The Beginnings of a Dream

Like many adoptive couples, Ted and Susan Mars had tried for years to have a biological child. But, six miscarriages in seven years led them to another path: infant adoption. They knew they both wanted to become parents — and that they could love a child the same whether or not they were genetically related.
So, after choosing a professional and waiting for their placement call, Ted and Susan adopted Scott when he was just 10 days old.
“It was the most exciting moment of our lives when our social worker brought him into the room,” Susan remembers. “I asked her to let his daddy hold him first. It was a moment I will never forget. There is no greater gift that can be given to someone.”
Although he had a closed adoption, Scott Mars grew up in a household that celebrated his adoption story, including his birth parents’ decision to place him for adoption. Although he didn’t know his birth mother’s name or what she looked like, his parents always told him what a wonderful woman she was for selflessly choosing adoption — giving him opportunities that she couldn’t provide at that time.
At the same time, Scott gave his parents a gift of parenthood that they were eternally grateful for.
“Every day I realize how important I am to my parents,” Mars says. “The fact that I was adopted doesn’t matter. It is simply another way to become a parent.”
For Mars, adoption was about more than just his own experience. During his childhood, Ted and Susan decided to become a temporary foster home for infants. Mars says his mother loved babies, and becoming a foster parent allowed them to provide temporary care for more than 140 infants during his childhood. Scott admits that he spent a great deal of his childhood hoping one of their temporary placements would become his sibling. Alas, it was not meant to be — but being a foster sibling provided him a beautiful experience helping those who truly needed it.
“It made my mom feel good, to be a part of that bridge — knowing that someone did that for me, so here’s a way to kind of pay it forward,” Mars said. “While this was a fantastic experience, we felt we had more to give.”

American Adoptions is Born

When Scott Mars was in college, his parents mentioned an idea they had: to start a private domestic infant adoption agency to help people who had experienced the same struggles as them. Scott was thrilled at the idea, but he had one request — that they wait until he graduated, so he could start the business with them.
After Scott graduated, he and his parents started work on what would eventually become American Adoptions. Small and family-run at first, the agency grew into one of the biggest adoption agencies in the country. Now, American Adoptions helps complete hundreds of adoption each year across the United States, matching hopeful adoptive parents with brave women choosing to give their children a better life through adoption.
From the beginning, Scott Mars and his family knew they wanted to create a new kind of adoption agency — one that provided as much support to prospective birth parents as it did to adoptive parents. Today, American Adoptions is an industry leader in open adoption relationships. All prospective birth mothers who contact the Mars’ adoption agency are given the opportunity for open and semi-open adoption. As a result, more than 90 percent of the women who place with American Adoptions choose some form of open adoption.

It’s something that Scott is proud of. While he has since made contact with his own birth mother and the two have fostered a positive, respectful relationship, he remembers the challenges of growing up in a closed adoption.
“Adoptees always have thoughts around their health history — ‘Where did my green eyes come from? How did I get my brown hair?’ I always wondered when I was little,” he says.
By starting American Adoptions with his and his family’s experiences in mind, Scott Mars sees American Adoptions as a way to “give back” for their own adoption story.
But, for Mars, adoption wasn’t the only way to do this.

Branching Out

Over American Adoptions 25-year history, Scott Mars and his team have worked with many hopeful parents — and not all of them ended up choosing adoption. As technology has advanced, so have the methods of assisted reproduction. The options for hopeful parents today are much more varied — and confusing — than ever before.
Scott had an idea: to become experienced in as many of these areas as possible to provide the best counseling to hopeful parents. Thus, Mars and his team started a new endeavor: a gestational surrogacy program, a sister agency called American Surrogacy.
“What happens right now is, individually, each person — whether that be an adoption agency or fertility specialist — is telling you everything about their practice. But, they don’t know everything about where you are truly at and all of the family-building methods,” Mars says. “We really believe that there has to be more ways to help people.”
When hopeful parents contact either American Adoptions or American Surrogacy, they are connected with a specialist who is experienced in both of these processes of family-building. Their questions are answered truthfully and in detail to help them determine which option is right for them. That being said, adoption or surrogacy may not be the best option for all hopeful parents, so Scott Mars and his team are focused on giving hopeful parents the information they need to move forward, whatever their chosen path ends up being.
“The reality in life is the toughest journeys allow us to appreciate things more fully,” Mars says. “Nothing significant in life is ever gained from cutting corners. In the end, all your pain and doubt will wash away the first moment your baby snuggles in your arms. It will not matter how you became parents; it will only matter that you did.”

The post How Scott Mars Turned His Adoption Story into an Adoption Agency first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Artreese Basnight knew for years that she wanted to share her adoption story. The dilemma was always how.
As a child, she had entertained the idea of becoming a social worker to help children in foster care, like she had been years ago. But, her aunt dissuaded her from the path for an unexpected reason: she was too invested in the process.
“She said, ‘You’re going to get attached, and (social work) does something to you, emotionally… The first year, you’re going to take children out of their homes, and that’s going to be your job,’” Basnight remembers. “‘I think it would be great for you to write a book and tell your story.’”
So, flash forward to today, when, at 29 years old, Basnight has started a personal blog, with eventual plans to write a memoir about her adoption experience. She says it’s been a long time coming.
“It wasn’t a decision I made recently,” she remembers. “For everybody, they’re on the outside looking in, and they don’t know what it feels like to experience adoption. It stays with you your whole life; it doesn’t go away. If you are adopted — yes, which is this awesome thing — these things still did happen to you and they stick with you for the rest of your life.”

From Challenge to Opportunity

Basnight entered the Connecticut foster care system when she was 2 years old. For the next two years, she would be moved between several houses as her biological mother tried and failed to complete a reunification plan.
Although Basnight doesn’t remember the specifics, she says her case file details how her biological mother failed to attend required meetings with her children in the system. By the time she was 4, Basnight had called several different women “Mommy” before her biological mother’s rights were officially terminated.
Like many children in foster care, Basnight experienced many traumatic moments that she can still remember today. But, there are positive moments, too. She remembers two older girls she once shared a home with, whom she considered older sisters.
And, of course, there was the day she met her adoptive family.
“I remember that morning, I was eating cereal — I love cereal to this day,” she says. “They said, ‘Artreese, there’s someone at the door to meet you.’ They said that automatically, my face lit up, and I ran to their arms. And my adoptive mom, Debbie, said it just felt like I belonged to them. It was something in my eyes; I was made to be their daughter.”
Basnight’s adoption would end up being finalized on the anniversary of her parents’ marriage — another fact she takes as a sign she was meant to be with her adoptive family. She talks about her incredible bond with her parents — playing softball because her mom did, hearing her dad cheer her on from the stands. Her adoption was an open conversation in their household, and she always knew she was adopted.
“I have just the strongest bond with them. I’m thankful every day,” Basnight says. “My (biological) siblings tell me that, too: ‘You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with what we had to deal with,’ because they still go through the troubling times with our (biological) mother.”
That’s not to say her childhood after adoption was always easy. Like many adoptees, especially children adopted from foster care, Basnight had to face her own complicated emotions growing up. She says she felt different from others around her, and she constantly wondered why her biological mother didn’t want her. Those difficulties resulted in her acting out to her parents and experiencing a period of depression.
“It was sometimes troubling as a kid. I always felt like something was missing,” she remembers. “I’m very blessed — I thank God for my adoptive parents — but I always felt like something was missing and I could never fill a hole.”
It would turn out that her biological family was closer than she could have ever imagined.

Finding the Missing Pieces

As Basnight was growing up, it happened to be that her biological half-sisters were living in the same city as her. Even though she didn’t know it at the time, she had seen her biological family several times prior to their official “first” meetings.
“Being a kid, you’re like, ‘Why do you look so much like me? Who are you?’” she remembers. “So, they had no choice but to tell us who we all were. We actually lived around the corner from each other.”
Their relationship with each other was similar to acquaintances, but Basnight started putting more effort into finding more biological family as she got older. Today, she keeps connecting with more biological family members on her father’s and mother’s sides, including a brother whom she talks to almost every single day. She says she is excited to meet as many biological family members as possible and help them in whatever way she can.
Unfortunately, Basnight discovered that her biological father has passed before she had the chance to meet him. But, she holds a special bond with him; her name is derived from his, which was Arthur.
Basnight still has one complicated biological family relationship: that with her biological mother. While she recognizes as an adult her mother’s impossible situation years ago, she says she wishes she had a better connection with this part of her history. While her mother lived in the same town Basnight did growing up, her mother continued to face difficult situations — substance abuse, homelessness and other factors that made an in-person relationship extremely complex. These situations, combined with the fact that Basnight’s adoption was closed, were why her parents denied her biological mother’s request to meet when she reached out during Basnight’s childhood.
Some adoptees may resent that decision but, as Basnight has tried to reach out to her biological mother at an older age and been disappointed, she says she appreciates her parents’ initial decision. A chance encounter is what she holds onto today.
“She actually came to my job, and I rang her out,” Basnight remembers. “I saw her name, and I said, ‘Oh, I know somebody else with that name,’ but it didn’t click. I saw her and had a whole conversation with her, but not once did she say, ‘Hey, I’m your mother.’ She just had a general conversation with me, and I just talked to her back.”
As she looks back on her adoption experience, there are a few things she wants others to know.
“If you have a foster or adopted child, treat them like your own,” Basnight says. “If you don’t like children, if you don’t want to have them around, don’t be a foster parent… Building a relationship with the child — that’s so important early on.
“As I get older, these things still stick with me as an adoptee,” she adds. “I have these feelings and these days when I can’t express it. Nevertheless, I still want to share my story and encourage others that this is a blessing.”
If you wish to read more of Basnight’s story or connect with her about your own adoption story, check out her blog and Instagram.

The post Becoming an Adoption Advocate: Artreese’s Adoptee Story first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Meredith Beer always knew that she was adopted — and she has always been proud of her story. When she introduced herself to her first grade class, she had to give a fun fact about herself. So, confidently (as 6 year-olds do), she stood up and said, “My name is Meredith Beer, and I’m adopted.”
As one of two adopted children in her parents’ household, adoption was always an open conversation. She remembers reading children’s books with adoption storylines and always having confidence in her adoption story. She was only 8 years old when she decided to find her birth parents — and promptly let her dad know.
“He went, ‘Well, let’s wait until you’re 16, because you’re a little young.’ I definitely didn’t forget that promise, so when I turned 16, I asked him again,” Beer remembers.
The search and reunion that would follow was a journey that would bring her more family and love than she ever thought. Now, at age 25, Beer looks back on her personal adoption story and what she hopes others can learn from her own experience.

Taking the First Step

Growing up, Beer was always proud of her adoption story. But, like many adopted children, she always had “what-ifs.” Her adoption was closed, and all she knew about her birth mother could fit in three sentences: Her first name was Vania; she had given birth in Reynoldsburg, Ohio; and she graduated high school at age 16 in 1992 — the same year Beer was born.

But Beer wanted more. She wanted to know how she came to be adopted but, more importantly, she had a desire to make sure her birth parents knew she was happy and healthy — that adoption had absolutely been the best choice, and she was forever grateful for their selfless decision.
Armed with the three facts about her birth mother, Beer and her dad set out to Reynoldsburg in 2008 to find the rest. After a disappointing lack of leads, Beer felt like giving up and waiting until she turned 18 to open her adoption records.
But her dad had another idea.
“He actually signed up for Classmates.com as an alumni of 1992 in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and he paid $20 to get the full list of alumni,” Beer says. “It just so happens that Vania — which is the craziest coincidence that has ever happened to me — had signed up for Classmates.com a couple of months prior. He found her maiden name, Googled that, found her married name and found her Facebook. He called me on the way home from soccer practice and asked, ‘Are you going over to your friend’s house? Because I think you should come home, because I think I just found your birth mom on Facebook.’
“I don’t think I’ve ever driven so fast in my life,” Beer says.
Looking at her birth mother’s Facebook photo, for the first time in her life, Beer was seeing someone who looked like her. She sent a message to Vania explaining the situation, making sure to emphasize her happiness and gratitude for her birth mother’s choice, and waited for a response. It came back three days later.
“Her response was more than I ever could have imagined,” she remembers. It read, “Wow, what a surprise. I wondered if and when this day would ever happen. I am your birth mother. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so I’m just going to leave it to you to ask.”

Connecting with her Birth Parents

From there, Beer and her birth mother began messaging back and forth (Vania would end up asking for Beer’s mother’s phone number to make sure her parents were 100 percent comfortable with the contact). Beer found out she had three younger half siblings and was finally able to get answers to those questions which had been pressing on her for so long: Who was her birth father? What was her adoption story?
Less than five months after she first messaged Vania, Beer and her parents flew out to meet her.
“Being in front of her for the first time was probably the craziest thing that has ever happened — I couldn’t even talk,” Beer remembers. “I was just staring at her during lunch, which was probably super awkward, but I had never seen anyone who looked like me before. Even just watching her was weird to see; we have the same mannerisms…That in and of itself blew my mind.”

She learned from Vania that the adoption had not been a mutual agreement — her birth father, Tommy, had proposed to Vania with the intent of raising the child together — and the two had not been in contact for many years. Beer wouldn’t receive her birth father’s contact information for a couple more weeks, after Vania had become more comfortable with the idea. After Beer contacted her birth father, he traveled to her hometown to meet her.
Despite their difficult history, Vania and Tommy eventually saw each other again at Beer’s high school graduation — a monumental moment in Beer’s life.
“It was the first time I had ever had a picture with two people who looked like me,” she says.

Looking Back — and Moving Forward

Today, Beer has a close relationship with Vania, who she describes as like a “super-close aunt.” They talk almost every other day, and Beer is thankful for the support her birth mother gives her.
Despite the closed nature of her adoption, Beer thinks it worked out for the best, especially now that she’s in contact with her birth parents at an older age. The support of her parents throughout her entire life — from their positive explanations of her adoption to their assistance finding her birth parents — also plays an instrumental role.
Recently, she’s begun reaching out to other prospective birth and adoptive parents to share her story and help them feel more comfortable deciding on adoption — as a way to help them experience the same kind of positive adoption process she had.

“My biggest goal is to just shed a better light on adoption and that adoption is a great thing,” she says. “While adoption can be scary, and it can go wrong, so can a lot of other things in life. It is like anything else in your life that can go wrong. To be scared of it and back out just because you’re scared of what could happen is silly because you have this chance.”
For birth mothers, Beer says, that chance is to give a child a better life and hopeful parents a chance at a child they could never have. For adoptive parents, it’s raising a child with all the best opportunities in life. Whatever challenges come along the way, like her own emotional journey to finding her birth parents, will be all worth it in the end, she says.
“As long as you raise the child to be confident in their story, I don’t really see anything going wrong in that.”

The post How This Adoptee Found Her Birth Parents — and a New System of Support first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Adoption is Beautiful

Partnering with Adoption Share, the organization behind Adoption is Beautiful, Jenkins is traveling the country to spread awareness about adoption. She has been attending conferences and workshops, making herself available as a resource to parents considering adoption as well as children in the foster care system or who have already been adopted.
However, while she’s spreading a positive message about adoption today, it wasn’t an easy journey toward accepting her own adoption. When she found out about her adoption, Jenkins was hesitant to tell anyone about it because she was afraid people wouldn’t understand or would make fun of her. When she finally came out with the truth, she was petrified.
Instead of jeers, however, she found a huge support system that she’s hoping to share with other adopted children.
“People were actually telling me, ‘Shelby, wow. Your story is so powerful,’” she said, remembering hearing from other adopted people who had never told their story, some even women in their 30s and 40s. One woman had never even told her husband she was adopted.
“I felt like I was the only one in America hiding that,” she said. “And I wasn’t.”

Spreading Awareness

While she’s still coping with the emotions of her adoption — she’s working up the courage to contact her biological parents — she’s using her newfound appreciation of adoption to help the thousands of children in foster care across the country find adoptive parents. She said her adoptive parents, who have been supportive of her throughout her life in whatever passion she had, are thrilled about her choice to educate others about the realities of adoption.
In addition to meeting with potential parents and children available for adoption, Jenkins worked closely with producers of the movie “Storks” to discuss and spread awareness about its adoption themes and has spoken about her platform to several media outlets. She was even on the cover of Adoption Today’s November issue.

She’ll serve as the ambassador for Adoption is Beautiful until August 2017 and, after that, she plans to continue raising awareness about adoption through her personal brand. She and her team are hoping to start a perfume line (with proceeds going to adoption organizations) and bring an “adoption tour” to campuses across the country so she can share her story and, hopefully, increase foster care adoption rates.
“It’s such a positive message to the community — showing how far I’ve gotten,” she said. “I do it because it’s my passion and because I really want these kids to get adopted.
“I’m able to reach out to these kids and say, you know, ‘If I can do it, you can do it, too,’” she said. “The best is yet to come.”
You can follow Shelby on Instagram and contact her at misstexasusintl2016@gmail.com.
 

The post How One Adoptee is Using Her Miss Texas Platform for Adoption first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Achieving the American Dream

In August 1977, a couple from a Chicago suburb, Al and Georga Parchem, always wanted to start a family but were having difficulties with infertility. Their journey to parenthood led them to adopting a baby boy, whom they named Aaron.
His adoption was never kept secret from him nor his adopted sister. After all, they were biracial, and their parents were white.
“It was never something that was hidden from me,” Aaron said. “I was an adopted kid. Even at 6 or 7 years old, it didn’t make a difference. What was always important to me was the love and attention I received from my parents.”
Georga was integral in introducing her son to various activities, ranging from flag football, to gymnastics and even to tap dancing. Aaron’s interest in these activities usually only lasted for one or two seasons, but there was one that stuck with him – figure skating.
“I would’ve never been in skating if it wasn’t for my mom, especially,” Aaron said. “She was so open to putting me in so many different things, allowing me to have all of these diverse experiences. I was hooked once I did my first ice show.”
Skating was a big part of Aaron’s life throughout his teenage years, and he relied heavily on his parents to help him continue his young skating career. Before he could drive, it was his parents who had to wake up early in the morning to take him to the skating rink before school, wait for him to finish practice, drive him to school, and then repeat the same routine in the afternoon.
The long hours of practicing kept Aaron and his parents busy; however, he never made it to national competition as a singles skater. Figure skating remained a hobby rather than a blossoming career.
Aaron graduated high school and then traveled south on I-65 to attend Butler University in Indianapolis.
“I spent two years at Butler with the intention of phasing out ice-skating and slowly getting into the real world. However, during my time there, there was a coach who got me interested in skating pairs. I caught the bug again and decided I wanted to really try to be my best at this so I made a major move to come to Detroit.”

A New Commitment to Excellence

The Detroit Skating Club is renowned for the number of figure skaters it has produced. Aaron Parchem would be its latest.
Aaron first paired up with Stephanie Kalesavich, and they qualified for Junior Nationals within their first eight months of skating together. By the next year, they won the event.
“It was great, but it also freaked me out because I never imagined things would happen so quickly,” Aaron said.
Things didn’t slow down after that, as he teamed up with new partner, Marcy Hinzmann in 2004. Aaron and Marcy received third place in the 2005 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which would have qualified them as alternates for the Olympics in an Olympic year. Indeed, it was an achievement, but Aaron and Marcy wanted a guaranteed spot in Torino. With another year of experience and training together, they hoped it would be enough to reach their ultimate goal.
However, the unexpected happened during the 2005 season Marcy tore her ACL in her non-landing knee.
After having surgery on her knee, Marcy had a four-month recovery time before she could put skates on again, and six months before she and Aaron could get back to training together.
“We had five months to try our best to get ready to make one big push to get to the Olympics,” Aaron said. “Those were some of the best experiences and worst experiences in my life. Being so disappointed I couldn’t sleep and being so elated from a standing ovation two weeks later that to this day was the best moment in my skating career. We learned a lot in that six-month snippet of time, but ultimately it got us to be in a position to qualify for the Olympics.”
The 2006 U.S. Figure Skating Championships were held in St. Louis. After Aaron and Marcy’s first program, they sat in second place with one more performance to go. They would end up beating the third-place team by less than half of a point, promising them a spot on the U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team.

Fulfilling the Olympic Dream

During the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Aaron proudly walked through the coliseum with Marcy and the rest of the U.S. Olympians. Amongst all the cheers, a familiar voice stood out from all the rest – his mom’s. Among the thousands and thousands of spectators, Georga and Al had made it all the way down to the front rows to see their son in one of his proudest moments. Aaron was even able to snap a picture of his parents.
By just being there in that moment, Aaron felt that he had already won.
“Coming into the Olympics, we knew we didn’t have a shot at a medal,” Aaron said. “The achievement for us was qualifying for the Olympics. The whole Olympic experience to Marcy, myself and our families was to just enjoy the celebration and to be part of something that was vastly bigger than ourselves.”
Aaron and Marcy ended up placing 13th. They had two good skates, which Aaron said he and Marcy will be proud of for the rest of their lives.
This was would be the unofficial end to his competitive skating career.
“Skating into your 20s and 30s is a difficult proposition. There is opportunity cost there, but to us it was worth it because we got to achieve and experience things that we would otherwise never have been able to do. I’ve been across the world in different countries and able to soak in different cultures. I’ve been able to compete against different people who I never would have otherwise met. To me the experience that we gained was worth the cost of sticking around and letting the rest of life slip by to a certain extent.”

The Best is Yet to Come

Figure skating provided Aaron with some amazing experiences, but undoubtedly the best thing it led to was meeting his wife Zuzanna, a former Olympian herself from Poland.
Zuzanna served as Aaron and Marcy’s choreographer and continues to coach at the Detroit Skating Club, where she and Aaron first met. They have a 2-year-old daughter together, Sofie, who has some big shoes, or skates, to fill.
“Being a father is the best thing that’s happened to me in my life. I think back to my experiences growing up and I’m glad that I can pass the love that has been given to me.
“We have hopes that our daughter excels in something, and whether that’s sports or school, I’ll be happy just to experience something new. If my baby girl wants to be a skater, we will wish her luck, but she will also have to understand that she has two very demanding parents,” Aaron jokes.
Aaron often thinks back to those long hours at the ice rink where his mom or dad would be waiting for him to take him to school, the moment when he told them he had qualified for the Olympics, and at the opening ceremonies where he could hear their cheers among the thousands of others.
“The support I received from my folks – emotionally, logistically, financially – none of this would have been possible, none of it, if it wasn’t for the support I got from them.”
So, the question remains: Would Aaron Parchem have been an Olympic figure skater if he wasn’t adopted? No one will ever know. But he knows one thing:
“Adoption changed my life. I don’t know if it was for the better or not, and that’s simply because this is the only life that I know. But what I can tell you, and what I truly believe, is that I’m lucky to be adopted. The opportunities that have been afforded to me, the love that has been given to me and the family I now have all stem from a decision that I couldn’t make – a decision I’m sure weighed heavily on my birth parents’ hearts. However, for my story, there was a happy ending.”
This article originally appeared on AmericanAdoptions.com’s Blog and is reposted on ConsideringAdoption.com with their approval. 

The post Adopted Olympian Profile – Figure Skater Aaron Parchem first appeared on Considering Adoption.

A One-of-a-Kind Relationship

You won’t find a more unique adoption story than Tracey and Eric’s adoption of their sons Owen and Steven.
The prospective adoptive parents first became interested in adopting a child internationally from Ethiopia, but after four years of waiting for an opportunity, it became clear they’d have better luck adopting domestically.
A national adoption agency, American Adoptions, immediately jumped out to the hopeful parents because of the agency’s reputation for low wait times. Tracey and Eric had no problem finding adoption opportunities with prospective birth mothers, but it took them five different matches before their adoption goals were realized.
However, what an opportunity it ultimately became.
Not only did the birth family give them a healthy son named Owen, and not only do the two families share a beautiful open adoption to this day, but the birth family even presented Tracey and Eric with a question so loving and so selfless, it left the couple speechless.
“How would you feel about a biological sibling for Owen?” the birth family asked Tracey and Eric one night in their Minnesota home.
“What they were saying was ‘How about we get pregnant and help complete your family,’” Tracey said. “Of course, that was like a dream come true for our family, one we never could have imagined. And so that’s how our second journey began.”
Steven would soon enter the lives of Tracey, Eric and Owen, and became the final piece of their family’s unique story (at least, for now).

A One-of-a-Kind Book

During this same time period in a Chicago suburb, Matthew Cordell was finding success as an author and illustrator of light-hearted, humorous children’s books.
Unfortunately, he and his wife Julie were not finding similar success with becoming pregnant.
After a few years of heartbreak, however, the two authors finally welcomed a girl and later a boy into their lives.
Up to that point in his career, Cordell had focused on making both children and adults laugh through his stories and illustrations, but he and his wife’s unpredictable journey of becoming parents “seemed like a story that needed to be told in a picture book,” he said.
“I started thinking about my story, my wife’s story, my daughter’s story, my son’s story, and it was a moment of triumph, but a lot of pain was woven into it,” Cordell said. “I also thought about how we felt so alone, and how publishing can connect people and give someone a voice to share something if they don’t quite know how to talk about it – especially one day with their child.”
And thus, the concept for Wish was born.
Wish tells the story of an elephant couple wishing, hoping, and planning for a child to enter their lives, and delicately hints at their struggles to become parents. Visually, the book is told through Cordell’s vibrant watercolors, encapsulated by the metaphor of an unborn child on a boat lost at sea, and his or her soon-to-be parents sending and receiving love across the ocean represented by rainbow confetti.
The book concludes with the elephant couple on the beach, when suddenly it begins to storm, the waves begin to rise, and a boat with their child washes onto shore.
The wisdom of Wish, and one of the many reasons a variety of families are embracing Cordell’s book, is in its simplicity. It is this simplicity, yet poignancy, that makes it applicable to families grown through adoption, surrogacy, infertility treatments, and even for families who didn’t struggle at all. The elephant parents are vague enough that they could even represent a same-sex couple’s journey toward parenthood.
“I’m glad to hear that adopting moms and dads, and many other types of families, have found it and have connected it to their story so easily, because that was always important to me from the beginning,” Cordell said.

Wish Finds a Family

Tracey opened up their mailbox, and a close friend had mailed them an envelope. Inside it was a hardback copy of Wish.
Tracey and Eric began reading Wish to their oldest son Owen and quickly realized how applicable it was to their story, and any family’s story. As Tracey reads it to her son, she can see the “wheels turning in his mind.”
“Owen started asking questions about his birth story during that book,” Tracey said. “It just resonated with him, and it resonated with me as an adoptive mother.”
Most adoption professionals agree it is better to discuss a child’s adoption story at a very young age to begin making it a normal part of his or her life. There are plenty of resources, including books, movies and television shows, to help facilitate this conversation, but these pieces of media are often too rigid and don’t always fit each child’s story.
Wish, however, did just the opposite for Tracey, as she could mold it to precisely fit the unique ways in which their family was created.
“I would add different things to the book because the words are so simplistic,” Tracey said. “Wish is so broad, and so flexible, that families could read it from day one, continue reading it, and continue to evolve the conversations about their family and their children’s birth families in such a positive way.”
Read any of Wish’s dozens of 5-star Amazon reviews, and it’s clear that Tracey and Eric are just one of many families who are finding enormous rewards in just 184 words of text.
And finally, with the success of his first venture into more serious subject matters, Cordell has decided to continue exploring the fun, challenging, and beautiful journey of parenthood, as he is currently working on a companion book for Wish.
Please click the following to learn more about Matthew Cordell or to purchase Wish.

The post "Wish" – Your Family's Journey To Parenthood through a Children's Book first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Fighting for a Future in the Foster System

At the age of 3, Oden was placed in a foster home with his younger sister — the first of nine the children would live in over the next 10 years.
Like many children who are “bounced around” many different homes, Oden says he had some baggage. He was angry, but as he got older, he says he realized he needed to hold onto the positive things, rather than letting the negative things bring him down.
Now, when he looks back on his foster care experience, Oden says he feels blessed, something he credits in part to his positive attitude and his determination to rise above his circumstances.
“I would overhear people talking about my story, and they’d say, ‘These kids don’t have a chance. They won’t amount to anything,’” Oden says. “And I used that as positive motivation. I would say, ‘I will show you that this kid, with cards stacked against him beyond his control, will be a productive member of society and much more.’
“I was determined that I would be successful,” he adds. “And I think my stint in foster care… that instilled in me the drive and motivation I needed to do exactly that.”

Beating the Odds and Becoming an Oden

Oden continued to battle the statistics and stereotypes surrounding foster children until he and his sister were placed in a home in Huntsville, Alabama, with foster parents who were dedicated members of their church. It was there that Oden met his childhood best friend, Wes.
The boys grew close, developing a deep bond and spending most of their time together, until Oden was forced to move again to a new foster home in a different part of the state. Despite the distance, Oden kept in touch with Wes, sending him letters that Wes would share with his parents, Gerry and Debbie Oden.
“They said these letters just broke their hearts, just crushed them,” Oden says.
Gerry and Debbie decided they had to do something. They contacted Oden’s foster care agency and told them they wanted to adopt Oden and his sister, who had long been awaiting adoption after their biological parents’ rights were terminated early during their time in foster care.
“They didn’t take no for an answer. They were resilient,” Oden says. “They knew that TPR had already occurred on us, and they knew nobody else was willing to step up to the plate to adopt us, and so they did.”
Oden’s adoption was finalized the same month he turned 13, but his fight wasn’t over. Even then, he knew he wanted to pay it forward and give hope and a future to other children in the foster system.

Coming Full Circle: Becoming Foster Parents

Oden’s wife, Brittany, knew from the beginning that Oden felt passionately about becoming a foster parent. In fact, she had known almost as long as Oden had — it was during his time in foster care that the two met as middle school sweethearts.
After getting married, the Odens planned to have biological children and then add to their family through the foster care system. But they say God had other plans.

“We had miscarriages three different times,” Oden says. “As the old saying goes, we as humans make plans, and God sits back and waits for us to stop and trust in him, and then he’ll reveal his plan for you.”
Oden says the couple was devastated, but they decided to move forward with their plan to become foster parents. In 2013, they got the phone call for their first placement: siblings named Gabbi, now 4, and Kentrell, 5, who were later joined in the Odens’ home by their older brother, Elijah, 7.
“One night after we had had them for a while, I was lying in bed and I said to Brittany, ‘You know, if any of those pregnancies had worked out, and [the agency] had called and said they needed us to take two kids, would we have taken them?’” Oden says. “And we both agreed the answer would be no, not with a newborn. God had a plan there. We are 110 percent convinced that the Lord’s plan worked out in our story.”

A Growing Family and Deployment to Afghanistan

It was not long after they received their foster care placement that the Odens say God revealed his plan once again. After losing their three previous pregnancies and adding three new foster children to their home, the Odens finally got the miracle they had been planning from the beginning — they found out Brittany was pregnant.
“The order in which things happened was in the complete opposite order of what we had planned,” Oden says. “We had planned to have biological children and foster and adopt later… but it’s on God’s timing, not ours. And we are very happy with the way it worked out.”
With the foster children and pregnancy the Odens had always wanted, things were beginning to fall into place. But life was about to take another unexpected turn.
“We got Gabbi and Kentrell and a little later got Elijah, found out we were pregnant, and then got the news, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re getting deployed to Afghanistan,’” Oden says.
He deployed to Afghanistan on Easter Sunday in April 2014, leaving Brittany to manage their three new foster children and a baby on the way.
“There’s a little guilt there as far as being foster parents and getting deployed,” Oden says. “One of the things foster children need is stability, not only in a home, but in family members…they come into our home and get attached to me, and then I’m leaving for six months.”
Oden says it was difficult to be away from home, not only because of the separation issues it caused with his foster children, but also because he was deployed during most of Brittany’s pregnancy and the birth of his daughter, Annabelle.
She was born September 10, 2014 — September 11 on Afghanistan time, in the combat zone where Oden was stationed. He watched his daughter’s birth on Facetime amidst the threat of indirect fire, which would have sent him taking cover.
Looking back, Oden says he is bewildered by the timing of the family’s foster care placement, pregnancy and deployment. With so much for Brittany to focus on at home, Oden says she deserves the same recognition he has earned as a veteran.
“She had three foster kids. She was pregnant,” Oden says. “I was away and she had to hold down the home fort by herself. I really think Brittany earned that [recognition]. I really think there are other military families out there who definitely have earned that as well… They serve this country just like we do.”

Completing the Circle and Sharing His Story

It was during Oden’s time in Afghanistan that he wrote most of My Full Life Circle Squared, which he describes as a military story as well as a foster care-adoption story — two themes that have more in common than one might think.
“Foster care and military families have a lot in common,” Oden says. “On the foster care side of things, we put our hearts out there knowing what could happen. We could fall in love with our children and they leave us. And yet, we still do it. Same with the military — we know what could happen. We sign up to serve our country. We could get deployed, and we may not come home. And yet we still go.”
When Elijah, Kentrell and Gabbi were placed with Oden, he says he knew they would potentially break his heart. The state’s plan was still to reunite them with their birth family, and Oden knew from experience that it was likely that most of their foster children would only be with them for a short time.
The chances of the couple adopting their very first foster placement were slim, but it was clear from the beginning that the children were meant to be a part of their family.
“The first night we got Gabbi and Kentrell, I told my wife I wanted to adopt them,” Oden says.
The Odens waited three years for the courts to grant termination of parental rights, and close to another year before they had an adoption date. During that time, the agency searched for the children’s blood relatives, hoping to find a willing and able kinship placement to take them — a common outcome for children in the foster system.

Through it all, Oden continued to bond with his children, holding onto his faith that they would beat the odds and get to stay with his family. And finally, on January 29, 2016, after 1,008 days in foster care, he got his wish. The adoption completed their family and brought Oden’s story full circle, from foster child and adoptee to foster-adoptive parent.
“The fact that we got to adopt the first placement that we got is like winning the lottery,” Oden says. “It just does not happen. We were very blessed.”
Now, Oden says he looks forward to instilling in his children the same sense of determination that he relied on during his time in foster care. He also hopes his message will reach beyond his own family through his book.
“I looked back on my life and saw the way God had blessed me, and I saw the providence of his will in my life,” Oden says. “I thought I would be doing a disservice to God if I didn’t share with other people what he did in my life.”
In his book, Oden shares his story openly, writing honestly about his past, his experiences as a foster parent, life in Afghanistan, and his belief that regardless of a person’s history, with God, they have a fighting chance at a future and a hope. He says his message to other children in the foster care system is that no matter where they came from, they don’t have to let that define their future.
His book also includes a message for prospective foster parents. Oden says he often hears would-be foster parents tell him that they don’t want to get their hearts broken — that they are afraid to get attached to a child who will likely be returned to his or her biological parents
“If you can take a kid who doesn’t have much of a chance and make an impact like my nine different homes did on me, I think you will see that it was worth it,” Oden says. “If you could open your heart, give these kids a home and show them who God is, then no matter what may happen, you know that these kids knew, at least during the time they were in your care, who God is and what love is. And that’s worth it.”

***

My Full Life Circle Squared will be released this Veterans Day, November 11, during National Adoption Month. It will be available for purchase through Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and is also available for pre-order at www.myfulllifecirclesquared.com. A portion of all proceeds from the book will be donated to foster care and military charities.
For those interested in learning more about the Odens’ story, you can contact them at fulllifecirclesquared@gmail.com.

The post From Foster Child to Adoptive Parent – The Story of Richard Oden first appeared on Considering Adoption.

Becoming a Foster Parent

French says that foster care was initially a dream of his wife, but he had no idea of the effect it would have on his personal and professional life. As he went through the training process and heard firsthand accounts of other foster care parents’ experiences, he quickly realized he wanted to offer that same kind of care to children in the system.
The family’s first placement was a girl, who stayed with them for five months. In the time French spent with her, he discovered the emotional attachment that can develop so quickly between foster families and children in their care.
“Training doesn’t prepare you for it,” he said. “It’s just something you have to work through.”
Even though it’s difficult to say goodbye, that didn’t stop French and his wife from pursuing foster care even more passionately. Today, they have one girl in long-term care and another whom they have adopted, named Jeanetta. It was Jeanetta, in fact, who played a role in French starting his blog in 2014.
“She entered an essay contest called ‘What My Father Means to Me,’” he says. “They had almost 1,000 kids throughout the metro submit an entry. I was in shock – I’d never heard of the competition – and I started tearing up, because this girl, who’s had such a traumatic life, wrote about me.”
Jeanetta’s entry made it into the top five, making French the first foster parent to reach that level. Although Jeanetta’s essay did not win, that was the last thing on French’s mind.
“I didn’t get number one, but it didn’t matter to me because this young woman,” French said. “I made an impact on her. And she made an impact on me. And I didn’t want that event to be just an event. I wanted it to spur me on to something different.”
That “something different” turned out to be his blog, Dads Unite. Along with sharing his experiences with the foster care system, he also hopes to create a community of support for fathers – particularly because of the result fatherlessness has on children in the foster care system.

Counseling Birth Parents

Currently, French is finishing his graduate school education so that he can enter the field of counseling. He is working in outpatient services, counseling the biological parents of children in foster care. He feels especially strongly about working with fathers, who often do not have a lot of support.
When French was in training to be a foster parent, he recalls feeling angry at the biological parents of the children in the system. But now working with them, he has seen the struggles they deal with and the lack of support they often have. Many of them also fall victim to uninformed judgments from others as well as self-imposed judgments.
One of French’s clients in particular struggles with his faith in his ability to provide a good example for his daughter.
“When he sees his daughter acting out, he says, ‘I’m a loser,’” French said. “And I try to tell him, ‘Would a loser be coming to counseling? Would a loser be taking parenting classes? Would a loser be doing everything they can to turn their life around? That’s not a loser.’”
The work French has done with biological parents has made him passionate about supporting fathers, and he works to make a difference by supporting those parents – and more importantly, the children who find themselves in foster care.

Advocating for Foster Children

French’s work is an effort to provide the kind of stable, caring home environment that children in foster care need. Many of these children have been through traumatic experiences, and foster parents can play a crucial role in finding safety and security – both before and after they age out of the system. The need for families is constant, due to what French calls “foster parent burnout.”
Although there is sometimes high turnover for foster parents, children in foster care are always in need of homes – especially those who are about to age out of the system.
Individuals who are about to leave the foster care system can benefit hugely from the support of a loving family. There are several programs to help people who age out, French says, but without a stable home environment, those programs are much less effective. French’s own daughter Jeanetta was adopted at the age of 19, serving as a reminder that it’s never too late to provide a forever family to someone who needs one.
French encourages loving families of all kinds to make a difference in the lives of these children.
“If there are families out there that can provide a good example, maybe they need to consider being a foster family and see the impact they could have on a life,” he said.
And as Michael found out personally, not only did foster care positively affect his family’s foster children’s lives, but it greatly impacted their own lives as well.
Visit Dads Unite to learn more about Michael French, his graduate school studies, and his experiences as a parent.

The post The Many Perspectives of Foster Care: Michael French’s Story first appeared on Considering Adoption.

• “For kids raised in stable families, no difference in well-being with same-sex versus different-sex parents” – EurekAlert
• “Same-Sex Parent Study Confirms What We’ve Known All Along” – Peacock Panache

The post Children Raised in Same-Sex Homes Shown to Have No Differences first appeared on Considering Adoption.

During the Wait

The initial steps of the adoption process are often some of the busiest for families hoping to adopt, followed by what can be a long, difficult wait to find a prospective birth mother. There are several ways to show your support of your friend during this phase of the process:
Offer emotional support. One of the best things friends and family can do for hopeful parents through every step of the adoption process is to be available and offer emotional support. Let the adoptive parents know that you are there if they need someone to talk to, and allow them to share as much or as little about their adoption process as they want
Learn about adoption. There is a lot to know about adoption, and it can be overwhelming for adoptive families to dive into the topic alone. Learning about the adoption community and adoption processes will help you better understand the challenges your friend may be facing.
Offer financial resources. Adoption can be expensive, and many adoptive families look for ways to reduce adoption costs. Attend any fundraisers that the family hosts, or offer to help organize a fundraiser on their behalf.

When an Opportunity Arises

When the phone call finally comes informing the family that they have been chosen by a prospective birth mother, it is a time of excitement and celebration. When your friend shares the news that they’ve been selected for an adoption opportunity, there are some things you can do to join in the celebration and show your support:
Provide a service. Many adoptive families need to travel when it is time for the baby to be born — often at a moment’s notice. Offer to housesit or watch your friend’s other children when it is time to for them to travel to the hospital.
Host a celebration. Some families have an adoption shower when they receive an adoption opportunity to help them prepare for their new baby. Ask your friend if they’d like to have a celebration — just be understanding if they’d prefer to wait until after placement.
Help them prepare. Even if your friend is not comfortable decorating the nursery or having a baby shower, they will likely need to make some preparations before the baby is born. Offer to lend them any essentials you have on hand, like a crib, until they are ready to start purchasing baby items.

After Placement

When the adoptive parents return home with their child, they will face an entirely new set of challenges — parenting a newborn baby!
Help them adjust to life as new parents and show your support of the family they created through adoption:
Welcome them home. Leave a sweet surprise for the new family, whether it’s balloons tied to their mailbox, flowers delivered to their door, or a home-cooked meal.
Help with everyday tasks. Parenting a newborn takes a lot of time and undivided attention. Let your friends know that you are always available and willing to help wherever you’re needed. Offer to run errands or help with the new baby or the family’s other children.
Learn about adoptive parenting. Adoption is a lifelong journey that will continue to impact your friend’s life, as well as their child’s. Learn about positive adoption language, and be sensitive to all members of the adoption community and the challenges they may face.
Every new parent needs support and encouragement, regardless of how their family is created. Offering your time, emotional support and practical help throughout the process will make your friend or family member’s adoption journey that much easier — and strengthen your friendship in the process.

The post 9 Ways to Support Adoptive Parents first appeared on Considering Adoption.