adoption
Adoption proves that sometimes, you can choose your family; all about the process before, during and after adoption.
Love Letters to Anne
So I had let go of everyone. No one was reliable or stable and I was alone in this quest. I pushed forward. Now don’t misunderstand me, I know there are some people who were adopted who had a great experience. Who had been given all the tools and love that was necessary, but that’s not my story. That’s not my truth. And I don’t particularly enjoy going over these memories, but it’s necessary to tell the tale in such a way that you understand where I was and how it was. The burden was crippling at times.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Love Letters to Anne
By 17, I had entered the dark world of the night. I slept late as I could before work and then contemplated where I would be at 3 am later on. I would go to the midnight movies and hang around as I was employed at least twice by the local movie theatre where I had many friends at the time.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Love Letters to Anne
I had just turned 30, and my birthday has always been an emotional day for me. The uncertainties that it brought to the surface, all my insecurities and self-doubts about my origins. I was on the phone with someone and explaining that the not knowing why I was relinquished for adoption was a pain I couldn't keep bearing.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Love Letters to Anne
I remember when computers were first making their ways into homes, we didn't have one, but grandma did. I was never able to grasp completely the nuances of coding even then. But I knew in my heart that one day, someone would making using these easy enough for me to understand them. And then came Microsoft Windows...my patience was born out. And I took every opportunity to learn computers.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Love Letters to Anne
So let’s take an aside… My missing pieces drove me. The emptiness pushed me further. Nothing anyone had to offer me in this place mattered. I was born and then broken and then expected to be normal. Whatever that was supposed to be. I constantly sought reassurance and love because the love I needed was stripped from me. But I didn’t know how to love. Love was associated with loss and pain.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Love Letters to Anne
So anyway, I was unhappy at my core, but I tried to fit in, trying to be everything everyone expected of me. Dealing with situations with no guidance or directions, no map, and yet this longing filled my being. I couldn’t behave because the emptiness would suck the life out of me and the slow twisting of insanity growing within me would explode out of me. I couldn’t control it. I would act out, and in violence at times, never shying away from a battle of anyone’s creation.
By Michael DeMarais4 years ago in Families
Red light Green light
So leading back into the good old days anyone remember playing Red light Green light? If so have you played it in a swimming pool? Well I got to experience it again for the first time in ages. Take four kids that have not seen each other in about four years into a swimming pool and try to make up games like Marco Polo and Shark and Red light Green light into the mix to enlighten the playing time of two hours available.
By Heather Rose Pfeiffer4 years ago in Families
Untethered
Let me tell you a story of an orphaned girl. We met her when she was 13 months old. She, like thousands of girls, had been raised in an institutional orphanage. There were so many babies and so few care-givers in her orphanage that the babies were wrapped tightly in layers of blankets and clothes to keep them still in the cribs, and keep them warm. Each baby was picked up, fed, bounced in the caregiver's arms for a few minutes and then re-wrapped and placed back in the crib on schedule, as often as possible. When they got older, the girls would be placed in a high chair/potty chair, sometimes for hours, or placed on the floor with other babies with some toys.
By Frances Leah King4 years ago in Families
Peter and Anthony
Imagine you are an eleven year old boy. You are living with your family that adopted you when you were two. At age eleven that changes and they abandon you at a hospital, no longer wanting you. Social services is called and they don't have any where to put you. There are no foster homes available.
By Lawrence Edward Hinchee4 years ago in Families
