Open Adoption Book

I have not written anything about my open adoption book in a long time, and really not much about it. So if you are not interested in adoption or do not know anyone that is wanting to adopt then this post may not be for you. If you are curious about adopting in the USA, domestically, that is from an agency or attorney, please check out my book, and the rest of this post.

When we were searching for more information about adopting, we read everything we could get our hands on. Unfortunately, the books had TOO much information. Yeah, seriously, the authors did not get into what someone went through to adopt step-by-step, and the expenses they occurred, which is what we wanted to know. We wanted real answers, real people. That is where my book is different. I left out all the fluff and jumped right in. I start the book off with a bedtime story that I tell to my eldest child and now to my youngest, and then get into how we started to adopt and end the book with some URLS to help you with your quest to find your child.

So how did this book start: Well, it had many starts… friends, and family asking questions either in our immediate circle or at church and work. The actual writing happened due to watching what was going on with my husband at work. He works for an extremely large company and was approached continuously about adoption. The funny thing is, sometimes people talking to him did not even know he had adopted, they just wanted to talk to someone and vent on how they wanted to be parents but could not biologically. He would give them what info he could quickly about adoption, but there was not enough time to give them more information. He would pass them my email, and we would email, or talk on the phone. After a while, I realized that I had written this book many times, and I decided to really write it. We printed it out and my husband kept it with him and when asked questions, he would pass it to someone. This happened more and more. The input received back was amazing. Each person that read the rough draft went into the process of adopting. After being invited to people’s house to eat dinner and talk about adoption on more than one occasion, before he was being approached, and then after, and now all the people that wanted his help at work, we decided it was time to publish. I must say, er, type, it is easier when I run into someone at the mall now and they want to talk about adoption in front of the kids, and I can pass the name of the book along.

We keep the book inexpensive at $1.99 for the kindle version (you can download an app and read anywhere even on your computer) and the print version is $5.00.

I hope this post helps with the questions.

Introduction

     Let me reintroduce myself. It has been so long since I have been in the blogging world; I forgot that I have not been personal. My name is Melody. I have been married for over 11 years. We have two gorgeous daughters, many thanks to their biological families. They are the loves of my husband and my lives, their biological families lives, our families and friends lives. Children are indeed a blessing.

     We live in the South, and love it. I am an Air Force brat so I moved around many times. I am so happy to live in the South, and to have my girls live in one place and in one school district. I loved my childhood though. I spent a big part of it in Germany, and met many people.

     I have been a stay-at-home mommy for a year. Before this past year, I worked either in something medical or with children. I was a stay-at-home mommy to Little Bug for a little over 4 years. I plan on staying home with Monkey until she can attend Kindergarten. We had a rough start, I only had one week maternity leave with Monkey due to me being employed less than 6 months with the job I had during the time of her birth. I would have quit my job, but I was the victim of a fairly bad car wreck that damaged my shoulder and neck, and destroyed my vehicle (needed to buy a new one). That set us back a lot money wise so I had to continue to work. Thankfully, we are doing much better now, and being frugal allows me to stay home with our girls.

     When my husband and I were dating, we talked about children many times. We also talked about adoption. Many of my family are adopted and friends. Adoption has been the normal for me. It really was no wonder when we started to look into adopting to start our family. We did do what most people do when they get married, try and get pregnant. When it was time for me to go to my yearly doctor, she said I should have been pregnant by now. We both were tested to make sure we were okay. We were told, y’all are going to need fertility treatments. We went home, then we looked at each other and were like, nope, why? Adoption was never a second choice. Why, not look into what we need to do to adopt now? Within 6 months, we receive a call that a baby was born and was in private foster care. Her biological mom wanted to meet us. Little bug was a week old then. We took Little bug home that very same day.

     A few years later, we decided to start adopting again. Since we adopted once, most of the biological families that saw our profile wanted a family that did not have any children so we knew it was going to take longer. We did have one failed placement (matched for 5 ½ months and contact with the biological family). I will discuss more about failed placements later in another post.

     Monkey, our youngest girl, was born nearly 5 years after Little bug. Their birthdays are 5 days apart. How cool is that? Well, until they get older and hate it, haha. We met Monkey’s biological family about three months before she was born. This was our first experience with a baby being born in the hospital. When she was born, her biological dad text me the sweetest text, “Congrats, your baby girl is born. She is beautiful and healthy.” We were in church and I had my phone on silent and never heard it. If you could have seen me when I saw it! I was running around like a true crazy person. I also had all kinds of voice mails. I ran outside to listen to my voice mails. I called Monkey’s biological dad and our lawyer. We grabbed Little bug and headed to the hospital. Since we had the failed placement last year, we did not tell Little bug that we were matched. Well, she kept asking whose baby were we seeing and finally, is it my baby? Is it my baby sister? We told her, yes, we believe it is her sister. We visited with Monkey and her biological family every day until Monkey was able to come home after 5 days in the hospital.

     We are fortunate to have an open adoption with both our girls’ biological families. The openness does vary. Our eldest daughter physically sees her biological mother a couple times a year. We email and talk. Our youngest has not seen her biological family since the hospital. I have seen her biological mother. She, they, want to wait until Monkey is older before they have an relationship with her. We do email. Both families receive many pictures. Again, every open adoption is going to be different. Make sure everything is done for the child in question. An open adoption will help a child in the long run. It does not mean we are any less our daughters’ parents. Also, I am sure there are cases when an open adoption is not in the best interest of a child. Take a foster/adopt situation. The child was placed in foster care for a reason. The biological family was unable to do what the court needed to parent their child. The court gives many, many chances to parent your child. Just think ahead: When your child is an adult, did you do what you could with his/her biological family to form a relationship when he/she was a child?

If you are wanting to adopt, here is the book I wrote about our adoption process. 

List of Adoption Books and Movies

List of Adoption Books and Movies

     There have been so many adoption theme books and movies lately. Obviously, I have not read or watched them all, but I thought I would give my input on what I have read and seen recently. I would love others input as well in the comments. I am not going to review my own adoption book. You can read the reviews on Amazon if you want to know more about my book. Be sure to check out the reviews on the books and movies listed in this post as well. I will post links throughout this post. You may find some of these movies on Neflix or Amazon Prime. 

     We read so many books about 9 years ago, that I cannot remember all of them, but I know we had to read a lot of “how to adopt books” to feel somewhat comfortable on how to pick an agency or attorney. I am not including the books we read back then because I cannot remember much about them.

    These are domestic adoption books and one foster/adopt book. I read a lot about international adoption during the beginning of our journey, but I do not remember which ones.

   First off, we rarely watch movies without our kids so it is rare for me to see a movie without them. So most of the movies on this list are family friendly unless I state otherwise. Spoiler alerts ahead:

Despicable Me 1 and Despicable Me 2

We (me, husband and kids) enjoyed both of these movies. The first one did not portray adoption well at first, but the movie did have a good ending. The second did a much better job. I know some people that did not give these movies a chance since the children were given away in the first movie, but the main character, Mr. Gru, needed to know what he lost to find that he did indeed love them and did need them and wanted to be a parent. He was not looking to be a dad. He was evil, remember? Again, it had a good ending. We watch these movies all the time.

Lilo and Stitch

Lilo and her sister, Nani, lost their parents. So Nani takes care of both of them. Being young, she makes a lot of mistakes and risks loosing her sister Lilo. Stitch is an alien who is looking for a place to fit in. There is a social worker in the movie. This is a good movie, and there is a happy ending.

Annie

Wow, who hasn’t seen Annie?  LOVE this movie. We have to take in account that this movie took place back when laws were not enforce for the good of kids.  So Ms. Hanniagan was not the best role model for kids. Another happy ending.

Anne of Green Gables

Adoption is not heavily talked about in this series except in the beginning of the movie. Anne is adopted. Other than that, it is not mention much after she lives with her new parents. I have always loved this sweet series. All girls love Anne.

Kung Fu Panda 1 and Kung Fu Panda 2

These movies are hilarious. They hardly get into adoption themes in the first one, but it is known that he is adopted. We find out more about his biological family in the 2^nd one, which is sad as they had no choice. He loves his dad, the one that adopted him. Excellent movies.  

Meet the Robinsons

My daughter saw this at school and enjoyed it. I did not like the beginning of this movie when I saw it. Each potential adoptive family that met him kept passing the boy and did not want to adopt him. So much rejection. It went on and on. My daughter said the movie was funny, and he got his family in the end. So I will leave it up to you. 

The Rescuers 

Penny is kidnapped and needs help. She wants a family. Another happy ending.

Tarzan

Tarzan is adopted by, Kala, a female Gorilla. Her son recently died as did Tarzan’s biological parents. Tarzan searches for where he belongs throughout the movie.

Hercules

Born a God, but stolen and left on Earth. A nice family adopts him. He continues to search for “where he belongs”, but discovers it was where he was after all. We love the music.

I know there are most likely more adoption theme kid’s movies, but these are what come to mind.

October Baby

(Adult themes due to abortion) I would not recommend this movie for children.

This movie was quite good, but also very grim. This is a Christian based movie. There is a good ending in the sense of forgiveness, but I still found the movie quite sad. There is also a book.

The Blind Side

Wow, this movie rocks. Loved it! Excellent story about adoption. Based on a true story. I would watch this with teenagers and up.

Juno

Interesting movie. Shows that open adoption can work. I didn’t like the potential adoptive dad’s attitude throughout the movie, but again, this is a movie, not real life. Not my favorite adoption movie, but I know a lot of people seemed to like it.

Baby Boom

This is an older movie. Relative passes away and leaves the baby with the main character. She is going to place the baby for adoption but falls in love with her and now has to figure out how to parent her. This is a cute movie.

Man of Steel

Yeah, I know, Superman was adopted, but this movie focuses on it more. We get to see him struggle with his identity. Maybe it could spark some conversations in teenagers? And I really, really liked this movie too. 

You will find all kinds of made-for-TV-movies that take a black and white approach. The biological parents or adopted parents are evil and the other is good. There is no gray area. Nothing realistic. I cannot stand these movies. Sadly, this is usually how the media portrays adoption. I also have a hard time when a celebrity person dies and they list the children and always call out the ones that are adopted. Why do we need to know that? They are their children. They do not need an extra label. (Beauty of this being MY blog, I can state what I like and as random as I like) :-)

Books:

Instant Mom

I loved this book. It was full of humor, but it still was serious enough to show you that adoption is wonderful. This book was written by Nia Vardalos, screenwriter and actress from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She writes about adopting her daughter from foster care and becoming an instant mom to a three-year-old.

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adopted Parents Knew

I think anyone adopting or if they are even thinking of adopting should read this book. The title speaks for itself.

Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search

This is the most heartbreaking book I have read in a long time. (There is also a movie) I could barely get through the book, as it was so sad! This book shows you why we must have laws protecting everyone, and why we must have open adoption. (Extreme adult themes throughout this book, and I hear the movie)

Kids' Books:
 

I love you so

Wow, this is the cutest book from the illustrations to the beautiful written words. Whereas this is not an adoption book it will work for any child as it is that beautiful. This book will not disappoint.  

Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born

My daughters ask to read this over and over. Even though we did not fly on a plane to bring our daughters home, this book is a funny treasure. It nearly always brings up “Please tell me about the night you brought me home”. I wish I had gotten the hard copy since we have read it so much.

A Blessing From Above

This is such a cute little book. A Blessing From Above is a Christian book with some scripture. I think this book explains quite well what a blessing children are.

I am looking forward to reading your comments. 

New direction for this blog

I am currently reworking this blog and determined that I am going to blog a few times a month with the hope of even more. I would love some input on what people are looking to read on blogs as it has been years since I have blogged since I got into Facebook. I am a stay at home mommy  (for the last year due to childcare issues, and my youngest needing some extra help). I am a mommy by the blessing of open adoption so yes, adoption will be seen quite heavy on my blog. I also love to cook, and save money. 

Today, or should I state that it started yesterday, I am dealing with my first and hopefully last kidney stone. I am on pain killers (yikes, I hope I do not type anything embarrassing) and antibiotics and just waiting (yahoo, okay, not really excited about the waiting part).

If you are looking to adopt in the United States by an agency or attorney, please check out my adoption book: December Babies: U.S. Domestic Adoption. I wrote this book because when we were going through the process, I could not find a book that had everything in one book. I also wanted a book that was not extremely long, but had the information that was needed without all the fluff. I do not share private details of my girls' adoptions as that is their information. I keep the price cheap as it is not about making a lot of money, but about giving out the information that my husband and I learned. Earlier this week, my adoption book was the top 50th top paid book.

I also recently published, Summer Fun on a Budget for Kids, only .99 cents. I am still waiting for published Amazon reviews. It is full of many indoor and outdoor activities that are usually free or inexpensive to keep them busy. I also have a lot of tips for places in the community that caters to kids during the summer in the United States. This book would also work with the indoor and outdoor activities in most places in the world, but the links are for the United States. This book made it in the top 22 in paid ebooks recently.

I have a couple more books in the works. The cookbook will be a long ways off as I like to recook each recipe at least twice before I decide that it is going to stay. You can check out my (old) cooking blog here. Some of the recipes will make it in the book, and have been pinned many times on Pinterest.

Okay, going to see about eating something even though I am not hungry. I have two girls to take care of :-)