Answers to your parenting questions.
Deciding to Adopt: What About Birth Families?
“We cannot build healthy relationships with our children on secrecy and lies—and this includes lies of omission.”
“An Open Letter to Gramma B.”
You asked questions, but didn’t pry. You had brought gifts for your granddaughter, and I noticed that they were all things you had lovingly made or thought about carefully. The hour passed quickly and we said we’d be in touch.
Ask AF: Openness in Foster Adoption
Answers to your parenting questions.
Ask AF: Navigating Disagreements with the Birth Family
Answers to your parenting questions.
Families Share: Our Open Adoption Experience
“The best part about being a birth mother in an open adoption is that I am at peace. Colin and I are still a part of each other’s lives, yet he is so happy and deeply rooted in his family that sometimes I forget that he’s not their flesh and blood. Knowing he has the life I wanted for him allows me to move forward in mine.” —Jen
The Basics of Open Adoption
What is “open adoption” — and what might it mean for your family?
“Our Leap of Faith: Finding Birth Relatives in Russia”
We made the trip, unsure whether we would even find Marina’s orphanage, and ended up finding the answers to her deepest questions.
“What No One Told Me”
When we first met our child’s birth mother, we didn’t know what to talk about and what not to talk about, what might upset her or what she may or may not want to know about her child’s future with us.
[Book Review] The Mystery of the Multiple Mothers
An engaging whodunit with adoption themes.
[Book Review] Red Thread Sisters
A brief review of Red Thread Sisters, an engaging novel your middle-schooler will enjoy.
Ask AF: Differences in Openness
Answers to your parenting questions.
Ask AF: News of a Birth Parent’s Death
Answers to your parenting questions.
Explaining Troubling Birth Parent News
Tough topics can range from discontinued contact to a slip back into drug habits to unexpected medical problems.
[Book Excerpt] Postcards from Cookie
I can think of lots of reasons not to make this call: I should be working. I’m on deadline. I’m not ready.
[Book Excerpt] God and Jetfire
In April, Jonathan was nine months old. The colic had subsided, and he was practicing language that Paula described as “the funniest little combination of mumbling and humming.” She said his voice was very much a little boy’s voice.
“Visiting Our Daughter’s Orphanage”
One of the cold realities of adopting an older child from China is that she comes with a lot of questions, many of which you can’t answer.
Parent-to-Parent: Contact with Birth Siblings
We asked readers, Does your child have biological siblings? Do they live with their birth parents or with another adoptive family? How do you stay in touch? Here’s what you said.
“Our Love Stayed with Him”
As foster parents, you hope that the love and security you offer will stay in a child’s heart. When we reconnected with a boy we fostered through two reunifications 14 years ago, we found that it had.
“Pondering My Son Mateo’s Family Tree”
My son’s story started before I met him. His pre-adoption prologue is one I may never know. But of this I am sure: Mateo was born to be my son.