Thankful

I am thankful for life

For my awesome parents who encouraged me to be me

For my Christian upbringing that makes me feel whole and complete and in the will of God

For the sweetest little girl God could have ever given us

For a husband who loves and understands me and adores our little girl

I am thankful to God for a wonderful family, life, home, health and an overwhelming joy!!!

Sending pictures

I was mentioning to someone I was sending some pictures and I'm working on a DVD with a fun slide show for J's biomom and the girls shocked me when she said "do you think you should really do that?, Do you really want to be so involved with her?" I was shocked. This girl knows I'm adopted too....why is it so scary for people to send pictures?

AND>>>>>HOOOORAY for Becky who is bringing home little Julia next week. I'm so happy for her, she has suffered seven miscarriages and got to be in the delivery room with Julia's biomom....how special is that? Congrats to her, hubby and baby!

November 17th National Adoption Day 2007

Plan to celebrate National Adoption Day at many of the events in the area where you live. Some local libraries are having readings....some, I have read, are reading "Forever Fingerprints". Even the President has written a proclamation for National Adoption Month, encouraging caring people to adopt children (including children in foster care). He mentioned www.adoptuskids.org .

Juno- an Adoption Movie

I will have to see this for myself, either it's light hearted and will have a good ending or it's all about making fun of birthmothers and adopted parents....

BUSY BUSY

I feel like I don't have anytime to do anything anymore! I have been so busy taking people on trips and having big gala affairs that I have not been able to do anything much less post anything or have time to think about what to post.
-I took 75 people three hours on two old buses to "the Lake" and we got on a big, beautiful yacht and had a tour of all the big beautiful mansions as we ate a lovely lunch.
-I put on a big dance at the Hilton Ballroom with 350 people, an eighteen piece orchestra and $2000 worth of prizes given away (people are selfish pigs by the way with buffet food)
-I am organizing an Ice cream social for 200 people for next week
-My In-laws came and I had to clean my house and make dinner for them, and my SIL and her family
-I took 40 bingo players and hour away to a smoky bingo hall to play 4 hours to win $100 jackpots....I HATE bingo
-I had a dog with diarrhea for three days who destroyed my carpet downstairs every time we left. So, I went through 3 rolls of paper towels and two bottles of Spot Shot and then steam cleaned the carpets when she was well.
-I have to smell everyone with perfume that smells like vomit and coffee that smells like death
-and much much more - boy, I have a head ache just from writing it all down!

In the middle of all of it I have to hear about Hillary Clinton and all her idiotic ideas, listen to Nancy "freak" Palozi and all her loser cronies talk about war (yeah, they think they know a lot about war and foreign policy) . They refuse to listen to people who have actually studied about and understand war and tactics...... boy I am just so grumpy. If Hillary does happen to win, because people are stupid enough to listen the media instead of the people who know what is what, I will be forced to move somewhere - God knows where because Europe (as beautiful as it is) has Universal Health care and everyone knows it hasn't worked for them (or Canada) so trying to find somewhere that is a great place to live (which the US is now until we have to get away from Hillary's version of the country) won't be easy.


LIBRALS ---- PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT TERRORISM CAN DO!
http://attacked911.tripod.com

okay....rambling over....

The Note

Oh my goodness, my daughters biodad is the sweetest thing. He wrote a note, ...he did. He talked about how much he missed his other two kids growing up (they are still young) because he worked too much and now they are number one...
He said J was so beautiful and how happy we always look in the pictures that they love getting. He also said even though he is NOT an emotional person he still cries when he looks at those pictures. He's going to ask J's biomom to marry him this year (she doesn't know that) and he said he got another job so he could be with his family more. He ended with "give her a kiss for me and for N, we both really miss her".

It broke my heart but made me so happy to know how much J is loved and she came from such sweet people. One day I will be so proud to let her read those letters....

I Remember

To the memory of all those lost this day six years ago...You will NOT be forgotten

A Letter

My agency invited me to speak at an adoption conference about our domestic adoption. Unfortunately, I'll be on vacation but when I e-mailed her back I asked about J's bioparents.
They e-mailed me back saying they just mailed off a letter that the biodad had dropped by the office. She said it was a very sweet letter and they love getting all the pics of J....I'm so excited to go home today and get the letter!

S*x Has a Price Tag

Pan Stenzel is an adoptee whose fifteen year old biomom was r*ped and place her for adoption in 1964. She is the oldest of 8 children… 7 adopted…1 biological, and her extended family includes 38 adopted children in all. With her degree in Psychology, she began work, right out of college with young girls who were planning to place her child up for adoption.

"After being approached by a group of concerned parents, she was asked to develop a two-hour program for the Rally for Life 1992. The rally was about s*xual abstinence. She developed the program by mixing media and music, her own talk, and the testimonies of young girls. The response of students, parents and the community was so overwhelming that Pam began to get numerous requests to speak all over the Midwest."

In 1993 a video of her presentation was made and it took off. She got so many requests for engagements that she went on a speaking circuit full time. Read more of her story HERE.

I heard her in an interview and she is funny, warm and a wonderful Christian woman who understands the heart of an adoptee. She believes she was something beautiful that came out of something bad and she wants to someday meet her biomom to thank her for choosing life.

Adoptees should know

John A Lepper, a Representative from Massachusetts, drew up an amendment to open birth certificates for adoptees born before 1974. It passed but was vetoed later....at least it's a start.

They did consider that women after 1974 thought their identity would be kept a secret ....huh? My biomom in the 60s was told it would always be a closed adoption - that no one could open the records..... I do think the adoptee should be over 18 when they get a bc or identifying info....but that's nuts.... no wonder it was vetoed ---they need to word this better.

Arthur Premiers 11th Season...
Including and Adoption Themed Episode

This coming Friday will be a big day for Binky Barnes, one of Arthur's good buddies. His family is adopting a baby girl from China and the special two-part episode is set to air September 7th on PBS (check your local listing for show times). I was able to get a sneak peak of this episode, Big Brother Binky. I must say that I'm impressed with the way the topic of adoption was handled which isn't a surprise as Arthur is an Emmy-Award winning children's program.

For those of you not in the know, Arthur is an eight-year-old aardvark. He and his friends have been learning and growing together for 10 years on PBS and are back for their eleventh season on PBS KIDS GO!. PBS KIDS GO!, which provides educational, non-commercial entertainment for early elementary school kids, will kick off its fall 2007 season September 3 though 7.

I feel that this episode of Arthur was very well thought out and researched. Many adoption experts were interviewed including Adam Pertman, the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, who consulted with the creators throughout the project.

From creator Marc Brown,

"What the series does best is reflect the lives of kids in an authentic and fun way that resonates with both viewers and their parents. Because adoption is so important to so many families, we thought it was a great opportunity for ARTHUR to explore this subject."

I couldn't agree more, this is one you don't want to miss.

Image of Binky's baby sister. Mei Lin © WGBH/Cookie Jar Entertainment 2007

Important....or not

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GEN-E-AL'O-GY, n. [L.genealogia; Eng. kind] 1. An account or history of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor; enumeration of ancestors and their children in the natural order of succession. 2. Pedigree; lineage; regular descent of a family from a progenitor. -Webster's American Dictionary, 2nd ed., Chicago: G.W.Ogilvie Co., 1890, p.497.

__________________________________________________

Genealogy has its roots in the earliest forms of society. Initially, genealogy was most likely used to avoid consanguinity, or marrying blood relatives. Early societies, as well as some surviving today, used genealogical methods to trace their ancestries back to gods, animal totems, or legendary heroes. Lineage was traditionally passed down orally, in the form of oral histories or narratives of a clan or tribe. These often were lists of names or stories of important events. Kings and heads of state in ancient Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India and China used genealogy to trace their rights to the throne, a practice that continues today. The Old Testament contains genealogies tracing lineage back to Adam, Abraham, and Noah, just as Muslim genealogies help to link descent to Mohammed, and the ancient Greeks and Romans endeavored to link their ancestry to gods.

During the Middle Ages, monks began to record regal pedigrees. As property became involved, genealogy became closely tied with rank and the inheritance of wealth and land, tax collection, and lawsuits. Also during this period, as serfdom gave way to villenage, it became important to record the descent of more of the common people. This practice increased in the 1500s, with the rise of mercantilism and the middle classes and the emphasis on individual religion generated by the Reformation.

The history of genealogy records a regrettable episode when family research became a State mandate. Under the leadership of Hitler and the Third Reich, German citizens were forced to prove their Aryan origins. Family heritage had to be traced back 4 to generations. Without this documentation, citizens could not receive working papers and they could be subject to imprisonment. The pedigree was called the Ahnenspass.

One website states: The study of genealogy can help people to better understand their heritage, can strengthen family ties, and may, in some cases, help to reduce racism by demonstrating common ancestry.

Many angry adoptees complain that they had their "heritage stolen from them". The importance of studying your past in this day and age is not to prove a royal lineage or prove you're origins to a dictator but it is to see where you have come from so you can know what your family did to get where they are.

So what has been stolen? Just the fact that a great grandmother may have come from Russia and your great great grandfather was a Polish Jew?
How does that change who you are? How does it affect who you are with your family? Will you now learn Russian or read the Talmud?

I found out I had some French in me... (i can't stand the French, so it was quite a shock and a shame actually... lol). It's interesting to know, however, and I'm not saying you shouldn't be curious....but why is it SUCH a major point with them? I would really like to know what they think they are missing out on....

Adoption 101: Why is Adoption So Expensive?

Found this post on the adoption blog site...I thought it is valuable to those adopting, questioning adoption or even against adoption...to know the reason it's so expensive.

Why is adoption so expensive? That is the million-dollar question. Some people will say it is because adoption professionals are making money off adoptions. However, many agencies are not-for-profit and seemingly have no reason to “rip off” hopeful adoptive parents. For example, I truly believe that Catholic Social Services is seeking to do what they believe is best for the child as part of a ministry for the Catholic Church.

However, even a not-for-profit adoption agency is incredibly expensive. Our agency, which is not-for-profit, had a base cost of $11,000 back in 2000, not counting any payments for the expecting mother (such as medical bills, food, or housing). If nobody is profiting and the expecting mother is not being “bribed,” then why does adoption cost so much money?

Here are some of the expenses that contribute to the cost:

• Advertising adoption services to expecting mothers and hopeful adoptive parents
• Rent, utilities, etc.
• Salaries of social workers and other office staff
• Literature for expecting mothers and hopeful adoptive parents

Does this add up to $11,000+ per adoption? It is hard to say from the outside, although I am sure the agency would assure us that they are not making a profit.

Our agency had additional expenditures that may or may not be included in other agencies' services:

• Expenditures paid toward anticipated adoptions in which the expecting mother ultimately chose to parent
• Facilitating communication between the birthmother and the adoptive family both before and after the adoption
• Hiring an adoption attorney for contested adoptions (such as a birthfather contesting an adoption at the 11th hour)
• Lifetime counseling for birthmothers who place through the agency
• Parenting classes for expecting mothers who choose to parent
• Private investigator fees to locate birthfamily or adult adoptee

Our agency provides all of these services free of charge, so somebody has to pay for them. The agency passes these expenses along to the adoptive parents as part of the adoption fee.

Knowing that our agency provides these additional services helped me to feel better about the adoption fee. However, many adoption agencies do not offer these services. For those who do not, I have no explanation for why the cost of adoption is so high.

As for international adoptions, you have two agencies that are charging for their services. You also have another country that might be using part of the fee to subsidize its orphanages or foster care system. A portion of the fee is going to be out of the hands of the domestic agency.

Back to Memory

Previous posts and comments have got me thinking again about memory and I've looked up more research on the subject.

Found a great abstract by Rachael Collie and Harlene Hayne at the Psychology Department of the University of Otago..Dunedin, New Zealand.

Some of the things that stuck out to me:

Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of researchers have argued that memory is not a unitary process, but rather is comprised of two or more neural systems that serve different functions and operate according to different principles (for recent reviews, see Eichenbaum, 1997; Schacter & Tulving, 1994; Squire, 1992a, 1992b)

This explains why the memory is not intact at birth because even though some of the memory is mature, not all is in place to form an explicit memory.

It has been argued that the memory skills of human infants are initially restricted to procedural memory but that by approximately 8 to 9 months of age the declarative memory system matures (Nadel & Zola-Morgan, 1984; Nelson, 1995; Schacter & Moscovitch, 1984).

It comes down to this.... Until 6-9 months of age (there is some argument between these ages) there is not the ability to have explicit memory... a memory of a face, smell, words.... There is a familiarization about the soothing nature of the mother's voice, smell ....but not a real, solid memory.

Declarative memory (which is fact storing) emerges at approximately8–9 months of age (Nelson, 1995).
Recent research, however, has yielded evidence of deferred imitation by 6-month-olds after the
same delay (Barr, Dowden, & Hayne, 1996)

Here is another study from New Zealand

This stuff fascinates me...

There's another one Here

I think this is the way many people feel....a very powerful drama!

Legalized Gaurdianship.... There is a place

In 2002 there were 532,000 kids in Foster Care and only 126,000 able to be adopted. Explain that to me.....what is the mindset of some of these parents who will NEVER be able to take on the responsibilities of a parent? Has anyone thought about what's best for these kids?

There are some grandparents or family members that want to establish legalized guardianship instead of adoption, they want to recognize that the child is still the parent's but they are just taking care of them.....I understand that....there is a place for it.

However, a comment from Kelly on a previous post suggests there should be no more adoption but legal guardianship. The problem with that is....the child deserves more than that....having just "legal guardianship" is really having no real family. What is the point? It's telling this child no one really feels you are a part of a family....they are left in a limbo which can be psychologically damaging, as many studies have shown. Foster kids feel this way, not really ever a true part of a family.

Adoption makes kids a permanent part of a family...the name and all that goes with that name.

I am proud to be a part of my family...a real family member, no one has ever distinguished me from my siblings....there was never a "name" to distinguish me as different.

We need to start thinking about the kids....and what's best for them...

Here is Mr. Stocklaufer. He already lost 60 pounds before his gastric bypass surgery, a local hospital donated to him, for his success in adopting. They believe he will be able to lose another 200 to 250 pounds now. Everyone (except for a small anti-adoption crowd and the Texas Child Protective Services, who has a cut-off of 400 pounds), is pulling for him. His whole community is pitching in to help.

Does anyone know people who are this overweight? I do, and they are people with feelings just like you....the person I know fights it all the time and actually has no health problems for now. He's a lot better person that some others that a child could wind up with....there are a lot of obese biological parents....what do we do with them?? should we take their children away???

I pray that everything goes well, and the judge does not discriminate against a man who's only crime is that he is 500 pounds (not for long) and high blood pressure. If high blood pressure keeps you from being a parent we better open up a lot more orphanages because we will have millions of children taken from their homes!

The Stocklaufer’s are the Missouri family who had their adoptive son Max removed because the court declared dad Gary to obese to adopt. This family is not only baby Max’s hopeful adoptive family, and the family he has lived with all his tiny life, but they also have a biological connection. Max is the biological son of Gary’s cousin.

Are they saying people overweight can't adopt? Then overweight people should NOT have biological children then either -The government is worried that overweight people may have health problems......? Oh, and what about people with MS, Diabetes, Parkinson's...and all the other things that can impair your health? Then they should not be allowed to have biological and/or adopted children....that should be a no no for them too- right?

This is the most asinine things I have heard.....

Stand up and lets show some solidarity for the Stocklaufer’s

show a blue ribbon (even wear one if you will)
to show we are standing up for them

LET THEM ADOPT!!!!
A BLUE RIBBON FOR BABY MAX!!!!

Sundenly I See.................KT Tunstall

Found a great article about KT Tunstall on the Living.scotsman.website: Go and read all of it but I thought it was interesting what she said about adoption....she's one of those millions of happy adoptees you don't hear much about except she's famous and someone asked her about it.

Her ease in her own skin is all the more remarkable given her background. Born in 1975, she was adopted at just 18 days old by a primary-schoolteacher and her physics- lecturer husband. Quite often, people who are adopted describe insecurity about their identity, confusion about exactly where they belong. But Tunstall has a very close relationship with her adoptive parents and never felt different from her two brothers, with whom she grew up in St Andrews. "I could only have felt different if they had treated me differently - and they didn't."

As a young adult, and long before she became famous, Tunstall had tracked down her birth mother and discovered she was half-Chinese and living in Edinburgh. If anything, she seems almost more reluctant to talk now than when we first met, and I can't help wondering if tracing her roots actually complicated life more than she bargained for. (She has made no further effort in the last few years to find her father, an Irish barman.) She was not driven to find the truth, she admits, just curious. "I know much more than most people in my situation. I have a huge amount of information. I certainly don't feel right now that there's more I need to know for my peace of mind."

I loved that she said she would have only felt different if her parents had treated her as if she were different.....

"She is fiercely loyal to the mother and father who raised her and believes you are a product of nurture rather than nature."

Another web site....

Julie was nice enough to link me over to birthpsychology.com where I found the craziest article
( a few actually). When does Adoption Begin? is by Marcy Wineman Axness. I am trying to think positive about what she means...at best she's saying that all mother, even birthmothers should love their children prenatally and treat herself and the unborn child well. But I'm afraid it's not that simple and she's claiming all sorts of nonsense. She is trying to claim an "umbilical affect" when it comes to adopting (note that this guy is a "primal therapist":

"British physician and primal therapist Frank Lake believed that if maternal emotion, or "umbilical affect," is negative, the fetus feels unrecognized and insignificant (Maret, 1997.)"

but she quotes one birth mother as saying :

"I now know that this left my child very alone in the womb. He must have felt that no one cared about him, since these mythical parents-to-be were nowhere around and I had vacated my motherly responsibilities to him, in deference to their feelings. Sometimes I wonder if this is why, as a seven-month-old baby, he still doesn't smile very much."

This preposterous notion is so sad to me. This makes the birthmother blame herself for her whole life and makes her feel she may not have done the right thing....the guilt she will carry is unfounded. It is letting this woman believe that the child has these sorts of feelings in the womb....and this is absolutely not true. More later...I have a life.....