You see it all the time on TV: a woman goes into labor in the middle of the night and next to her door, conveniently packed, is a small bag full of the things she will need for her hosptial stay. In real life, people don’t tend to be so organized. Labor comes along unexpectedly: sometimes, the baby decides to emerge early, sometimes late. Sometimes, the women we work with don’t even know they are pregnant until labor pains begin!
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April and Jayne are both hospital nurses in Michigan, who, over the course of the last few years have adopted three special needs children. Their home state does not allow for same-sex couples to do second parent adoptions, so currently each child has only one legal parent despite the fact that they are parented by a couple who has been together for over a decade. Continue reading →

 

The importance of first names spans across the globe. Most cultures have specific naming traditions and most new parents toil endlessly over what their child will be named. After all, in most cases, the name parents choose for their children will stick with them for the rest of their lives.  Whole books are dedicated to choosing baby names. Blogs obsess over names’ meanings, come up with annual popularity rankings, and nitpick every offbeat name celebrities come up with.  It is no wonder then, that many of the women we work with who are considering placing their baby in an adoptive home place great significance on choosing a name.

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A big victory came through Iowa’s courts yesterday. The short story is that Heather and Melissa Gartner are a (same-sex) married couple who had two children using the same anonymous sperm donor. Melissa adopted their first child (through a second-parent adoption), becoming his legal parent. The couple then married and had a second child. An issue arose when the Iowa Department of Public Health refused to put Melissa’s name on the child’s birth certificate despite the fact that the couple was married at the time the child was born, and this lawsuit arose. After a legal battle, the Iowa District Court ruled that the Department erred in denying Melissa’s request and ruled that she should not need to adopt her child in order to be listed on the birth certificate. Continue reading →

[caption id="attachment_875" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Birthmother Minka Disbrow is reunited with her daughter, Ruth Lee, after 77 years"][/caption]

The Story

At 17, Minka Disbrow placed Ruth Lee in an adoptive home. For 77 years thereafter, she thought about her daughter and wondered where she was and who she had become.

Meanwhile, Ruth was raised knowing she was adopted, but never thought of searching for her birth family. That is, until she developed heart problems in her seventies and her doctors asked for medical records. Soon thereafter, Ruth’s son petitioned a court to open her adoption records and the mother and daughter reunited. The connection between the two women was instant and they have since visited each other regularly and gotten to know each others families. The whole story is available here.

While the story may have limited impact in the mainstream media, it has already gone viral in the open adoption community. But not for the reasons one would think. Two frequently discussed issues arise in this story that are pertinent to families and professionals involved in open adoption: proper adoption language and the openness of adoption records. Continue reading →

Just in time to hit the headlines before the holidays, Jeff Quibbell reunited with his birthmother. Born in 1958, before the inception of open adoption, Jeff didn’t search for his birth family until four years ago when the need arose to obtain some medical information. Continue reading →

One of the first questions that adoptive families ask when embarking on the adoption journey is “how much is this adoption going to cost me?” Continue reading →

One of the most frequently asked questions we receive involves the perceived overlap of roles between an adoption agency and an adoption attorney during the course of either an adoptive family’s or a prospective birthmother’s adoption journey. Continue reading →

Admittedly behind on current episodes, the last episode of Glee that I watched involved Quinn talking Shelby into letting her and Puck babysit, then planting “evidence” of child abuse in Shelby’s house to further her effort at disrupting Beth’s adoption. Continue reading →

In choosing which type of adoption to pursue, there is no single right answer. Each adoptive family must assess their situation, their ability and willingness to take certain risks and choose the path that is right for them. At AARKS, we are frequently approached by families who are choosing between adopting from foster care and adopting privately. Continue reading →