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.

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?"

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.

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.