .
Good and Bad Facilitators and Referral Services

Shelia Davis and her wonderful husband are the adoptive parents of three children through domestic private infant adoption. Their youngest child was diagnosed with autism when he began missing milestones. They have had to learn many new parenting techniques to help their son. Shelia is the founder of Heaven Sent Adoption Services, Inc. She strives to help women with unplanned pregnancies make informed decisions about parenting or placing their babies. She encourages all of her potential adoptive parents to research and engage in open loving adoptions. She notes that, “Adoption is very personal to me as I am the sister of two brothers through adoption, the mother of three children through adoption, a friend to three birth parents through adoption, a child of God through adoption and a director of a licensed adoption agency.”
In response to a heated discussion that included this question: "Is a referral service basically a consultant, sort of like a wedding planner? My understanding is that facilitators are illegal in some states, like Florida. "
Shelia writes the following: First off - it is just a "title" as to what they call themselves and I don't think the words matter at all....it's the way they work, their ethics, the money they charge and who oversees their practice's that are more important.
There are both good and bad Facilitators and Referral Services -
1. They are both small businesses having ONLY a business licenses and not overseen by the courts or the government like a child placing agency or attorney is.
2. They can charge whatever they like because they are not accountable to a court system for their revenues like an agency or attorney is.
3. They are not required to have trained social workers or counselors to provide services to you or the Expectant mothers.
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Guest Blog: Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall, 3:45 AM - Good Bye Son

Another honest, real life, older child adoption guest blog from John. He is a retired commercial airline pilot who has adopted five boys, over three decades, from domestic foster care as a single parent. John and his family live in southern California.
Tyler’s behavior was deteriorating by the day. Physical, out of control emotionally, disconnected. I told Tyler about the plan for him to go to a therapeutic board and care, wow, not OK. In the Psychiatrist’s office, I told him that we would be going to the school on the following Thursday. Eruption, “I will not go and you can’t make me”. Very loud, I realized that my plan to take him to the school (850 miles away) was not going to work. The director of the school suggested having him escorted. These firms do just that, take kids from home to the facility that they need to get to, safely. I talked to the head of the firm, he was very professional, very knowledgeable, very understanding, and with extensive experience working at RTCs. Not cheap, $4,000, out of my pocket. No choice really, and we set it up for the following Monday.
Guest Blog: How to Get Started - Part 4

Linda Lach is an experienced adoption lawyer in Hawaii. She frequently shares her experience to help others in their adoption journey. She recently responded to the question, “My husband and I are very interested in adoption, but we are at the very beginning of our journey. Do we place with an agency or go with private adoption? Is there certain criteria to be able to
adopt?” on the adoptionscams.com yahoo blog. She has given us permission to reprint her response here. Linda also works with surrogacy and guardianship occasionally. Domestic independent adoption has been a major part of her life since 1984. While she is licensed in Hawaii, she gladly provides services to birthmothers and adoptive parents located in other states.
Continued from Guest Blog: How to Get Started - Part 3
12) Oh, the other question: But won't she come back later and want the baby back? How many ways can I say no? No. When you have a correctly handled legal adoption, this is not an issue. You will have the degree of openness you want (or don't want), as agreed to, and I can honestly say that in nearly 1000 adoptions I have handled, unwanted contact has never been an issue. On the contrary, many AP's would like contact from the moms, but they have lost touch.
Guest Blog: How to Get Started - Part 3

Linda Lach is an experienced adoption lawyer in Hawaii. She frequently shares her experience to help others in their adoption journey. She recently responded to the question, “My husband and I are very interested in adoption, but we are at the very beginning of our journey. Do we place with an agency or go with private adoption? Is there certain criteria to be able to adopt?” on the adoptionscams.com yahoo blog. She has given us permission to reprint her response here. Linda also works with surrogacy and guardianship occasionally. Domestic independent adoption has been a major part of her life since 1984. While she is licensed in Hawaii, she gladly provides services to birthmothers and adoptive parents located in other states.
Continued from Guest Blog: How to Get Started - Part 2
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