November is National Adoption Awareness month and I want to take these next few weeks to share with you my open adoption experience. This will be a 3 part series dropping each Monday in the month of November and will include my son, Nico Harwood, Teresa Harwood, the adoptive mom and Brey, my daughter. I thought Brey's experience growing up with the open adoption would be a unique experience for everyone to hear. The first part will feature Teresa and myself sharing our experience and how we became forever connected. I will take you on a chronological journey of our open adoption story.
In this episode we will share a script that we wrote 20 years ago for women's retreat and it will give our history on how we became forever connected.
Teresa will share some tips for potential adoptive parents and give some guidance for those considering adoption. She will also share about her other three children whom she adopted and share a little about their birthmother, with whom she has an open adoption.
You will learn how Nico gave me my name "Didi" and it came at just the right time and shows how even when our circumstances feel dire that there is always a rainbow in the midst of the storm.
Our adoption process was not the typical and ended up going to trial and then was appealed and went all the way to the State Appellate Court, where the final adoption papers were confirmed.
Thank you for joining us today and listening to our open adoption story.