One Blog Post, One Hospital at a Time

The marketing community likes to throw around the word “change agent”. I chuckle when I see it and think to myself, they really have no idea. This is how we do that in the Adoption Community. It’s so incredible when we can all see the cause and effect of what we do just by being passionate about what we care about.

One Adoptive Mother Moves a Mountain

So yesterday, 21 hours ago according to my Facebook timeline, my Google alerts alert me to a blog post on a blog that I haven’t come across before. My Overthinking, written by adoptive mother Kelly Raudenbush, had posted “Desperately Seeking Birthmother”. It was a wonderful post about her process of understanding the use of the word “birthmother“.

She starts out saying how she was first corrected by another adoptive mother.

Expectant mom not birthmom. She’s not a birth mom until she places a child for adoption. Right now, she’s an expectant mom. 

Then just days ago, had shared on Facebook an adoption situation and was inundated by requests for more information from hopeful adoptive parents.  You know, what we would call “trolling for babies” but what the adoption industries calls “being proactive”. It doesn’t really matter except that, as Kelly was digging through the many requests for information, she noticed the words people used and she understood why words matter. So she played it forward and wrote the post for her readers, primarily adoptive parents, and that too had mostly favorable responses from other adoptive parents who were also open to understanding.

Bringing in the Adoption Army for Support

After I commented my sincerely thanks for her compassion and understanding, I shared the post on Facebook and then, you all commented on FB and My Overthinking. Yes, the Adoption Army at work.

So last night, Kelly friended me on FB and we chatted though the evening on how we all need to come together and work for the common good of making adoption what it SHOULD be. It was really great and I was happy to add another companion in truth and understanding. Building bridges is always a good thing!

So this morning, Kelly hits me up on FB chat. I am still in my drinking coffee, watching news, and on the Ipad time “morning rounds”. So I am “working” but still in bed. “GUESS WHAT?” she says. I can tell she is excited. “What?” I reply and can really, hardly wait for the answer.

 “A hospital in CO just messaged me to tell me they are changing ALL their materials based on my blog post!”

The Adoption Program at Parker Adventist Hospital

How many ways can we say WOW!!! Sure enough, she sends me the FB link and they have already posted it on their ADOPTION SERVICES PAGE: This is the direct quote from the post:

At Parker Hospital, we just changed all our guidelines to discuss “patients pursuing an adoption plan“…not how to care for “Birthmoms” – A woman is not the “Birthmom” to a child until she makes her decision final. We are working on shifting our words to reflect more accurately her decision process. This blog defines it well… http://www.myoverthinking.com/2013/01/desperately-seeking-birthmother.html?spref=fb

I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to Parker Adventist Hospital for this bold move. I will publicly state what I did on my comment there:

….I am just so incredibly impressed by this decision and hope that other institutions follow your lead. Thank you for your compassion, understanding, actions……as a mother who relinquished and has dedicated my life to adoption ethics and reforms, this means so much….

Just as Kelly is acting as a change agent for other adoptive parents, Colorado’s Parker Adventist Hospital is now acting as a change agency for adoption services in the use of adoption language. Let them lead the way to meaningful, even if baby steps, in adoption ethics. May other hospitals, institutions and adoption programs follow suite!

If you have a moment, please go to the Facebook page and thank them. Let’s show this hospital how important this is and that adoption ethics matter! Go LIKE the page and let them see that the adoption community SUPPORTS this..maybe they will tell THEIR friends and soon and so on. Just like Kelly did!

And a huge KUDOS to Kelly, for not only understanding, but sharing what she, as an adoptive parent, has learned. I can say for sure that this would NOT have happened 10 years ago. I know this work can be discouraging at times. It seems like we are battling the whole world and the successes are few and far between, so it’s important to know when we DO make things happen. We might never know if the attention we added to Kelly’s post got the attention of the Hospital, but who cares. Positive change is GOOD!!  It’s amazing what a simple blog post can do!~

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

― Margaret Mead