Hoping to Adopt

I recently read the Newsweek article, "Coerced Reproduction", and it threw me for a loop. First, I had never thought of abusive relationships in this light. Second, a similar situation may be playing out for a friend of mine and her child's birth mother. The article discusses women in abusive relationships. Some men want to control women to the point that they force them to stop using birth control. The article states that men even track their partners' periods to be sure they're not on Depo-Provera shots. Teenagers may be more susceptible to reproductive coercion, especially if they're in relationships with much older men. This study of 1.300 female patients in North Carolina may help explain previous findings of "higher rates of… [more]

The topic for Grown in My Heart's Adoption Carnival V:

Adoption Reform means so many things because we all come from different parts of the adoption community. To you reform may mean making original birth certificates available to every adoptee, to me it may mean making all countries Hague compliant.

Almost everyone involved in adoption believes that the adoption community needs some reform.

So, tell us what you want reformed.

I'm facing a situation right now that has many possible outcomes. It's causing me to think in all sorts of directions. I was thinking about it last night (in the shower, because that's the only place I am allowed to think), and my brain went something like this: I wish I had a crystal ball. No, crystal balls are no good. I wish I were psychic. Yes! Like Alice in Twilight. The girl who plays Alice is pretty good, but Jasper doesn't get enough to do in the movies. My mind is a very twisty place. In the Twilight saga, Stephenie Meyer created a psychic that makes sense. Alice Cullen can see the future, but only after decisions have been made. Unlike most mythologies, which will have… [more]

I don't understand infertility. I mean, I understand it from a medical perspective, I just don't understand why some people will go to extreme measures to have a biological child. In general, I don't write about this topic, because I'm sure to come off as insensitive. And I probably am. I've never wanted a biological child. The idea of being pregnant fills me with dread. I can understand grief, frustration, and helplessness about being infertile. I can understand trying to conceive within certain parameters, or within a certain timeframe. When I say extreme measures I'm talking about couples like this one in the UK who endured 25 years of "living hell" to have biological children. The new father actually stated that… [more]

I read a lot of adoption blogs, and on a birthmother's blog, I found a link to the following item from Yahoo! Answers: My question is, if at some point down the road, we no longer want to keep the adoption semi-open and want to make it a closed adoption, can we do that or can the birth parents then sue us for breach of contract? My first thought is that these are somewhat typical first-time adoptive parents. They're scared of open adoption, they're not convinced of its benefits, etc. But when the original poster got a lot of answers about the ethics and morals involved, she added the following: I'll ask in the Law section of Yahoo Answers since everyone here… [more]

I had another post planned, but today's Grown In My Heart post, Who Could Possibly Want HIV+ Children? got me thinking. Before I even read the post, I sort of answered the question. HIV is on the list of conditions we would consider when adopting a child. So, my answer was, maybe me. Oddly enough, it is through the musical and subsequent movie Rent that I discovered how much more manageable HIV has become. In the beginning, even into the 1990s, HIV was a death sentence. As scientists and doctors learn more about the disease, medications have been developed that keep full-blown AIDS at bay. HIV is a chronic condition, and one might compare it to juvenile diabetes. In fact… [more]

I recently wrote a brief post recommending some books for adoptive parents. One of them is A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents. I read it back in 2005. I started reading it again (because my husband just read it, so it was out), and realized that my perspective has changed. I still recommend the book. I do like to read other people's stories. However, I do have some criticisms. I had forgotten how smug and hyper-self-aware writers can be. Each one of these essays is very much by a Writer. Obviously, I like writers (I am one, as is my husband) but an entire book of freelance writers who write in similar styles… [more]

My sister and I are 19 months apart. We do not get along at all. I believe that part of the problem is how close we were in age. (Part of it was also that our parents tended to think we should be the same.) When I look at my friends' families, it seemed that if people had a sibling of the opposite gender or there was more space between ages, then the siblings got along better. This is just me, and not a scientific study or anything. When it came to family planning, I wanted kids who were about 3-5 years apart. My plan was to adopt once, then start the adoption process again when that child was… [more]

There are only a few more days in 2009. Soon, a new decade will be upon us. At the end of the year, I like to reflect on what has happened in the previous 12 months. I went through this year's posts on the Adoption Blogs, and on each of the blogs I write - Hoping to Adopt, US Infant Adoption, and Transracial/Transcultural Adoption - I'm summarizing for you. Here on Hoping to Adopt, you get a list of the year's most commented on posts. Some of the comments may not be the kinds we really want, but for the most part, these posts got people thinking.

• Top Ten Intrusive Questions, Number Three on

My best friend remembered how I told everyone that I'd be having a girl first. In high school, I had it all planned out - I'd have 6 kids, 4 girls and 2 boys. I even picked out their names. And of course, I knew I'd adopt them. From Romania, was my thought at the time. Or maybe Russia. I grew up, and I did not change my mind about adopting. I did change my mind about the 6 kids, lowering it to 4 - 3 girls and 1 boy. I'm kind of a girlie girl, you see, and always thought I'd be a better parent to girls. At my previous job, practically every woman was pregnant during a 2 year time span. The… [more]