Calling all ET adoptive families!

I took quite a long hiatus from this project as we have been moving all summer. I just wanted to write a brief post to let those of you who have submitted posts/essays and those of you who have asked about our progress know that we are still very committed to this project. We are just nowhere near a publishing date as we still need lots more stories from you all. We have many referral stories. We are lacking essays for the chapters dedicated to travel, attachment, school transition, Ethiopia experiences, special needs adoption and older child adoption, and thoughts on ethics in adoption.

We also would love some more photos. We are especially looking for that great cover photo or drawing.

I promise to keep you all updated as we get closer to completing the collection of stories and essays, In the meantime please send us anything that you feel comfortable sharing. Remember this book is going to be written for families interested in Ethiopian adoption or in process. It will not be available to the general public.

Lastly, thanks to those of you who submitted your essays during these busy summer months. I truly believe that our collective experiences can serve as an incredible tool for those who are just starting out or perhaps waiting for referral or travel.

~Charlotte

We still Need More Posts!

Here is the Family to Family team working on the blog book.

We still do not have enough material to publish the book yet, so please submit your posts to etadoptionstories@gmail.com. We have many referral stories, but would love some more posts about your Ethiopian travel, attachment, school and the like. We would love for this book to cover as many aspects of our adoptions as possible. Also feel free to 'nominate' any posts by fellow bloggers that you think would be a good addition to the book. There are so many ET blogs out there and we would hate to miss any.

Thanks again to those who have sent in your posts and connected us with other ET bloggers.

~ Charlotte

Update

It's about time I post an update on our progress. We have been busy gathering and organizing all the wonderful posts and essays that so many of you have submitted to the blog book. We still need quite a few more posts to start publishing and working on the layout. So I urge those of you who are supportive of this effort to send us some of your favorite blog posts from other bloggers- or perhaps contact your favorite bloggers and ask them to submit their posts. We are also looking for photography to include with your post. Particularly we really need a lot more posts about Ethiopia and your travel experience with photos.

Also, if any of you have children who would be willing to write an essay about Ethiopia or life in America or anything they want to write about, we would love to include these in the book as well. Siblings can also write an essay and share their experience with welcoming their new sibling into their lives. Children's perspectives can be extremely insightful, so it would be amazing to have them participate too.

Last but not least, we are looking for that special cover photo. It can be of your kids or from your trip to Ethiopia, perhaps even a wonderful drawing or painting that your adopted child has created showing your family together- we will consider any idea. Of course- we can only choose one, but we can definitely include others in the book.

So please help us gather more posts by recruiting your favorite bloggers or linking a post that you find particularly good and we can contact the blogger directly for permission.

Please send submissions and links to etadoptionstories@gmail.com.

Thanks so much to those of you who have already submitted your posts!

~ Charlotte

Please Join 'Ethiopian Adoption Stories'

If you have landed here, you have probably already learned that this blog has been created for adoptive parents of Ethiopian Children, or families in the process of adopting from Ethiopia- to take part in an effort to collect all of our thoughts, experiences and lessons learned during the roller coaster ride that is adoption. Once we have compiled a significant and varied collection of essays, we will publish them into a book that will be available for purchase, with proceeds going to a good cause.

 

It is our hope that Ethiopian adoption bloggers from across the US will submit their favorite posts that deal with a particular stage in their adoption process. We would like the book to follow the adoption journey by chapter chronologically. So we need blog posts that range from the very beginning stages (deciding to adopt and choosing Ethiopia), to the later stages- (attaching and bonding with our children)- and, of course, all the emotions and experiences that happen in between. We would also devote a chapter to Ethiopia- our children's birthplace seen through the eyes of us. Photographs are optional, but we would certainly LOVE to have as many photos as possible.

It is our hope that this compilation of blog posts and essays will serve as a valuable resource to adoptive parents who are in the midst of any stage in the process. This book will be one of the first of it's kind, as it will be written by all of us. It will be different because blog essays are generally posted at the time the writer is dealing with a particularly difficult or happy stage and the thoughts and emotions being laid out are happening at the time the post is being written. Making it very real and palpable.  It is our hope that this book will be informative as well as thoughtful, heartfelt and even funny at times. As we all know- it is difficult to go through this process without keeping our sense of humor. 

So please, we urge you to send in your posts, as many as you want to etadoptionstories at gmail dot com. You can sign your real name, or you can just write your city and state. If you prefer to be anonymous that is perfectly fine too. However you sign it in your email will be how we credit your essay in the book.

I invite you to join Family to Family in our efforts to reach out to adoptive parents of Ethiopian Children. After all we are the only ones who can tell the real story behind  our journeys.

~ Charlotte