This book covers common open adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully. Like all useful parenting books, it provides parents with the tools to come to answers on their own, and answers questions that might not yet have come up.

Adopted persons face challenges their entire lives as they struggle to answer the most basic question: Who am I? The hope of open adoption is that adopted children will develop stronger identities if they have the opportunity to develop healthy ongoing relationships with their families of origin. Making Room in Our Hearts offers an intimate look at how these relationships evolve over time, with real-life stories from families who have experienced open adoption first-hand. This book helps both adoptive and birth parents address their fears and concerns, while offering them the support to put the child’s psychological and spiritual needs at the center of adoption. Based on interviews with more than one hundred adopted children, birth and adoptive parents, extended families, professionals and experts, the book is an effective and invaluable resource for those considering open adoption, those experiencing it, and professionals in the field. Openness has altered the landscape of adoption, and Making Room in Our Hearts will help us catch up to the reality that is open adoption today.

Whereas adoption was once a private affair cloaked in secrecy and sealed records, adoptions in the US today are increasingly open - that is, birth and adoptive families meet and become acquainted before the adoption, and remain in contact once it is complete. Experts agree that open adoption comes with many benefits for both birth families and adoptive families and their children, but what does it actually look like for families experiencing it, and what can we learn from those experiences? Open Adoption and Diverse Families reveals the strengths, vulnerabilities, daily struggles and triumphs of adoptive families today. Drawing on extensive interviews with lesbian, gay, and heterosexual parents, many of whom adopted transracially, psychologist Abbie Goldberg confronts the extraordinary questions that open adoption poses: How do adoptive parents feel about openness when they first learn about it, and why do their feelings change over time? How does contact unfold and evolve as a child grows? What types of boundary challenges arise between adoptive and birth family members, particularly in the age of social media and networking? How do adoptive parents talk about adoption with their children, and how does this vary depending on level and type of contact with birth families? Confronting head-on difficult subjects such as birth parents' mental illness and racial differences between birth and adoptive families, Open Adoption and Diverse Families chronicles the decisions and dynamics that adoptive parents sign up for when they pursue option adoption, and is a must-read for all families pursuing or experiencing this exceptional approach to building a family.

Adoption has changed dramatically over the past twenty years; biological parents no longer have to say goodbye to their child forever. Now nearly all adoption agencies promote open adoptions. Open adoption creates the opportunity for a special relationship between the biological parents, the adoptive parents, and the child. Emotionally, this is still largely uncharted territory. Open adoption requires a new approach by all involved, but it also generates invaluable rewards. The supporting relationships of open adoption provide for the better development of the child's psychological and spiritual well-being. Russell Elkins gives valuable insight for making successful open adoption.Open Adoption, Open Heart is the inspiring, true story of Russell and Jammie Elkins heartwarming journey. In this book, Russell offers stories, encouragement, and practical advice about the tensions and triumphs in open adoption. Their experiences take readers deep into the feelings and emotions of adoptive parents, sharing the joys, difficulties, and amazing victories that face adoptive couples. Both adoptive and biological parents need the valuable lessons that Open Adoption, Open Heart will provide.

A workbook to be used by open adoption parents and their preschool and elementary school-aged adoptees.

"After two years of waiting to adopt--slogging through paperwork and bouncing between hope and despair--a miracle finally happened for Vanessa McGrady. Her sweet baby, Grace, was a dream come true. Then Vanessa made a highly uncommon gesture: when Grace's biological parents became homeless, Vanessa invited them to stay. Without a blueprint for navigating the practical basics of an open adoption or any discussion of expectations or boundaries, the unusual living arrangement became a bottomless well of conflicting emotions and increasingly difficult decisions complicated by missed opportunities, regret, social chaos, and broken hearts"--

While books about adoption proliferate, none of them addresses the subject of open and interracial adoption like Jana Wolff's personal and frank account does in [i]Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother[/i]. Often irreverent, always insightful, surprisingly funny and stunningly honest, [i]Secret Thoughts[/i] tells it like it is: How it feels for a woman to look nothing like her child and to know the woman who does. This fiercely honest and funny book answers questions no one dares to ask: What if I don't like the child I get? Will she want the baby back? If this is the happiest day of my life, why am I so sad? Am I too white for a kid this black? Chapter titles include: The Myth of Bliss, Friendly Racism, Meeting Your Child's Mother, and Adopted Poop Doesn't Smell Any Different.