Adoption, adoption, adoption!

This has been a week of adoption topics for us!!
I had a woman approach me last Sunday at church who is parenting an African American daughter and biracial son and she told me about the Adoption group she had started. So I met with her and three other women Thursday night and we shared our stories and talked about where we want to see the group go.

On Friday while out for lunch with a friend and her girls, we met a couple that have started a group based in Fort Worth for adoptive families who are parenting transracially. I look forward to possibly getting involved there, as I am always excited about meeting more families like us.

That afternoon a woman called me and wanted to talk about adoption and the agency we used. It was a great opportunity for me to help bust through some of the myths surrounding birthmothers and various other aspects of adoption.

Then we traveled to Vivi's birthplace on Saturday to speak on a panel of couples at our adoption agency's training for potential parents. There were 13 couples in training, so it was a bit overwhelming! But it was also lots of fun. We had the last 20 minutes where we talked about Transracial Adoption. We never turn down an opportunity to talk about the great need there is for parents for African American babies. Our agency had emailed us about 6 months ago to pray for more couples to come to them who wanted to parent African American children and we met two couples this weekend who were excited about this possibility.

Then our agency asked us if Billy and I would want to speak at their annual Gala fundraiser. Every year they have a couple and their child's birthmother give their adoption story. This year they expect there to be over 500 in attendance! A bit overwhelming but when Vivi's birthmother said she would be fine speaking to that kind of crowd, we said yes too. That will be in November.

Finally before we went to our training, we hung out with Vivi's birthfamily at Burger King for a couple of hours. It is always a blessing for them to see how much Vivi is growing and how beautiful she is! We are so proud and so happy that she has extended family to love on her. For the first time, her birthmother gave us her email address and apartment address! I have been wanting to be in more contact with her for awhile but now that I have the opportunity-I almost don't know what to say!! I guess I can ease into it by sending some pics of Viv over email. But she checks it at work and so I don't want to get too emotional with her! She still wears the necklace we gave her at Vivi's consummation of a baby shoe with the baby's name on it. She said that people ask what it means and she tells them. She has gotten a lot of positive support this way.

I am thankful to our Lord for open adoption. What a wonderful way to have many opportunities to love on and show appreciation for your child's birthmother. It is a beautiful picture of pure selflessness and we are incredibly blessed to have this kind of contact.