Book Review : For the Love of a Child: The Journey of Adoption

Monica Blume, a social worker and counselor with LDS Family Services, once saw a young woman who had been adopted watch a film entitled “ Adoption and Unwed Parents”. Tears ran down the young woman’s face. “I never knew that my birth mother loved me,” she said. Blume, who has worked with many, many birthmothers, birth fathers, birth grandparents over the years, wrote For the Love of a Child: The Journey of Adoption not only in hopes of being helpful to birthmothers, birth families, and clergy who may be involved in adoption decisions, but in hopes, she says, that she … Continue reading

Can We Ever Just Appear Without Being Explained?

How should books and media portray adopted kids and their families? One thing I would like to see is kids and parents who don’t look alike depicted in books that aren’t really about adoption at all. Our kids will feel more different than ever if every time they are mentioned they are something odd enough to need explanation. What about just having a children’s picture book about two kids on a playdate, with one child shown as Chinese and her mother as White? What about a middle-grade novel in which a boy says he can’t come over Saturday because his … Continue reading

I Wish I Had Known – Christian Adoptive Mothers Share

I am part of an online group of Christian adoptive mothers. Most of them have several adoptive children and they all have been parenting their adopted children for a number of years. I thought it would be interesting to get their thoughts on adoption now that they have been “into it” for a while. The question I asked was, “What do you wish you had known when you started out in adoption?” Here are a few of the responses I received: “I wish I had known how the love for your child grows and grows and grows before and after. … Continue reading

When Others Don’t Approve

No matter what you do in life, it seems like you encounter someone who does not approve of what you are doing. Adoption is no exception. It seems like everyone has an opinion and some of them aren’t very positive. We have been in the process of adoption for 9 months and while most of the people we have encountered have been very positive, we have also run into people who thought it was a bad idea. It is hard to know what to do or what to say when you encounter opposition. By the time you make the decision … Continue reading

Connecting With Other Adoptive Families

One of the most valuable and helpful things I have done during our adoption journey is to connect with other adoptive families. While it is great to have friends who are in our age group and who are also raising children, there are certain issues that come with adoption that “normal” families just don’t understand. Don’t get me wrong, my friends are just wonderful, but they have no idea what it is like to wait while your child grows up in a foreign country, to wonder if they are okay and pray every day that they will come home. When … Continue reading