Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

I have had several people ask me if I had any recommendations for children's books about adoption recently. While I haven't had to think a whole lot about this personally yet I have searched some off and on when thinking of my nieces and nephews and to start making a list for our future child's library. Here is a short list of some children's books that come recommended from other adoptive families. Some are more specific to domestic adoption while others international adoption. We are pursuing domestic adoption but either way they are nice stories to open up the lines of communication about adoption in general and how families can be built in different ways. I will put this list under the "information for friends and families" page for future reference.

Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born-Jamie Lee Curtis

God Found Us You-Lisa Tawn Bergren

Over the Moon-Karen Katz

A Blessing from Above-Patti Henderson

A Mother For Choco-Keiko Kasza

Horace-Holly Keller

I Wished For You-Marianne Richmond

On another note I am not sure if any of you are Modern Family regulars (tv show on ABC on Wednesday nights) but this week they highlighted adoption again. While Aaron and I typically like this show we did not particularly enjoy the overdramatization of the whole process. Although we haven't made it to the point where a family has chosen us and a baby has been born the whole scene seemed pretty outrageous. Yes, yes I know it is TV and they do it for the show but we found it pretty disappointing that they couldn't portray it in a more positive light. It is true that adoptions fall though like in Wednesday's epidsode and I am sure some adoptions are full of drama but the vast majority of them are nothing close to what was seen on TV. Unfortunately, this is the way adoption has been and continues to be portrayed in the media. Lifetime is another channel that likes to overdramatize the adoption process and often make it seem scary. They recently had a movie on called "Adopting Terror" and was about a birth father trying to obtain custody of the child, kidnapping her, killing people and many other crazy scenarios. While this may have taken place somewhere at sometime in the real world it was probably only one case that the media got ahold of and blew out of proportion. TLC aired a show a few weeks ago called "Birth Moms" which has caused quite a uproar in the adoptive family community. Many of the birth mothers were shown drinking, smoking, etc. throughout their pregnancy, making fun of the adoptive parents and making very poor decisions overall. Most people who have no education about adoption would see this and automatically think these women are horrible human beings and have no love for their child whatsoever. In actuality these women love their children very much. To make an adoption plan is "the greatest gift of love". Not all birth mother's go to the extreme that several of these women did. In fact, I know several adoptive parents whose children's birthmother did everything in her power to keep her child safe. The point of my rambling I guess is to please make a mental note of this when watching these types of shows. It is so easy to let the media think for you!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!