At Everlasting Adoptions, we believe a family is defined by LOVE and have successfully placed many single parent, same sex and multiracial families. In fact, 31% of our placements in the last 18 months have been with single mothers and same sex couples! If you are ready to grow your family, no matter what that family looks like, give Everlasting Adoptions a call at 310-844-1966.
#lovemakesafamily #familybuilder
Adoption has become more and more mainstream in the last several years. Many movies and TV shows attempt to portray adoption and foster care. One obvious example of this is the super popular TV show This Is Us. With every episode tugging at the viewers’ heartstrings and giving us all the feels, most would say the show does a pretty good job portraying the highs and lows of adoption. Some portrayals are better than others at accurately depicting these life-changing events. Books, movies and TV shows that have a positive message on adoption and foster care can be a wonderful resource for anyone, whether personally touched by adoption or not. As with everything, your personal narrative and life experience will play a role in determining what is the right message for you and your family.
Despicable Me 3 A continuation of the story of former supervillain, Gru and his wife, Lucy who are adoptive parents to their daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes. While the plot is not as focused on adoption as the previous movies, it is theme that is intertwined in the storyline in a positive way.
Instant Family Idealistic couple Ellie and Pete find themselves overwhelmed when they open up their home to foster teenager Lizzy (and her two younger siblings, Juan and Lita. With the help of fellow foster parents and agency workers, they learn to navigate the joys and pitfalls of parenting to become a modern family.
Private Life This Netflix original explores a topic that is oftentimes closely related to adoption; infertility. Married couple, Richard and Rachel who are in their 40’s are in the throes of infertility. The movie takes a very real look into IVF, adoption and egg donation.
The Storyteller Jen is adopted by Maggie and her husband after spending time in foster care. After Maggie’s husband dies and Abby joins the family, Jen and Maggie’s relationship becomes tumultuous. This movie is a testament to the true meaning of family and belonging.
Adoption at the Movies is a fantastic resource to find information and reviews on all adoption theme movies, new and old.
Adoptive Families put together this wonderfully comprehensive list of 21 Noteworthy Adoption Books Published in 2018. Books are a great way to explore complicated topics with children at an age appropriate level. It can also be extremely valuable for individuals involved in the adoption process to gain an understanding from other perspectives. A book written by a birth mother would be an important read for prospective adoptive parents to gain perspective and empathy. So make some time in your busy day to curl up with a good book from this list.
We are thrilled to share a very special New Year’s birth announcement welcoming baby boy, Camden Christopher! After a long journey, Kim and Chris were finally able to meet their son . On December 18, 2018, Camden was born at 8:32 am. 7.4lbs, 18 inches of pure joy. Though Kim and Chris’s adoption journey was long and difficult, the minute they were able to hold Camden in their arms, it was worth every second of the wait. We wish you all a Blessed and Happy New Year and a lifetime to come!
Maurisa & Glenn signed on with Everlasting Adoptions in August 2017 with the hopes of expanding their family through the miracle of adoption. In May 2018, they were matched with birth mother Kamil. Though Kamil was certain with her decision to choose adoption, she did her due diligence in choosing an adoptive family. She spent over a month getting to know a few prospective parents via text. In early May, Kamil knew in her heart that Maurisa & Glenn were the parents meant for her baby. Kamil revealed the exciting news to Maurisa on Mother’s Day, which will be a day she will never forget.
Maurisa, Glenn and Kamil had an opportunity to meet in person, which solidified the decision for Kamil. Kamil and Maurisa were lucky to have the next 5 months to form a strong bond and get to know one another even better. On October 18, 2018, Kamil gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl, Kayleigha. Maurisa and Glenn’s long awaited for dream had finally became a reality. They were overjoyed as they held Kayleigha in their arms. We all will be forever grateful to Kamil for her selfless act of love. This Christmas will surely be blessed for Maurisa, Glenn and their families!
There are the three P’s of success, the three P’s of business, but have you heard of the three P’s of adoption? We have put together a list of three P’s necessary to have a successful adoption journey regardless the outcome. Our three P’s of adoption are profile, patience and peace. Everlasting Adoption’s Founder, Director and adoptive mother herself, Carol weighs in on our third P, peace, which was extremely important to her during her own adoption journey.
Profile
If you are at all familiar with adoption, you know how important a profile is to marketing yourself to birth mothers. In a process that is largely outside of your control, an adoption profile is one of the few aspects you can dictate. Whether you create your own or hire someone to make a profile for you, make sure you have put sufficient thought and effort into its creation. Our article on 5 Tips to Create a Stand Out Adoption Profile is a great place to start to gather tips on making the best profile possible. This is the very first impression you make on birth mothers, so it is important to use eye catching, professional looking photos and informative, concise and descriptive text.
Patience
This P is certainly easier said than done. Such a stressful and emotional process doesn’t really make it easy to be patient. The not knowing and waiting can be excruciating. According to Adoption Center it can take between 2 and 7 years to adopt a healthy infant. With numbers like that, patience is key to making it through the process in one piece.
One way to help maintain patience is to recruit your spouse, friend or family member to be the voice of reason. When they see you overly fraught with worry or stress, it is their job to help you relax. However they choose to do this is up to them. It is always helpful to have someone on the outside keep an eye on things that we are unable to see ourselves. Another way to help exercise patience is to keep busy. Immerse yourself in things you enjoy; yoga, reading, home decorating. Whatever your thing is, spending your time in these activities instead of obsessing over getting “the call” will help you find peace, which is our third P.
Peace
With the Christmas holiday fast approaching, the word “peace” is often used. How does peace relate to adoption? Our founder, Carol had some valuable insight on the importance of finding peace during the process and a special message to all waiting families.
“As I went through the adoption journey with my husband, the most significant thing I learned was that you must make peace with yourself, as you are right now, even if you do not reach your dream of adopting. I went through 12 years of infertility my choice and 2 failed adoptions before our miracle came
to us!
Adoption comes with many challenges and can sometimes be an emotional roller coaster ride. You cannot start to travel down this road without making peace with your life as it currently is. If you are unsettled and feeling you can’t go on without a child or another child to fulfill your life, the road will be full of bumps, setbacks and disappointments. If I only knew back then to work hard at starting out with a peaceful mindset, one that has no expectations, our journey would have been a lot smoother; a lot more peaceful.
My best advice to anyone considering or going through the adoption journey right now, is to make a sound decision to be peaceful no matter what the outcome. If it doesn’t happen, then believe, with all your heart, that it wasn’t meant to be. It may be cliché, but it has proven time and again to be so true. If you do adopt successfully, then peace will still be with you because it was there from the get-go.
Adoption and the entire process truly makes you see the world through different eyes. It is amazingly divine. May this holiday season bring you amazingly, divine PEACE.”
Ten years have flown by in the blink of an eye for Jami & Ryan and their two girls. We can’t believe Everlasting Adoptions worked to help complete their family over 10 years ago! It warms our hearts to receive this family update from Jami. What a beautiful way to start this Holiday season.
Dear Carol,
I just wanted to reach out to you to wish you a happy holiday season. I’m sure you hear from your new fresh families often, but wanted you to hear from an oldie like me. I still think of you often and appreciate everything you did to help make our little family possible. Can you believe it’s been over 10 years ago?! Look at those sweet little babies! Still sweet, but definitely not babies. When we were expecting people warned us how quickly the time goes when you have kids. But it’s still shocking. In the blink of an eye, I will be sending you graduation photos and wedding photos. I hope you and your boys are all doing well; they must be so grown up by now! Grandkids on the horizon? My goodness what an adventure parenting has turned out to be!
Cheers and happy holidays!
Jami
”
You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
Desmond Tutu
”
Adopting one child won’t change the world: but for that child, the world will change.
unknown
“ Children and mothers never truly part, bound together by the beating of one another’s heart.
Charlotte Gray
“ Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
Oprah Winfrey
“ However motherhood comes to you, it’s a miracle.
Valerie Harper
“ Adoption is a journey of faith, from beginning to end.
Johnny Carr
“ Born not from our flesh, but born in our hearts, you were longed for and wanted and loved from the start.
unknown
“ Love is unselfishly choosing for another’s highest good.
C.S. Lewis
Thank you to our past Everlasting families for sharing their Halloween photos with us. We may be biased, but these trick-or-treaters are the cutest we’ve ever seen!
We love getting updates from Everlasting families and were so thrilled to hear from Quinn and Scott. Beautiful Bliss turned 2 and we just know she had a blast celebrating. We love watching you grow and we hope you have a wonderful year a head!
Hello All,
We’ve been meaning to send an update, but it has been such a hectic summer! Definitely looking forward to cooler temperatures here in Ohio and the lull until the holidays. 🙂
Anyway, our Bliss celebrated her second birthday mid-July! She’s been spending loads of time hanging out with her twin besties at the park (#sandboxlife), continues to be crazy for any/all animals and starts soccer this month. She’s a bright, busy girl who keeps us on our toes. Currently, her other top interests are trains and dinosaurs, and Star Wars (especially Chewbacca) is still a favorite.
We’ve attached a couple photos; as you can see, she’s just the cutest kid and we love her with all of our hearts. Thank you so much for helping us make Bliss part of our family. She is our world. ️
Warmest regards,
Quinn & Scott
We are happy to announce another single parent placement that only took 10 months! Tracey joined the Everlasting Adoptions family in July 2017. Nine months later, on April 13, 2018, Tracey learned that there was a birthmother interested in her! After a few weeks of communicating with each other, Tracey was on her way to visit her birth mom, face-to-face. The visit went well; birth mother told her she wanted to move forward with her adoption plan and that she might deliver baby via cesarean as soon as June 4th. Wow! Awesome news for all and well worth the visit.
Tracey got a call on May 29th that Amanda was going to the hospital, right then, for a cesarean delivery. Tracey quickly took off to the hospital, so she could be there when baby was born. Luckily, Tracey lives in the same state as her birth mother. As we know, the adoption journey can be full of unexpected happenings. This was one of them and it turned out to be a false alarm! Everyone went back home and waited for baby to make her earthly entrance.
Baby Nyla came two days later. She was born on May 31, 2018, and weighed 6 lbs 13 oz. She is the sweetest baby who loves to be held and enjoys kisses on her cheeks. Tracey is ecstatic to welcome Nyla to her family. She looks forward to the two of them making lifelong memories and sharing unending happiness. We are also so grateful to Nyla’s birthmother for her selfless act of love. We wish you all the best of what is ahead!