Adoption is Hard

What to Know About Parenting Transracial Adoptees

2022-06-13T11:25:15-07:00August 9, 2019|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Domestic infant adoption, Hoping to Adopt, Transracial Adoption (Learn)|

This guest blog post is written by Torie DiMartile about her own experience as a transracial adoptee.

Last week, in national news, a white supremacist opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The same week, in my little university town of Bloomington IN, the farmers market endured its second week of cancelled activity due to white supremacist threats. If you ask my mom, she’ll readily tell you that 26 years ago these terrifying racial headlines would have flickered across her screen with a pang of sympathy, but they would not have drastically impacted her daily life. Of course, she knew racism and violence existed, but it existed outside her own experience. Today, as the mother of a 26-year old transracial adoptee those headlines probably keep her up at night. To read more, click here.

Parenting A Biological Child and a Child Through Adoption

2022-04-01T17:00:44-07:00July 24, 2019|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Domestic infant adoption, Hoping to Adopt|

These are a few of the signs that hang in my daughters’ room. Both speak to where each of our girls come from, and what we believe…

I know that parenting a biological child along with a child through adoption presents different challenges than parenting two children who were adopted, or even two biological children. I am sure it is very different for an adoptee to grow up with siblings who look like their parents or a sibling that shares an adoption connection…

The Beautiful Challenge of Adoption

2022-04-01T17:01:31-07:00June 25, 2019|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Domestic infant adoption, Hoping to Adopt, Open Adoption (Learn)|

This blog post is written by a guest blogger and is a perspective we don’t get to hear very often, the perspective of a dad through adoption.

I’ve always had a favorable view of adoption.  I have a niece who was adopted by my sister and her husband.  Although I’m quite sure there have been tough times, I always saw a well adjusted family with love in their hearts. Because this was my experience, when my wife and I began looking into adoption to grow our family, I was not skeptical.  I was completely optimistic.

Immediately upon beginning the adoption process you are presented with life changing questions…

Anxiety and a Child Through Adoption

2022-04-01T17:01:53-07:00June 11, 2019|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Domestic infant adoption|

A guest writer shares her experiences with anxiety in her pre-teen son through adoption.

Anxiety and the adopted child often times go hand-in-hand. The hard part about diving into adoption is you have no idea the issues you will experience with your child as they grow and face the realities of their story. Every adoptee has to face their story in different stages of life. I can only speak to walking with my child on his adoption story for the last 10 years, but one of the themes I have experienced with my son is that anxiety and adoption tend to go together.

My Journey to An Open Adoption

2022-04-01T17:02:45-07:00June 7, 2019|Adoption Advisor, Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Hoping to Adopt, Open Adoption (Learn)|

When my husband Ray and I started the adoption process, the thing we were scared about most was “open adoption”. We learned quickly that most domestic adoptions were “open”, but that had many different meanings. We pictured open adoption as a co-parenting situation, and had fears that our child wouldn’t bond with us or feel like we were her “real parents” if we had an open adoption with our child’s birth family (and yes I cringe too that I even wrote “real parent” in my blog as something I thought and possibly even said out loud)! Luckily we learned a lot over the course of our adoption journey.

A Love-Hate Relationship with Mother’s Day

2022-04-01T17:03:07-07:00May 9, 2019|Adoption Advisor, Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives, Domestic infant adoption, Hoping to Adopt, Infertility|

Oh Mother's Day ... you can bring so much joy and so much pain to so many. When I was single and in my mid-30s, I often wondered if I'd ever be a mother. Mother's Day seemed to be the day where someone stuck a knife in my heart a little and twisted it around, as I watched my friends and family celebrate a role I desperately wanted.  When I finally met my husband, got married and started trying for a family, we went through a round of IVF that failed right before Mother's Day. Probably due in part to all the hormones I still had flowing through my body, I remember bursting into tears during our Pastor’s message at church, ultimately leaving early and ignoring the holiday altogether the rest of the day.

The Truth About Adoption Costs

2023-07-19T16:00:13-07:00April 4, 2019|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Funding Your Adoption, Hoping to Adopt|

Are you considering adoption, but are unsure of the various costs you may incur in order to adopt? The costs you might see in a domestic infant adoption will vary considerably depending on the type of adoption (private/independent, attorney, or agency adoption) and the state from which you are adopting. The adoption professionals recommended by Purl typically have adoption opportunities with total costs (including home study related costs) ranging between $8,000 and $50,000, with the majority falling between $25,000 and $37,000. In this article, we break down the types of costs prospective adoptive parents may incur during their adoption journey.

Attachment in Adoption

2022-04-01T17:24:29-07:00December 5, 2018|Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard, Adoption Perspectives|

Sarah Crawford, PhD, LPC, is a child therapist and a parent coach in Arizona who specializes in working with parents to address issues related to attachment, parent-child relationships, and adoption. She helps parents identify what their unique situation needs, while helping parents deepen trust and strengthen family connections. We sat down with Sarah to better understand attachment and how attachment concerns can arise in adoption. Here's what Sarah had to say…

Surviving a “Disrupted Adoption”

2023-07-19T15:54:22-07:00October 11, 2018|Adoption Advisor, Adoption Disruption, Adoption Education, Adoption is Hard|

October had always been one of my favorite months of the year. Living in Arizona, it is usually the first sign of cooler weather, football is in full swing and my three favorite holidays are on the horizon. When my husband and I were home study approved and certified to adopt in early August, we were quickly matched with an expectant mother due with a baby boy in mid-October. I was so excited about that being the month we would become parents. I purchased the cutest little bear Halloween costume for him and was thrilled to begin to get to know the expectant mother that would become our son’s birth mother. I couldn’t have predicted that on October 7 a sweet baby boy would be born, but by October 10, after cuddling him for days in the hospital, I would be one of so many in the adoption world to experience what is commonly called a “failed adoption.”

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