Hurry up and wait. I am not sure there is a better phrase to describe the adoption process. There is no known equation to determine how long the wait might last. The time spent waiting has the potential to lead some down a path of self-reflection and endless questioning. I often see posts made by other waiting families that have even started questioning whether they will become parents at all. An adoption agency, a facilitator, and an attorney put in a lot of effort in representing their waiting families equally and positively. A waiting family can and should help promote their wish to adopt. The goal is standing out to that one expecting mom.

There are countless articles, blogs and recommendations for what a person could and might want to do while waiting to meet an expecting family. Designing picture books and profile brochures. Printing business cards with all of your contact information. Email, Facebook and Twitter, oh my! A simple Google search will produce thousands of pages of families and people who are trying to navigate their way through adoption. When we wrote our first draft of our profile letter it was twice as long as our agency recommended. I must say it is very difficult to condense everything you want to say in fewer than 1,000 words.

Click to read the full article at The Next Family.

It is an adaptation of the original annual blog series, “Portraits of an Adoption”, hosted by author Carrie Goldman. She is a regular blogger for The Huffington Post, ChicagoNow, and Psychology Today, and her work has been featured by NPR, CNN Headline News, and a number of sources. Coming from all over the nation, these stories tell tales of laughter, excitement, anticipation, and unforgettable reunions,  making the series one not to be missed.

Stories like that of Chad Cottle who, after losing his adoptive mother in his mid-twenties, began the search for his birthmom and waited years to obtain his birth certificate after the Open Adoption Law in the state of Oregon passed in 1998. Joy overcame him when he finally learned his birthmother’s name, and without hesitation, searched on the internet for more information about her. The search led to a nerve-wracking but warm reception from his birthparents, and became an illustrated example of how technology has brought new possibilities to the world of open adoption.

On the other hand, some stories tell of those who still face the continuing challenges of the adoption process. Like Cindy, who placed her son Zachary for closed adoption with a local Catholic Charity and experienced isolation from not knowing whether or not she was entitled to the information about her child. Or the story from an anonymous birthmother who shares her anguish in agreeing to let a close friend adopt her baby with an open agreement to visit him anytime she wanted, but felt an overwhelming grief and isolation during the process and visitations. Stories like these emphasize the importance of working with experienced counselors who can provide support in times of need.

Overall, the series weaves a diversity of adoption experiences together, finding a common thread where adoptive parents, birthparents, and adoptees from all walks of life come together to share their stories of transformation through adoption.

For the full link to the series, click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/portrait-of-an-adoption

When we started our second adoption journey, we thought a lot about the result of our first one – our son, Uriah.

Looking at us as a family, Uriah stood out because he is African-American and the rest of us, including our daughters, Natalie and Siri, are Caucasian. Also, there’s a nine-year age difference between Uriah and his sisters.

So, we figured, if we were to going to adopt again, we should try to adopt another boy, with at least some racial mixture in him, of around the same age.

The agency we had worked with in adopting Uriah said it rarely attracted older children, so we decided to work through the state system in Ohio, where we live.

At the end of a four-year journey, we ended up with what we originally wanted. Malachi entered our family on July 24, 2011, and his adoption was finalized on Aug. 14, 2012.

So, you might wonder, why did it take four years? Therein lies our tale – a tale that might seem strange to nonadoptive parents, but rings true to those who have added to their families by nontraditional means.

It was an odyssey that included dalliances with the state adoption system, the foster care system and the independent adoption of newborns.

It was a journey laden with frustration, near-despair, interminable waits and unexpected costs, but – finally – success. Adoption is only successful if you keep focused on your goal, no matter how elusive that goal sometimes seems.

You can read the rest of the article on The Sharon Herald’s website.

“This is the mantra that has been on my mind the past few weeks. I love Dory from Finding Nemo. For all her faults, she is fearless and persistent. Surrounded by deep murky waters with unknown dangers, she doesn’t give up. Instead she hums a simple tune and keeps on swimming, trusting that everything will work out in the end. And her courage and tenacity doesn’t just help her own journey along, it also encourages Marlin to not give up hope.

So often I find myself weary of waiting. Waiting sucks! There’s really not a nicer way to describe it. We would all like to have a smooth, easy journey to parenthood, but for most adoptive couples the journey is more like a swim upstream against the current. There are disappointments, delays, and detours. There are days when it seems like it will never happen. There are days when hope is hard to find. Those are the days we especially need to take a deep breath and keep on swimming.”

To read the rest of the blog click here: Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt

Click Here to watch the clip 

[Skip to 2:15 after the commercial]

At IAC, we were surprised to see that a morning show with such a wide reach and mass audience would comment on the open vs. closed adoption topic without mentioning a single benefit of open adoption. We decided to take the opportunity to ask one of our nationally regarded experts, Independent Adoption Center Associate Executive Director Kathleen Silber, MSW, ACSW, to weigh in on how she felt about the segment and the benefits of open adoption compared to closed.

What was your initial reaction to the segment?
KS: Well honestly, it feels like a step back into the dark ages, where closed adoption was still the norm. A lot has changed in adoption over the years. It’s generally accepted knowledge now that an open adoption arrangement is not only healthier for the adoptees, but for the families as well. What’s shocking about the commentary on the Today Show is actually how archaic those views are – it’s hard to believe people are still advocating something that’s known to not be good practice.

What was your reaction to Nancy Snyderman saying that finding your birthmother is like “opening Pandora’s box?”
That’s a typical reaction of parents with a closed adoption and it’s based out of a lot of fear. They don’t know the birthmother or anything about her. What was sad about what was said on the show is that it just fed into the old stigmas about adoption that birthmothers are somebody horrible that you wouldn’t want to have in your life. Birthmothers of open adoption know this is going to be a permanent long-term relationship where she knows her role is just the birthmother, not the parent. There is no mystery with open adoption because everything is out in the open.

Where do you think these misconceptions come from?
I think a lot of the misconceptions come from a lack of knowledge. It’s a typical reaction for adoptive, or potential adoptive, parents to react based out of fear when they first hear and think about open adoption. A lot of times it’s the initial reaction of “I just want to parent this baby. I don’t want to have any contact with the birthmother because it sounds scary. I just want to adopt the baby, not the birthmother, too.” And that stems from ignorance, because people think that the women who choose adoption for their babies are horrible people or have a bad history, but that’s not the case.

Now when people go through the educational process about adoption they learn about the issues, particularly for children. It moves them past their needs and on to what the child’s needs are going to be. It seems these supposed “experts” that responded were reacting out of what they felt were the parent’s needs and not thinking about what the child’s needs may be.

If you were on the panel, how would you have responded?
You know, closed adoption used to be the only choice, but back in the early 1980’s we started noticing a lot more of the adult adoptees were wondering about their past and they had so many unanswered questions it was hard for them to cope. We’ve learned through research and working with these families and children that open adoption leads to better mental health in the children, birthparents and adoptive parents, and it has a higher success rate than closed because of this. It doesn’t matter how great a child’s adoptive parents are at raising them, a child wants to know where they came from. Children who grow up obsessing over unanswered questions tend to develop problems. It’s hard to grow up not knowing “Who do I look like?” and “Why was I given up?” Some children do alright with it, but others develop serious psychological problems. Comparatively, with open adoption, a child knows the answers to all these questions. They grow up so much better from a mental health point of view.

How does contact with the birthparents work in open adoption?
I think when people first hear about open adoption they think, “Oh this is going to be confusing to the child, they’re not going to know who their mom is,” well, kids are smarter than that. They figure out who mom is because that’s the person that’s there everyday. So say if the birthmother were to come visit or something and the child falls down and skins his knee, who is the child going to run to? He’s not going to run to the birthmother, he’s going to run to his mom, the one who’s been raising him.

It’s best to view birthparents as extended family members who visit the child maybe once or twice a year. While there’s a place in the child’s life for these family members, there’s no confusion about who “Mom” and “Dad” are. After all, your child cannot have too many people in his life who love him, and a little extra love will only help your child build a more positive self-concept. 

These days, what percentage of adoptions are open compared to closed?
At this point a minimum of 80% of all infant adoptions are open. That’s the national average and I believe it’s even higher than that. That’s why it seems irresponsible to advocate closed adoption on national television.

Contrary to popular opinion, closed adoption is actually much more prone to failure than open. Even if someone is interested in a closed adoption it’s hard to find an agency for it these days. And modern tools like social media make closed adoption a thing of the past. Pretty soon, there will be no distinction between open and closed adoption – it will only be open.

Kathleen Silber, MSW, ACSW is the current Associate Executive Director at Independent Adoption Center. She is the author of Dear Birthmother and Children of Open Adoption.

Babe Ruth – George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948), best known as “Babe” Ruth and nicknamed “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat”, was an American baseball player who spent 22 seasons in Major League Baseball. Ruth was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season in 1927. Ruth’s lifetime record of 714 home runs stood until 1974 when Hank Aaron surpassed it.

Babe was adopted at the age of seven and was introduced to baseball by Brother Matthias at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. He is one of the most iconic athletes in US Sport’s history.

Kirby Puckett – Kirby Puckett (born March 14, 1961- March 6, 2006) was widely regarded as one of the best, and most popular, Major League Baseball players of the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. His unquestionable baseball prowess, outgoing personality, charity work, community involvement, healthy image, good repoire with the media, and nice-guy attitude earned him the respect and admiration of fans across the country. His home run in the 1991 World Series is often regarded as the highlight of his careerhttp://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=4429223 (streaming video of Home Run)
Kirby had two adopted children with his wife Tonya, Catherine Margaret and Kirby Jr.

Good Housekeeping Magazine, May 2012

In a recent interview with Good Housekeeping, actress Mariska Hargitay reveals her painful adoption journey that eventually led to two successful infant adoptions, just six months apart.

She discusses various defining moments in the adoption process; the dreaded wait, the instant bond formed with a birth mother, the heartbreak of an unlikely adoption reclaim, considering transracial adoption, the magical birth and hospital experience, and how “worth it” everything seems in the end.

Her story is all too often true for couples and individuals waiting to adopt. But what begins as months or years of what feels like relentless struggle, can change in a moment’s notice. Suddenly what felt so far is curled up in your arms and you revel in the euphoria of a dream come true.

For those interested in adopting, it is important to research types of adoption services are available. The most successful adoptions are those where both parties are well informed and firmly committed to the best interests of the child. At the IAC, our licensed social workers prepare adoptive parents for the uncertainties of adoption, including how to avoid high risk situations. We ensure that both adoptive parents and birth parents are comfortable with any situation they enter into and we mediate these situations so that everyone’s needs are met. In rare situations where an adoption reclaim occurs — when the birth mother decides she wants to parent shortly after the child has been placed in the adoptive parents’ home — we are there to provide as much support as needed so that the couple or individual can push forward and pursue a successful adoption.

Read the full interview with Mariska Hargitay, “My Faith Pulled Me Through”

Read the summary on Celebrity Babies, “Mariska Hargitay: Adoption Is Not for the Faint of Heart”

If my life is a library, I have a whole section for adoption. Every year for my adoption day, my parents gave me a book inscribed with a message of praise and gratitude that I came into their lives. The first book I remember is a pen-and-ink picture book of a monkey at a birthday party with a trombone. And there’s the one my father read aloud to us after dinner that had my name in the first sentence. The small book of poems about nature that made me start writing. A cookbook I’ve used so much that the pages stick together with floury glue. Novels, nonfiction; cardstock, coffee table; banal, beautiful. To date I have 37 books scattered between my home and my mother’s house, each a thank you note for the miracle of adoption in our family.

Another metaphoric shelf in my library houses the books I was reading when I was unexpectedly pregnant and looking for a family for my birthson. The week after I discovered I was pregnant, I bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the classic book for mothers-to-be. I no longer have the book—I gave it to a friend after a few years—but I can still see the picture of the pregnant woman on the front, reading and smiling in a nursery rocking chair. I was glad to have a book about pregnancy, but felt ostracized when I couldn’t find any books that dealt with the challenges of placing a baby for adoption. At least not books with positive messages. There was a definite empty space on my shelves for books that could have helped me weather the challenges and emotions of becoming a birthmother.

So what section of the library am I in now? I’m in the waiting room. My partner and I are waiting to adopt  a baby of our own. Although it’s only been eight months, it feels like an eternity when you’re waiting for a baby. It could happen any minute. And it could happen five years from now. As we wait, the books are piling up. Our mahogany hope chest is full of baby books: two copies of Goodnight Moon, books about sea turtles to use in the bath, books about animals and trucks and children and nature and everything we want to teach our children. And books about adoption. Right now we are living in an age when people can talk about the adoption process without shame or stigma. There are books on how to talk to other people about your adoption journey, the specific challenges and joys transracial adoption brings, advice for staying in touch with your children’s birthmother, how to find adoption groups so your kids can have play dates with other adoptees, how to talk to your kids about other kinds of families.

The world has really opened up about adoption in the decades since my adoption and since my birthson’s adoption. I’m fortunate, and my children will be fortunate, to live in a time when adoption is simply one of the many ways of creating a family. In any library, you’ll find books about single parent families, grandparent families, gay families, foster families, stay-at-home parent families, divorced families, blended families… Each of us has an internal library, space for all of the stories of our lives, and more and more we can find ourselves represented on actual shelves.

I want to acknowledge everyone who has an adoption story — adoptees, birthparents, adoptive parents, family and friends. We know about joys and challenges and strength and grief and diversity and acceptance. Adoption is a library full of stories, and each story unfolds differently for each of us. May all of our adoption journeys be books that bring us peace in the present and leave a library of understanding for those who follow.

Sadie & Elizabeth Durant are waiting to adopt a baby with the Independent Adoption Center. To learn more about them, visit their open adoption website.

We are thrilled to share this brand new film on families of open adoption. Produced by Pixel Fish, this film will be used to show prospective adoptive families what open adoption involves and the caring, compassionate role that the IAC plays in the process.

The participants in the film, all IAC clients and staff, share their personal stories and address the fears and realities of open adoption. By weaving these true-life stories of adoptive parents and birth parents, it is evident that, while no two stories are the same, everyone wants what is best for the child.

A big thanks to all participants who volunteered their time and beautiful stories. And thank you also, to Pixel Fish for providing their professionalism and expertise in the making of the film.

Parenting.com’s Celebrity Kids Parents Blog featured an in-depth story by celebrity gay dads, Bill Horn and Scout Masterson. They explain why they chose open adoption over surrogacy or closed adoption and how adoption fits into their daily lives. They also describe their hospital experience as gay adoptive dads in a small catholic hospital. Read the full story on the Parenting.com blog.