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| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Open Adoption Ann Kiemel Anderson, 1990 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: God and Jetfire Amy Seek, 2015-07-14 A searching, eloquent memoir about the joys and hardships of open adoption God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child. They sift through hundreds of Dear Birth Mother letters, craft an extensive questionnaire, and interview numerous potential couples. Despite the immutability of the surrender, it does little to diminish Seek's newfound feelings of motherhood. Once an ambitious architecture student, she struggles to reconcile her sadness with the hope that she's done the best for her son, a struggle complicated by her continued, active presence in his life. For decades, closed adoptions were commonplace. Now, new laws are guaranteeing adoptees' access to birth records, and open adoption is on the rise. God and Jetfire is the rare memoir that explores the intricate dynamics and exceptional commitment of an open-adoption relationship from the perspective of a birth mother searching for her place within it. Written with literary poise and distinction, God and Jetfire is a story of a life divided between grief and gratitude, regret and joy. It is an elegy for a lost motherhood, a celebration of a family gained, and an apology to a beloved son. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Christian Mom's Answer Book Mike Yorkey, Sandra Picklesimer Aldrich, 2000 Here's practical advice for moms on raising kids, adoption, bargain shopping, cooking on the run, spiritual growth and more. It is topically arranged in question-and-answer format for easy and practical use. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Instant Mom Nia Vardalos, 2013-04-02 Some families are created in different ways but are still, in every way, a family. Writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos firmly believed she was supposed to be a mom, but Mother Nature and modern medicine had put her in a headlock. So she made a choice that shocked friends, family, and even herself: with only fourteen hours' notice, she adopted a preschooler. Instant Mom is Vardalos's poignant and hilarious true chronicle of trying to become a mother while fielding nosy frenemies and Hollywood reporters asking, Any baby news? With genuine and frank honesty, she describes how she and husband Ian Gomez eventually found their daughter . . . and what happened next. Vardalos explores innovative ways to conquer the challenges all new moms face, from sleep to personal grooming, and learns that whether via biology, relationship, or adoption—motherhood comes in many forms. The book includes laugh-out-loud behind the scenes Hollywood anecdotes, plus an Appendix on how to adopt worldwide. Vardalos will donate proceeds from the book sales to charities. Vardalos candidly shares her instant motherhood story that is relatable for all new moms (and dads!) |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew Sherrie Eldridge, 2009-10-07 Birthdays may be difficult for me. I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family. When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me. I am afraid you will abandon me. The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame. With warmth and candor, Sherrie Eldridge reveals the twenty complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love--that he must grieve his loss now if he is to receive love fully in the future--that she needs honest information about her birth family no matter how painful the details may be--and that although he may choose to search for his birth family, he will always rely on you to be his parents. Filled with powerful insights from children, parents, and experts in the field, plus practical strategies and case histories that will ring true for every adoptive family, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew is an invaluable guide to the complex emotions that take up residence within the heart of the adopted child--and within the adoptive home. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: What I Want My Adopted Child to Know Bacchetta Sally Bacchetta, Sally Bacchetta, 2010 What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective is a tender, revealing look at adoption from the parent perspective. Whether you are an adoptive parent, an adoptee, someone considering adoption, or simply curious about adoption dynamics, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective will touch your heart and increase your sensitivity to the challenges and joys that are unique to adoptive parenting. Bacchetta wrote the book in response to a need common among adoptive families. Adoptive families navigate emotional terrain that fully-biological families don't have to. This is a book adoptive parents can give to their child and say, I know adoption is painful, unsettling, joyous, and affirming. It's that way for me too. More than anything, adoption is the way we came together, and I'll always be grateful for that.' Bacchetta's words echo with the collective voice of over 100 adoptive parents interviewed for this book. With chapters like I Would Do it All Again , You Are Not Different Because You Were Adopted, and I Regret What I Can't Give You, What I Want My Adopted Child to Know is by turns affirming, challenging, thoughtful, wistful, and poignant. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: All You Can Ever Know Nicole Chung, 2019-10-15 A NATIONAL BESTSELLER This beloved memoir is an extraordinary, honest, nuanced and compassionate look at adoption, race in America and families in general (Jasmine Guillory, Code Switch, NPR) What does it means to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up—facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from—she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: NCV, The Devotional Bible Thomas Nelson, 2004-01-12 Imagine a hope-filled tour of the Bible with the most beloved devotional writer of our time. The Devotional Bible brings together words of encouragement and the gentle wisdom of Max Lucado with the timeless Word of God. Favorite inspirational writer Max Lucado has done more than revise and update the best-selling Inspirational Bible. Using the New Century Version, The Devotional Bible will be a staple for anyone who wants to draw closer to the heart of Christ. From the busy mom to the frustrated employee, The Devotional Bible is the perfect refuge for anyone that needs truth and encouragement to hold on to. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Rock Needs River Vanessa McGrady, 2019 After two years of waiting to adopt--slogging through paperwork and bouncing between hope and despair--a miracle finally happened for Vanessa McGrady. Her sweet baby, Grace, was a dream come true. Then Vanessa made a highly uncommon gesture: when Grace's biological parents became homeless, Vanessa invited them to stay. Without a blueprint for navigating the practical basics of an open adoption or any discussion of expectations or boundaries, the unusual living arrangement became a bottomless well of conflicting emotions and increasingly difficult decisions complicated by missed opportunities, regret, social chaos, and broken hearts-- |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: A Mother for Choco Keiko Kasza, 1992-03-25 Family is about love no matter how different parents and children may be, adopted or not. Choco wishes he had a mother, but who could she be? He sets off to find her, asking all kinds of animals, but he doesn't meet anyone who looks just like him. He doesn't even think of asking Mrs. Bear if she's his mother-but then she starts to do just the things a mommy might do. And when she brings him home, he meets her other children-a piglet, a hippo, and an alligator-and learns that families can come in all shapes and sizes and still fit together. Keiko Kasza's twist on the Are you my mother? theme has become one of the most highly recommended stories about adoption for children. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: GROWING A HEALTHY MARRIAGE , 1993 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Especially for a Woman Thomas Nelson Publishers, Edith Schaeffer, Liz Curtis Higgs, 1994 This collection of insightful, wise, practical advice covers such topics as friendships, family issues, stress, self-esteem, aging, and other important issues, offering heartfelt counsel and exercises for personal growth. Contributors include Claudia Arp, Jan Stoop, Grace Ketterman, Stormie Omartian, Ruth Stafford Peale, and others. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Women's Desk Reference Irene M. Franck, David M. Brownstone, 1993 Contains some 1,500 entries on people, organizations, issues, books, politics, and health, each with see also references and many with bibliographical references. Useful as a first-stop reference. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: I Gave God Time Ann Kiemel Anderson, 1984 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born Jamie Lee Curtis, 2000-08-29 Tell me again about the night I was born. Tell me again how you would adopt me and be my parents. Tell me again about the first time you held me in your arms. Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell, author and illustrator of the best-selling When I Was Little: A Four Year Old's Memoir of Her Youth, have joined together again to create a fresh new picture book for every parent and every child. In asking her parents to tell her again about the night of her birth, a young girl shows that it is a cherished tale she knows by heart. Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born is a unique, exuberant story about adoption and about the importance of a loving family. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Adoption Is Forever Rhonda Pollero, Traci Hall, 2009-03 Pollero and Hall offer a refreshingly new look at adoption, a decision with consequences that last a lifetime. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Life Is Short (No Pun Intended) Jennifer Arnold, Bill Klein, 2016-02-09 Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein have inspired millions as stars of TLC's hit show The Little Couple. Though they both have dwarfism, they have knocked down every obstacle they have encountered together with a positive, can-do attitude. The show has featured the lives of Jennifer (a respected neonatologist) and Bill (a successful entrepreneur) from their marriage in 2009, to the launch of their pet shop, to the adoption of their children, to Jen's overcoming cancer-- |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Ache for a Child Debra Bridwell, 1994 For anyone living with the daily ache of infertility, here is an encouraging and informative resource. Written by an author who knows the sorrow of pregnancy loss. Ethical, medical, and spiritual questions related to infertility are addressed. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Grammar of Untold Stories Lois Ruskai Melina, 2020-09-22 Sixteen essays ranging from lyric essays to narrative journalism address how we make sense of what we cannot know, how we make change in the world, how we heal, and how we know when we are home. Collectively, these essays convey the longing for agency and connection, particularly among women. They will resonate with readers of all ages, but perhaps especially with women in the second half of life, those dealing with aging parents, retirement, illness, and accompanying vulnerabilities. Here readers will find comfort within keen reflection upon life's ambiguities. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Secrets to Your Successful Domestic Adoption Jennifer Joyce Pedley, 2010-11 Offers strategies people may use to simplify the process of open, domestic adoption, explains why it can be preferable to deal directly with an expectant mother, and discusses legal considerations. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Everything You Ever Wanted Jillian Lauren, 2015-05-05 A Best Memoir of 2015, “This memoir is compulsively readable and full of humor and heart.”—AdoptiveFamilies.com “A punk rock Scheherazade” (Margaret Cho) shares the zigzagging path that took her from harem member to PTA member… In her younger years, Jillian Lauren was a college dropout, a drug addict, and an international concubine in the Prince of Brunei’s harem, an experience she immortalized in in her bestselling memoir, SOME GIRLS. In her thirties, Jillian's most radical act was learning the steadying power of love when she and her rock star husband adopt an Ethiopian child with special needs. After Jillian loses a close friend to drugs, she herself is saved by her fierce, bold love for her son as she fights to make him—and herself—feel safe and at home in the world. Exploring complex ideas of identity and reinvention, Everything You Ever Wanted is a must-read for everyone, especially every mother, who has ever hoped for a second act in life. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Paperbound Books in Print , 1992 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Who Am I Really Damon Davis, 2019-04-20 Who Am I Really? is a question many adoptees ask when they realize they have another family of genetic relation. Damon L. Davis shares his journey through life as an adoptee to becoming an adoptive parent himself. He explores his desire to find his birth family as sparked by the flood of emotions that accompanied the birth of his son, Seth -- the first blood relative he had ever known. In his story, you'll follow his introspection when considering a search for his birth family, while coping with the heartbreak of his adoptive mother's mental illness. Within months of taking his post in the Obama Administration in 2009, Damon found his birth mother working only two blocks away and years later, his real birth father's identity was revealed unexpectedly on AncestryDNA. You'll be amazed by the coincidences that brought Damon face to face with his birth mother in a tearful, yet joyous, reunion. And your heart will be warmed by the acceptance of his birth father who didn't even know he existed. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Subject Guide to Books in Print , 1975 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: A Graceful Embrace: Theological Reflections on Adopting Children , 2017-11-20 This book significantly deepens the contemporary discussion of the theology and practice of adopting children. Though adoption appears prominently in Scripture, contemporary adoption practice has thus far proceeded without serious theological engagement. This book seeks to fill this gap by offering a theological and ethical perspective on adoption that not only clarifies and complicates contemporary understandings of adoption, but also throws fresh light on family, community, vocation, and even what it means to be human. Both interdisciplinary and international, the volume is brings together theologians and ethicists from Europe, the UK, Canada and the United States. A rich set of reflections from both practical and theoretical perspectives offers a unique and uniquely insightful vision of Christian adoption. Contributors are: Dale P. Andrews, Jana Marguerite Bennett, Marco Derks, R. Ruard Ganzevoort, Bill McAlpine, Kirsten Sonkyo Oh, Sarah Shea, Paul Shrier, Henning Theißen, Hans. G. Ulrich, Karin Ulrich-Eschemann, Heather Walton, Brent Waters, Nick Watson. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Pentecostal Evangel , 1998 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: A Call to Love Julie Holmquist, 2018 Considering the Christian call to adopt or foster a child? |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Focus on the Family with Dr. James C. Dobson , 1991 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Let's Pretend This Never Happened Jenny Lawson, 2013-03-05 The #1 New York Times bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of Furiously Happy. “Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—O, The Oprah Magazine When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives. Readers Guide Inside |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Gotcha Day Rebecca Tabasso, Bonnie Lamaire, 2012-08-29 A very special day is coming up for Suzie. It's her Gotcha Day, the day her family celebrates when they became a family. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Baby And The Officer Sharon De Vita, 2011-07-15 Lullabies and Love BEAUTY AND THE BADGE He had a secret son, being raised by a very unattached single mom! Shocked, Detective Patrick Sullivan could see that Tommy was his, from his sparkling blue eyes to his silky dark hair to the dimple in his chubby cheek. But convincing Brie McGee was another matter…. Brie was breathtakingly beautiful, and a natural-born mom. But she was as wary of men as Patrick was of women. Yet seeing her with his son…tasting her lips…made Patrick yearn to be one big, happy family. But first he had to convince Brie he loved her as a woman—not as the means to his child. A legendary cradle brings three law-enforcement brothers lots of love! |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Girls Who Went Away Ann Fessler, 2007-06-26 The astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by the courage and candor with which they express themselves.” —The Washington Post “A remarkably well-researched and accomplished book.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wrenching, riveting book.” —Chicago Tribune In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the hidden social history of adoption before Roe v. Wade - and its lasting legacy. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption Lori Holden, 2015-05-15 Prior to 1990, fewer than five percent of domestic infant adoptions were open. In 2012, ninety percent or more of adoption agencies are recommending open adoption. Yet these agencies do not often or adequately prepare either adopting parents or birth parents for the road ahead of them The adult parties in open adoptions are left floundering. There are many resources on why to do open adoption, but what about how? Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers readers the tools and the insight to do just that. It covers common open-adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully. Like all useful parenting books, it provides parents with the tools to come to answers on their own, and answers questions that might not yet have come up. Through their own stories and those of other families of open adoption, Lori and Crystal review the secrets to success, the pitfalls and challenges, the joys and triumphs. By putting the adopted child at the center, families can come to enjoy the benefits of open adoption and mitigate the challenges that may arise. More than a how-to, this book shares a mindset, a heartset, that can be learned and internalized, so parents can choose to act out of love and honesty throughout their child's growing up years, helping that child to grow up whole. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Emma's Laugh Diana Kupershmit, 2021-06-15 As Diana surveyed her newborn baby's face, languid body, and absent cry, she knew something was wrong. Then the doctors delivered devastating news: her first child, Emma, had been born with a rare genetic disorder that would leave her profoundly physically and intellectually disabled. Diana imagined life with a child with disabilities as a dark and insular one—a life in which she would be forced to exist in the periphery alongside her daughter. Convinced of her inability to love her “imperfect” child and give her the best care and life she deserved, Diana gave Emma up for adoption. But as with all things that are meant to be, Emma found her way back home. As Emma grew, Diana watched her live life determinedly and unapologetically, radiating love always. Emma evolved from a survivor to a warrior, and the little girl that Diana didn’t think she could love enough rearranged her heart. In her short eighteen years of life, Emma gifted her family the indelible lesson of the healing and redemptive power of love. This is a mother’s requiem to her perfectly imperfect child—a child who left too soon, but whose lessons continue to inspire a life lived and loved. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: An Open Adoption Lincoln Caplan, 1990-01-01 An account of an actual open adoption follows the developing relationship between a married couple and an unmarried birth mother, discusses adoption alternatives, and illuminates questions about changing social values, the nature of the family, and the im |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: You'll Forget This Ever Happened Laura L. Engel, 2022-05-10 Mississippi, 1967. It’s the Summer of Love, yet unwed mothers’ maternity homes are flourishing, secret closed adoptions are routine, and many young women still have no voice. In You’ll Forget This Ever Happened, Laura Engel takes us back to the Deep South during the turbulent 1960s to explore the oppression of young women who have committed the socially unacceptable crime of becoming pregnant without a ring on their finger. After being forced to give up her newborn son for adoption, Engel lives inside a fortress of silent shame for fifty years—but when her secret son finds her and her safe world is cracked open, those walls crumble. Are you still a mother even if you have not raised your child? Can the mother/child bond survive years of separation? How deep is the damage caused by buried family secrets and shame? Engel asks herself these and many other questions as she becomes acquainted with the son she never knew, and seeks the acceptance and forgiveness she has long denied herself. Full of both aching sadness and soaring joy, You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a shocking exposé of a shameful part of our country’s recent past—and a poignant tale of a mother’s enduring love. |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: A Deeper Walk Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Herald of Holiness , 1995 |
| open adoption my story of love and laughter: Strangers and Kin Barbara MELOSH, Barbara Melosh, 2009-06-30 Strangers and Kin is the history of adoption. An adoptive mother herself, Barbara Melosh tells the story of how married couples without children sought to care for and nurture other people's children as their own. Taking this history into the early twenty-first century, Melosh offers unflinching insight to the contemporary debates that swirl around adoption: the challenges to adoption secrecy; the ethics and geopolitics of international adoption; and the conflicts over transracial adoption. |
OpenAI
May 21, 2025 · ChatGPT for business just got better—with connectors to internal tools, MCP support, record mode & SSO to Team, and flexible pricing for Enterprise. We believe our …
OPEN Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Jun 14, 2012 · The meaning of OPEN is having no enclosing or confining barrier : accessible on all or nearly all sides. How to use open in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Open.
OPEN | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
OPEN definition: 1. not closed or fastened: 2. ready to be used or ready to provide a service: 3. not closed in or…. Learn more.
U.S. Open: Tee times, groupings announced for Round 4
3 days ago · The 125th U.S. Open concludes Sunday from historic Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania as it hosts for the 10th time, the most of any club in the history of the …
OPEN Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Open definition: not closed or barred at the time, as a doorway by a door, a window by a sash, or a gateway by a gate.. See examples of OPEN used in a sentence.
Open - definition of open by The Free Dictionary
Affording unobstructed entrance and exit; not shut or closed. b. Affording unobstructed passage or view: open waters; the open countryside. 2. a. Having no protecting or concealing cover: an …
Open: Definition, Meaning, and Examples - US Dictionary
Jul 27, 2024 · "Open" Definition: What Does "Open" Mean? The term "open" is used in various contexts to describe states of accessibility, visibility, and physical space. Here, we will explore …
OpenAI
May 21, 2025 · ChatGPT for business just got better—with connectors to internal tools, MCP support, record mode & SSO to Team, and flexible pricing for Enterprise. We believe …
OPEN Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Jun 14, 2012 · The meaning of OPEN is having no enclosing or confining barrier : accessible on all or nearly all sides. How to use open in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Open.
OPEN | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
OPEN definition: 1. not closed or fastened: 2. ready to be used or ready to provide a service: 3. not closed in or…. Learn more.
U.S. Open: Tee times, groupings announced for Round 4
3 days ago · The 125th U.S. Open concludes Sunday from historic Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania as it hosts for the 10th time, the most of any club in the history of the …
OPEN Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Open definition: not closed or barred at the time, as a doorway by a door, a window by a sash, or a gateway by a gate.. See examples of OPEN used in a sentence.
