Adoption is anything but sunshine and lollipops, which I do understand as an adoptee and an adoptive parent. The truth is that adoption reform is needed. I totally understand this and am not against it. Changes in adoption law are needed and I support it when it is a benefit to adoption.

Knowledge is what people need concerning adoption reform. I am not trying to persuade anyone one way or the other. We as people need to decide to get involved with reform or a movement. We need to go in with their eyes wide open. We need to know the truth about things... more

There is a campaign on to do away with the adoption tax credit. I encourage every adoptive parent and other people involved with adoption to fight against this campaign. This country has worked hard getting children adopted and not spending years living in limbo. This adoption tax credit has helped many children find loving and forever families. The campaign against the adoption tax credit does allow for some foster children to benefit by allowing the adoption credit to remain for some foster children. This is a great concern to me. Who and by what standards would decide which foster children benefit from... more

Adoption, its self, is being attacked through sly tactics and without people stating their entire agenda. Adoptive parents are being targeted because they have chosen to adopt a child. Adoptees are being shamed and ridiculed when they support adoption.

How many of us have been blessed with a family through adoption whether you are an adoptee or adoptive parent? This is an individual choice for people to make (which I respect anyone's decision), some people feel comfortable standing up fighting for our and our children's rights.

I do not think anyone involved in adoption is blinded to some changes that need to happen in adoption. Here is the problem, people, authors and... more

Maybe an author writing about her personal beliefs on adoption while calling everyone (more or less) money hungry and she is profiting from adoption while throwing information out as the gospel. Yes, I am talking about the anti-adoption/birthmother author Mirah Riben.

She is not only against infant or international adoptions, she also has “issues” with foster children being adopted. Below is a quote from her webpage (below in the blue box are more of her quotes).

Adoption is intended to be in the best interest of children. It is not in the best interest of the 130,000 thousand children from foster care who can never be reunited with family, nor is it in the best... more

I have heard many triad members state this about an adoptee, “She grew up or turned out to be the person that she would have been if her birth family, or I (referring to birth family member) had raised her.” I find this a very strange remark for a number of reasons.

How can anyone make a statement about how an adoptee would have turned out if she had been raised by someone else? I think this refers heavily on the genetic make up of a person. Parenting is so much more than about one's genetic make up. Children and adults prove this every day.

If children did not need someone to parent them, there would not be the need for more foster homes. If children could just rely... more

Adoption is just like life, it is what we make of it (my personal opinion). In life you can focus on all the things you should have done or missed out on. It does not change things and tends to lead to unhappy people. Adoption is the same way. Yes, there is good and bad in adoption. I have not yet found anything perfect in this world. Chocolate melts in your mouth, makes you want more and it is quite delicious but it can bring unwanted pounds. Puppies are so soft, cute, cuddly and just plain adorable but they are huge responsibilities with time, money, space, etc.

Some adoptees grow up feeling they have been cheated out of their (birth) parents, siblings, culture, and other relatives.... more

As hard as it is to believe there are happy adoptees. Understand it does not mean that these adoptees are living in denial, lying to themselves, or anything else. I have never said or implied that a happy adoptee does not face or deal with some of the feelings of loss and other feelings that adoption brings.

Being adopted for some is just an aspect of their lives, and it does not define who they are or their lives. To others they are adults that have experienced a normal happy childhood, and adoption was just how the story began. Some adoptees feel that they were parented through adoption by the people that were meant to be their parents.

Just because an adoptee experiences... more

With adoption, there is a line in the sand that tends to be ignored by all. It involves us all whether we want to accept it or not. As an adoptee, I use to think that if you stayed out of the adoption scene, you could not be on one side or the other side. I think this also is placing you on a side.

Every side has so many different issues and thoughts. Generalized statements can bring people’s blood to the boiling point. Can we all ever get pass all of the division? There is so much talk about the children, but then it tends to be more about us, I, or we.

As an adoptee to hear people make the general statement that adoptions are unneeded and implied that adoptions are wrong... more

I often wondered why some adoptive parents were concerned and worried for their children to look for their birth mothers. After experiencing rejection from my birth mother myself and talking with others that have also experienced rejection, I realized something. Our parents (adoptive) want to protect us from any possible hurt so with the uncertainty that reunion can bring can be a scary thought for parents.

As an adoptive mother knowing the pain the rejection can bring, I want to protect my own children. Not all adoptees have the “ideal” birth mother that is just a fact of life. My adopted children’s birth mother did not visit, make contact, call to check on them or anything else... more

The fear of being rejected is probably the greatest fear of an adoptee. Some adoptees feel the first rejection was at birth so in their eyes it can happen again. No one likes to be rejected. The feelings that an adoptees may feel is that they are not good enough and are unloved when they feel rejected.

When an adoptee does make contact with her birth mother to be rejected the feelings that she is experiencing feels, that it is over before it even started. The door was closed so quickly in your face before you even had a chance to say a word. The pain and grief that sweep over you feels unbearable. Your hopes and dreams of a happy reunion vanish before your eyes. You set wandering how... more