Positive Adoption Language

I had one of our nurses come to me today to ask a few questions. She is in a multicultural class and needed to interview someone who has had experience with racial or ethnic diversity. She wanted to know what we did to prepare for our daughter and what we planned on doing as we move forward in life. I emailed her a long email of what we have done, what we plan to do, how we respond to racism and adoption comments. It got me thinking about some of the things that we have been correcting people on. How what we say and how we phrase things will affect how Addy interprets being adopted. We have adapted our language to include positive adoption language. We want Addy to be proud of where she came from and how she joined our family. So here is our request... When talking about adoption with us or anyone else, please try to start using positive adoption language.

One that we are more sensitive too is introducing us as "Jenn, Jared and their adopted daughter Addy", she is our daughter, adoption is just how she became part of our family. The more appropriate way to introduce us is, "Jenn, Jared, and their daughter Addy".

Here is a short list of some of the other main terminology.....

Appropriate Term-----------------------------------------Inappropriate Term
Birthparent (Birthmom, Birthfather)---------------------Real mom/dad
Biological siblings----------------------------------------Real Siblings
Birth Child-----------------------------------------------Own child
My Child-------------------------------------------------Adopted child
Make an adoption plan-----------------------------------Give away Give up
Parent---------------------------------------------------Adoptive parent
Child placed for adoption-------------------------------- an unwanted child
Was adopted-----------------------------------------------is adopted

Words not only convey facts, they also evoke feelings. When a TV movie talks about a "custody battle" between "real parents" and "other parents", society gets the wrong impression that only birthparents are real parents and that adoptive parents aren't real parents. Members of society may also wrongly conclude that all adoptions are "battles." Positive adoption language can stop the spread of misconceptions such as these. By using adoption language, we educate others about adoption. We emotionally "correct" words over emotionally-laden words. WE speak and write in positive adoption language with the hopes of impacting others so that this language will someday become the norm.

A couple other adoption sensitive things....

Please do not ask "how much she cost". Yes we have actually been asked that a few times by both people we know and complete strangers. All adoptions have different fees. We did not buy a baby or pay someone to find one for us. If you are interested in adoption, most agencies will lay out the fees and tell you exactly where they are going, feel free to call them for details! Most adoption fees go to good use. For example, some of our fees went toward our agencies birthparent counseling program. Our agency has an extensive counseling program for birthparents who are considering adoption plans so that they get the help and support they need to decide if they want to do an adoption plan or if they want to parent their baby.

Some parts of Addy's adoption story are hers to own. Hers to know first and for her to share when she is ready to with who she chooses. Some of you know more about her background than others and we ask that you respect that. Please do not share all of her background with other friends and people who do not need to know. We want Addy to grow up learning her story from us, her parents, with out any bias that others may inadvertently show.

So as we move forward in our life with our beautiful little babe, we ask that you be supportive and help us use positive adoption language.

9 month pictures!

How does it happen that as soon as you plan to take nice pictures the baby stops smiling! Addy is the most happy smiley baby ever and well for our photo shoot there was no cracking of a smile. We still got a lot of cute pictures especially some "artsy" ones that will look cute framed. And the best part, I have a friend who volunteered to take pics of us! She does a great job and gives us a disk with all of them on it so we can order and upload them wherever we want.


So here is a sneak peak of just a few. If you would like to see all 100 of them, check out our snapfish page (send us an email if we haven't given you the password yet).



Uh Oh!


Pretty Little Girl

Our first picture montage!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hair Hair Hair

Who knew that doing a babies hair would be so much more important than doing my own.

When we started adoption, I had really never thought about hair. It just wasn't something even popped into my head. I knew that if we adopted an African American or Ethiopian baby that I would have to learn to braid and learn to "do" hair. I had no idea what all it entailed. I always figured that we would bring home a bald baby and I would just learn about hair as it grew.

Well, our baby was born with and came home with a full head of thick, beautiful, dense coils.

And so it began....

I started learning as much about hair as I could, found online forums, videos, yahoo groups, trying to figure out what I needed to do to keep these precious curls healthy. Four product lines later, I think I have a good system working at the moment.

A few notes on AA hair....

• Its MUCH drier
• Breaks much easier
• Shouldn't be washed very often
• Is more dry and fragile if left "free"
• Can change texture during life

And so I started trying new styles... Some worked, some didn't. I sent out a picture of Addy's first hair do to a few people. It was when she was about three months old and had three puffs in the front. I got back and email from Grandma saying it was my first "hair don't"! Since then we have done coils which is just adorable and keeps her hair fairly free but looking much more defined and curled. And last night I took the plunge. After emailing back and forth to a few other moms, I got instructions and suggested products for doing flat twists and two strand twists. And so I twisted. It looks so cute but makes her look like a real little girl, so much older than the little baby we brought home less than a year ago.

How, you might ask, do you even attempt to do hair on a wiggly baby? Wait until she is ASLEEP!!! Makes it MUCH easier. We just plop her on the couch or Jared holds her on his chest and I sit and twist!

And so here it is!! Little clips and all, fairly straight parts, and its already lasted through one night!

And so what has this taught me so far? It has taught me patience, to enjoy the moment, to look forward to hair nights, to be ready to always learn more and try new things.

Most importantly it has made me excited to look forward to special mommy & Addy time to rent a movie and do hair.

Baptism

Yesterday we had Miss Addy baptized! We had a lot of family who came to support us and Addy. Afterwards we all went out for lunch. It was nice to spend time with our families. Addy's sponsor was a good friend of ours, Jon, who made the trek all the way from Missouri to be here for it. So that was pretty special. And its always nice to see him!

Here are a few pics from the day.... Grandpa brought Addy a pink princess truck that she can ride on or walk behind and it was the hit of the day. It sings, little princesses bop up and down and spin around, there is a little piano keyboard, it plays lots of music, and keeps her very busy. She LOVES it! Plus its easier to walk behind than her other little toy.

The beginning of the adventure....

We decided to start a blog to keep everyone up to date on Miss Addison! With Robyn heading to Korea in the spring, Great Aunt Cathy out in Sunny California, and various friends and family around the state and US, this is an easy way to fill everyone in on what is new and exciting with us. We are able to post pictures and videos and are able to keep the blog semi-private to just those who we give the website address to. You will not be able to search for it on the blogger site and have to have the exact address to find it. Right now we are not making you sign in or have to get permission to view it, however, if we have issues we will do that. At this point for Internet privacy reasons, we will only be using first names and will not disclose our city location. Please keep this in mind when you post comments. Please do not post our website on your own website, bloglist, or email it to your friends without letting us know. If you have someone you would like to share our blog with, just let us know! Since we have not blogged before, we are hoping to update it at least weekly (no guarantees!).

So let the adventure begin!!!!

A few notes on Miss Addy J....

Addy had her 9 month appointment this past week, yes she is 9 months old already!!! She is just over 18 pounds (52nd percentile) and is 28 inches long (65th percentile). Boy she is growing up fast! The doctor said she was ahead of schedule for all of her motor activities, which we all already knew since she has been cruising around for the past few months!

Addy decided that today was the day she was going to finally clap on her own!!! No more making mommy or daddy clap, no more blanky or toy clapping, but full fledged, arm swinging clapping! She seems very proud of her new skill!

She is also starting to stand up on her own without using furniture or toys to pull herself up... She has also taken to climbing the baby gate. Yikes! She is becoming more and more independent every day!

We also finally took Baby AJ out of her package and Addy is just loving her up. She loves her little babydoll and her babydoll's bottle too!