Family to Family Adoptions Inc, Adoptive Families, Birth Mothers

A few weeks ago my four year old daughter and I attended a birthday party for one of her friends. When we arrived the kids had a bunch of different games, a moonwalk, putt putt golf and pedal bikes to choose from to play with. Then they loaded all the kids up first on a trackless train and then a hay ride and took them for a ride. There were many different animals to see, pony rides, and they topped the whole party off with a magic show. My daughter had so much fun and is still talking about this party.

Sound like fun? Think your kids would enjoy this place? You’re in luck. Family to Family decided to switch venues for our annual picnic this year to this fun-filled, kid-friendly place located inRichmond,Texas. As usual the picnic will be held the second Saturday in October and we booked the whole place from 10 am until 2 pm. Mark your calendars! Our annual picnic that we host every year is a great way to meet other adoptive families, to catch up with the staff and for your kids to have way too much fun. Come and join us at Hitchin Post Stables on Saturday, October 12, 2013. Bring lunch and snacks for your family. Family to Family will provide drinks and dessert and Hitchin Post will have snow cones and popcorn. Hope to see you there!

This past Saturday, many of our adoptive families, both domestic and international, joined us for our annual picnic. Thank you to all of those families that came out.

As usual if you attended the picnic and have some pictures to share with us, please feel free to email them to me at jennifer@fam2fam.org or post them to or tag us on our Facebook page.

Please also take a minute to complete this very short survey about the picnic. We want this event to be enjoyable for everyone so we would love your feedback. Thank you in advance for taking a couple of minutes to fill this out.

If you were not able to join us, we hope to see you next year. At the picnic we debuted our 2013 Family to Family Calendar, which is one of our biggest annual fundraisers. If you would like to purchase a calendar, please contact us for more information. Happy Fall Y’all from the staff at Family to Family.

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An adoption workshop has been added to our events and schedule page for April 28, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. If you are interested in adopting or would like to know some more information about the adoption process and our agency and reside in Virginia or the surrounding areas, please join us for this workshop. The workshop will be held at the home of one of our adoptive families. Our Executive Director will be there along with some adoptive families that have completed adoptions through our agency. If you would like to attend, please call our office at 281-342-4042 or email Maxine Seiler at max@fam2fam.org to RSVP and get the location’s address.

We want to thank our hostess and all of the families that will be there for this workshop. We look forward to meeting some new adoptive families. If you are interested in possibly hosting a workshop in your area, please contact us.

On October 8, 2011, our staff and adoptive families gathered together at Dewberry Farm in Brookshire, Texas for our annual adoptive parent picnic. We look forward to the picnic every year. As a social worker at the agency, I have the privilege of working with the adoptive families and getting to know them through the adoption process. Our adoptive families are a part of our “family” at the agency and through the process of adoption a relationship is formed with each of them. As you can imagine we have quite the extended family after 10 years of placements. I get the honor of not only doing the home studies but the post placement visits for the majority of the families in our area. I love going to the picnic and seeing all of the kids and how much they have grown over the year.

 When we gather at the farm, we have the chance to catch up, eat together, have some cake, and watch our children have a great time being kids. There is so much to do there such as pig races, hay rides, zip lines, pony rides, pumpkin patch, and more. I know my two girls are exhausted when we leave from all the fun. So if you did not make it this year, we missed you. If you were there, thank you from all of us at Family to Family and please send us pictures of your fun-filled family day. We look forward to seeing every one next year.

When you opt for private infant adoption, your process may be a little different than if you were going through international placement or placement from foster care, but the emotional roll-a-coaster effect is still present. In foster care placement as well as international placement, after you have qualified, had your home study, processed all of the paperwork, then usually a child will be ‘referred’ to you for placement. Naturally, you have the right to refuse a referral, but the average person doesn’t. In private infant adoption, the birth mother and/or birth father choose the adoptive family.

Today, almost all birth mothers want a semi-open or open adoption rather than a closed adoption with the adoptive family. Because of today’s recommended best practices, almost all agencies allow the birth mother to choose the family she wants as parents for her baby. Studies by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in Washington D.C. have shown that the more open the adoption, the better it is for the adoptee, the birth family and the adoptive parents as well. That is a hard concept to get your mind around when you are rebounding from years of failed infertility treatments and you have watched too many ‘adoption stories’ on the Lifetime Channel. But it is true.

Most adoptions are completed without any problems and the adoptive family and birth family forge a real bond and a lifelong relationship. However, you don’t know how your process will proceed when you begin this challenging and emotional experience. I recommend that you opt for a semi-open adoption to begin with and leave the door open for a more open adoption if it is possible. A semi-open adoption is one in which you meet the birth family and are given an opportunity to develop a close bond and relationship with each other and attend the birth of your child. This type of relationship may include your extended family as well as the birth family’s extended family. The difference in this type of adoption and a fully open adoption is no identifying information is exchanged by the parties. I hope and pray that you will wind up with an open adoption in which you and the birth family have exchanged identifying information and are contacting each other directly and maybe even meeting periodically so your child and any siblings can learn about each other. But you don’t know if that is possible in the beginning of the relationship. The openness of your adoption can be increased as time goes on.

In our agency, a full 25% of our adoptive families and birth families have opened their adoption to include the exchange of last names and identifying information by the actual birth of the child. In most of those cases, the birth mother puts the name the adoptive family has chosen for the child as well as their last name on the baby’s birth certificate. In many cases, the adoptive family and their extended family members as well as the birth family and their extended family members are present at the birth and spend hours or days together making memories for the sake of the child they all love.

Even if they don’t have a fully open adoption from birth, another 20% of our adoptive families are able to grow their relationship with the birth family into a fully open relationship within the first two or three years. So our anecdotal experience is that roughly ½ of our placements are fully open eventually. This is not perfect, but we feel that it respects the needs and wishes of all parties involved.

If a mother matches with a family and is unable to make that attachment and bond with them for some reason, she may ask for a rematch. Also, we have families who for one reason or another have agreed to a match under circumstances in which they find impossible to continue and have asked for a rematch. Our agency believes that you and the birth mother are the only people who have a right to make decisions about what type of an adoption you want. Occasionally, a mismatch will happen. That is fine. We will be glad to rematch both parties, because this adoption is about them and the baby, not our agency or our time line constraints or our cash flow or our ego. It’s about you as the parents, both biological and adoptive, and most importantly the child.

The scenario I have described is a wonderful process to watch from the outside as well as to live from the inside. The only way to achieve this type of adoption is to take time with the decision making process. Don’t be rushed into a decision and don’t be afraid to voice concerns about the situation. My experience tells me that if you are having concerns about the birth mother and the openness of the adoption, then she is too. When both parties are participating in the type of adoption and placement that they need and want, then very little else can go wrong.

We have just posted our events coming up in August, October and November to our Events and Schedules page.

These events include two adoptive family trainings and our always popular annual family picnic. Be sure to check the schedule for dates and times, as well as location information with maps to help you find it if you are not familiar with the area.

We have pictures available from our 2006 Family Picnic at the Oil Ranch in Hockley, Texas if you would like to see what a good time was had by all who attended! We hope to see you all there!

On Sunday July 25, 2010, a church in our area reserved a space and brought in lunch for our birthmothers. The birthmothers spent several hours doing craft projects and talking to the small group members from the church. They also were presented with gift cards to local stores and restaurants. Each of our birthmothers had positive comments about their afternoon and was very appreciative.

Family to Family would like to thank Grace Methodist Church in Katy for their time and thoughtfulness. Our staff and our birthmothers appreciate their support.

The adoptive family training workshop scheduled for Saturday, February 20, 2010, has been cancelled. If you have any questions about this or the required number of hours of training for adoptive families, please contact Family to Family.

The 2010 Family to Family Calendars are ready for sale! Prices start at $15 per calendar but if you order 5 or more than just pay $12 each and if you order 10 or more then you pay just $10 each. Please contact us at 281-342-4042 or via email at deb@fam2fam.org if you would like to place an order. The Family to Family Calendar is an annual fundraiser with pictures of our adorable children placed for adoption. Thank you for your support!