Extended family

Meet Claire, an adoptive mom of two boys, who shares the “fast and furious learning” that she and her family experiences when they adopt an older child. Claire's 10-year-old son was adopted from a Russian orphanage when he was 19 months old. Her other son, Ethan, joined their family just over a year ago, when he was 7. Ethan was born in Canada and entered government care at age two. Read on for Claire’s lessons in extreme parenting.

We are pleased to share with you some information on adoption. We hope it will help us all to celebrate the adoption in our family and to welcome our new arrival.

Anne Melcombe and Kirsty Stormer are adoption recruitment workers for Wendy’s Wonderful Kids.A North America-wide program, WWK was started by the Dave Thomas Foundation to find homes for waiting children and is administered in BC by AFABC. Anne and Kirsty do child-specific adoption recruitment; they match families to the needs of specific waiting children.

As I prepared to adopt, I knew there was a “right” answer when it came to openness. Openness was good, and I needed to come across like I believed it. The truth was, openness scared me silly.

What I really hoped was that any child we adopted would have an unfortunate, yet complete, lack of background information, and that openness was something that I could favour without actually experiencing.

Two innovative AFABC programs prove that, in many cases, there are people in a child’s existing network who are willing to adopt the child. Social worker Anne Melcombe, of Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, and Kirsty Stormer of Fraser Kids, explain how their programs work.

“You mean I have 50 people who are actually related to me! All these people are my family!” -- Eight-year-old foster child who is shown his family tree after extensive research was done to uncover it.

From their own experiences, Sandee and Aaron Mitchell knew that openness was vitally important for all their family, especially their son.

Being an adoptive mom isn’t the only adoption connection in Sandee Mitchell’s life. In fact, adoption weaves itself right through her past and present.

When we say that children waiting to be adopted have "no family" it's rarely true. Most have family--we just haven't looked hard enough.

In the adoption world, we often state that children waiting to be adopted have “no family” and, therefore, need a new one.

Sarah Reid is a happy adoptive mom, but she's fed up with well-meaning friends who assume she can't cope with other people's preganancies.

I'm happy you're pregnant! I'm not jealous. Not jealous at all. Really!

When I was a kid, I always knew I’d grow up and get married and have babies. Granted, I thought it would be through pregnancy first and adoption later on, but things happened this way for a reason. I’ve got my baby boy and all I see is joy. Adoption wasn’t an alternative—it was our path.

So why, why, why, are people walking on eggshells?

When Chelsea was adopted, her young birthmom gave a letter, photo, bracelet, and blanket to her daughter. At first, her adoptive parents sent letters and photos via their social worker. Then each family moved and contact was lost—until now.

When I was a little girl, I used to love to jump out of the car when my dad stopped by the mailbox because I wanted to see if I got anything. Eventually the excitement wore off because I rarely did, but it was still my job to check the mail.

Adoptive mom Amanada Vincent asks, "Why do people insist on seeing adoption as second best?"

I do wish that people would think before implying that the recent birth of my son must have finally brought my heart’s desire.