I decided that I wanted to publish a book of adoption stories after getting a copy of an eBook from a client who had been in foster care growing up. The book contained stories from a half dozen others as well as his story.
I have worked in the field as a social worker for over 40 years, most of the time spent working with foster and adoptive families. I have worked for the Indiana Dept of Child Services in Child Protective Services as a Caseworker and a Supervisor, for The Villages of Indiana (foster care and adoption agency) as Clinical Director in 2 Regions and then had a full time private practice for 15 years. I am the mother of five children, 2 biological and 3 adopted. And my adopted children are African American and bi-racial, their father and I are White and Jewish. Our two boys came home to us as babies, and my daughter, who is fourth in birth order, but fifth in arrival order, was 5 years old.
I have heard many stories and reflections from birth parents, adoptive parents, adopted children and other family members in “circle” of adoption. I wanted to gather stories from those who are within the various parts of the circle and decided to do a call out for stories for the book. And because of my work over these many years, my connections include several well known experts in the field. And these connections have been helpful to me in my call out for stories and to develop a resource section of the book. I received 40 stories representing the different parts of the “circle”. I decided that I would make the book an eBook publication because I wanted it to be readily available at minimal to no cost. I also felt strongly that these stories were not my stories, they belonged to each of the writers and it didn’t feel appropriate to be making money from the stories of others.
After creating the eBook, I received several additional stories and wanted to find a way to continue to publish more. I also am interested in the stories becoming perhaps a conduit for folks to interact with one another. My vision is that support groups may form, perhaps within the sub sections, e.g. birth parents developing a group, adoptees, foster parents of adopted children, connected others, such as godparents, CASAs, etc. And so, I am continuing to gather stories to print in Stories from the Adoption Circle: The Blog: the adoptioncircle.org
If you have a story to share, a poem, or an artistic rendering, please send it to me at connecthrulove@gmail.com Your piece will be anonymous unless you indicate otherwise and of course, only you will know if you use actual names or pseudonyms to identify family members. And if you have any questions or concerns, do email me.
Elaine Spicer, LCSW
Read Stories from the Adoption Circle click on image below:
