u/lissyd73

Hi everyone! My husband and I want to adopt our first child (private domestic adoption) in the next couple years or so; however, we’ve heard that the adoption timeline can be excessively long. How early would you recommend reaching out to an adoption agency, knowing that we really wouldn’t be ready to adopt a child for at least a year (my husband finishes his grad program next spring, so ideally we’d like to wait till at least until then). I’ll also throw in that we know we still have to do research on ethical adoption agencies, we’ll need to do a home study, etc. But when would you recommend at least selecting our chosen adoption agency and beginning that relationship? Thank you in advance!

Edit: I also want to add that we’re located in the DC area, so if anyone has recommendations of adoption agencies to begin researching that service DC, please let us know! It would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all! My birth mom and I re-connected back in March and have been chatting on the phone weekly since then. This weekend, however, we’re finally meeting in-person for the first time. I honestly feel perfectly fine, and am mostly just excited to meet her, but I’m wondering what emotions and thoughts other adoptees experienced when meeting their bio parents in-person for the first time. Is there anything I should do to prep? Any big feelings I should expect tomorrow? Or does anyone have any anecdotes of first meetings they’d like to share? Thank you!

Hi all! My birth mom and I re-connected back in March and have been chatting on the phone weekly since then. This weekend, however, we’re finally meeting in-person for the first time. I honestly feel perfectly fine, and am mostly just excited to meet her, but I’m wondering what emotions and thoughts other adoptees experienced when meeting their bio parents in-person for the first time. Is there anything I should do to prep? Any big feelings I should expect tomorrow? Or does anyone have any anecdotes of first meetings they’d like to share? Thank you!

If you’ve told your adoptive parents that you’ve reunited, how did they react? I’m planning on telling my parents this weekend (in-person) that I’ve reconnected with my birth mom recently, but I’m genuinely terrified of their reaction. However, I fear that if I don’t mention something now, they’ll find out some other way (e.g. see my birth mom on social media).

For additional context, my mom is prone to anxiety and has a bit of a temper and so over the years, I’ve learned to keep her out of the loop to avoid her overreacting or lashing out at me. My dad also always tells me to “not tell your mother” anything that will upset her and therefore lead her to start venting nonstop to him. So I’ve been really conditioned to just not tell her anything. But at the same time, I feel like I need to tell her this. Any thoughts?

Additionally, if you did tell your adoptive parents, how did they react? I’m planning on telling my parents this weekend (in-person) that I’ve reconnected with my birth mom recently, but I’m genuinely terrified of their reaction.

For additional context, my friends think I should tell my parents before they find out from someone or somewhere else (e.g. my birth mom keeps showing up as a potential friend to my husband now that I’ve connected with her). However, my mom is prone to anxiety and anger and so over the years, I’ve learned to keep her out of the loop to avoid her lashing out at me.

Hello, I just picked up my first foster cat yesterday, a little 6 month old kitten with lots of playful energy. I fed her some Fancy Feast wet food last night and she absolutely loved it. I tried a different flavor of the Fancy Feast wet food this morning and maybe 15 minutes later, she was throwing up multiple times. She’s probably thrown up 5 times within the past 10 or so minutes. Does anyone know if this is just from the food, or a sign of something more serious? I think she’s done vomiting for now…she’s lying down in her cat bed purring. She seems much more lethargic now, though it’s probably because she’s still recovering. For reference, I also gave her normal adult cat food since I didn’t have time to pick up kitten food beforehand. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I also left out some science diet dry food for her overnight which is the food I feed my two grown cats. Any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated!