I will be e-mailing surveys to those who have requested to participate in the survey either tonight or tomorrow. Don't know what I'm talking about? Intrigued? Good!

As mentioned briefly in this post, I will be doing a series on birth parents who go on to parent other children, including those who placed a child while already parenting another. (Note: these two different subsects will have slightly differing questions.)

By mid-January I hope to have the surveys back in hand (via e-mail, of course). By the end of January I hope to have evaluated them enough to come to some conclusions and thus begin writing the series.

Some things I plan on asking and discussing include the emotional impact of parenting after placement. For those who placed a child while already parenting another, questions will revolve around knowing what they missed immediately and how they handled that loss. For those who placed a child before they parented another, questions will revolve around the delayed knowledge of what they missed by not parenting that first child and how watching their parented child hit milestones effected them on emotional levels. Included questions will also revolve around pregnancy differences, how the parents were treated during each pregnancy and the grieving process for each subsect.

I will also leave an open section for the birth parents to tell me anything they want to about parenting post-placement. We all have different stories to share and I think it's important for us to learn some of these stories. While our situations differ, we can learn things from those who came before us, from those who are living it now, so that we can help those yet to come.

If you would like to participate in this survey, please leave a comment. (Unless that comment is not attached to the e-mail you want me to use. If it isn't, leave the e-mail where you would prefer the survey be sent.) Also, if you've left me your e-mail in the other various places in which I have asked in the past, you don't need to leave it here. I have the running list!

And yes, this survey is open to both parents in open and closed adoptions.