Options Counseling

In 2012, I read a great post at Therapy Is Expensive. Until then, I had never heard of Options Counseling. In the adoption realm, Options Counselors counsel pregnant women, providing information and support about all of their options – abortion, adoption, and parenting. There is no pressure or coercion. In one of the first Robyn’s … Continue reading →

Pre-Birth Matching

In private domestic infant adoption, most prospective adoptive parents match with an expectant mother sometime during her pregnancy. According to the latest Adoptive Families Cost and Timing Survey, 35% of adoptive parents matched less than one month before their child was born. Only 12% matched after birth. So that means roughly 43% matched more than … Continue reading →

To the AP Who Bad-mouths Open Adoption Because Your Experience Sucked

Dear Adoptive Parent Who Bad-mouths Open Adoption Because Your Experience Sucked, I’m a mom through adoption. I have two children, adopted privately. We have open relationships with their birth families. Since becoming an adoptive mom, I’ve read so much from all members of the adoption constellation. I’ve written for Adoption.com. I was one of the … Continue reading →

Why Don’t PAPs Give Their Money to Expectant Moms So They Can Keep Their Babies?

A question that comes up in the anti-adoption and family preservation camps is “Why don’t prospective adoptive parents give their money to expectant moms so they can keep their babies?” The answer to that is really easy: Prospective adoptive parents want to become adoptive parents, or, as we prefer to be called, parents. PAPs are … Continue reading →

BM Stands for Bowel Movement

There are two common names for women who relinquish their children: birthmother and first mother. Birthmother is the more common term. (I’ll write a post about first mother someday, though.) It has become quite common in online forums to abbreviate, well, everything. People can’t be bothered to type real words, so we have all sorts … Continue reading →

Birthmother Expenses In Robyn’s Adoption Land

If I were Queen of the United States, instead of just Queen of Robyn’s Adoption Land, everyone would have free health care. The minimum wage would rise with inflation. Food servers would have to be paid minimum wage, and tips wouldn’t count towards that. Schools would be better funded than prisons. Women would have the … Continue reading →

Selfish

I was reading the adoption.com forums, when a prospective adoptive parent explained that the expectant mother with whom she’d been matched would be getting a copy of their home study before the emom relinquished. All last names and sensitive information were removed. However, she still felt that was too much information. Could she ask for … Continue reading →

Bragging About Cassie

If you’d prefer not to read a post in which I brag about how awesome my daughter is – which I totally understand – skip reading today. My blog is also read by members of my family, including my mother-in-law (Hi Sandy!) and Cassie’s birthmom, and they prefer my bragging to my opinions about adoption. … Continue reading →

Open Adoption Roundtable #4: Small Moments

This post was originally published on AdoptionBlogs.com on July 28, 2009. Republished here with permission. The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. It’s once again time for the Open Adoption Roundtable, begun by … Continue reading →

5 Hours

Dec. 3rd, 2005 at 3:33 PM 5 hours: that’s how long I talked to our birth mother(*) yesterday. How do I make a long story short? If I knew that, Max and countless other friends would be insanely happy. After two false starts and one vague idea, we had a meeting with an expectant mom … Continue reading →