Answer: It’s great that you want to include other members of the birth family in your life. First of all, your child cannot have too many people who love him or her!! In open adoption you expand your extended family, similar to enlarging your family through marriage. Birth family members are relatives because they are related to your child. Ongoing contact with them acknowledges this reality.

Some adoptive parents invite birth family members to their home for holiday events or birthday celebrations. Other possibilities include getting together for an annual summer picnic, inviting family members to attend your child’s sporting events, etc. Many families keep birth relatives in the loop with their activities through Facebook. In this way, they can easily see photos of your child over the years, as well as hear about the funny and interesting things that he or she does—such as a photo of your child in his or her Halloween costume or the first day of Kindergarten.

It’s also common for adopted children to be the flower girl or ring bearer at their birthmother’s wedding in subsequent years. This is always very special for all of you, as well as an opportunity to meet additional family members and form relationships with them

Grandparents play a special role in children’s lives. It’s wonderful that your child has the opportunity to have an extra set of grandparents. In fact, today with blended families, in addition to open adoption, it’s more and more common for children to have multiple sets of grandparents.

One birth grandmother I know loves to have her birth granddaughter visit at her house for special occasions, such as holiday time and holiday gift giving. As is typical in these situations, this birth grandmother considers both children in the adoptive family (her birth granddaughter and her sibling) to be her grandchildren. She always gives gifts or other treats to both children in the family. If you have additional children in your family (now or in the future) be sure to mention to the birth grandparents that you want them to be grandparents to all of your children.

Another birth grandmother told me recently that she treasures the annual visits she has with her Grandson Jack. She said “I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to be a part of Jack’s life. If my daughter had done a closed adoption, I wouldn’t have known Jack”. In my opinion, Jack is lucky, too, because he gets to know first hand the love of his birth family.

Most adopted children call their birth grandparents “Grandma Jane” or a mutually agreed upon name, such as “Grammy”. First, your parents and your spouse or partner’s parents decide what names they want to be called; afterward you can consider names for the birth grandparents. This is something you should discuss with the birth grandparents and come to a mutual agreement about what they will be called.

As we have discussed previously, children fare better with concrete information, rather than abstracts. Ongoing contact makes adoption concrete for children because the birthparents, birth grandparents and other family members are a concrete reality in their life. As a result, it’s much easier for him or her to understand adoption than it is for children with closed adoptions. Of course, as you discuss adoption with your child, be sure to explain that “Grandma Jane” is the mother of his or her birthmother.

Again, children cannot have too many people in their lives who love them!

Kathleen Silber, MSW, ACSW, is the IAC’s Associate Executive Director and Clinical Director. She is a nationally regarded expert, has written numerous groundbreaking books including “Dear Birthmother” and “Children of Open Adoption” and has advocated extensively for open adoption. Ms. Silber provides the IAC with clinical supervision.

We’ve scoured the Internet to bring you the best sources for informative, inspiring adoption content. With the help of our resident experts and social media savvy staff, we’ve created a list sure to put you on the fast track to content discovery. Share this information with your friends, followers, and readers in support of open adoption.

Facebook Groups

Creating a Family: Talk About Adoption & Infertility

Families Through Domestic Adoption

Facebook Pages

Open Adoption, Open Heart

Adoption Giftbox

Adoption: Share the Love

Adoptive Families

LGBT Parenting

Birthmothers for Adoption

Expectant Moms Thinking of Adoption

America Adopts

Blogs

Open Adoption Bloggers Network

Open Adoption Support

Creating A Family Blog

America Adopts

Waiting to Adopt: Planning a Welcome Home Celebration

Waiting to Adopt: Older Sibling Adoption Books

Waiting to Adopt: Baby Announcements

Waiting to Adopt: Preparing with Parenting and Adoption Books

Waiting to Adopt: Selecting Child Care Provider

Waiting to Adopt: Selecting a Pediatrician

Waiting to Adopt: Shop for Baby Furniture

Waiting to Adopt: Select A Name for Baby

A new tool on the market, adopt2Connect, can provide that link. Developed just one year ago by Nancy Baker, an adoption case worker, and Mark Barrett, an adoptive parent, the site is innovative yet has the ease of use that is common to social media sites. Independent Adoption Center was an early proponent of the site and has continued to be supportive of the site through the many new features we have rolled-out this first year. The latest enhancement is the social media front-end that allows each owner of an adoption support page to link to each of their other social media tools – Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, etc. and without any further effort, all of your social media updates instantly appear in adopt2Connect on IAC’s support page and then instantly populating every home page of every IAC page member. So log on to adopt2Connect today at http://www.adopt2connect.com and join IAC’s support page to see up to the minute feeds and news from their organization, all in one place, right from your home page.

Today, adopt2Connect is 250 families strong. We cherish the gift of a child, respect the unknowns of the adoption process and know how to stick it out through our growing network. As you or someone you know waits patiently for the next call, email or document to guide your steps, remember to join or share our network so that we can be by your side (virtually) and welcome you into a community of expectant parents who want to do good works. We’re there for you from beginning to end. Check us out! Membership is free. Our community works together to make a better life for every child.

Join the festivities this Saturday, May 5th from 10am-7pm in support of LGBT rights and all of the wonderful families formed through open adoption. Don’t forget to stop by our booth and say, “Hi!” to our friendly staff who will be handing out information and goodies!

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.

The Independent Adoption Center is happy to announce that we’ve joined the enormously popular Pinterest community! We’ve already started a few boards: Open Adoption, containing our favorite adoption related quotes and gifts; Books Worth Reading, full of insightful literature on open adoption; and It’s a boy!/It’s a girl! boards with announcement and gift ideas and the cutest baby photos we can find!

So why use Pinterest?…

Due to it’s visual appeal, it is a great site to spark your inner creativity and at the same time collect all of your ideas in one place and share your ideas with others. It’s a convenient place to plan ahead for parenthood by creating boards for nursery items, baby clothes, birthday/gift ideas, and kid-friendly crafts. It’s especially useful for discovering DIY projects like making you own baby foods. Pinterest can be a way to journal your favorite quotes and pictures about what open adoption means to you, so that you can one day share it with your child.

IAC’s Top Five Reasons to Use Pinterest:

1. It’s free sign up. But, the catch is that you need to be invited by someone who already has an account. Start sending flowers and pretty pleases, pronto!
2. You can create as many boards as you want.
3. You can install the “Pin It” Button, a bookmarklet for your browser, that allows you to pin something from any website you visit.
4. You can pin on-the-go with the well-designed Pinterest Mobile App.
5. You can link your Pinterest account to your Facebook account so that everything you pin is published to Facebook’s News Feed

The popularity of Pinterest has spread like a wild fire. Launched in 2010, Pinterest now generates more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn, and will soon pass up Twitter. Since January 2012, its percentage of daily visits has increased by 145%. For more interesting Pinterest statistics check out, “The Power of Pinterest” Infographic on TechCrunch.

With all this fuss about Pinterest, I bet you’re curious! Our best advice is to find out which of your friends are on Pinterest and ask them for an invitation. As soon as you create your account, start following the IAC’s boards to get you started!

To get started visit the American Red Cross for a list of nearby training courses including First Aid/CPR, Caregiving and Babysitting. They also have an extensive list of items to include in your family first aid kit. Buy extra supplies so that you can keep an extra kit in your car. They provide detailed information on everything from the flu to natural disasters. Red Cross covers all ground necessary to stay prepared. You can also find plenty of pre-packaged, kid-friendly first aid kits.

It’s also important to make you home a safe environment for kids. One Step Ahead features child safety products for home and on-the-go. For an interactive learning experience visit, KidsHealth, a website that and helps you stay informed about your child’s health and safety. It has an advice site for parents, as well as a kids and teens section that explains the importance of safety and what’s happening to their growing bodies.

It never hurts to be prepared!

Edith “Edie” Falco is best known for her role as Carmela Soprano on The Sopranos but she also plays the role of a  single mom to two adopted children, ages four and eight. She talks openly and very simply to them about their adoptions. But she realizes that at their young ages neither her son or her daughter really understand it yet. For example, her son Anderson believes that all kids must be adopted. Edie plays along for now, but she realizes that soon her children will start asking more specific questions about their adoptions. When that time comes, she’ll do her best to explain the many ways families are formed and to speak from the heart.

Edie’s situation isn’t much different from other adoptive families who talk to their children about adoption. In a previous post “Discussing Adoption with School Age Children,”the importance of talking to children about their adoption is to phrase it in a way that they will understand depending on their age. It’s important to use positive adoption language and honesty when talking to children about their adoption and what it means. For more information on how to talk to children about what adoption means, read our four part blog post: “Talking to Children About Adoption.”

To read more on the article about Edie Falco, click: Edie Falco: My Kids Think Everyone is Adopted