It's the last day of February? Where did the time go? Another busy month on the blogs, especially here on the birth/first parent blog. I've challenged myself a bit with some of the topics I've tackled. I'm glad that by writing here, I am continuing to push myself towards whatever healing is available to me at that time through those circumstances.

My Faith and Adoption series continues to be one of my favorites even though I only write it once per week. (Minus this past week when I had a brief hiatus from adoption in my life.) At the beginning of the month, I finally mustered the courage to speak to our Pastor about my role as a birth mother. After that, I was challenged twice on Sundays to think about things in my own walk, including asking for prayer for those not-so-great days and issues.

I've continued, this month, to look at Birth Parents Around the World. I gave an update about a documentary featuring birth mothers from Korea, discussed abortion and adoption in Japan (and have continued to learn from my extremely intelligent readers via comments!) and found out that a politician in the Netherlands wants to look at the emotional impact of adoption on birth parents and children. As always, I really enjoy expanding my knowledge to grasp what those in other countries go through with regard to these topics. I hope to be able to bring more information like this to you in the future.

Of course, the biggest event in the blog this month was the Parenting After Placement series which took a look at the issue over a two week span. I shared the results of a small survey in which birth mothers from varying experiences shared their stories of parenting after placement. They talked about pregnancy, delivery, those first few weeks home, ability to parent, dealing with new emotions and milestones. They gave their own advice, not prompted by my questions. I told a few of my own personal stories, including a picture trip through my pregnancy, our first four days home and one strange milestone. At the end of the series, I gave mothers some online resourcs so that they could know they are not alone during the decision to add to their family. You ARE NOT alone! (The entire series is located under the category of Parenting After Placement along with some other great posts by myself and Jan concerning the topic.)

I weighed in on the "study" concerning adoptive versus biological parents with this mantra: Parenting is hard enough. I also revisited the topic, briefly, when I talked about why February 20th was a hard day in our family.

This month's Fresh Outlook Friday brought us a few unique perspectives. I was really excited to talk about international openness or the wish for a connection to an internationally adopted child's first family (tissue warning on that one). In fact, in the coming month, I have some more international openness to discuss. I also came across a great new blog entitled Letters to a Birth Mother which I am finding to be heart-warming. However, by far, the most talked about post in the Fresh Outlook Friday series featured a discussion on how thoughts and beliefs in adoption change over time. An interesting exchange of thoughts and beliefs followed what I still believe is a very poignant, honest and needed blog post by someone whose views changed regarding adoption, birth, parenting and motherhood.

Love Thursday this month brought about a bunch of smiles. Why? I needed smiles. We saw Munchkin at my wedding and a shot from our first visit. I talked about how love is a big red fire truck which might be confusing to those who don't know that my Husband is a professional fire fighter or know about the place Josh has in Munchkin's life which was explained the previous week in, what has now become, my favorite Love Thursday entry ever: What Love Is. I actually didn't write a dual entry for Love Thursday that week on our family blog, like I usually do, and instead just posted the picture and linked to the entry here so that all of my readership could understand who and what Josh is to the Munchkin. The response on our family blog was equally as supportive: Josh is amazing.

Of course, I also just reviewed the second book in my monthly book review series just today. (Pushing that time limit, wasn't I?) Again, I strongly suggest picking up the book. Such a good read!

I'm still in a bit of shock that March starts tomorrow. I was thinking about updating a few things when March started and then I realized, "Oh crud! That's tomorrow!" In the coming month, I don't have any specific plans to start a new series though I am planning to tackle a few more interesting topics with relation to motherhood and birth motherhood. If you have any topics that you are curious about concerning birth/first parents, please leave a comment or e-mail me at firstparentblogger@adoptionmail.com .

Thank you, as always, for continuing to read, comment and challenge my own views. I enjoy this time we have together.