This is the final week of my adoption book giveaway, and things are heating up! Thanks to all of you who have emailed your thoughts to me. That reminds me. I didn't mention email entries in my previous post, but certainly, email counts. I appreciate that those of you who wanted to share took advantage of email as a more private way of talking with me.
Here's a recap of the details:
The topic for my keynote address at the Parenthood for Me (PFM) Family Building Dinner on April 10th is going to be Birthparents: The Hidden Treasure of Adoption.
I'm giving away a signed copy of my book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective. How can you get your name in the drawing?
Sign up to follow my blog. (1 entry)
Refer someone else who signs up to follow my blog. (1 entry)
Tell me about your relationship with your own or your child's birthparents.
(2 entries) For example, Do you have one? What difference does it make for your family? How does it benefit you or your child? (or if you don't have a relationship, what impact does this have?) Have your thoughts or feelings about birthparents in general and yours or your child's, specifically, changed over time? In what ways?
Let your child tell me, in their own words, about their relationship with their birthparents and what it means to them. (3 entries)
Buy a ticket for the PFM dinner or make a donation to Parenthood for Me. (2 entries)
There is no limit to the number of times your name can be entered. This phase of the giveaway will be open until March 19th. Good luck!
Click here to purchase Sally's adoption book, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective.
Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel
2 comments:
Thanks for the opportunity to share some thoughts about birth parents.
My husband and I have met the birth mothers of both of our sons, but now we just send letters and pictures to the agency. I had wanted more openness, but this is how it worked out.
Writing to the birth moms is difficult--I put off the task because it is so important, if that makes sense. During the first year we sent updates frequently; later on I would try to get something out for each child's birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mothers Day, and when school started. Now I sometimes miss a year, but when I do send the package, it's very full of photos and information. We've gotten a note, letter, and outfit from one birth mother and nothing physical from the other, but I know from talking to her once that she wants to respond but can't manage. Not hearing back slows me down, but I know it's important to keep sending them what I can. When I do send the package, I feel deep satisfaction and connection.
My sons (especially the older one) asked a lot about their birth mothers when they were small, but don't now that they are teenagers. I tell them when I'm sending the photos/cards/letters and ask if they want to send anything; they say "no." But I know they wonder; my older son wondered if his birth mom had a Facebook.
The way I see my own motherhood is as a compound entity--it doesn't exist without each son's birth mother. In one sense it might be nice not to have to share my motherhood, but in another sense, this connection is incredibly special, deep and unlike any other relationship. It is a sacred privilege to be connected in this way to another human being. I think I tend to idealize the relationship because we don't have the reality of imperfect, different personalities to complicate things, but I still think it's true.
Lastly, I try very hard to understand, to the extent I can, what it's like to be a birth mother. From talking to birth mothers and reading what they have to say, I am repeatedly struck, forcefully, by the intensity of the pain involved in their experience. It's not an easy thing to witness, but it's my desire, as the party who has received the most from this relationship, to stay and validate what birth parents express about losing a child to adoption.
And I very much want to read your book. Thank you for giving it to the world.
I'm a first mom (hate the term birth mother) weighing in. My daughter's A-parents agreed to a semi-open adoption. Technically they followed thru but during my visits they make me feel like a criminal. They never leave me alone with my daughter, always one of them in the room, like they think I'm going to kidnap her and run out the door. She's getting old enough to understand soon and I don't want her thinking there's something wrong with me or I'm dangerous. How would that be for her to think that about her first mom? I wish her A-parents think about her in this situation and also realize that placing her for adoption was the hardest thing I've ever done. I did that so I'm not going to take her back now!
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