Openness

Heather Massick (née Phillips) describes her family as “a large, blended, adopted/ foster family with two parents.” Heather had two children through adoption and one foster child when she met her husband, Glen. Glen has three children from a previous relationship, so they became a six-kid household. Almost two years into their relationship, Heather was approached by the birth parents of the two she had already adopted regarding permanency planning for the two younger siblings. Heather and Glen both said yes, which brought them up to eight children.

Focus on Adoption and AFABC have always sought to centre adoptee voices and perspectives, but the #FlipTheScript campaign (launched during Adoption Awareness Month in 2014) inspired us to launch a regular column called "Adopted Voice." The series ran from 2015 to 2016.

In ongoing this series, we interview experts about your key questions about adoption.

Are you an expert wanting to lend your knowledge to our families? Email us at editor@bcadoption.com.

Here are some of the articles from our long-running Diary of an Adoptive Mom series. This adoptive mother shares her experiences and secret thoughts of raising three children. This series ran from 2006 to 2010.

Note: Diary entries #1 to #7 are unavailable 

In our Living Openness series, adoptive mother Charlotte Taylor shares her experience navigating the world of open adoption. This series originally ran from 2013 to 2015.

Adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide than non-adoptees. There’s no easy way to talk about this topic, but talk about it we must.

A growing number of grandparents in BC are living with and raising their grandchildren. In this story, a grandmother shares her very personal experience with becoming the legal guardian of her daughter’s child. To protect the privacy of her daughter and grandchild, names have been redacted.

Stuck in the system

I remember getting the call from MCFD like it was yesterday. It was Friday, December 30^, 2016 at 9 am. A clear, cool day.

Lori Holden literally wrote the book on open adoption (The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole). In this article, she presents a new way of thinking about openness.

Bif Naked is a member of a lot of communities. Rock and roller, vegan, Canadian, animal lover, breast cancer survivor, humanitarian, adoptee, and author (her memoir, I, Bificus, came out in 2016 and is available from AFABC’s library). Yes, Bif Naked, also known as Beth, is an adoptee and proud of it.  In this article, she shares her story with Ronda Payne.

Janet was abandoned at birth outside a hospital in northern BC. In 2017, she found four half-siblings who were also abandoned as babies by the same mother. Through DNA testing, she learned the identity of her deceased biological mother and her biological father, Emil Weinreich. Janet met Emil for the first time just over a year ago. In this article, Janet reflects on how their shared love for her led her biological and adoptive fathers to become family to each other, too.