Be Honest
This is a good rule to live by in any aspect of life, but especially so in an adoption. For a successful adoption you should be honest with yourselves, honest with your home study provider, honest with your adoption professional, honest with expectant mothers and honest with your child.
You know that your love for your adopted child is immense and unconditional – even if you haven’t met him or her yet. But how do you show your baby that love when you bring him or her home? Will there be any challenges with bonding as an adoptive family?
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways you can bond with your baby. All babies need certain forms of contact and communication from their parents to develop a strong relationship. With these tips, you and your baby can have a happy, healthy bond from the beginning.
If you have friends or family members who are waiting to adopt, you know how tough it can be for waiting adoptive parents. Nothing is in their control and they have no idea when they might be matched with an expectant mother. In short, it’s stressful.
Fortunately, there are ways that you can help support the parents-to-be as they wait:
If you have decided to grow your family through adoption, you have a long and exciting journey ahead of you. This five-part series is meant to give you the basics on the main steps of the process. Today, we are going to cover the third component of your journey: finding and getting to know the birth mother.
First, you will need to create an adoptive family profile to send out to prospective birth mothers. After you have been selected by a birth mother, you can begin pre-placement contact. Read the sections below to learn about this step of the process.
If you have decided to grow your family through adoption, you have a long and exciting journey ahead of you. This five-part series is meant to give you the basics on the main steps of the process.
To begin this process, you will need to decide who you want to help you through the steps of your adoption. There are multiple types of adoption professionals, including:
National agencies
Local and regional agencies
Adoption facilitators
Adoption attorneys and law centers
To help you decide which of these professionals works best for your situation, ask yourself these questions:
In Ask an Adoption Veteran, we offer you advice, tips, and insight from people who have been through the adoption process before. Today, we talked with American Adoptions executive director, Shawn Kane, who is an adoptive father himself. We got his input on a challenge that all adoptive parents can understand: making it through the wait time.
Maybe you know someone who has recently adopted a child – maybe it’s even someone close to you. If this is a new experience to you, you may not know much about adoption and how to talk to parents who have adopted. For that reason, it can be easy to accidentally say something that seems positive but can actually be upsetting.
“Little souls find their way to you whether they’re from your womb or someone else’s”
– Sheryl Crow
“Adoption is a journey of faith, from beginning to end.”
– Johnny Carr
“Families don’t have to match. You don’t have to look like someone else to love them.”
– Leigh Anne Tuohy (adoptive mother portrayed in The Blind Side)
“If you have a heart for adoption, don’t let fear stand in the way”
– Doug Chapman
Families who are hoping to adopt – especially if they’re adopting from another state – have undoubtedly heard talk of ICPC. But what exactly is it? Why is it important? And does it apply to your adoption?
Luckily, it’s easy to find out whether you need to worry about ICPC. It will only play a part in your adoption if you are adopting from a state other than the one where you live. If you’re adopting from out-of-state, though, gaining ICPC clearance is a crucial step.
When kids have tricky questions, I turn to others for advice, whether that be my friends, family, or the internet. When I search for “how to tell your child about ______,” I am often referred to storybooks. How brilliant! Storybook authors have made their living out of entertaining and speaking to children, so I often turn to them to explain what I cannot.
Adoption is one of those topics that are tricky for kids to understand sometimes. Why am I adopted? What does that mean? Why don’t I look like my parents? Here are some suggestions for books that help explain adoption to kids.