Our way to Adoption

When we first started talking about adoption, a friend of ours gave us a few books to read.  She is a birth mom and wanted to be sure she gave us the kind of all encompassing views and how to get started.  One of the books was 'Adopting a Child' which talks about all the different ways to adopt and gave agency resources in the back.  The others were 'The essential adoption handbook' and the 'Things every adopted kid wants to know'.  I honestly found it rather daunting a task looking for an adoption agency on line back then since most listed for our state in the book were no longer handling adoptions.  Then a friend of ours and his wife found IAC and told us about them.  We called for more info and chose to sign up for the weekend workshops. Really informative and they gave us two more books to read, one we choose and the other was on 'Open Adoption'.  We chose 'The Kid', which was great since it is a very candid view of a gay couple adopting from a homeless mom who drinks, etc. It really helped put some fears to rest and had us doing a lot of research into the effects of drugs and alcohol and general health of the mom and how we'd proceed.  Both books were a great look at open adoption and how to be prepared to talk about it with your family and friends as well as your child as early as possible and to make it a normal conversation. The open adoption plan is what made us jump in with both feet.  We want our child to know their birth parents and for them to become extended family if they want that close a relationship. I am really familiar with closed adoption, both my mom and dad were adopted as infants by their dads.  Neither of them to this day have any contact with their biological fathers and neither want any.  I think that sums up that a family is built on love, support and caring by those who raise you rather than your genetic make up.  Sure genetics play a role but it's how you are raised in becoming who you are that matters. We have friends who were also adopted and they agree wholeheartedly. I'm so glad we chose to go this route and can't wait to share our journey with an expectant mom and build a family through open adoption.

The five books we've read so far.