On the last day of National Adoption Month 2015, Adoption STAR’s Executive Administrator Lori Craig discusses her perspective on adoption.
Ten years ago I returned to the paid workforce after staying at home and raising my husband’s and my two sons over a twenty-year period of time. I value my role as mom while I supported, loved and advocated for my sons throughout their young lives and continue to support, love and enjoy them as they now live their adult lives. I was fortunate to be hired by Adoption STAR for the post-active-parenting chapter of my life.
Adoption STAR provides me with the privilege of supporting and witnessing the love that is part of adoption. As a notary for the agency, I have the remarkable opportunity to bear witness to personally profound moments in the lives of many birth mothers and adoptive families. I unobtrusively watch and listen as a young woman signs her legal surrender documents to place her newborn with Adoption STAR and a waiting adoptive family. What I feel in that hospital room is the love of a mother for her child as she supports and advocates for her baby at the start of his life. What I also feel in that same hospital room is the love of another mother for her child as she supports her daughter’s decision to place her birth grandson for adoption. What I feel in the hallway of Adoption STAR, as staff excitedly wait outside the agency’s nursery to witness placement, is the love of parents for their newly born child as they promise to support and advocate for their son throughout the rest of his life. What I feel in the boardroom of Adoption STAR is the love and support and advocacy of a mom for her child as she speaks to the judge in a conference call to finalize the adoption of her infant daughter. And what I feel in the offices of Adoption STAR each day is love and support and advocacy and commitment to adoption.
For me adoption means love – love with all of its bittersweet moments, poignancy, challenges, sacrifice, excitement, blessings and joy. November is when I became a mom 31 years ago, when I lost my own mom 22 years ago, when many celebrate Thanksgiving with loved ones, and when we recognize National Adoption Month. Throughout this month and every month, let us all advocate for the many children in foster care to feel truly loved and supported in permanent homes for the remainder of their lives.