This is a guest blog post written by Amy Stewart, mom through adoption to five children, Pediatric RN, and founder of Hope in Adoption, LLC. I (Katie) actually took a parenting class from Amy when my daughters were little, and it was so helpful. I was pretty clueless about infant care and she gave me the structure and guidance I needed to feel confident in being a mom at many different stages of life! I’m so excited that she is now sharing her knowledge to a more widespread audience.
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After five pregnancy losses and years of failed fertility treatments, my journey to parenthood felt hopeless. The pain, grief, and loneliness I was experiencing felt too much to bear. It seemed everyone around me was celebrating carefree, successful pregnancies with ease. As my husband and I considered adoption as an opportunity to grow our family, the extensive process quickly became legally, financially, and emotionally overwhelming. Yet adoption seemed to provide hope in a time of darkness and despair.
With each step forward on our adoption journey, we found strength to hold on to our desire for parenthood. Our adoption story met with additional loss and heartache through disrupted adoptions. As we continued to persevere, we were finally chosen by a loving birth-mother. Words cannot express the joy that we felt when our infant son was placed in our arms. The peace, hope, and love that we felt washed away all of the sorrow, pain, and despair that once consumed our hearts. We truly loved and cherished every moment as parents to our newborn son.
While we did not want our son to be an only child, we were terrified to return to the adoption path knowing the uncertainty ahead. We chose to put our efforts into a private adoption and self-matching. A beautiful birth-mother found us and asked us to adopt her precious daughter. While our hearts were full of gratitude for our miracle children, we could have never imagined there was more in store for our little family. Through private adoption and self-matching we continued to be approached by birth-mothers and repeated the adoption process over and over and have now adopted 5 beautiful children. Our hearts are full as we embrace the gift of parenthood. We are committed to giving back to the adoption community through awareness, advocacy, and promoting inclusion.
Through our adoption journey we often felt isolated, forgotten, and misunderstood. As a Registered Nurse and parenting educator, I started Hope in Adoption LLC to provide evidence based research parenting education and parenting support to all, including traditional, adoptive, and same-gender parents. My mission is to help everyone adopt parenting tools that work.
Services available through Hope in Adoption include 1:1 consults. The goal with 1:1 consults is to help parent feel empowered through decision making pre-placement and confident in their parenting post-placement. Hopeful adoptive families utilize consults as they seek knowledge regarding drug exposure, potential medical diagnoses, medical chart review, preparing for baby, essential shopping list for baby supplies, nursery preparation, talking with your family about your adoption plan, etc. Consults post-placement provide assistance with drug withdrawal, sleep, feeding, establishing a routine, safe newborn care, talking to friends and family about adoption etc. In addition, Hope in Adoption has two monthly subscription plans that can be purchased month to month or annually.
The Hope and Support in Parenting subscription includes written content and a brief education video for a focus topic each month. Examples of some upcoming topics include sleep, discipline, self-esteem, bonding, growth and development, learning play, strengthening your support system, balance in parenthood, and social pressures of parenting. Topics are broken down into developmental categories to include newborn {0-12 months}, toddler {1-3 years}, preschool {3-5 years}, and school age {5-12 years}. Bonus content on topics such as potty training, grandparents role in parenting, and school success will be added periodically. An emailed monthly newsletter will remind you of website content updates and lead you to the new material. Plus support add-ons that include a monthly 1 hour parent support group via zoom {call-in via phone or link-in via personal computer}. You will join either the traditional, adoptive, or same gender parenting support group. “Ask Amy” is part of this membership. Submit questions and I will record a video each moth for the group addressing questions. These subscribers also receive 20% off 1:1 consults.
As a Registered Nurse, I am committed to delivering evidence-based research. As an educator, I am committed to clarity that will empower you as a parent. As a mama of 5, I am committed to deliver practical, realistic, age appropriate, tried and true parenting tips and tricks. At Hope in Adoption, our goal is to help you adopt parenting tools that work!This is a guest blog post written by Amy Stewart, mom through adoption to five children, Pediatric RN, and founder of Hope in Adoption, LLC. I (Katie) actually took a parenting class from Amy when my daughters were little, and it was so helpful. I was pretty clueless about infant care and she gave me the structure and guidance I needed to feel confident in being a mom at many different stages of life! I’m so excited that she is now sharing her knowledge to a more widespread audience.
—————
After five pregnancy losses and years of failed fertility treatments, my journey to parenthood felt hopeless. The pain, grief, and loneliness I was experiencing felt too much to bear. It seemed everyone around me was celebrating carefree, successful pregnancies with ease. As my husband and I considered adoption as an opportunity to grow our family, the extensive process quickly became legally, financially, and emotionally overwhelming. Yet adoption seemed to provide hope in a time of darkness and despair.
With each step forward on our adoption journey, we found strength to hold on to our desire for parenthood. Our adoption story met with additional loss and heartache through disrupted adoptions. As we continued to persevere, we were finally chosen by a loving birth-mother. Words cannot express the joy that we felt when our infant son was placed in our arms. The peace, hope, and love that we felt washed away all of the sorrow, pain, and despair that once consumed our hearts. We truly loved and cherished every moment as parents to our newborn son.
While we did not want our son to be an only child, we were terrified to return to the adoption path knowing the uncertainty ahead. We chose to put our efforts into a private adoption and self-matching. A beautiful birth-mother found us and asked us to adopt her precious daughter. While our hearts were full of gratitude for our miracle children, we could have never imagined there was more in store for our little family. Through private adoption and self-matching we continued to be approached by birth-mothers and repeated the adoption process over and over and have now adopted 5 beautiful children. Our hearts are full as we embrace the gift of parenthood. We are committed to giving back to the adoption community through awareness, advocacy, and promoting inclusion.
Through our adoption journey we often felt isolated, forgotten, and misunderstood. As a Registered Nurse and parenting educator, I started Hope in Adoption LLC to provide evidence based research parenting education and parenting support to all, including traditional, adoptive, and same-gender parents. My mission is to help everyone adopt parenting tools that work.
Services available through Hope in Adoption include 1:1 consults. The goal with 1:1 consults is to help parent feel empowered through decision making pre-placement and confident in their parenting post-placement. Hopeful adoptive families utilize consults as they seek knowledge regarding drug exposure, potential medical diagnoses, medical chart review, preparing for baby, essential shopping list for baby supplies, nursery preparation, talking with your family about your adoption plan, etc. Consults post-placement provide assistance with drug withdrawal, sleep, feeding, establishing a routine, safe newborn care, talking to friends and family about adoption etc. In addition, Hope in Adoption has two monthly subscription plans that can be purchased month to month or annually.
The Hope and Support in Parenting subscription includes written content and a brief education video for a focus topic each month. Examples of some upcoming topics include sleep, discipline, self-esteem, bonding, growth and development, learning play, strengthening your support system, balance in parenthood, and social pressures of parenting. Topics are broken down into developmental categories to include newborn {0-12 months}, toddler {1-3 years}, preschool {3-5 years}, and school age {5-12 years}. Bonus content on topics such as potty training, grandparents role in parenting, and school success will be added periodically. An emailed monthly newsletter will remind you of website content updates and lead you to the new material. Plus support add-ons that include a monthly 1 hour parent support group via zoom {call-in via phone or link-in via personal computer}. You will join either the traditional, adoptive, or same gender parenting support group. “Ask Amy” is part of this membership. Submit questions and I will record a video each moth for the group addressing questions. These subscribers also receive 20% off 1:1 consults.
