If someone would have told me 10 years ago that I’d be married to my high school sweetheart and have two kids at 25, I would have said, “You’re nuts.” But, that’s exactly what happened. I met my husband in the summer of 2008. We were 17 and just about to start our senior year
Meet Thelma | A Teen at Risk of Aging Out
Every year over 23,000 kids age out of U.S. foster care. Please take a moment to get to know a few of the kids that need to match with families before it’s too late. Thelma is a very social teen who will turn 18 this summer. She loves to meet new people—her dry and sarcastic
Five Years
It’s hard to believe that it has been five years since Hope moved in from her last foster home. In some ways it seems like it couldn’t possibly be that long; in other ways it feels like a lifetime ago. I’m about 15 lbs. heavier, and I have a LOT more gray hair than I
Infographic | What happens when kids age out of foster care?
Older youth are often overlooked because we, as a society, believe they don’t need a family. We have convinced ourselves that these kids have made it on their own for this long, they should be able to make it as adults as well. It’s true, these kids have been without a permanent family for a
Research Request | Adoptees and Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing
Heewon Lee, a Korean adoptee and genetic counseling graduate student at the University of Minnesota, is recruiting participants for a research study about direct-to-consumer genetic testing (e.g., 23andme, Ancestry DNA, Family Tree DNA) among domestic and internationally adopted adults. This study is unique as it will be one of the first studies to query both
The Holidays When You’re Longing for a Baby Can Be So HARD
This content was originally published by Creating a Family, the national infertility education and support nonprofit. Let’s pause for just a moment to recognize that this season of joy is also a season of pain for some, including the 1 in 8 people who are suffering from infertility. The holidays when you’re longing for a
Raymani Wins Hearts Like a Superhero
3-year-old Raymani and 5-year-old Jesse still talk about Dec. 14, 2017. It was “Big Brother Day,” a day when Jesse showed his new little brother how to build toys at Build-a-Bear and they went to lunch at Noodles & Co. with their moms and 7-year-old sister, Railyn. Raymani had always been wary of the social
Life Changes When You Adopt from Foster Care
During this season of giving we find ourselves reflecting on all the wonderful gifts we received this year—the greatest of which was the adoption of our bright daughters Sky (8) and Leyna (7). We chose to adopt a sibling group from foster care and have been on an incredible journey in becoming their forever family.
3 Things You Can Do If You’ve Been Inspired by Instant Family
Instant Family premieres this weekend amidst a flurry of conversations in the adoption and foster care community. The movie is based on the true story of a couple, played by Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne, who decide to foster a sibling group of three. Thanks to the generosity of Paramount Pictures a number of our
A Very Foster Christmas and an Adoptive New Year
Joyful Noize Productions is putting together a show celebrating the foster/adoption community and YOU are the stars. They have an open call for story tellers who want to share their first-person foster or adoption story—these can be foster/adopted youth, grown up youth, siblings, parents, and kinship folks. As a story teller, you will tell your
