Birth Mom Photo Shoot

We had a birth mom photo shoot on Saturday Oct. 10th at Memorial Grove Park. My friend Desha Wood was supposed to come down from Portland, OR but got caught in bad weather in Colorado. She had a photographer couple come out to do it professionally, while I conducted. Though we all knew one another from group, this gave us the chance to be silly and really get to know one another even more. We all wore pink, because a pink ribbon represents not only Breast Cancer awareness, but also for birth mothers.

I would like to say that I am grateful to be able to be an adoption advocate and to promote open adoption and to recommend it as an option. No agency is perfect, but I would like to thank my Bishop for recommending our agency, and bringing it to my attention. Though the experience of teen pregnancy can be a negative one, I was blessed to have the opportunity to turn a negative into a positive.

(This is us trying to hide behind a column, we tried a tree but it wouldn't hide 5 people)

I hope to be able to write and continue to share my experience for teens or expecting mothers so they may know that not all adoptions are horror stories they've heard.

I was very hesitant to think of adoption as an option based on the concept of your traditional closed adoption, worried about how my baby would feel as she grew up while I wasn't there. Matt and Molly say they're the grateful ones and that they're lucky to have had three children (including me) since 2007 in their lives. I should be the grateful one, they introduced the concept of open adoption to me. Open adoption may not be for everyone, but at least the idea of it brought another option to the table for me, which for my situation, it has turned out great.
Something I would advise adoptive couples and birth mothers is: Be honest in your relationship. Don't make promises you can't keep, but try to have an idea or a set plan you can keep to work. For example: We can have pictures and letters sent from the adoptive couple to the birth mom every two weeks from birth until the baby is 3-6 months old. After that, one letter a month, or something like that.
People define "Open" in many different ways and terms. My adoption seems to be one of the most open because I was able to live with the couple from 12 weeks of pregnancy. This doesn't always mean our relationship is peachy and more perfect, it just means we have to be very honest when we communicate and when we set boundaries, we stick to the roles we play in each other's lives and in the child's life.

I do what I can to promote adoption or adoption awareness. I am on a site, I post it in blogs, or even polls. I feel that it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but instead of a loss, I chose to make it a gain in my life. I'm not sulking and letting it define my life or who I am, but I let it shape me to where I can be able to help others and counsel them as they may be on the same journey I was once on.