If you’re looking for books on adoption to add to your library, Heather Garrett’s My Tummy Mommy might be exactly what you are looking for. The children’s book was released last month and is available in stores and online. Garrett, a mother of four adopted children, wrote the book to offer a child-friendly perspective on what it means to have a mother, a father, and a birth mother. The main character is named after her own oldest son. In addition to her book, Garrett has also started an organization in Kentucky called Know Hope, which helps hopeful parents adopt a child. Learn more on the Know Hope Facebook page and see the book here. Sources:
At the Democratic National Convention, Jelani Freeman briefly took the stage to show his support for Hillary Clinton and talk about his experience in foster care as a child. The DNC came to a close on July 28 after speeches from a wide variety of individuals who offered their support to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Freeman joined these speakers as a lawyer and former intern of Clinton. He also took the opportunity to address his time in the foster care system: “I spent my childhood in the New York foster care system, moving from home to home with a trash bag as my suitcase. But if you’re a kid in the system who never finds a permanent home, when you turn 18, you’re on your own.” Freeman worked in an intern position that Clinton reserved especially for former foster youth. During his speech, he also talked about the work he used to do advocating for children in foster care. Watch the full speech, which was posted to Foster Club. Sources:
Last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Roy Blunt introduced a bipartisan bill titled the Vulnerable Children and Families Act. If passed, the act would potentially increase the U.S. presence in international adoptions in the hopes of finding more homes for children abroad. Those in favor of the bill state that it will strengthen the role of the United States in adoption, make it easier for families to adopt, and provide homes for the world’s most vulnerable children. Opponents of the bill say that putting an emphasis on international adoption could potentially lead to more unethical behaviors in certain sending countries. They add that child welfare initiatives that keep biological families together would be more effective and better for children. Blunt and Klobuchar, who are co-chairs of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, are hopeful about the bill’s success. “This bipartisan legislation will strengthen our relationships with nations across the world, while also making a difference in the lives of many families,” Klobuchar said. The legislation has been supported by multiple adoption entities, including the National Council for Adoption and the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Sources:
On July 7, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued a ruling that non-biological and non-adoptive parents who help raise children are eligible for full parental rights. This will likely have an impact on the way the courts view what makes a person a legal parent. The ruling was made after Maryland resident Michael Conover filed a lawsuit when he was denied visitation with his child. When Conover and his partner separated, two lower courts ruled that Conover had no rights to visit the two-year old because he was not an adoptive or biological parent. Now, the case has been sent back to the lower court, which will determine if visitation is in the best interest of the child. Conover has been fighting to see his son for around four years now, and the ruling of the appeals court has brought him one step closer. Sources:
Many people are familiar with the movie, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”, and I want to share my favorite line from it: “In Who-ville they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day!” – Dr. Seuss That is what happened to me when I became a mother. My heart didn’t start out small, but compared to what it became when I transitioned into motherhood, it felt like it was much smaller previous to that. My heart grew too big for my chest. I had so much love to give to this little infant. I poured myself into loving him until I didn’t have him anymore. So I was left with this giant hole in my heart and no idea how to express that love. This is part of the beauty of an open adoption: There are still ways to express that love depending on the level of openness that you may have with the parents of your child. I have had many opportunities to express love to my son throughout the course of his childhood with his parents. Most recently, I have put together a care package. I want to share with you some of the ways that I express love to my child:
The most important idea in communicating with my son and his parents is to show respect of lifestyle, boundaries, and their privacy. It was my decision to place my son with them, and I have massive amounts of respect for them. Creative expression isn’t just crucial for the birth mother; it’s a way to express love to a child. Children receive love in the way that we give it. Whether we color them a picture, talk to them on the phone, go see them, or send them a care package; it is all the same to a child. Of course, it isn’t the same as cuddling and hugging them every day, but that’s why I chose to put my son up for adoption, because I just couldn’t offer that to him. That doesn’t mean though that what I have to offer isn’t valuable. Accepting the reality of a situation is one thing, but then it becomes time to adapt to the situation. I encourage open adoption for anyone who desires to express love to their child throughout their upbringing. Open adoption has been the best decision that I have ever made, besides putting him with his family in the first place. – Lindsay Arielle Lindsay is a guest blogger for American Adoptions. She placed her son for adoption 7 years ago and hopes to use her experience to support and educate other expectant mothers considering adoption, as well as adoptive families.
Everyone has a story – a story of who they are, where they came from, and where they are heading. However, some people’s stories are easier to tell than others. For adopted children, their stories may be fragmented, either by a lack of information or a lack of understanding. Thus, in modern adoptions, their parents are tasked with helping them have as clear of a story as possible. Like countless others across the country, Tracey and Eric, parents of two adopted boys, found their solution of explaining their family’s adoption story through, of all places, a children’s book named “Wish” by Matthew Cordell.
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).
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.
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.
Growing up in the Alabama foster care system, Senior Airman Richard Oden says he knew the odds were stacked against him — but he was determined to fight for his future. As he moved through nine different foster homes, Oden held onto his faith and the hope that he would someday overcome the odds and help others do the same. As an adult, Oden has continued to fight for the future, both as a veteran of the U.S. military and as a foster and adoptive parent. Now, he is sharing his story of faith and resilience in his new book, My Full Life Circle Squared. Through his book, Oden is continuing to fight for hope and encouraging others to do the same. Below, read more about Oden’s story and the message he hopes to give to others in his shoes.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
One of the keys to being a successful foster parent is to understand the many perspectives of the people involved: the child’s birth parents, social workers, and most importantly, the foster child himself or herself. Michael French – foster dad, birth parent counselor, and writer of the blog Dads Unite – has glimpsed all of these sides of the foster care experience. Over the last four years, French and his family have fostered around 30 girls, some in the short-term and others in the long-term. In those four years, foster care has become a part of his daily life, impacted his career, and even brought a new addition into his forever family. His dedication to helping families over the last four years is a perfect example of the positive effect that foster care can have on so many people.
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.
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.
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.
A study conducted this month has brought us one step closer to putting arguments against same-sex parenting to rest. Conducted in April, the study showed that the general health, emotional well-being, and learning ability was about the same whether the children in the study had same-sex or opposite-sex parents. For the study, the researchers observed 95 female same-sex households and 95 opposite-sex households. All of the homes were similarly stable and came from all across the country. Many previous studies have come to similar conclusions, and this one will only further exemplify the need for equality for same-sex parents. References:
Do I have the right to see my child? Am I legally protected? Will I receive compensation? Can they change the baby’s name? Does the biological father have any rights? Does it make a difference if I am married, dating or single? Will I get in trouble if I do this? How does the adoption process work? Will my child have to go into foster care before placement? These are just some of the questions that I had when I made the decision to put my son up for adoption. No matter how firm one is in their decision, it is still scary. I didn’t want to lose my legal rights until I knew where my son was going and I had to be sure that I had chosen who I was going to place him with. In the state that I lived in, there were quite a few laws that I had to become aware of. Some examples are:
Don’t let anyone tell you what the law is, making sure that you know it for yourself. I was blessed in the fact that the adoption agency I used hired a very experienced lawyer. I highly recommend that you do your homework before choosing a lawyer and an adoption agency. Ask all of your questions up front and make sure you are comfortable with the information that you are receiving. I know that there are horror stories about adoption processes, but I believe a lot of that had to do with ignorance. My adoption agent used to joke, “You always know what Lindsay is thinking because she doesn’t hold anything back.” Sure, it’s funny, but it’s also true. I didn’t hold anything back with my adoption agent and I asked the lawyer every single question I had. I was active in the legal proceedings and made sure I understood what was going on. Because of the fact that I educated myself and was empowered in this area at the time, my son was placed directly from my arms to the arms of his parents. There was no foster care home that had to take him. His biological father didn’t win contesting. I stress knowing the law for two reasons: it is what is best for the birth mother and it is what is best for the child. Be empowered. Be educated. Be verbal. Ask questions. Do your research. Know what is happening in your process. Make sure that you are comfortable with your adoption agent and that you actively pursue and stay in the loop. Most of all, don’t give up. Get creative. I moved counties so we would stand a better chance in court. Once you know where your child is meant to be, I know you will do anything to get them there. After all, that is what we do as parents: we do absolutely everything we can to ensure the health, happiness, and success of our children. – Lindsay Arielle Lindsay is a guest blogger for Considering Adoption. She placed her son for adoption 7 years ago and hopes to use her experience to support and educate other expectant mothers considering adoption, as well as adoptive families.
