adoptive parenting

• Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties through Open Adoption
• Reinforcement-

  For our son's first birthday, I made him a little book titled "Who Loves [You]?" It's full of pictures of him with the people who make up our family--grandparents, godfather, aunts and uncles, and his first families. I wanted a way to make their faces familiar to him, even though we don't see many of them very often.

  We were reading it last night before bed, flipping through the pages and having him identify different people. When we got to his first mom's page he got so excited. "K___! K___! K___!" he sang, pointing at her picture.

  Something clicked for him during K's visit last month. He's still too young (at two) to truly understand family relationships--that Nana is Mommy's mommy and that sort of thing. But he gets that K is special because she is family. He welcomed her into his select inner circle over that weekend (perks include extra hugs, reading books in your lap, sharing favorite toys, and hearing your name repeated over and over).

  I was glad to see it and to see her respond to him and know that it had happened on his timing. It made me think that maybe we're on the right track.

  (Originally posted here.)

• My Girly-

  Madison was happy that it’s going to be cool enough for her favorite outfit — a flippy purple skirt and a matching striped top with long sleeves. She’s about to outgrow it but loves it dearly. She practically skipped into preschool this morning, carrying a card she made for one of her teachers who just lost her dad.

• Our Role in All This-

  (Originally posted at Production, Not Reproduction.  Puppy is my son, K and R are his first parents, T is my husband.)

• The Open Adoption Book: A Guide to Adoption Without Tears-

  In this out-dated book targeted to prospective adoptive parents, author Bruce Rappaport (director of founder and Executive Director of the Independent Adoption Center claims to be "the founder of the open adoption movement" (although adoption histories don't list his efforts so the claim is, to me, suspect).

• Priceless-

  HeatherS' Half-formed Thought really got me thinking - cross-posting my reaction, originally posted here, with a couple of minor edits for clarity.

• Half-formed Thought-

  (Cross-posted from Production, Not Reproduction. T is my husband, Puppy is my son, K is his first mom.)

• Long-Term Commitments: Post Adoption Support for Open Adoptions-

  by Dawn Friedman

• When A First Parent Closes an Adoption-

  Our adoption was supposed to be open.

  We made it explicit in our prospective adopter profile (what many people call a “Dear Birthmother” letter) and to our agency. In fact, because our desire for openness matched our daughter’s mother’s desire, we were chosen ahead of several other families waiting for placements.