I am constantly searching for meaningful topics to cover for this blog and have signed up for a number of google alerts which refer relevant articles regarding adoption to my email…I began to notice with sadness an increasing number of adopted persons desperately searching on various internet sites for their birth parents or birth family members…on the one hand I’m so glad the Internet exists and can help people separated by closed adoptions to connect but it saddens me to think of the lost time  and the lost sense of connectedness for the adoptee…Each time we educate and support an adoptive and birth family to pursue an open adoption, we are helping to change the future of adoption…I recall a Birth Mother who used to attend the open adoption support group that I run ..She had lost 4 children to the system and spent years trying to find her children as well as trying  to recover from the pain…  One daughter  remained with her and went on to have a daughter who became pregnant as a teen and placed her baby in a very open adoption… I recall her words as a proud great grandmother who was involved in an open adoption so different from what she experienced ….  She said “Adoption will never be obliterated”..she wished it would be….but said “Children and babies will always need a home and sadly/joyously at times adoption is the solution”.. .. She went on to say..”At  least with open adoption we have the opportunity to do an adoption in a more humane way”…”Open adoption seeks to connect  instead of disconnecting.”.. I’ve thought of these words often and I’m encouraged by the number of adoptions where birth and adoptive families are keeping connections for those future generations of adoptees…13 of these brave birth mothers gathered at Kinship Center this month and shared their stories and challenges of keeping their adoptions open..and how they were remaining present in their children and the adoptive families lives… These women and the adoptive families raising their children are changing the face and the future of adoption …Hopefully this next generation of adoptees will not be desperately searching for connections on the Internet… they will have been given these connections lovingly and openly by both their birth and adoptive families..I’ve linked below to a story of an adoptee who traveled to Italy to connect to his roots and to find his birth mother,  and other family members… take a moment to read his story…if you are a birth mother stay involved in the adoption… if you are an adoptive family reading this and you let your child’s birth parents drift away reach out this holiday season say hello and keep the door open…your child will have much to gain…

http://www.morningsun.net/featured/x2068981238/FINALLY-REUNITED

I had the privilege Wednesday evening of hosting Kinship Center’s Annual Holiday Celebration/Support Group to honor and acknowledge the love and courage of birth mothers that the agency has worked with. A group of birth mothers and their family members gathered to share feelings and to update each other on their lives and for most of the women present to update each other on the relationships they share with their children they relinquished and the adoptive families they chose to parent their children. Some of the women present have ongoing open relationships that go back as far as 15 years with their birth children. The evening is intensely emotional for these woman as each woman is given the opportunity to update the group and retell their adoption journey…this intensity is tempered with special holiday decorations, soft Christmas lighting, good food and an abundance of gifts and goodies. This year each birth mother was given the traditional hand made Kinship Center Teddy Bear; these special bears are used in many agency placement rituals and given to children and families for infant adoptions as well as foster adoptions. Holidays can be especially hard for birth parents and often birth mothers find themselves grieving during what the world says should be a “season of joy”. Adoption still caries a stigma for birth mothers…there are few places that these brave women can go and find comfort, fellowship, and a safe place to reflect and reminisce as well as to grieve. The birth mothers who attend continue to teach me, the agency and our staff that adoption is a life long journey and should never be entered into lightly by either birth families or adoptive families. It is an unfolding and an evolution of coping, grieving and keeping your life moving forward in spite of the inherent loss built into the adoption. They teach us that there is also great joy that can be experienced when birth and adoptive families join together with honesty, dignity and respect for each other. The best way to describe the evening is that it is “bittersweet”… great joy and celebration mingled with grievance and loss…We hold these women in our hearts…hope you enjoy the photos that I’ve posted of this very special evening.

This past September I wrote about and linked to an amazing  story of a two sisters  and their open adoption journey that possibly saved the life of  one of them…. Little did her birth and adoptive family know that when they all  bravely committed to keeping the adoption open  how powerful and meaningful the experience would be for them …the adopted sister in her early teens developed a rare condition that would have resulted in life of pain and eventual death..the Doctors involved believed that the only way to possibly save her was a bone marrow transplant..but she was a unique ethic and racial blend and perfect match would have been nearly impossible to find in the general population…the adoptive family approached the birth family and lovingly the older birth sister offered to be tested and it was discovered she was a perfect match..the two sisters endured many medical procedures together these past several months and the local newspaper in their home town reports that the procedure appears to be a sucess …her life was saved!!…Risking in adoption is sometimes hard.. it often seems easier in a birth parents moment of pain and grief to retreat and easy for scared adoptive parents to close their hearts to a relationship or to just let a birth family drift away and loose contact…the very least that adoptees deserve is a sense of history both genetic and medical as well as a sense of connectedness… if an adoption must occur for what ever reason the door for building a bond and a relationship needs to be kept open… link to this heartfelt story that demonstrates the power of what can happen when birth and adoptive families come together for the love and sake of the child…the smiles on the faces of these young women say it all… a true holiday season miracle!!

http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2010/11/open_adoption_makes_lifesaving.html