Adoption Magazine

An Adoption of Love

May 16, 2012 By sharla 2 Comments

author: Annabelle Tague

It was the eighth anniversary of 9/11-the day I met my little sisters. People had said it was supposed to be one of the most exciting days of my life-something I’ll never forget. It’s true, I’ll never forget it, but I must admit that at the time, I had different emotions mixing in my heart. Only a few days before, my life was perfect-I had a wonderful family and a peaceful, quiet home. Then, before I knew it, my old life began to slip through my fingers.

When we met my two beautiful, black sisters, they were sweet and outgoing, yet their story was painful. Although they were only 3 and 5-years-old, they had endured a lifetime of neglect, abuse, and rejection. Their biological parents lived dark lives, caught in addictions and enslavement to substance abuse. In the womb, my little sisters reaped the negative effects of their mother’s alcohol and drug abuse. When they were born, their mother rarely fed them, changed their diapers, or bathed them. The floor on which they learned to crawl was strewn with open drug baggies and other harmful objects. Their father’s severe, painful abuse was, sadly, a normal occurrence. They constantly lived between pain and hunger. Eventually, after two and a half years of this lifestyle, Child Protective Services removed them from their parents’ care, or lack thereof, and placed them into the foster system.

Despite many foster families’ positive efforts, some of Foster Care is made up of families whose sole purpose in taking in children is for the extra income it provides, a stipend from the state. My little sisters lived in one such home with several other children. They had no father figure in the home, or correct care and attention. Foster Care was simply a holding place until a family came to adopt them.

We were that family. We were the ones who had been appointed, not only to take them into our home as one of us, but to train, nurture, and help them develop into successful young women. In our inquiries leading up that day, no one had told us of the baggage they would bring with them. By baggage, I don’t mean physical luggage, but rather the deep subconscious battles they must fight daily fight a result of their past. We were called upon to help them fight those battles. Because of their background, and by no fault of their own, they were trapped by emotions and thought processes, which were absolutely false. They had been forced into survival mode at a young age, and eventually, it became a way of life.

Retraining minds is no small task, but loving is an even taller order. These little girls had become my younger sisters, and I must love them. Through their emotional struggles, my peaceful, quiet home, easy life, and joy disappeared. Despite my losses, I was to give them my unconditional devotion? No, that was the line. I simply could not love them. I began to put up a false font to give people around me, including my family, the impression that everything was fine. I could not let anyone know the real difficulties I was struggling with-I thought no one would understand.

Over two years went by, I was still bitter. Never in all that time was I selflessly thinking about my family or, more specifically, my sisters. It was all about me and the new, uncomfortable lifestyle I had been given. My whole world had been flipped up-side-down, what else was I to do? I felt like my own home was foreign to me, because every time I walked through my front doors, I was hit in the face with the reality of what my new life was like. I lived in remembrance of the joy I had lost, wishing for peace I thought I could not have.

Then at the height of my pain, I was completely broken of all my bitterness. My hopelessness cracked in one word: Jesus. I was taught through God’s Word that I, in fact, was also lost, I was unlovable and totally undeserving of God’s love. No matter how many times I tried to say I was “good,” I realized that I was just like my sisters. Christ, who loved me despite my sin, was the perfect example of how I should treat my sisters. I thought no one would understand my pain, but really, I was the one who did not understand.

After this realization, my life did not become any easier, but my outlook changed. I was looking at my sisters through a different lens, one of love, not indignation. I began to understand that I was exactly like my sisters. I receive God’s love though I don’t deserve it, therefore I should do the same for my sisters.

Adoption is a beautiful process. It goes beyond the physical realm, and into the deepest parts of the spiritual realm. When we accept Jesus into our lives, we become sons and daughters of the Father-adopted into his kingdom. We are blessed with a love beyond all comprehension. Now that we have Christ’s perfect example, we are called to go and do likewise-to love like Christ has loved us.

My family and I have experienced great amounts of pain through this process, but ever greater is our joy. We have seen Christ literally changing lives. Because of his grace and mercy, we adopted a two year old little boy from the Foster Care system in 2011. He is a blessing and joy to our home. Now, we are in the process of submitting paperwork for yet another fost-adoption.

Because of Christ’s love for me, an undeserving, unlovable sinner, I can now love others with passion beyond my own strength. Although I had to experience pain to realize that fact, I am now more appreciative of my adoptive place into Christ’s family, and am passionate to share it with others.

I encourage you to pray about foster adoption. It is a perfect picture of what the Father has done for us, and a perfect way to carry out his example. Each state has it’s own foster system. Adoption from Foster Care is simple and relatively inexpensive. The United States Department of Health and Human Services stated a few years ago, “On any given day, half a million children are in Foster Care in the United States.” Unfortunately, this large number is rapidly growing. The only way to overcome it is one child at a time. Each one of these children is a human life, waiting to be loved and cared for – waiting for a family. Maybe they are waiting for you.

I am a 14-year-old student, daughter, sister, and friend. It’s through Christ alone that I live, move, and have my being. The Father has blessed me more than I could ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.)

Filed Under: Family Stories

A Birthmom By Any Other Name

May 13, 2012 By sharla 1 Comment

I am an adoptive mom. I guess by definition, I could also be called a birthmom because I also have birth children, but that’s not what the world thinks of when it hears the term “birthmom”. Birthmom is the term I heard growing up and in all my reading on adoption and in my adoption or fostering related seminars and trainings. When I spoke it, I obviously wasn’t trying to offend anyone, as it was the term most used. In fact, it was the only term I had ever heard referring to the moms my adopted children had before I became their mom.

Recently, I began to expand my blog reading (thanks in large part to the Real Adoption Blog Hop) and was actually rather surprised to find that many people find the term offensive. It became complicated to even leave a comment on some of the blogs because some wanted to be called “first moms”, others “natural moms”, others insisted they were to be called just “moms”, and still others said that they were the most comfortable with the term “birthmom”. Since I am an adoptive parent, I don’t think it’s fair of me to comment on which term I think would be most appropriate because it isn’t applying to me. But I did want to share how my thinking of “birthmom” has evolved over the years as an adoptive mom.

When we first applied to become foster parents, knowing that we would also be open to adopting, I was for the most part, afraid of birthparent involvement in our life. In particular with the kids we were planning to adopt, I felt threatened by them. I saw open adoption as a positive thing in cases when a birthmother chose to place her child, but not so when the government had stepped in and taken the child.

Very quickly, my views begin to change. Our first foster placement was a little girl, K., whom we adored. At first, I secretly hoped that her birthmom wouldn’t be able to prove that she had overcome her addiction because I wanted to adopt K. I wanted to be her mom. (I know that there are people reading whose jaws are on the floor because I actually admitted that!) I wanted her birthmom to fail so that my heart wouldn’t get broken. But I genuinely loved K. and it became obvious to me that she loved her birthmom. That is when I reached out to get to know this other woman, the one I had felt so threatened by. Once I did that, I wanted her to succeed even if it meant me losing this precious little girl because K. loved her mom and had spent almost a year and a half of her life with her. K.’s birthmom loved her daughter so much, she did something that takes an incredible amount of strength and conviction to do. She got clean and she stayed clean. She overcame addiction and her own life circumstances and difficult childhood for her daughter. I admired her for that. When K. left our house, I was heartbroken, but I was also hopeful for her future. We had forged such a relationship with her mom by that point that she called for advice and asked us to mentor her and when she got into a short-term bind about a year later, we even had K. come to live with us again for a few weeks. We were all able to be a part of this special girl’s life because we got past our insecurities and put her well-being first.

Over our eight years as foster parents, we were able to work with several of the birth families, which helped the kids to feel secure and loved and helped them when it came time for them to make the transition back to their birth family. It also helped us because we were often able to stay in their life and to know how they were doing. Was it always easy? No! In fact, in some cases, it was downright hard. But it was worth it.

Because we had seen that it is almost always best for kids to have some level of openness, when it came to adopting, our thinking had changed and we wanted birth family contact whenever possible. Of course, in cases where children are taken by the government, the reasons can vary and in some cases, it is impossible for any kind of contact following an adoption due to safety or the well-being of the child, but even in those cases, I feel that the child is better off when their birth family is spoken of in as positive of a way as possible, while still maintaining honesty at an age-appropriate level.

The more positively our kids see us view their first moms, the more positively they feel we view them.

Though we do not have contact with the birthmoms of some of our kids, we have contact with other birth family members and I have grown to care about their birthmoms as I strive to see the positives in them so that I can share those with my children. Very early on, we dropped the name “birthmom” from our vocabulary when speaking with our kids and just used their first names or said “other mom”. It was a natural evolution.

Then we adopted from Ethiopia and my vocabulary changed again. Our Ethiopian kids do not have a birthmom in my mind. They have a mom. They were with her until they were 6 and 3. She mothered them. She loved them well. She grew them into the resilient, funny, loving kids we are blessed to be able to raise. She was a mom the way I am a mom. She took care of them when they were sick and laughed when they made funny faces. She probably got annoyed when they fought with each other and worried about their futures. She did her very best and probably wondered if her best was enough. She and I could be the same except for the continent we were born in.

I feel like it would be dishonoring of her to refer to her as their birthmom. I know that it probably weirds people out when they hear me saying something to my kids about their mommy, but I don’t care. It’s the truth. They have two mommies…one they were born to and who raised them for many years and one who is honored to have been entrusted by God to be raising them now. I don’t think my acknowledging their other mom makes me any less their mom. I think it just makes me their mom.

Sharla Kostelyk is the mother of seven children, including three adopted from foster care and two adopted from Ethiopia. She started Adoption Magazine in 2011 and is the author of That These Two Will Live and Shield: A Framework of Self-Care for Foster and Adoptive Families. Sharla blogs at The Chaos and The Clutter.

Filed Under: Adoption, Open Adoption

The Sparrow Fund

May 11, 2012 By sharla Leave a Comment

author: Kelly

About 18 months ago, 6 months after our daughter Lydia became our daughter, my husband told me he had an idea. He proceeded to tell me he felt called to do something big, way big, like start-a-nonprofit-from-nothing big, an organization to serve adoptive families. He told me how he believed adoptive families needed more support, that he wanted to make sure as many families as possible got the help they needed both before and after they adopted. I smiled, thought it sounded awesome, and thought there was no way we could do it. Seriously, can we do this?

About 6 months after that, The Sparrow Fund officially launched.

Silly me. So maybe we could do it.

Since April of 2011, it’s been quite a challenge figuring this non-profit thing out.

But, all the late nights, computer time, and paperwork get chalked up to “oh, it’s not that big of deal,” when we see pictures like this.

That’s Mazie. And, we got to play a small part of her coming on home to her family.

She’s one of 11 children whose families we helped through a grant in 2011.

11 children who were alone who are now sons and daughters.

Now, that’s something to celebrate right there.

Her mom emailed me a few weeks ago with this–

We wouldn’t have adopted this sweet amazing beloved child without the medical review that Sparrow’s Fund assisted with. There were just too many unknowns in her medical reports for us to feel comfortable proceeding with her adoption without a professional interpreting them for us. The medical evaluation that Sparrow’s Fund paid for couldn’t answer all our questions, but it did help us understand the reports that we were given, consider things that we hadn’t even thought about before, and helped give us peace about proceeding with her adoption and the unknowns that remained. Thank you so very much Sparrow’s Fund for being the Lord’s hands here on Earth! Thank you for lifting the financial burden of the medical review and helping make the adoption of our Mazie Jade possible!

And, you know how we were able to be a part of this miracle? In large part because 33 businesses last May partnered with us, giving us 10% of their total sales in May to get our nonprofit started.

It’s now May, 5 months into 2012, and we’ve awarded 10 grants already, 10 grants for 10 families bringing home 15 children.

As applications have come in, I confess that I got a bit concerned—Can we get all 33 businesses on board again this year? Will that 10% be enough? We’re going to need more. Seriously, can we do this?

Silly me. There aren’t 33 businesses to Build the Nest this May. There are only 59.

And, each one has said, “We want to do what we can to support adoptive families.” And, they have chosen to do that in a significant way this month, giving 10% (or in some cases more) of their total sales to The Sparrow Fund so that we can give grants to adoptive families so that they can get the help and support they need and provide quality training to help families in every season of their adoption journey.

Check these places out—find some new fave shops. Schedule a portrait session. Buy your mom a gift. Or, buy yourself a gift, why don’t you. Share your favorite items on your online spaces, and get the word out that these places support adoption. And, thank them for stepping out to do that in such a significant way. It’s a pretty big deal. I’m a bit wowed by it all—and can’t wait to see how God multiplies that 10%, ‘cause I know He will.

Forever changed by their experience of adoption, Kelly is a stay-at-home mom/manager to 4 children as well as a professional juggler, juggling her calling as wife and mother with editing professionally, administrating a website for encouraging adoptive families, and serving adoptive families through a nonprofit The Sparrow Fund. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed, and what life looks like at My Overthinking.

Filed Under: Adoption, Adoption Fundraiser Ideas, Orphan Care

4 Ways to Heal Trauma

May 10, 2012 By sharla Leave a Comment

author: Carol Lozier

As a parent, have you ever been in a situation where your child was triggered, and before your eyes he or she became a “different” or much younger version of him or herself? We all have multiple parts within us . . . parts that hold memories, thoughts, body sensations, and feelings from positive or negative events in our life. Adopted or foster children have experienced past events that are connected to trauma or loss. One way to understand your child’s regression following a trigger is best illustrated through nesting dolls.

If you look at an assembled nesting doll, only one doll is seen but within the largest doll are five smaller dolls in descending size. Let’s correlate the doll to a child who has various age parts inside of him or her. For example, the largest doll represents a teenager and inside this doll is an older child, a younger child, a toddler and an infant.

When a child is triggered and regresses, it is a much younger part of him or her who is acting out, ie: having a tantrum, hitting, kicking, saying, “I hate you” or acting in, ie: refusing to talk, ignoring you, or shrugging his or her shoulders. If we turn again to the concept behind the nesting doll, when a child regresses it is not the largest doll having the tantrum, yelling, or making a rude comment but one of the smaller, internal dolls.

Seven-year-old Amber

Let’s look at the example of Amber who was adopted by her paternal aunt at age five. Amber was placed in foster care at the age of four after several neighbors called Child Protective Services (CPS) alleging her mother, Regina, had been neglectful. Regina became addicted to pain killers and other drugs following a serious car accident during Amber’s infancy. As time went on, Regina’s addiction worsened and she began to leave Amber alone in the house forcing Amber to fend for herself.

Today, Amber is a very quiet, withdrawn little girl who aims to please everyone she meets. She has several fears, some of which are fairly common, for example: bugs and thunder storms but some of which are not, such as: people sleeping during the day, feeling hungry and anytime people leave her. Looking at Amber, we see a seven-year-old child (the largest doll), and we do not see the younger, hurt parts within her (the smaller dolls). When Amber’s unresolved fears of loss and trauma are triggered, the two-year-old part of her psyche comes forward and is visible through her behavior, comments, facial expressions, and mannerisms –the smaller doll is out!

How Can I Help My Child?

If a child can label their feelings and self-beliefs, parents can gather two necessary clues for the healing process. When your child has been triggered, and if he or she remains calm enough to talk, use the following suggestions:

Identify feelings: Download the “Colors of My Heart” worksheet (http://www.forever-families.com/assets/files/Colors.Heart4.pdf) to help your child describe his or her feelings. Use the phrase, “Tell me about the feelings in your heart” and “What’s in your heart?” to routinely identify and discuss feelings.
Identify thoughts: Use the phrase, “What are the thoughts in your head?” or “What’s in your head?” to indicate your child’s general thoughts and negative self-beliefs. Self-beliefs are core beliefs that a child holds about him or her self that can arise from trauma or loss and may not be accurate. Negative self-beliefs usually begin, “I am not…” and examples are, “I’m not loveable” or “I am not safe allowing adults to take care of me.”
Identify body sensation: “What are the feelings in your body?” distinguishes a body memory or current feelings in the child’s body. This phrase helps a child to notice their body sensations and enables the parent to approach issues in another way.
Immediate help: In the moment ask your child, “What can I do to help you?” This is not a long term resolution but a chance to hear what your child needs to feel better.
Resolving Trauma: Talk to your child about his or her “baby part,” and use this language to denote a younger part that may hold assorted thoughts or feelings. When your child shows a younger part, view it as an opportunity to address old, unresolved issues during your talk time or therapy.

Parents, join our facebook community support group (Click on the “Community” tab on the Forever-Families website) as we learn together!

Carol Lozier, MSW is a clinical social worker in private practice in Louisville, Kentucky. Carol has spent over twenty years counseling children and families, specializing in adoption and foster care issues. She is passionate about helping children heal from past trauma and loss.

Carol is a contributing author to, The Foster Parenting Toolbox (EMK Press, 2012) and author of, The Adoptive & Foster Parent Guide: How to Heal Your Child’s Trauma and Loss.

Carol’s website, www.forever-families.com offers a biweekly blog, free downloadable tools for families, an excerpt of her book, and a supportive community of adoptive and foster parents.

Filed Under: Attachment and Trauma

What Does the Future Hold for Veronica Rose?

May 7, 2012 By sharla

On April 17, 2012, the South Carolina Supreme Court heard a case involving a 2-year-old multiracial child unlike any case the state had ever heard before. This particular adoption case has many layers and to say it is complicated would be an understatement.

It’s a case that involves an adoptive couple, a birth mother, birth father and the Cherokee Nation – all coming from different perspectives. At the core of all those perspectives, however, is an innocent child whose life took a completely different course on New Year’s Eve of last year when her adoptive parents had to hand her over to her biological father.

Veronica Rose was born to an unwed mother in September 2009. Friends and relatives close to the birth mother say she wasn’t supported by the birth father and that he wasn’t interested in raising their unborn child. She told him the time had come for her to make a very difficult decision but that she was going to do what was best for the child. With two other children of her own, Veronica’s birth mother knew she was in no position to support a third child on her own and to give her the life she deserved.

In August, one month before the baby was due, Veronica’s birth mother met the couple that she selected to raise her child. They all agreed an open adoption was the best approach. Matt and Melanie Capobianco wanted Veronica to know exactly where she came from and to have a relationship with her birth family. They welcomed her birth mother and her two children into their life.

Fast forward to mid-September to a small town in northeast Oklahoma. Veronica was born a happy, healthy baby. Matt and Melanie were in the delivery room, Matt cut her umbilical cord and they were the first to hold her. Once they received clearance from the state of Oklahoma, they returned with Veronica back to their home state of South Carolina.

Several months went by, Veronica thrived. She bonded with her adoptive parents and they bonded with her. She began to smile, coo, roll over and finally sleep through the night. Then out of the blue, everyone received notice that the birth father had changed his mind. He had agreed to the adoption but now he wanted his daughter back.

Everyone was shocked. Where had he been? Why did he want her now? Only he had the answers. He filed for custody in Oklahoma and nearly two years of court battles ensued.

At the core of the birth father’s battle was a federal law known as the Indian Child Welfare Act. Because he was a member of the Cherokee Nation that meant that Veronica would be considered an ‘Indian child’.

In 1978, Congress passed the law to protect Indian children from being removed from their Indian culture and placed with white families. At the time, research showed that Native American children were being placed with non-Native families at a disproportionately high rate. For fear of losing their culture, tribes asked for federal help.

In many cases, this law seems to have served its purpose and successfully reunited Native children with their Native families, especially children without a permanent home that would otherwise remain in the foster care system without a loving, caring home.

However, in Veronica’s case it seems odd that a law would allow a healthy, thriving child to be uprooted from a stable and loving home environment. One recent case in the state of Kansas involving ICWA would not allow a birth mother to pick the family to raise her child even though the biological father, a member of the Cherokee Nation, sat in jail. Based on the law, it’s the tribe who determines the fate of an Indian child.

So as we wait for the South Carolina Supreme Court to make their ruling, we can’t help but wonder if they are going to rule in favor of the tribe or will they rule in favor of the birth mother’s decision to personally determine who raises her child? Only time will tell. It could be early summer before we know. In the meantime, we hope they rule in favor of Veronica’s best interest since that should be paramount in all adoption cases, regardless of whether a federal law applies or not.

To learn more about Veronica’s story, visit www.saveveronica.org. You can also sign a petition for federal lawmakers to look deeper into how this federal law is being used. Supporters for the adoptive parents, Veronica and her birth mother, have set up a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/saveveronicarose ) and Twitter account (www.twitter.com/save_veronica) as well.

Filed Under: Adoption