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Our First Meeting with the Midwife

Once I found the midwife that I wanted to attend me and my pregnancy, I gave her a call to see if she would take me on as a client. I introduced myself and told her that I was seeking a homebirth after having a birth center birth with my first child. I added that she knows my mom. She got really excited when she realized who I was because she had recently talked to my mother about my husband and I trying to get pregnant and potentially moving back. Then she asked my due date. I told her sometime … Continue reading →

Is “Mother” Jewelry Insensitive?

A while ago, there was a debate on a listserv for parents who’d adopted from Korea. It was triggered by an advertisement for jewelry with the Korean letters spelling “omani”. Many adoptive mothers embrace wearing the jewelry as a part of honoring their Korean-American children’s birth culture. But one writer, after wearing the jewelry for years, imagined herself meeting her child’s birthmother while she was wearing the “umma” bracelet. Would the jewelry cause pain to the birth mother? Would it seem to be a usurpation of a role as Korean mother that the adoptive mother was not? Heated debate ensued … Continue reading →

Mother-Daughter Venom

Just when you thought Spelling vs. Spelling couldn’t get any more venomous, mama Spelling pens a poisonous open letter to her famous daughter Tori in an effort to keep the war alive. Mission accomplished! I won’t re-print the note Candy Spelling had TMZ.com publish yesterday (you can read the anti-love letter in its entirety here), but I can’t help but address some of the choicer lines, as they do illustrate the essence of the mother-daughter tightrope walk and the sad legacy both women are leaving behind for their children/grandchildren. Candy begins by calling her 36-year-old daughter “middle-aged” (a pointed jab … Continue reading →

Advantages of Reunion with Birth Family for Child and Teen Adoptees

Many adoptive parents tell their children that they will help them search for their birthparents when they turn eighteen. However, more and more adoptive parents are reaching out to their children’s birth families earlier. Sometimes it is the adoptive parent who desires medical history, information their children may want in the future, or simply a chance to thank the birthmother and reassure her that her child is well and happy. Sometimes a birth parent makes the first contact. In other cases, it is the child or teen adoptee who indicates a strongly felt need or desire for information. Some children … Continue reading →

The Many Languages of Mother

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In my last blog, I mentioned conversations that have been flying around the blogosphere this spring. I suppose it’s not surprising that in May our thoughts turn to mothers. A heated conversation has arisen among the international adoption community over referring to yourself as “mother” in the language of the child’s birth country. Adoption catalogs carry catalogs with jewelry, shirts, tote bags, etc. which have the word Mother, and sometimes Father or Grandmother or Grandfather, in the languages of the various countries which send the most adoptees to the U.S. Since my daughters are Korean, I’ll use the Korean word … Continue reading →

Strangers to our Own

Scenario on the airplane trip home: Flight attendant: “How will she react on the plane?” “I have no idea.” “Well, how is she usually with loud noises? With staying in her seat? With other people around?” “I have no idea.” (Later, as toddler is screaming): “Does a pacifier or a bottle calm her down?” “I have no idea; I’ll try it.” (Later, as she is still screaming): Another woman: “I have some children’s Benadryl you could use to get her to sleep…or is she one of those kids who reacts by getting agitated?” “I have no idea.” First doctor visit … Continue reading →

How Do You Introduce Yourself to Your Own Child? –Part One: Prepare Them

Unlike mothers who deliver a baby, I was not one of the first people my child saw or even depended on. She had a birthmother, then two hospitals, then a loving foster mother for ten months, who as far as she knew was her mother. She had a name and a history before I ever met her—or before she ever met me. Some things adoptive parents do are send pictures the child can look at. Our agency required this if the child was over eight months old. We used one of those soft cloth book baby albums with plastic slots … Continue reading →

Our First Meeting With the Birth Mother

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This is the story of the first visit with our boys’ birth mother. We were pretty nervous. We had no idea what to expect, plus we were getting our first chance to meet our new baby’s three older brothers. We met two of the boys, ages four and eighteen months, in the lobby. The older one looked scared and the younger was shell-shocked. We already had an inkling that we would eventually adopt all of them. We were then escorted to the “playroom.” It was a fairly small room with no toys and some old office furniture. It was definitely … Continue reading →

Meeting Birth Siblings

I’m struck with awe every time I meet a sibling of one of my boys’. When I get ready to meet one for the first time, I expect to see this strong resemblance between them and my child. Though I can usually fish for some similarities, it is so difficult to look at a child who is not a sibling by our immediate family relation and grasp that the child is related by genetics. I have been blessed to get to know both of my youngest son’s half siblings and three out of six of my older son’s birth siblings; … Continue reading →

Our Sibling Adoption Experience with The State of Oregon.

I am often asked how long our adoption process with the State of Oregon took from start to finish. The questions of how long it takes to adopt from the state can be difficult to answer, because every state handles their system differently and every family and child is unique. We started investigating adoption during 2001 by looking at all of our options. We briefly considered domestic infant adoption but decided, given our ages and the fact that I had biological children, we might have to wait a long time before a pregnant woman might consider our family for the … Continue reading →