The Path Less Traveled

It’s Friday – the day where I join other bloggers and take five short minutes to just write from the heart. Five Minute Friday is hosted by Gypsy Mama and this week’s prompt is PATH.

In 2001, I was faced with a dilemma. For me, there were two paths I could take and I took the one less traveled......

When I chose to place my second son, Charlie, in an open adoption directly following his birth, I knew there would be lots of loss but I didn’t realize there would be gains as well. Because I chose that path, I became part of a community of people, the adoption community more importantly the birthmother community that I never would have been a part of if it weren’t for that choice.

I met Lani, (often referred to as my BFF on this blog) my very best, dearest friend because of adoption. She is, as she so eloquently puts it, “the sister God let me choose.” Had I not chosen the path of adoption, I wouldn’t have her in my life and that makes her very sad.

Honestly, many of my closest, dearest friends are other birthmothers and had I not chosen adoption my paths probably never would have crossed theirs.

The heart ache I initially felt after placing Charlie into the arms of his adoptive parents is what led me to find my writing voice again and what led Lani and I to start BirthMom Buds. Writing and BirthMom Buds have helped me feel useful and given me another purpose in life.

Does all of that make the hole in my heart from relinquishing Charlie smaller? No absolutely not! But it has made the path more bearable. 

Five Minute Friday: Community

It’s Friday – the day where I join other bloggers and take five short minutes to just write from the heart. Five Minute Friday is hosted by Gypsy Mama and this week’s prompt is COMMUNITY. 


How perfect is this week’s prompt of community! Along with my BFF and some other wonderful women, I have helped build a community of birthmothers from all over the place called BirthMom Buds. Though I don’t write about it very often on this blog, ten years ago I gave birth to and placed a baby boy in an open adoption and while it’s a bittersweet journey, I find myself proud to be a birthmother and more importantly proud to be a member of a community of such amazing women. 

On Thursday of next week, I will head to Charlotte, North Carolina where I will join other women from the birthmother community for our annual retreat full of sharing, listening, learning, laughter and probably a few healing tears.


This also explains my absence from blogging lately as I've been finishing up some last minute type things. I honestly probably won’t blog much until I am back! This year’s theme is a fiesta, so appropriate since it falls on the weekend of Cinco de Mayo. It’s been fun planning the décor though I haven’t been able to share it here but I will be able to once it’s all over!


So, I am ready – ready for a weekend of community and to hug the necks of some of these amazing women that I only have the pleasure of seeing once a year and some I have yet to meet face to face!

Two Things to Share

I have been swamped lately with semi-last minute stuff for the upcoming BirthMom Buds retreat, dealing with Noah, and just life in general but I have two different things I want to share really quick. (If we are Facebook friends, you might want to just skip this post because you've already seen these things.) 


First up is a radio interview. On Monday, I spoke on an internet radio show called Adoption Journey to Motherhood about BirthMom Buds. If you care to listen to my interview, just head on over to this website. Look for the 4/18 show on the right. I am the second interview at about 30 minutes in. You can pull the slider to that mark if you don't want to listen to the first interview.


Second, is a video. I shot this video of Noah and my Dad at last night's Miracle League game. They LOVE to steal bases and last night they were the first batters so they were able to steal all the bases. Check out the video below.

Have a great Easter weekend!

The Story of a 9/11 Hero

On today, the anniversary of the terrorists' attacks against our nation, I find myself thinking of Tom Burnett. Does that name sound familiar to you? If you watched any of the non stop news coverage following the terrorists’ attacks on September 11, 2001, you've probably heard his name.

In the days and months to follow the attacks, Tom Burnett was named one of the heroes aboard Untied Flight 93. You may remember that passengers overtook Flight 93 and caused it to land in a field in Pennsylvania. Tom Burnett, who grew up a Minnesotan, was flying home to California from a business trip to New York and is said to be the leader of the attack on the cockpit that caused the plane to divert its path and crash in a field instead of its target. Tom called his wife Deena multiple times from the plane telling her what was going on and that he loved her and the three daughters they were raising.

So, you are probably thinking, “Ok, I know all this already…”

But, did you know Tom Burnett was a birthfather?

While in college, Tom Burnett’s then girlfriend became pregnant in an unplanned pregnancy. The two were opposed to abortion and initially wanted to get married and parent. Tom was very involved in the pregnancy, working two jobs to pay for medical bills and present for his daughter’s birth. Eventually, the two decided it would be best for the baby if she was placed for adoption.

Two years after the terrorist attacks, Mariah Mills, turned nineteen and was finally old enough to request her original birth certificate from the state. The name Tom Burnett was very familiar in her area and she quickly realized that her birthfather was one of the 9/11 hereos.

Unsure of what Tom’s wife, Deena, and the rest of his family knew about the adoption and how they would feel about this, Mariah’s mother sent word through the agency that had handled Mariah’s adoption that Mariah was interested in meeting her other birth relatives. It turns out that Tom had told his wife about the daughter he placed for adoption and even showed her a letter that he had been writing to Mariah over the years in the hopes that they would one day be reunited.

Mariah has ended up meeting most of her birth family, including Deena, Tom’s daughters, parents, and sisters. She has been welcomed in by most of them. She has ongoing relationships with her half sisters and Deena. She has gotten to know the type of man and father Tom Burnett was through his family and Deena was even able to give her a letter that Tom had started writing to Mariah when she was younger for the day they would be reunited.

Granted I'm sure Tom Burnett was not the only birth parent to die on September 11th, I'm sure that others were triad members as well, but he is one that we know of.

I'll end with a quote out of a newspaper article by Tom's daughter, Maraiah, “Even if he’d never been on that plane on September 11th, he’d still be a hero to me. He gave me life and a chance with a wonderful family.”

Father's Day Frosty Weekend

For the past few years The Dave Thomas Foundation (an organization created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas) and Wendy’s have held “Father’s Day Frosty Weekend”. 50 cents from the sale of each frosty (or frosty product) sold during Father’s Day weekend (June 20th and 21st) will be donated to The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. 

And something new this year (or at least I wasn’t aware of it last year) - The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has created some Father’s Day e-cards and each time an e-card is sent 25 cents will be donated to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

The Dave Thomas Foundation is a national non profit organization dedicated to finding homes for the finding permanent, loving homes for 150,000 children waiting in Foster Care so stop by Wendy’s or send an e-card this weekend to support this worthy cause!

My 15 Minutes

Recently I was interviewed by an Associated Press reporter from New York for an article about Birthmother’s Day. Apparently she had been given my name and contact information from several others in the adoption community as a good resource for her article.  Originally I thought he article was just going to contain a quote or two from me about Birthmother’s Day but during our interview she began asking questions about my personal adoption situation. Although the main focus of the article is still Birthmother’s Day and does include two other birthmothers. They also decided that they’d like a photograph of me, Charlie, and Angee (Charlie’s adoptive Mom) to run with the article so they sent an Associated Press photographer here for a mini “photo shoot.” He got some great shots and I got some really good ones afterwards.  The article “hit news stands” last week and it’s in a lot of different newspapers and publications all over the United States including some big ones like The LA Times, The Boston Globe, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. I’ve actually lost track of how many different publications it has been in at this point and I know it will still be running through the weekend. It’s been overwhelming!  One funny thing – they misspelled Lani’s (my BFF and co-founder of BirthMom Buds) last name. They spelled it Dowling when it’s actually Downing so that part has been funny as I keep referring to Lani Dowling as her new alias. 

I’ve done interviews in the past and have been misquoted so I was kind of nervous about this one, especially since it was going to be all over the US. But I’ve been pleased with this article for the most part! 

Here’s the portion of the article about me, Lani, and BirthMom Buds…. The journey of "coming out" as a birthmother is a painful one, she said, but the Internet has done wonders to ease the way for both adoptees and bbirthmothers looking to access documents or just meet others for support. Nicole "Coley" Strickland of Boiling Springs, S.C., found fellow birthmother Lani Dowling in Atlanta, Ga., that way after blindly searching for support soon after giving birth to a boy in 2001 and placing him with a couple she met at the restaurant where she was a waitress. Two years later, Strickland and Dowling founded Birthmombuds.com, which has 900 registered users around the country. The two send out care packages to new birthmothers, pair up buddies living close to each other and host regular chats for birthmoms online. They also coordinate Birth Mother's Day events every year. While details for this year's events are still firming up, gatherings are planned in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Nashville and areas of Oregon, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio, among other states. For birthmoms who don't live near one of the gatherings or don't feel comfortable in a group setting, Strickland, 32, suggests they make Mother's Day a little easier by writing something about _ or for _ their relinquished children, lighting a candle, planting a tree or donating a book to a library in their honor. "It really does give us a time to bond with other birthmoms," said Strickland, who has regular visits with her now 7-year-old as part of an open adoption. "We feel a lot of the same things at the same time. We need to be there for each other." And last but not least, here's a few of the photos I took after the AP photo shoot.....

Noah and Charlie

Me, Noah, and Charlie

Charlie, Noah, and Natalie (Charlie's sister via adoption)

Group Shot - Charlie, Noah, Natalie, Jason, and Me (I took this one with my camera on the tripod using the timer and the kids thought me running to jump in the picture was hilarious!)

Busy Time of the Year

This is my super busy time of the year. Why, you may be asking? Because of what season it is!  Every year BirthMom Buds hosts an annual “Birthmother’s Day Celebration” in Charlotte, NC (or that’s where it’s been the past 3 years) that is typically held on Birthmother’s Day which is the Saturday before Mother’s Day. This year we are doing things differently and having it the weekend before Mother’s Day which is next weekend!!  Every year, we choose a different theme and I (along with the help of others) plan décor around that theme. Aside from just having fun and fellowship with other birthmothers, we have breakout sessions, speakers, a candle light ceremony, door prizes, and more. It really is a fun (but exhausting!) day.  (Check out some of our fun from past events here.)

I’m stoked about this year’s theme which is The Road Less Traveled which I “borrowed” from Mr. Frost’s poem. It’s a theme that really makes sense to me for birthmothers but it is also a very “out of the box” type theme and has challenged me to get really creative with the centerpieces. But it’s been fun and I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks of what I’ve come up with! And an added bonus to all of that is getting to spend time with my BFF, Holly, and Melanie, as well as seeing all the familiar faces of birthmoms from the past few years. 

Also, it's the busiest time of the year with the cards I sell at Heartmark Designs. Although, cards sells are a lot slower this year than they have been in the past. I'm totally blaming that one on the economy!

So, needless to say, the next week will be super busy as I finish up last minute projects, tweak the program, plan the breakout session I will lead, wrap door prizes, and I could go on with more things to do but I won’t bore you with the details. Plus I have to juggle my normal everyday stuff like IEP meetings, baseball, writing, Heartmark Designs, etc. 

If I’m quiet next week, now you know why! 

Charlie's 7th Birthday

Today is Charlie's (my birthson) birthday! It's hard to beleive that he is seven years old. It seems like only yesterday I was holding him as a tiny baby in the hospital preparing to let him go.

Over the seven years that I have been Charlie's birthmother my life has changed drastically. I was given a second chance and I have sincerely tried to make the most of that second chance. I've tried to be the best Mom to Noah and an advocate for birthmothers. While I know placing Charlie for adoption was the best choice I could make at that time in my life, that doesn't mean that my heart doesn't ache at times. Birthdays are bittersweet. I usually get to spend time with Charlie and his family on his actual birthday. This is the first year we haven't been able to do that. Charlie's Mom's best friend's husband (that's a mouth full!) died and the visitation was last night and funeral today so it just didn't work out to get together today. A (Charlie's Mom) wanted to try and get together tomorrow evening but I'm afraid that will mess up Noah's routine too much and (I hope this come out the wrong way) he is my priority. She may try and re-arrange things so we could get together Sunday afternoon but I'm not getting my hopes up in case it doesn't work out. If nothing else, I'll see Charlie next weekend for his birthday party. Happy Birthday Charlie! (Photo taken on Charlie's 6th birthday)