Choose Life, Choose Adoption

An interesting thing about human nature.  People will follow the rules until they run across one that they don't believe in.  You can pass and enact all the laws in the world, but if people don't agree with them, they won't follow them.  The only real way to get people to follow what you are trying to change is to change people's attitudes and beliefs.

An example of this is abortion.  Currently there are few restrictions on abortion as opposed to many years ago when there were many more laws restricting the act.  This has created lots of debate about whether or not how much or how little should abortion be allowed.  But one point is constantly missed, no one believes that abortion is a good thing.  There may be argument over whether or not it is necessary, but no one embarrasses it as a positive thing.

No woman has ever found out that she was pregnant and with great excitement decided how terrific it is to now go and get an abortion.  No sane woman that is.  I cannot imagine what the thought process is and what emotions and feelings a woman has when she finds out she is pregnant.  If a woman has made up her mind to have an abortion, no laws will stop her if that is what she wants.

A better solution than trying to repeal or pass more laws is to change people's mindset.  If adoption is promoted as an alternative to abortion, there is a chance that the mother may not abort her child.  Through education and promoting a choice of allowing your child to be placed with a loving family, more women my opt for adoption.  The most common reason why women consider abortion is that they don't believe they will be able to raise their child.  Showing them that open adoption works and that their child will not disappear after she gives birth may help them change their mindset about abortion.

As a society we need to promote adoption as another way for people to have a family or expand their family.  When we removed the negative stigma of adoption it will become a viable solution for an unwanted pregnancy.  This will not work in all circumstances, but for every child that is adopted is one less that is aborted.  This is how we can change the mindset of abortion one pregnancy at a time.

You may ask is this a concept that everyone can get behind?  I truly believe so.  If you are pro-life then you would support open adoption to help save the life of the child.  If you are pro-choice you would support open adoption since the child will have a loving family and it doesn't force the birth mother to raise a child she wouldn't have been able to.  Solutions are forged when common ground is found between two conflicting beliefs.  In the case of abortion the solution is open adoption.

Adoption and The Oscars

Many of you may know in my spare time I also write a blog about movies called The Academy Award Project. The original goal was to see every film that had won best picture. Along the way I decided that some of these films were not that good and wondered how did they win? So I started to watch the films nominated for best picture and then would compare them against the film that won and then write about it on the blog. I have now seen all films that have won best picture and over four hundred of the nominated films to currently sit at 494 of 512.

Some of the films I have seen that were nominated have adoption as a main theme in them. Here are five that I have enjoyed and would recommend you watch them sometime if you haven't seen them already.

Blossoms In The Dust (1941) - Nominated for four awards including Best Art Direction (Color) which it won the Oscar, Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Actress the very talented and beautiful Greer Garson. Based on the life of Edna Gladney, although rather fictionalized, who was a board member of the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society. The film shows the negative stigma of adoption back at the turn of the 20th century and how she spends her life helping to find adoptive parents for orphans.

In real life in 1936 Edna Gladney got the Texas legislature to have the word illegitimate taken off birth certificates for adopted and abandoned children. Ten years after the film was made she helped get a bill passed that gave adopted children the same inheritance rights as biological children. Very few films are made showing adoption from the view of the agency working to place children, but this one is really done well.

Secrets & Lies (1996) - Nominated for five awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay. A young woman decides to find her birth mother after her adoptive mother passes away. She was born in the late 60's when adoptions were closed and even as an adult people try and talk her out of meeting her birth mother. She finds her birth mother and meets her biological family in a very intense drama.

This film is shown from the viewpoint of the adoptive child as well as the birth mother as they come to terms with ending a closed adoption as they try and form a relationship. And seeing how this film was nominated for all major awards is enough to prove that it is an exceptional movie and one you should see.

Juno (2007) - Nominated for four awards including Best Original Screenplay which it won an Oscar, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. A teenage girl gets pregnant and while considering an abortion decides to carry the baby to term and seek out an adoptive parent. She finds a family that is looking for a child but agree to a closed adoption. The film then shows the rest of the pregnancy until the child is born.

Shown from the viewpoint of the birth mother but not so much from the adoptive family. It does a very good job at showing the emotional circumstances that a birth mother must go through from finding out she is pregnant to delivery. Very well acted and a simple film done well.

The Blind Side (2009) - Nominated for two awards including Best Actress which it won an Oscar for Sandra Bullock and for Best Picture. Based on the life of Michael Oher, tells the story of a teenager adopted by a wealthy family after spending years in foster homes. Because of his large physical size he plays football and while being recruited for collegiate teams runs into a problem with the NCAA accusing his adoptive family of only adopting him to go play football at their alumni. Currently Michael Oher is an offensive lineman with the Tennessee Titans.

This is shown from the adoptive child and the adoptive family viewpoints, but does show how adoption can happen even if the child is not an infant or very young. As well it shows that it is never too late to give a child love. A good enjoyable film to watch if you haven't seen it already.

Philomena (2013) - Nominated for four awards including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. Based on the real life story of an Irish woman who held on to a secret for fifty years that she was pregnant as a young woman. Her father sent her to a Catholic Abbey where after she gave birth was forced to work for four years to pay off the cost for her stay. During that time the Abbey adopted her child to an American family and was taken to the United States without her approval. Her daughter tells this to a journalist who goes with her to America and help her find her child while he writes about her story.

Shown from the birth mother viewpoint of trying to find her child, this film once again shows that not very long ago adoption was considered a shameful thing. Hopefully in the future this will be considered an outdated philosophy that people will be confused why did it even happen. See this film when you can, it's a very powerful simple well done movie.

And make sure you check out The Academy Award Project to see what films I have seen and my rankings of them after I finish each year and decade. Soon to be expanded to Best Director!

Still waiting

It seems like we are in the hurry up and wait mode. Hurry up and raise money so that we can enter the adoption pool. But wait till the home-study is done. I know that it takes time for things to happen and that our counselor at the agency has other clients so we wait for her to finish.

While we are waiting here some random thoughts.I thought I wasn't going to write about this but have changed my mind. I read something on facebook that made me want to throw up: a woman in England is having an abortion because she wants to be on a television show and having a child would interfere with that. Are you kidding me? Maybe you should have thought about that before having sex. I can't believe that we have become a society that thinks it is okay to abort your child so that you can be on television. My hope is that she will not get to be the star that she wants to be but who knows.

My next random thought: I'm so glad that people are willing to chose adoption over abortion because that means that one day I will be a mom.

O is for open

Christiana has been participating the A to Z challenge which challenges you to write a post about each letter of the alphabet for the month of April. If you take Sunday's off that gives you 26 days. Here is the entry for O. 

O is for open. Open is a interesting word since it can be used in some many ways

1. is the store open yet?
2. what time does the library open?
3. will there be an open bar at your party?
4. what is open adoption?

The last one is the one that I want to focus on right now. My husband and I are in the middle of an open adoption which according to Wikipedia is: Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other's personal information and have an option of contact. That is a good definition and one that I would support.

I have to be honest and say that sometimes people who I speak to do not understand why we would want an open adoption. Here are some of the questions and my answers.

• Won't it cause problems in the future they ask?  Nope. It is up to you to make sure that it doesn't.
• Won't the birth parents end making decision for the child? Nope. The adoptive parents are the parents and they make all decisions.  If they wish the can consult the birth parents but it is up to the adoptive parents to make the final decision.
• How will the child know who real parents are? This is the one that bothers me the most: A child's real parents are the one who loves and takes care of the child. That to me is the definition of a parent.

For more information about our adoption click this FB page: https://www.facebook.com/mayeradoption

This post first appeared on the Magic Bag of Words blog: http://wp.me/p3hOqT-3K 

Thank you

Adam using his sharpest crayon

Remember to precharge the book
before reading

Thank you to all who have bought Taste the Purple a novel by Adam Mayer. All of the proceeds of the sale go directly to our adoption fund. By buying the book you have put us one step closer to our goal of adoption.

Some editions will unpack themselves, not available
in all areas, restrictions apply

Taste the Purple is the first in a series of fundraisers that we will be doing in order to raise money. Here is more information on how you can buy Taste the Purple.

Adoption not Abortion

There is one common thread about adoption and abortion, almost everyone has the same feeling about them.  No one I know likes abortion.  I am not making an argument in favor or against it, people who know me know my personal position on the issue.  But people will debate and take strong positions over if abortion should be legal or restricted or illegal, yet no one will say that it is good thing.  Of this there is agreement.  Conversely on adoption, almost everyone likes adoption.  Not many people have done it, but when people here that you are pursuing it, you get kind words of support.

Now combining these two issues is an important thing to do, they need to work hand in hand.  Every adopted child is one less child aborted.  No matter where you stand on the abortion issue this is something you can't argue against.  There are many families who want to adopt a child, Chris and myself as one of them.  And I hope that if a woman is thinking about abortion to be told that there are many people like us who can't have children of our own and want to raise a family.

For me I see it as a win-win-win situation.  This is where open adoption comes into play.  The first win is for Chris and myself as we get the opportunity to raise a child and give them all the love and opportunity that we can provide for them.  The second win is for the birth mother who will know that her child is going to get the upbringing that she may have not been able to provide for the child.  And since she will become part of our family, and hopefully her family too, she will be a part of the child's life and not have the mystery of where her child went.  And most importantly is the third win, the child gets to be born and live.

The Pain of Waiting

Sitting in a recital listening to kids play and just wondering if I will get that chance. The chance to watch my child play piano after being taught to play by their Grandmother. The chance to watch my child perform for family and friends. The only way I can get that chance is by the miracle of open-adoption and with the help of family and friends.

Some days it seems that we are so far away from adoption and other days it seems so close. Right now Adam and I are in the middle of the open-adoption process. After a very long time we are now completing the home-study phase

At this moment I am overwhelmed with the process and how much we have to still do. The amount of stuff that I have to juggle in order to make this happen sometimes overwhelm me. I have to find a way to raise almost $20,000 before we can finalize the adoption; find someone to hire me knowing that all of the money that I make will go to our adoption; writing blog posts about our adoption and trying keep a balance between light and fun and emotional; planning fund-raising events; and keeping up with the paperwork that the adoption agency requires.

For example we have to come up with  four to five thousand to enter the adoption pool. How you ask? The answer: I have no idea but somehow we will find a way. That is what Adam and I always do: find a way. I know that in the end it will all be worth it when I hold my child in my arms. But why does getting there have to be so hard....

The Process: home-study vist

Now back to our journey that will hopefully end in an adoption.

Our home-study seemed to go well. The person from Open Adoption and Family Services came out to our house to interview us and to do a walk through.  She had a check list that struck me as funny since some of the things were: do you have running water; do you have heat; do you have a working phone. Yes of course we do and in my opinion you should not consider adding to your family if you do not.

The only things Adam and I have to add is a smoke detector in the kids room. There is one right outside but the law requires it to be inside the room so Adam can add one for  little cost.  We also have to write out an escape plan. Our house is pretty straight forward but since it is required it will be done.

Turns out that the home-study visit was compressed in other words a couple of visits were combined into one since Adam and I have been waiting for so long to meet with the counselor from Open Adoption and Family Services. I have to admit that it is freaky to watch someone write down everything you say and still manage to ask follow up questions. I did get used to quickly but still.

The questions were not that bad even-though they cover your life; your career; your relationships with friends and family and anything else that you can think of. The questions all needed to be asked because a birth parent may use this document as a resource for whether or not they will choose you to raise their child.  A birth parent may see the home-study before they meet you and that is why it must be so detailed.

Knowing and understanding that did not make answering the questions easier it made it possible to know that it was going to be used for a good cause. That cause is the writing of the home-study and hopefully will end in an adoption for Adam and I.

The home-study being finalized means that Adam and I are one step closer to pool entry.  Wow those are scary words to write.

So now is the time to remind you to please purchase your copy of Taste the Purple.

Where Will Our Child Be From?

 

There are children all over the world who need love. You see famous entertainers travel to the far reaches of the world to adopt a child and bring them back to America. Many agencies are setup to do international adoption. Many people adopt from poorer nations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America and bring the child to our culture giving them opportunities that they would have never gotten if they had stayed in their nation.

I believe that any child who needs love and is adopted, no matter where they are from, is a wonderful thing. But my wife and I have always held the belief that while we recognize that there are children all over the globe who need love, there are many here in our own country. And not only that, but many here in our part of the country, in our state, in our community. Yes I want to help people all over the world, but my wife and I feel that we should take care of children in our community first. Then we can worry about the rest of the country and then the world.

One of the reasons why we chose our adoption agency is that they only do adoptions from Oregon and Washington. This allows us to give a child love and a better opportunity in life here in our own community. It also helps promote an open adoption since the birth mother and family will most likely live in our state or close enough to get there by car. This is better for the child, which when you boil it down, is the most important thing of all.