Kinship

We've added 40 books to our adoption library! Check them out here, and stop by our head office in Burnaby to borrow one. For more information on our lending library visits our main library page.     

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 

My daughter Libby was born as I held her birth mother Carla’s hand, breathing with her through the agony of labour. When her daughter drew her first breath, Carla looked at me and said, “Congratulations on your new baby.” Then she asked me to cut the umbilical cord.

As we open our hearts to the future, we can learn from the closed adoptions of the past.

Adoption’s early days

Before the 19th century, what we now think of as kinship, clan, or custom adoption—compassionate adults incorporating orphaned children into their families—was essential to many cultures. For example, when Irish immigrants died of typhoid on the Atlantic crossing of 1847, thousands of orphaned children were taken in by French Quebecois families.

Who are the Métis?

The Canadian Constitution includes three peoples in its definition of Aboriginal: First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. The Métis emerged as a distinct

In this five-part series from 2006, we present the diary of Mary Ella, an intercountry adoptive mom. She shares the journey she and her husband, Wayne, took to Korea to meet their long-awaited daughter, Leelee.

The importance of cultural connections

In a previous article, I wrote about the Exceptions Committee in the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). The article was prompted by a list of questions that the Adoptive Families Association of BC had gathered from their membership. There were additional questions related to Aboriginal adoption in BC that I will endeavor to answer in this follow-up article.

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.

In the 23rd of our series, our mom of three kids--Emily, Grant and Lynn--is still absorbing the news that Emily’s birthmom is pregnant and wants them to adopt the new baby. It’s a difficult decision, and everyone seems to think that she’s the one who should have to make it.

I phoned my husband at work, suggested he sits down, and tell him about Alexa being pregnant. Dead silence. When he finally spoke, he said, “That’s so great! A sibling of Emily’s! Wow! When is she due?”

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.