By Susie Most of the stories you see of adoption reunion in the media are just sort snippets in time ~ the moment that family members see each other face-to-face for the first time since birth. How happy and exciting it all is. Those short snippets don’t show what happens in the time after the first emails, letters, in-person visits. Reunion was life changing for me. There are still times,…
The simple fact is that we CAN do this. And it is becoming more and more clear that we MUST do this. So if you are at all interested in actually DOING something to really help preserve families, support successful parenting and provide a viable option to a unplanned crisis pregnancy and avoid adoption, PLEASE join this list.
By Mirah Riben Sheena and Tiara Yates, a New Jersey couple and parents of two, are challenging the visitation rights of the biological father of their second child. It will be interesting to see if the courts, in deciding this case, will base their decision solely on the legal rights of the parents, or if they take into account the rights and best interest of the child created. The Yates’…
So if out of the 14.1 billion is 100% of the revenue, adoption’s 8.2% equals $1,156,200,000.00 in revenue and out of the $380,900,000.00 in profits, adoption’s 8.2% portion results in $31,233,800.00.
Now this “adoption” category does includes both licensed agencies and unlicensed facilitators that arrange adoptions, but does NOT seem to include the attorneys and legal fees.
So REALLY if we want to sound like we know what we are talking about then Adoption services by agencies and facilitators ALONE are supposed to bring in over 30 MILLION dollars in PROFIT in 2015.
By Laura Marie Scoggins In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage-to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. – Alex Haley, Roots It was a cold January day with snow on the…
Looking for examples of experiences where a hospital nurse directly interacted with a mom and in some way pushed an unwanted opinion on adoption. Whether or not this opinion resulted in a changed outcome isn’t as important as what was said, how it was said and how it made you feel.
By Laura Marie Scoggins A comment was made on the Surviving Adopted Facebook Page that I should change the title to Thriving Adopted because surviving has such a negative connotation. Here’s the difference: Thrive – grow or develop vigorously. to prosper and flourish. Survive – continue to live or exist in spite of danger or hardship, to remain alive, sustain oneself, pull through, hold on. I’m in the portion of…
By Laura Marie Scoggins I started playing piano at a young age. I think first grade. I’ve always loved music, and I think I would have been good at it except there was only one problem. My mother sitting on the couch next to the piano nagging, criticizing, nit picking, and yelling. Then I would start crying and refuse to practice anymore. That’s when the yard stick would come out….
By Laura Marie Scoggins Recently I scanned photos from family photo albums to digitize everything. They were photos from my parents childhoods all the way up to current day. One common theme I noticed was how miserable my mother looked in so many of those photos. What caused that look on her face? What demons was she fighting? What caused her to panic and obsessively worry about everything to the…
By Susie I previously posted about the Shorstein Advocacy Group and the filing of a class-action lawsuit against them. I was recently contacted and asked to help spread the word that they hope to file the lawsuit this summer. If you were defrauded by the promise of open adoption in the state of Florida since 1990, please join this class-action lawsuit. Here is the info I received: We have updated…
I feel blessed and honored to have been included in the filming of this piece.
The last day of the AAC Conference in San Francisco last year, I heard Jean wanted to film some birthmothers and I volunteered. So we sat in a room and talked about our experiences relinquishing our children to adoption.
Then Jean Strauss worked her magic and this is the end result
By Mirah Riben Is it shocking that a “social worker will make sure that your entire home is baby-proofed before you bring [an adopted] baby home”? Alison Caporimo thinks so. Caporimo, who is fond of lists and has written them about staying safe while dating online, retro diners, and “17 Badass Ways Women Can Rock a Suit” now brings her Jill-of-all-trades approach to “17 Shocking Things Everyone Should Know About…
By Susie This is a re-post that was originally published on June 14, 2012: I stumbled onto the writing of Dabeshim a couple of days ago. One of his poemscaught me from the very first stanza. I again am amazed at how the words of someone adopted can be so meaningful to me as a mother of adoption loss. Below is the poem, interspersed with my own rambling thoughts brought…
When a man fathers a child and chooses, for whatever reason, to ignore the existence of that child, do we respect his wishes overall and grant him his right to his anonymity? No.. so why do mothers receive this “protection” ? Why are we ONLY concerned with the mothers? If this fear was legitimate, then wouldn’t it be fair and expected to extend that concerned to the father’s as well? Should not all people be protected, then, from long lost relatives that might infringe upon their lives and seek out relationships with them?
The simple fact is that these “negative” feelings about adoption DO exist and are VERY REAL. And while I understand that society and the media and the adoption professionals have not prepared you for this, if you are choosing to enter into the world of adoption, you actually don’t get to pick and choose a version of reality that you like best. Again, you can choose not to listen and hear them, but it’s all still here. We are not making this stuff up.