Yesterday my mom hopped a flight back to Colorado a few hours before Beth and I flew to Tampa for the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) conference. Mom and I had been together for over a week. All in all we did OK with that much togetherness.

She listened more attentively and was less surprised about the prospect of us adding another child than I thought she would be. She says nothing surprises her any more. Touché!

Mom ended up being witness to one of Beth’s... more

Several of you have inquired about Beth’s response to the concept that our family would add another child. Her input is vital. The very last thing I want to do is completely upset her equilibrium. However, having said that, I also think she is somewhat falling into a Princess mode and it might not be a horrible idea for her to have a sibling more her age. She obviously isn’t an only child right now, but she is clearly the youngest. She is essentially... more

In the past few blogs, I have been sharing with you my family’s foray into the possibility of another adoption … a child disrupting from another family.

I mentioned in this post about Tyler, a young man from the Ukraine who spent 3 months with us before I found him the perfect placement … where he is thriving, enjoying his Ukrainian big brother and other multi-ethnic sibs, and learning what operating in a family is all about.... more

I have been writing about the unfolding of a situation in my personal life that has a high probability of resulting in another placement in my family. I have been in regular communication with a family who is disrupting a child. While I was most definitely not looking for another child, the circumstances in this situation are unique and I am not closing the door to the possibility.

In this... more

Continuing with my discussion of disruption, perhaps it would be wise to begin with a definition of “disruption”. Technically, what I am discussing here in terms of this family is a “dissolution”, meaning the legal termination of an adoption that has been legally finalized. A dissolution is to adoption what a divorce is to marriage. A disruption is the termination of a placement that hasn’t been legally finalized, which is actually... more

Part One

In my last post, I told you some exciting news. My family is slowly, carefully, methodically moving forward with considering another placement. This is not something we were looking for, but … sometimes the most awesome things in life are not events or situations you planned for …

I was contacted by a mom needing advice and assistance for her family. This is not unusual, as I receive these kinds of requests more often... more

Sometime soon, I am scheduled to talk to yet another mom about disruption. This mom needs support after the fact. Some families need support in making a decision. Some have already decided to move forward with disruption and need assistance about how to make it happen, and then they need post-disruption support. I have had personal experience with disruption, on both sides of the equation. My family has both disrupted a placement and adopted a child who disrupted from her first placement (Beth). I have acted... more

Tonight I am in St. Louis, with four hours to go tomorrow. We’ll head directly to the location of the second day of Beth’s swim meet. She competed tonight, quite successfully from what I hear. We landed in our hotel later than normal and my mom is crashed. (She said I could stay up and write my "blurbs" while she went to bed!!) We didn’t leave Tennessee until about lunchtime. I am still trying to process what I experienced this past twenty-four hours in that nursing home. I can’t help but wonder if I will see my relatives again during their... more

Yesterday while I was on the road I made good use of my time (and played with my new Bluetooth earpiece) and returned several phone calls. One call was to one of the most awesome moms I have met in this gig … the mom I wrote about in this post. In a nutshell, her son has serious attachment and trauma issues as a result of repeated medical procedures. He’s not yet three years old, but he’s quite angry. He sees his mother as both the... more

I am writing this from a hotel room in Tennessee, while my aging mom sleeps (Parkinson’s disease slows her down) and in between visits to my mom’s cousin and his wife who are wasting away by millimeters in a marginal nursing home here in Tennessee. These are folks who never had kids, but who would have made great parents. Fred has Parkinson’s as well, and is intermittently “with it” and not. Irene has been bed-ridden for months, is losing her hearing, and is far less with it than she was when we last made this long trip.

I... more