Six Things Adoptive/Foster Families Need When New Children Arrive

by Lisa Qualls

lisa qualls

This was the question,

What would have helped you the most in the early weeks and months of adding a child to your family through adoption or foster care? If somebody had asked you, “What can I do to help?” and you were able  to answer anything at all with no shame, guilt, or concern about whether they really would want to do it, what would it have been?

This is what you answered:

Bring Food

Many of you stated that having meals delivered allowed more time to focus on all of your children, but also gave you some contact with “the outside world.”  It does not have to be dinner, as somebody said, even bringing cut-up fruit would help.  Someone else mentioned having dinner brought by friends who then shared the meal and spent the evening with them.  One person wrote that when they adopted a baby, friends brought meals, but when they adopted an older child people assumed it wasn’t as demanding and didn’t bring meals.  I think we can safely say that every adopting/foster family will be blessed by meals. […]

My Love Will Not Let You Down

by Ellie Stoneley

At this time of year, when the tills of florists, card shops and chocolate emporia go “ker-ching,” the world is suddenly filled with red heart-shaped helium balloons, and I’ve often been known to become a little cynical.P1020476

I love ‘love’, and I love being told I’m loved and I love loving the people I love, but, and it is a big, but, I do struggle with the huge amount of money spent at Valentine’s Day on meals that are that bit more expensive than they usually are and, well, the whole thing really. I used to love the idea of anonymous Valentine’s cards and remember trying to disguise my writing in them at school or trying to decipher coded messages to see if I could work out who a card was from. I also know and do remember the bitter disappointment when no card arrived, or if the rose that did come wasn’t a huge bunch of them. (Yes, I was that shallow as a teenager … and constantly disappointed!!!) […]

Infertile. Me? No way, I’m Latina!

Liz Raptis Picco

006I’m soon to be 60, raising teenage brothers who my husband and I adopted from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua almost fifteen years ago. Being a Latina and native speaker definitely helped when we approached an orphanage in northern Mexico. Being a Latina also made it difficult for me to talk about it openly among my family.

I’ve noticed the same reluctance in Latinas to discuss infertility and IVF, as well as adoption. I follow many wonderful blogs where important issues concerning Latinas are showcased, but I have not yet found one that discusses infertility.

Why? […]

One Hero in a Community of Mothers

by Andrea Lynn

In my life, there are many mothers I respect and admire. Friends, family, colleagues, even strangers. Mothers I see in the world doing the right thing with children, showing small kindnesses, endless patience, needed discipline. Moms who have faced huge obstacles, small tragedies, who started their journeys late or in roundabout ways. But heroic mothers? I only know one, and I don’t know her well. She is a midlife mother, in her 50s, and attends the same church as I do. I know her because our congregation has adopted her cause as ours — emergency foster care of the youngest children in our city. […]

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