Twisted Sisterhood

Today we are speaking to Chelsea Moore about the problems with how open adoption has been talked about and advertised. Chelsea is a birth mother, eight years post-placement in a semi open adoption. Her daughter is a transracial adoptee. She came to talk to us today to share what it's like to long for openness and her feelings about how agencies should be providing more transparency around the process, especially when it comes to creating openness plans that best suit the child. Chelsea hails from Texas, but now resides in Oregon. 

Ashley and Kelsey are back for Season 2... fashionably late! We give a preview of what to expect this season, a little about what we have been working on, and why you should be excited to tune in to this birth mom podcast. We are so excited to be back!

Jori is our guest this week! Jori is a transracial adoptee from foster care and a birth mom of 12 years. She grew up in Delaware and now lives with her husband and children in Utah. She found herself in an unplanned pregnancy as a student athlete in college, and found herself completely changed after placement. On this episode, Jori discusses her experiences with racial issues, how her spirituality was impacted during placement, and how important trauma therapy has been as an adoptee and a birth mom.

This episode, Kelsey and Ashley discuss how different it is to date after placement. Relationships have a new dynamic, there's more nuances to marriage and partnerships, and we seem to bring our good ol' suitcase full of adoption baggage everywhere we go. When do birth moms drop the "adoption bomb" on the new significant other? They discuss all the good, bad, and ugly about finding love after placement. 

Welcome to our guest, Sarah! Sarah is a two time birth mother of an 18 and almost 17 year old that were both adopted by the same couple, 19 months apart. She is an advocate for adoption education through her @adoptioneducationkeys page and is passionate about consistent, continual, free post-placement care for birth mothers everywhere, as a member of the Lifetime Healing Foundation team and a contributing author of the Knee to Knee curriculum for birth mother groups across the country. In this episode, we speak to Sarah about what it's been like to place with a family that goes through a divorce. 

Birthdays can be emotional and exhausting days for birth moms, and everyone handles them in different ways. In this episode, Kelsey talks openly about her son's upcoming birthday and what she does to celebrate and commemorate the day. Ashley and Kelsey dive into discussion about how our bodies hold trauma around these milestones, and how it affects us as birth moms. 

This week we sat down with Muthoni, a birth mom of 3.5 years to a beautiful baby girl. She has an open adoption and that has helped immensely with her healing. She resides in Texas and for the last three years, she has found a community of women who share the same bond of adoption. In this episode, we get into conversation about delayed grief, relationships after placement, race and diversity, and of course, Tiger King. Join us this week as we get to know Muthoni!