Purl’s Director of Graphic Design, Ali Alvidrez, has been helping families adopt through profile and outreach material design for Purl for over four years. Ali is the only member of the Purl Team who is not a member of the adoption triad. However, Ali’s family experience with assisted reproduction is relevant to the impact of embryo donation/adoption on future generations. As Purl expands into guidance in embryo donation/adoption, Ali felt compelled to share her personal experience on the impact of donor conception on her definition of “family'“ today. In this blog post, Ali shares her relationship to a biological half-sister through assisted reproduction.

Purl’s newest Adoption Advisor, Tessa Reagan Vilte, shares her own personal adoption journey in today’s blog. She shares what it was like adopting with the support of a different adoption consultant. She also shares why she decided to join Purl. To learn more about Tessa’s story, and the different experience working with a different adoption consultant, click here.

If you’ve been following us awhile, you’ll notice that a lot of our Purl families have recently been chosen as prospective adoptive parents by an expectant family considering adoption for their child. Being “chosen” is a necessary step in adoption. But if it comes before the time consents are signed, it is just one step in an adoption plan that may never come to fruition. For that reason, I am always very cautious about what a prospective adoptive family does when they are chosen by an expectant family. In fact, here are some things I DO NOT think you should do once you are chosen. Click here to read more.

If you’re starting the adoption journey you might not realize that the rest of this journey WILL NOT be about you. You might have endured a lot of pain to get here, infertility, failed IUI or IVF cycles, failed embryo adoption or surrogacy. Really, really tough stuff. But I’m going to tell you something difficult to hear, most likely if you are here now and pursuing domestic infant adoption: your mindset will now have to immediately shift and all your decisions from here need to be about your future child through adoption (the adoptee) and what is best for them. You need to be able to justify every decision you make, and feel comfortable telling your future child the decisions you made and steps you took to adopt. To read more, click here.

The domestic infant adoption world has changed significantly in the last few years, but particularly since the pandemic began. There are less domestic adoption opportunities and many more prospective adoptive families waiting to adopt than usual. In many ways that is positive, if it means that pregnant moms are able to parent their children. But it can be very difficult for families looking to grow their families through adoption. Because of that, many families have turned to embryo donation/adoption, another assisted reproduction method to grow a family, but potentially at lower cost and with different risks than traditional infant adoption. There are hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos nationwide, with many available immediately for closed to open donation/adoption for families able to carry a pregnancy to term. So the question is, who can potentially find success with embryo donation/adoption? This article will give you some factors to consider when deciding if embryo donation/adoption is right for you.

Today, we are sharing our own experience researching and pursuing embryo adoption after our first adoption opportunity disrupted. We are sharing this in part to educate you on embryo adoption as a potential option to grow your family, which can work for many families who have experienced infertility. But we are also considering offering a limited coaching package to guide families through their options associated with embryo adoption and then help them navigate the embryo adoption process, assuming domestic infant adoption is not the right route for them. Click here to read more and to share your thoughts on whether this service is currently needed in this space.

Cora’s adoption was finalized on April 7, 2016, a day we coin “Zimmerman Day” in our home. Unlike some other adoptive families, we grew our family through adoption first, and then through a surprise pregnancy that led to our daughter Raelyn 8 months later. So when it came time to decide if/how we were going to celebrate Cora’s adoption finalization day, I struggled to find a way to celebrate what was an important day in our family, at the same time not leaving out our younger daughter, who didn’t have a corresponding day. We came up with “Zimmerman Day”, the day that our whole family shares the same last name. It isn’t a big holiday around our house, there are no gifts, no special hats or tiaras, but there is one messy homemade cake with a big Z on it, and as many sprinkles as will stick to it (which for the record is A LOT). Both of my girls get so excited to help make the cake and help decorate it, and the grandparents usually come over for dinner and cake. I don’t know how Cora is going to feel about this day when she’s older and has had time to understand the significance of it, but for now she loves another day between everyone’s birthdays to celebrate our family. Click here to learn more, and to learn what I think of the term “forever family” day…

If you’ve been following us awhile, you may have read our updates over the past year on the impact of COVID-19 on adoption. If you missed them, you can check out our first update in late March 2020 and a later update in July 2020. Now that more and more people are getting vaccinated and many states have reopened, you are likely interested in knowing how COVID-19 is continuing to impact adoptions. Here is a quick post to consider the status of adopting in and after a pandemic. Click here to learn more. 

We often get contacted by prospective adoptive families just starting the adoption process, or families that started down the road to adopt, and have realized they were on the wrong track. So, this blog post helps you with some basic information to get started in adoption and three basic things to consider when beginning an adoption journey: 1) What type of adoption is right for your family, 2) Research, Research, Research, and 3) Have you grieved your infertility? Click here to read more.

An adoptive mom and guest blogger anonymously shares her hopes for an open adoption.

It has been two years since I’ve seen my daughter’s birth mother. Two years since I’ve heard from her. We had as open of an adoption as you can imagine. We shared with one another. She was gracious in including me every step of the way. I made her OB appointments, I drove her to them, she allowed me next to her for every exam, every decision that was made. We talked about our pasts, our dreams, our futures, our fears. I had the privilege of coaching her through childbirth and welcoming our daughter into the world together. But then things changed, click here to read more.

Adoption is hard. There is a lot of waiting involved. Waiting to start the process, waiting for the home study, waiting for the home study approval (certification), waiting for adoption opportunities, waiting to be chosen, waiting for the baby you have been chosen for to be born, waiting for consents to be signed, waiting for the consents to be irrevocable, waiting for finalization… There are lots of different emotions and feelings throughout the process but one consistency is the wait. It feels like there is even more waiting than usual as the pandemic seems to have increased the number of prospective adoptive families looking to adopt, at the same time we are seeing less adoption opportunities than usual. So what should YOU do while you wait??? Click here to read more.

This blog post discusses the term “selfish” and how that is often used in the context of domestic infant adoption. It discusses an episode of the teen drama All American and an adoption story in one of the show’s characters and my reaction after watching a scene involving a potential adoption disruption, or a closed adoption that turns open after the birth mother changes her mind. Click here to read more.

Guest blogger, Damon L. Davis, is an adoptee, an adoptive parent, and the host of the "Who Am I Really?" podcast, where he shares the reunion stories of other adoptees. You can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, online at www.whoamireallypodcast.com, and follow the show on social media @WAIReally. Damon's book "Who Am I Really? An Adoptee Memoir" recounts his amazing reunion with his biological mother, the accidental DNA discovery of his birth father, and all of his inner thoughts and emotions along the way.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we know there are a lot of terms used in the adoption community that the average person doesn’t know or understand, so we’ll be discussing these on our social/blog for the next few months, as time permits. Did you know that there are typically two types of adoptions available in domestic infant adoption: agency adoptions and direct placement adoptions (often referred to as private or independent adoptions), and do you understand the differences? Do you understand when you might use one versus the other? Did you know that some states allow direct placement adoptions and some do not? Click here to learn more about type of adoption.

Okay, if you’re reading this, it means you might have seen my first Reel! Hopefully I’ll get better at this! So, some of these questions and comments are totally personal, some feel harmless or are meant as a complement, but all are not recommended for the following reasons…

This video talks about what an adoption advisor is, and how to choose an adoption advisor for your domestic adoption journey.

This guest blog post includes Five Recommendations for Parents to Seek Out For Their Child with a History of Adoption or Foster Care. It was written by Kimara Gustafson MD, MPH, Erin Bocock, Judith Eckerle MD with Adoption Medicine Clinic. This blog post will discuss different assessments and care that is available for a child who was adopted and/or a child who may have a background of abuse/neglect, stress, early adversity and prenatal exposures. To read more about these resources for families who have adopted a child, click here.

Naming your child is a big deal, many people have family names or favorite names they have picked out for their child for years before their child arrives. But in an adoption scenario, there are a lot of things to consider when naming or “re-naming” a child at the finalization of an adoption. Read more below to understand better how a child is initially named in an adoption scenario, and how that is reflected on two different birth certificates.