Because my children were adopted at an older age (5, 8 and 11), family has extra special meaning to them, especially extended family. They enjoy meeting second and third cousins because it gives them a sense of connection to a whole other side of their family. They get a feeling of being part of something larger than just our immediate family.
Forever Parents
In 2002, I began to chronicle my adoption journey by creating Forever Parents, a supportive online community for adoptive and waiting parents.
Over the next year, we grew our support forums to include an adoption shop and a collaborative blog. Forever Parents stayed active for over ten years, helping thousands of people during that time. Currently, I'm in the process of updating and moving all the blog posts here where they will be housed under the Forever Parents category.
What You Want Others To Know About Adoption
I asked our amazing adoption forum members what they wanted people to know about adoption, and here are their replies. I’ll share my thoughts at the end. If you’re a parent through adoption, please share what you want others to know about adoption, in a comment below.
Adopted And Proud Of It
My nine-year-old daughter love to be creative. She’s always making or remaking something, sometimes with my help, sometimes on her own. She decided she wanted to make a t-shirt using some of the fabric paint we have. I dug out a white t-shirt for her and she asked me to trace, in pencil, what she wanted to write.
Older Child Adoption: The Good, The Bad & The Hungry
Older child adoption has given me more joy, more sadness, more fulfillment, more stress and more gray hairs than anything else in my life. We recently passed our five-year adoption mark (we adopted three siblings) and sometimes it feels like five days, while other times it feels like five million years.
Support From Family And Friends While Adopting
We were very lucky that our family and friends were very supportive when we were going through our adoption. It really helped us to know the people in our life were behind our choice and they were very interested in the process.
I know others don’t always have the support they need or want so I asked the members at our adoption forums for their thoughts.
Ocala Star-Banner Adoption Article Featuring Our Family
Article published July 10, 2005 in the Ocala Star Banner. Joanne and her husband Billy wanted children, but Joanne was in her 30s when they married and did not want to go through a slew of immediate pregnancies. So, they began looking into adopting. When a counselor suggested that they consider adopting a group of siblings, they decided that is what they wanted to do.