Winner of My Adoption Book...

... is Patti of (among other places)It's Just One Hat. Congratulations, Patti, and thanks to everyone who participated!


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

Monthly Letter to My Son's Birthmother

Hi J,

I've let too many days slip past simply because I don't know what to write.

No, the truth is I don't know what not to write.

I can’t imagine facing even one day without him. What have you had to rearrange in yourself to get through these last 11 months? I'm afraid that something I write will upend some intricate balance you've perfected in yourself in order to be able to love him from a distance.

You always tell me I worry too much about you. I know. I do. I may always. Because even though you believe you made the right decision (and I believe you when you tell me that), I can't help but wonder how your feelings about your decision may change over time. Does time make the pain of loss less acute or more pervasive? Each day with him brings new joy to me. I can't help but wonder what each day without him brings to you.

Thank you again, and for the rest of my life, for trusting us with him. The day he turned nine months I thought, "He's been separate from J for as long as he was joined with her," and I felt sad for his loss of you and yours of him. And when I think of your smile and your laugh and your voice and your eyes, I'm sad that he's missing all of that. I know he would adore you.

Then I remind myself: he will adore you. He will come to know your face and your voice and your hands and your laugh, and he will hold you, J, in some special place within himself created by you. For him. For you. He will love you in a way that’s just for you.

I reflect on how he’s changed since we last saw you, and I wonder how you’ve changed. I think about his persistence and his determination to grow - to stand, to reach, to decide for himself - and I smile at the memory of yours.

I see so much of you in him. His love of speed. His placid nature. His sense of humor. I also find much of us in him. The way he joins in on family jokes. His habit of perfectly mimicking our expressions. The way he molds himself into my arms. The light in his face when Daddy walks into the room. And he and his big sister are inseparable. Each has truly become a part of the other. Their games, their songs, holding hands in their car seats… it’s one of the most beautiful relationships I’ve ever known.

Has there ever been a little boy so loved as this one? Surely not. Love is all he’s ever known, from the moment he began. You gave him that. One of the many reasons he has to love you. And I, too.

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

Coming Soon to a Family Room Near You

Wow! I've been invited to be a guest on a TV show called "Many Voices, Many Visions." The show is hosted by the warm and thoughtful Norma Holland, and airs on 13WHAM-TV Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m. I'll be on with Erica Schlaefer and Kevin Mulcahy of Parenthood for Me (PFM) on Sunday February 28, 2010.

"Many Voices, Many Visions" is a multicultural public affairs program that explores the Rochester community's diversity, and I'm grateful to Ms. Holland for giving me and PFM an opportunity to expand our community's education and awareness about adoption.

It's the first time I'll be on TV talking about my adoption book! (Hi Mom!) Who knows? I may even read a short excerpt from it. Tune it to 13WHAM-TV Sunday February 28 at 11:00 a.m.

Buy Sally's adoption book here.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel

First Amazon Review of My Adoption Book!

Yea! I got my first review on Amazon. Thanks, Paula Jean, for helping me tell the story and for formally reviewing my adoption book. It means a lot to me!

What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, and Google Books.

Check out The Adoptive Parent bookstore to order signed copies of my adoption book!

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel

Adoption Book Review: Where Do I Belong?

In this, her second book, Ola Zuri shows why her books belong everywhere there are children. Where Do I Belong? is the story of a young boy who, like many transracial adoptees, doesn't feel rooted or connected in the same way the rest of his family seems to feel. It's clear that Zuri's character loves his family, but still, he is pained by looking different. I absolutely love that Zuri rises above the common tendency to sugar coat the truth. She lays the facts out straight up - yes, you do look different, because you and your family are of different races. And yes, your original roots are far away. And no, no amount of love will change that fact. That's our family.

The heart of the story is what the boy chooses to do about his feelings. Again, Zuri rises above current trends and places responsibility squarely where it belongs - on the boy himself. This book artfully teaches children (and adults!) that true freedom is born of inner strength, and we all make decisions every day that either strengthen or weaken our inner selves.

Once again, Zuri teamed up with illustrator Jenn Simpson, and the results are outstanding. Simpson's drawings perfectly capture Zuri's voice and that of her character. This is a delightful book, and Zuri & Simpson are one of the best writer/illustrator teams I have found in a long time, and I'm very much looking forward to their third book!

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel

What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective - Chapter 1 excerpt

What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective is due out by the end of the month. I appreciate all of the supportive blog comments, emails, and phone calls of the last few weeks. Huge thanks to my advance reviewers for your commitment and enthusiasm. It's a very exciting time!

Here's an excerpt from the book:
You know your birth story; I've told it to you many times. But there's one chapter of your story you may not know. It's a chapter that's not so much about you as it is about me. It's my chapter. You see, your birth story is also my birth story, because this mother that I am was born when you were born. You made me a mother. You made me your mother. And for me, our birth story actually began long before you were conceived.

I don't know anyone who dreamed of growing up, getting married, and not being able to have children. I certainly didn't. I assumed that when (if) I decided to have children, one of my perfectly ripe eggs would let her guard down for the most athletic of a throng of swimming suitors, and I would simply get pregnant as women in my family have done for generations. I would have children the regular way, if I decided to have them at all.

I didn't think about adoption much, and when I did it was as a really nice, slightly exotic thing to do. A really nice, slightly exotic thing for other people to do. Older couples who never had children, or people who wear sandals year-round and quit their jobs to become missionaries, or families who fix up old Victorian mansions and seem to collect assorted “children with special needs” or kids from “broken homes.” Adoption was something those people did; not me. Why would I?

After going through a forest worth of tiny test strips I started to think that maybe “it” wasn't going to happen; not without some help, anyway. So I climbed into the stirrups. I consulted the experts. All of my once-private entrances and exits were transversed, transmographed, radiographed, photographed, sanitized, anesthetized, magnified, pulled and pried, palpated, saturated, dilated, inseminated, and evaluated in a series of attempts to get pregnant.

I never realized my own quiet biases about adoption until it became intensely personal. I was angry. I was petulant. I was wounded. And I was painfully surprised to find that I was a snob. It turned out that deep within my most private Self I thought of adoption as a default, a less than, a last resort for people who were out of options. People who had failed to produce their own children. People who couldn't make a family the regular way. People who were desperate or broken. People like me. I didn't want to be people like me.

I resented having to consider adoption. I resented my body for betraying me. I disparaged pregnant teenagers for doing in the back seat what I couldn't do in the sanctity of my marriage. I cried and raged and judged and fumed and after a long while, I accepted. I accepted that things happen the way they happen. I accepted myself and my situation. I accepted that it wasn't really my situation at all, it was ours, your father's and mine. I accepted his perspective and his feelings and his help, and eventually I accepted adoption as legitimate a way as any other of becoming a parent. I began to embrace adoption as the right way for me to become a mother. I grew to cherish the idea and even feel special. Adoption emerged as something self-evident and fulfilling and romantic. I fell in love with the idea of adoption and I began to bond with my child-to-be-adopted-later.

I thought that coming to terms with the idea of adoption would be the most difficult part of the process. Was I ever wrong! The time I spent deciding to adopt was a walk in the park compared to actually doing it. It turns out that adoption is a tremendous hassle. It's intrusive and time-consuming and expensive. Again and again we had to convince strangers that we were fit to parent, while every day brought another story of parents leaving their babies alone in the car or serving alcohol to underage teens. We got fingerprinted and evaluated, looked over and passed up. We gave strangers access to our financial records and our bedroom closets, knowing full well that plenty of biological parents were cruising along with stale batteries in their smoke detectors, pot handles facing out, and wall outlets uncovered.

When you decide to adopt you open your heart to disappointments and near-misses that bring you to your knees. Many times I inched to the very edge of conclusion. Many times I thought, “I'm done. I want out. This is costing me too much of myself.” I finally realized that in those moments when I was closest to surrender I was also closest to peace, and that's when I knew I was ready for you. I knew I was ready to be your mother because I had released my ideal. I had chosen the reality of my motherhood over the dreams of my childhood, and I understood that there was no other way for us to come together.

When I finally held you in my arms, I knew in my heart that I would have waited a hundred years for you. Exactly you. And I would do it all again.

Sally Bacchetta
The Adoptive Parent
My Google Profile+
Sally Bacchetta's YouTube Channel