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Brian Wildmo and Brad Mahon have adopted a newborn baby and they’re crediting Facebook with making it happen. “We never expected this,” Brian told WJRT. “We keep having to pinch ourselves because I feel like we’ve been in a movie.” The Michigan couple had been fostering for a year when they decided to adopt a baby. To help them get the word out, they created a Facebook page and started networking.

This guest post is by Rachel Garlinghouse, an adoptive parent and author. 1.  She’s cocooning. Children who were adopted, whether at birth or an older age, need time and space to bond with their new parents.  Likewise, the parents need to bond with the child.  Though everyone is banging on the proverbial door to greet the new child, the family needs time just to be.  Sometimes this is out of absolute necessity:  a child who is withdrawing from drugs, a child

This guest post is by Daisy Finn, an adoptive mother. Four years ago my husband and I became parents. We adopted a baby. The reason we did it was quite common—inability to have kids of our own. Back then the diagnosis sounded like a curse and it seemed like our lives had stopped, but we managed to find a solution—adoption. We didn’t need much time to come up with this decision. We’d been planning to become parents for years, read

Joining an adoption profiles website is a proven way to connect with expectant parents who are looking at adoption for their baby. But how do you find the best one? Or rather, since there are so many ones to choose from, how do you find the one that’s best for you? When we launched our first website 15 years ago, the internet was still in its infancy and there were only a handful of places to post your profile. Since then, as more

This guest post is by Paige Knipfer, an adoptive mother.   Dear Maggie, We have yet to have our daughter as long as you did. She is now six months but you carried her for nine months. You carried her all that time knowing that you would eventually place her for adoption. To me, that is the true definition of humility and sacrifice. You chose to keep her in this world and provided us with a family. Although it’s a closed adoption and there

This guest post is by Jennifer Ruth, a waiting adoptive mother In my job as a Student Achievement Specialist, I travel from campus to campus talking to teachers and students about topics that increase how much students can achieve. One of my most popular presentations is based on the book, ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’ by Carol Dweck out of Stanford University. Carol Dweck’s work identifies two mindsets, growth and fixed. Your mindset is your belief about your most basic qualities and abilities.

This guest post is by Kathy Rau, an adoptive parent.  Whether you are new to the adoption world or have experience with adoption, the process can set you into a whirlwind of emotions: joy, fear, excitement, anticipation, worry, stress and pure giddiness! But in the end holding your new child makes it all seem long forgotten. I am an adoptive mom of four beautiful children. Each and every one of my adoptions was uniquely different. The final outcome, however, was the same: a family! I want

This guest post is by Paige Knipfer, an adoptive mother.   The day I met my daughter and her birth mother was one of the happiest and saddest days of my life. When that day came it didn’t seem real. It felt like an out-of-body experience. I know that many people frame an adoption placement as being “picture perfect.” But to do so distorts the reality of what it really is. As an adoptive parent, you want to be in the moment

This guest post is by Rachel Garlinghouse, an adoptive parent and author. I see it often.  Social media posts from parents who are new to adoption asking what books to read to their kids, how to answer their child’s questions, how to answer strangers’ questions (when asked in front of the kids), and how to explain adoption to children. These are certainly common things to wrestle with.  As a mom of three children who came to me by adoption, I certainly