What Open Adoption Actually Looked Like for One Family (Hint: Not What You’d Expect)
Most of what you can find online about open adoption focuses on the beginning. The match meeting. The hospital. The first few visits. The careful, hopeful, nerve-wracking early phase where two families are figuring out how to exist in each other’s lives. What...
Three Failed Adoption Matches and What They Taught One Family About the Wait
Nobody tells you about failed adoption matches before you start the process. Not really. They mention it might happen, somewhere in a pamphlet, in a single paragraph, in the tone of a footnote nobody reads. But the actual experience of matching with a birth family,...
What One Birth Mother Wishes She’d Known About Open Adoption Before She Said Yes
Let’s be honest: most people who call us about open adoption have already googled it. And most of what they’ve googled has scared the daylights out of them. Social media is full of contested stories, complicated dynamics, and cautionary tales. What you...
What to Do When You’ve Chosen the Wrong Adoption Agency
Nobody sets out to choose the wrong adoption agency. You do your research. You compare the wait times, the costs, the reach. You pick the one that looks strongest on paper. And sometimes, that is exactly the problem: paper cannot tell you how you are going to be...
What LGBTQ+ Couples Should Know Before Choosing an Adoption Agency
If you’re an LGBTQ+ couple who has started researching adoption, you already know the drill. You’ve hit at least one agency website that made you feel like an afterthought. You’ve encountered at least one ‘we welcome all families’...
Raising a Transracial Family: What Meredith and Adam Wish They’d Known Before Day One
Two years of infertility. One decision to stop asking ‘why isn’t this working’ and start asking ‘what puzzle are we actually supposed to be solving?’ And one month between matching with their son Theo’s birth mother and the day Theo...
Bravelove – Why Adoption? Courtney’s Story
Adoption & Beyond is a partner agency with BraveLove – a pro-adoption movement dedicated to changing the perception of adoption by acknowledging birth moms for their brave decision – and together we bring you some honest stories directly from birth parents. Watch...
Is Open Adoption Really That Scary? (Spoiler: Less Than You Think)
Check out the video on my YouTube channel HERE. Let’s be honest. Most people walk into open adoption carrying a mental suitcase stuffed with worst-case scenarios. Will it confuse my child? Will the birth parents show up uninvited? Will I feel like a guest in my...