Growing Families by Adopting With Love

Adopting With Love welcomes you to the wonderful world of open adoption!

We all have heard it takes a village to raise a child. Open adoption puts this age-old wisdom into practice in a 21st century context. Adopting With Love creates an on-line village where families can share real stories and photos, gather information, and learn from all phases of the adoption journey. With love, openness, and a sense of community, adoptive families will naturally grow.

Sharing, Caring, Preparing

At Adopting With Love, we believe real learning happens when we share real life experiences with each other. Through sharing our stories, we will grow new friendships which offer support and inspiration. We also believe education is essential to prepare us for the journey and to develop a strong foundation for becoming informed adoptive families. Adopting With Love will strive to maintain a site that provides education, information, and inspiration with the integrity, honesty and spirit from which open adoption is founded.

What Is Open Adoption?

Ask several different people to define open adoption, and you'll get several different answers! This is why it's so important to listen to many stories, ask a lot of questions (from professionals and adopting families) and educate yourselves. The great news is, the process of open adoption offers an opportunity for the adoptive family and birth family to define the level of openness that is comfortable and meaningful for them.

To give a brief definition, open adoption is the practice of raising adopted children with their full knowledge of their adoption stories. As described by the National Adoption Information Clearing House:

Open or fully disclosed adoptions allow adoptive parents, and often the adopted child, to interact directly with birth parents. Family members interact in ways that feel most comfortable to them. Communication may include letters, e-mails, telephone calls, or visits. The frequency of contact is negotiated and can range from every few years to several times a month or more. Contact often changes as a child grows and has more questions about his or her adoption or as families' needs change.

For a more in-depth description of open adoption, we recommend you visit the website for the Child Welfare Information Gateway (formerly NAIC-Nat'l Adoption Info Clearning House).

To get a great overview of the history of adoption, we would recommend you visit The Adoption History Project website.