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  Thre are many universal experiences in adoption: a lot of highs with a few lows.  A common "low" is the experience of well-intended, but not-so-helpful, unsolicited advice from family and friends.  Before I go on, I’ll preface with saying that my family has been uniquely supportive and the hard-to-swallow advice has been minimal.     Yet I write because almost  every adoptive family I know has experienced the frustration of family members and/or friends suggesting how to parent or how not to parent their...

Our life experiences have so much influence on our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs.  Because of God’s plan for our family, adoption is "normal" for our biological daughter.  All of her siblings joined our family by adoption, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at her unquestioning acceptance.  However, occasionally, an incident arises that reminds me again, just how "ordinary" adoption is in her mind.  Let me share an example . Recently, family members (I’ll call them Bob and Sue) announced that...

I struggle with the term "color blind."  I’m not talking about the inability to distinguish between certain colors, but rather, about the assertion that if everyone would just ignore the color of people’s skin, racism would come to an end. I know that this concept has good intentions, but I see a fundamental flaw.  By intentionally ignoring part of who a person is, are we sending a negative message? If we decided to be gender blind, what message does that send me about...

I admit that I am a selfish individual. At the end of a long day at work, I sometimes do not want to read to my kids. I want to plop down in my chair in front of the television and just pause for a while. But by doing so, I am missing out. Even though they want me to read the exact same story that we have read every night for the past month, even though they are able to...

After 3 children and a few disappointing miscarriages we started seriously talking about adoption.  The specialists were clear – we could likely have more biological children.  Our hearts were leaning elsewhere.  We dreamed of growing our family in another way.  The definite feeling – the time is right  feeling– hit my husband first.  It was September.  He patiently waited for me to jump on board.  While we contemplated when and how to start the process, we attended Katelyn’s Fund Support meetings.  Surrounded in the...