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11/02/07
Contest and Giveaway for Adoption Month
Posted by : Erin H in Transracial/Transcultural Adoption Blog at 01:31 am , 501 words, 283 views
Categories: Opportunities
Categories: Opportunities
*Make sure you read all the way to the end of this post so you can participate in the fun giveaway.
The Adoption.com Glossary defines adoption as:
The official transfer through the court system of all of the parental rights that a biological parent has to a child, along with an assumption by the adopting parent of all of the parental rights of the biological parents that are being terminated and are assumed in their entirety by the adoptive parents, including the responsibility for the care and supervision of the child, its nurturing and training, it physical and emotional health, and its financial support.
While the text book definition is certainly complete in a legal sense, for anyone who has been personally touched by adoption in any way, adoption has a much more emotional definition. To most of us, adoption is a whole lot more than a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo.
Someone's personal definition of adoption can vary greatly depending on whether they are an adoptive parent, an adoptee, a birth parent or someone else who has been touched by adoption.
I imagine if you asked 100 different people who have been touched by adoption what adoption means to them, that you would get one hundred very different, very emotional, responses.
Since this is November, and November is National Adoption Month, I am thinking a lot about what adoption means to me and my family, and I hope that many of you are doing the same.
And herein lies my contest good readers!
A few weeks ago I reviewed the hair products for kids by Curly Q's, which I have used religiously on Belane since August and think are the very best products for her hair.
Well, someone from Curly Q's saw my review and offered to do a giveaway here on the Transracial Adoption Blog. The prize is a great one. The winner will receive a complete set of Curly Q products, including a shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer and styler of choice, which makes this prize worth over $45.
To participate, and be eligible for the prize, all you need to do is leave a comment below, and tell me what adoption means to you. Your answer can be short and sweet, or long and complex. If you want to leave your comment on your blog that is just fine, just make sure you leave a comment with a link below, and please link back to this post from your blog. I will narrow it down to my favorite five responses, and then my husband, Josh, will be helping me choose a winner.
The contest will be open until Nov. 30. On Nov. 30 I will be posting my own answer to "what adoption means to me", and then the winner of the Curly Q prize package will be announced on Dec. 1.
I hope that you will give it some thought and then share your thoughts with us. And thanks so much to Curly Q's for this fun giveaway!
*Photo from Liquid Library
Comments, Pingbacks:
Comment from: anon [Member] 
Adoption is complete acceptance, love and rights given by someone who knows your intrinsic value and shares a vision for your future.
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11/02/07 @ 06:30
Comment from: Rostovmommy [Member]
For me, the act of adoption is bringing together people who ultimately complete each other. I was a successful single physician who had everything going for me prior to adopting my two boys. I can't believe, looking back on it, how empty my life was and how complete it is now.
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11/02/07 @ 17:39
Comment from: rwandalove [Member]
After being home 3 weeks with our adopted son, adoption means less sleep, more laundry, weird stares at Wal-Mart, that sweet baby smell, slobbery baby kisses, insite into the heart of God who adopted me as his daughter when I was baptised, lifebooks, an extra stocking this Christmas, questions that I will never have all the answers too, and love, love, love!!
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11/02/07 @ 19:27
Comment from: Deb Donatti [Member] · http://open.adoptionblogs.com
· http://open.adoptionblogs.com
Adoption is to me ...Like breathing, my word expands, and then draws in close, a millions times a day! My world, my heart, my mind have expanded through my children, their birthfamilies, and everything that our unique connections means. At the same time I feel like I have drawn the world into the smallest of spaces, the circle of my arms when I hold my children inside them. Being a part of their lives has meant being blessed to become linked to the places, the cultures, the peoples, the essence of everything that makes up THEM.
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11/02/07 @ 21:57
Comment from: Deb Donatti [Member] · http://open.adoptionblogs.com
· http://open.adoptionblogs.com
oops! That's supposed to say "my WORLD expands."
I guess my "word" often does too! LOL
I guess my "word" often does too! LOL
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11/04/07 @ 17:12
Comment from: Erin [Member] · www.kiddobeans.com
· www.kiddobeans.com
Adoption is a permanent relationship with people--birthparents and child-- who could have remained strangers to you forever. Adoption is taking a step forward and saying to your birthmom and your new child, "I will love you unconditionally." Adoption is letting go of the myth that you have power over your ability to have children, and realizing that only God could have envisioned a family as cool as yours.
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11/05/07 @ 13:32
Comment from: me [Member]
Adoption is a way to build a family, equal in power to birth or marriage.
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11/06/07 @ 12:53
Comment from: andreag98 [Member]
How do you define adoption in just a few words? That first moment when you think, "This is it, we will adopt a child" ...to the piles of paper... to the anxious waiting and wondering. "What does God have in store for us?"
Then you get the call and you see this new precious face. What is this child's personality, who is he, what makes him laugh or cry, what makes him tick.
It's the moment when you get to hold him in your arms and know that all is right with the world. And suprise... He has dimples!
It's those first several days home when NOTHING is right with the world. Everything is new... to you both, and neither of you have a clue what to do with the other.
It's the day that you realize that you have gotten a glimpse of what it means to be a child of God. To know that this child is a gift to you, that you are to love with all of your heart and soul. You have been entrusted, chosen to love nurture and care for this amazing child.
How did I get so lucky?!
Then you get the call and you see this new precious face. What is this child's personality, who is he, what makes him laugh or cry, what makes him tick.
It's the moment when you get to hold him in your arms and know that all is right with the world. And suprise... He has dimples!
It's those first several days home when NOTHING is right with the world. Everything is new... to you both, and neither of you have a clue what to do with the other.
It's the day that you realize that you have gotten a glimpse of what it means to be a child of God. To know that this child is a gift to you, that you are to love with all of your heart and soul. You have been entrusted, chosen to love nurture and care for this amazing child.
How did I get so lucky?!
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11/06/07 @ 17:45
Comment from: gwenska [Member]
Growing up as a transracial adoptee I have contemplated what it has meant to be adopted. Born of two homes, two families, and more than two hearts, I know that any way I look at it, it is about love, about hope, and more importantly, it is about LIFE. Looking past the “legal mumbo jumbo” and the initial purpose to get rid of bi-racial children in South Korea, for me adoption is about completing families, connecting countries, and integrating cultures. It is second chances, last chances, new beginnings, happy endings, unexpected occurrences, scary changes, but always fulfilling. Adoption is heartbreaking, heart-making, bridge-building, and absolutely amazing. To me, adoption does not mean I am alone - it means that I am loved.
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11/07/07 @ 17:34
Comment from: musemoon [Member]
To me adoption is family. It is waiting twenty years to meet a person who was worth the twenty year wait. It is not knowing who your child will be and then in an instant knowing they are your family when you meet them.
It is the oportunity to show the world your beautiful family as a living proof that we all can get along, love, support and hold up every member of this great big human race and take one step closer to the day John Lennon so dearly imagined...a day we can all live as one.
It is the oportunity to show the world your beautiful family as a living proof that we all can get along, love, support and hold up every member of this great big human race and take one step closer to the day John Lennon so dearly imagined...a day we can all live as one.
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11/09/07 @ 10:54
Comment from: kl [Member]
As an adopter, as well as an adoptee, I have spent almost all of my life contemplating this question. The best I can come up with is that adoption is the creation, or expansion, of a family through love, faith, hope and trust, instead of biology, resulting in a bond that is magical and true because it is one made of choice.
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11/12/07 @ 12:32
Comment from: arroller@peoplepc.co [Member]
What adoption means to me…. As an adoptive parent, my view of adoption is always changing. My husband and I have adopted 3 times in 4 years, a son from foster care, a son via domestic infant adoption, and a son & daughter (bio-sibs) through international adoption. We’ve also fostered probably 20 additional children. We’ve had two adoptions fall through, one before placement (a bio-sib to one of our sons) and one after (a sib group of 5. So, I guess at this point in my life, adoption (to me) means parenting children who need parents. It means accepting that they have other parents who I’m sure they would choose to be with if they could. It means keeping the lines of communication open. It means scheduling and attending countless therapy sessions: speech, physical, psychological, occupational, as well as regular medical visits. It means dealing with the anger, the frustration, the un-named emotions that our children deal with as a result of their pasts—choices that were made for them by someone else. And dealing with those same emotions myself, at times. It means loving my children as much as, if not more than, I would had they been born of me. It means loving the ones we didn’t get to adopt and praying that their lives are blessed. It means constantly researching, learning and changing so as to always be the best parent I can be.
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11/14/07 @ 20:32
Comment from: scrapsbynobody [Member] · http://scrapsbynobody.blogspot.com/
· http://scrapsbynobody.blogspot.com/
Adoption is a choice.
In the beginning it is a way to choose to grow your family. It is a sea of faces and profiles to choose from.
Then it is THIS child, a dogeared photo to show to anyone who will look. My chosen child. Did I choose right? Will they choose me?
Then it is a choice to refuse to give up hope, when days get hard, and nights get harder. It is a choice to love, when love is hard, and there is not much left to draw on.
It is looking back over long years of time, and realizing there was really not much choice after all. We only thought we were making choices, moving the pieces. But God was in control, and He was teaching us something about Himself, and ourselves, and love, and choices.
In the beginning it is a way to choose to grow your family. It is a sea of faces and profiles to choose from.
Then it is THIS child, a dogeared photo to show to anyone who will look. My chosen child. Did I choose right? Will they choose me?
Then it is a choice to refuse to give up hope, when days get hard, and nights get harder. It is a choice to love, when love is hard, and there is not much left to draw on.
It is looking back over long years of time, and realizing there was really not much choice after all. We only thought we were making choices, moving the pieces. But God was in control, and He was teaching us something about Himself, and ourselves, and love, and choices.
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11/15/07 @ 06:55
Comment from: MamaCarrie [Member]
Adoption is claiming. Claiming this child, not born of my body, as my own. Adoption is releasing. Releasing expectations and assumptions. Adoption is aching... for the loss experienced by all three in the triad. Adoption is rejoicing... for the blessings received when we embrace a child by choice.
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11/15/07 @ 14:55
Comment from: mcmom1 [Member]
Adoption is fate, it is destiny...I was destined to be adopted by my parents and become the person I am so that I was in the right place at the right time to meet my husband. My husband and I were destined to build our family through adoption. Four different times we were in the right place at the right time so that our children could join our family. Coincidences? We don't think so. We were meant to be the parents of these four beautiful children.
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11/18/07 @ 18:56
Comment from: dr.mommy72 [Member]
2 months after bringing my son home, I asked my 4 yo daughter how many more brothers and sisters she wanted. She started running around counting our beds - a bunk bed, a trundle bed, a full bed. She offered to sleep in my bed to make room for another sister - not quite a sacrifice if you know my daughter. So what is adoption? It is a way to fill up all of our beds and our hearts. I am selfish - being around my kids is when I like myself the most. They bring out the me I always knew was in there somewhere but struggled so long to find. When someone says that my son is lucky that I "saved" him - I try so hard to explain that it is sooooo totally the other way around.
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11/18/07 @ 19:24
Comment from: waitingmama [Member]
As a step-parent adoptee, a mother through birth and a prospective AP, I see adoption as an opportunity to increase the abundance of love that we each share as family members. There are spaces within our family where our adopted children will fit. Even now in those spaces and from those spaces love is created and flows through each of us, to reach our children who are not yet home and from them to the world adding to the beauty of being human on Earth.
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11/21/07 @ 14:07
Comment from: pastormacsann [Member]
Adoption is tough. Somedays, some moments, I wonder, "What was I thinking?" And then she wraps her little arms tightly around my neck and presses her chubby cheek hard against mine... and I remember.
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11/22/07 @ 01:14
Comment from: bing_6 [Member]
The longer I've been in this process, the more convoluted my answer has become. When we started the process I would have said that adoption was about building our family; about providing a home and parenting to a child who needed it. I would have said that adoption is about love; that it is about loving a child and about opening your home to a new life and a new culture. I might have said that adoption is about being aware of our whole world and accepting a teeny-tiny part in finding a way to ease the pain for just one who was suffering.
But the truth is, adoption is complicated. It is all of those things and so many more. It is about realizing how much love you have to give; it is about re-evaluating your priorities to make room (and funding) for a life other than your own; it is about preparing yourself for the worst, but hoping for the best; it is about sitting down to fill out mounds of paperwork; it is about sticking with it when times get tough; it is about being persistent; it is about hurrying up with your part and then waiting, waiting, waiting; it is about finding a way to keep going when you feel like a huge part of your heart is missing; it is about accepting your child and his/her birth family and culture as a part of your life; it is about answering lots of questions (sometimes really rude ones) from extended family members and curious on-lookers; it is about dreaming about your first meeting; it is about having an idea about what your child will be like and then finding out later that they were nothing like you imagined they'd be (or that they are exactly as you imagined); it is about love, acceptance, grief, struggles, first family moments, and lots more love.
But the truth is, adoption is complicated. It is all of those things and so many more. It is about realizing how much love you have to give; it is about re-evaluating your priorities to make room (and funding) for a life other than your own; it is about preparing yourself for the worst, but hoping for the best; it is about sitting down to fill out mounds of paperwork; it is about sticking with it when times get tough; it is about being persistent; it is about hurrying up with your part and then waiting, waiting, waiting; it is about finding a way to keep going when you feel like a huge part of your heart is missing; it is about accepting your child and his/her birth family and culture as a part of your life; it is about answering lots of questions (sometimes really rude ones) from extended family members and curious on-lookers; it is about dreaming about your first meeting; it is about having an idea about what your child will be like and then finding out later that they were nothing like you imagined they'd be (or that they are exactly as you imagined); it is about love, acceptance, grief, struggles, first family moments, and lots more love.
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11/26/07 @ 09:52
Comment from: doxie03 [Member]
Adoption is the best, and most rewarding experience to ever happen in my life.
It helped me become a mom to the most beautiful baby boy in the world. And, although my son just turned one, he will always be my baby--no matter how old he is. And adoption made that possible. I don't know if I can ever truely explain what adopting my son means to me in words, but it's a overwhelming feeling of love, vulnerability, trust, and awe all rolled together.
It helped me become a mom to the most beautiful baby boy in the world. And, although my son just turned one, he will always be my baby--no matter how old he is. And adoption made that possible. I don't know if I can ever truely explain what adopting my son means to me in words, but it's a overwhelming feeling of love, vulnerability, trust, and awe all rolled together.
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11/28/07 @ 21:57
Comment from: family4life [Member] · www.family4life.org
· www.family4life.org
I believe that God brought my son Aaron to me. Adopting him was a way to teach me many things about the world and my self. Adoption was a to give me a family but most importantly was a pay to have me pay tribute to father that I lost when I 16 years old. There are so many ways to describe or define adoption but in my life it was a miracle of waking up after being lifeless. I could see the world in color, I could learn to love things about myself and others. This little boy taught me that I could leave my past behind. The abuse that I experienced had imprisoned me for years until I saw life through my child's eyes. if you could give life another chance at 7 years old, so could eye. We now have taken in his nephew, TJ and this 2 month old life is uncertain but what I am certain of is that adoption is a clear cut victory for a child who needs a safe place to belong and God's hand is on everychild. He may stay or he may go but I am deciated to keeping this family together. I have developed a non-profit that alows separated families to reunite and I know no matter where TJ ends up he will always be a part of Family for Life. My son will not have to suffer yet another loss. When you adopt, you adopt all of the needs, issues and challenges of the whole family. for more information on how i keep families together go to www.family4life.org
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11/30/07 @ 06:38
Comment from: ninasimone24 [Member]
as a biracial adoptee adoption means being given the chance to have life instead of life being taken from you. it means giving someone a chance to take a part in the life of a miracle. it means witnessing the favor that god has placed on the life of a child who has overcome life's hardships. it means picking up where someone had to leave off.. it means the recovery of a yet undiscovered treasure that can only be truly found by walking side by side with and adding to the jewels already stored inside a child
A
Discovery
Of
Precious
Treasure
In
One's
Natural life
A
Discovery
Of
Precious
Treasure
In
One's
Natural life
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11/30/07 @ 07:48
Comment from: Dixiefern [Member]
Adoption is the chance to share the overabundance of love I never knew was in my heart.
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11/30/07 @ 08:17
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