The Adoptive Mom

Latest Episodes:

AMP S5E76: Sponsoring a Child across the World...and then Some - Camille Lancaster Nov 11, 2019

Show notes

www.theadoptivemompodcast.com Interview with Camille Lancaster about their story of adopting their sponsor child, who turned out to be deaf.

S5E75: Beauty is Rising - Kelli Belt Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

www.theadoptivemompodcast.com Kelli has a background in marriage and family therapy, and as a fellow adoptive mom, she is a perfect person to walk alongside mamas and help them feel love and connection through these hard times. She and her family waited over SEVEN YEARS to bring their baby girl home from Ethiopia, and that long, hard waiting process is part of what we talk about in his week’s episode. She describes to us how difficult it is to walk with the Lord when your soul feels like it’s being ripped out of you and when you can’t see the overall plan. She describes the “after the airport” times and how we can often forget that there’s more than the finish line of bringing a child home. She talks about these things and so much more in our conversation together, and I can’t wait for y’all to hear it!

S5E74: Attachment in the Upside Down- Shannon Guerra Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

The title of Shannon Guerra’s book includes “Understanding and supporting attachment in adoptive families.” So when I sat down to talk to her in our interview, I was expecting to talk about attachment parenting and other Connected Child-y type stuff, but that’s not what happened. Instead, we talked about the journey we go through as moms of kids from hard places. The journey of feeling let down by unmet expectations, and of realizing what “hard” actually means, and of learning to love someone who can’t love you back, and of finding your people who are *really* your people. It was like a breath of fresh air to talk to someone on the other side of the country to experiences the exact same things I do (with her own specifics, of course). It’s validating somehow to know that my struggles are not unique and that we are in it together, even if we don’t even know each other.
Shannon Guerra is an author, wife, ministry leader, and mama to eight kids via birth and adoption. She and her husband Vince live in Wasilla, Alaska, where they spend their time reading, writing, homeschooling, ministering to families, and wading through cats and small children.

Dudes Who Adopt #4 Oct 21, 2019

Show notes

Every season, my husband Bryan takes over the show and does an interview with a fellow stellar adoptive dad. I love love love getting to feature these because as much as moms are often overlooked in this adoption thing, dads are too! Their role is often seen as support for their wife and kids, which is fair, but they have a crazy important role in raising these kids and showing them Jesus in a broken world. These kids have often been hurt by their earthly bio fathers. In many cases, they will never know who their bio dad is. So that’s the groundwork that Bryan and his guests tackle in these special episodes.

Today’s episode features Charlie Loften, an adoptive dad and adoption advocate in Northwest Arkansas. He and his wife Heidi have two biological daughters and one adopted daughter. They obviously have a lot of fun together.

Charlie is also a pastor who makes it his mission to break down stereotypes of what pastors can do and say and fight for. He and Bryan talked about how to forge community among adoptive dads and make it genuine and real and not just a place where guys feel like they have to be buttoned-up and only share the good things or their wive’s struggles.

I hope y’all love these dads episode and that they are great to share with your guys and for you to gain insight on the guys’ side of this adoption thing!

AMP S5E72: American Ninja Adoption Warrior - Marissa Ruper Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

You know those people that you follow online that aren’t like, famous or anything, but they are to you because you’re so familiar with and inspired by their story? So when you meet them after YEARS of online stalking, it’s like meeting an actual celebrity? That’s me with Marissa Ruper. Marissa and her husband Abe have been adopting older kids from Ethiopia since long before our journey started. She wrote about it on her blog which I found randomly and followed religiously. She didn’t write on it often, so when she did, you knew she had a major update on the roller-coaster of international adoption.

S5E71: Saving the World, One Tee Shirt at a Time - Haley Coon Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

I think that for a lot of us, “the need” feels so overwhelming, right? Like sure, we could do a small part of whatever, but what difference does it even make? Does our small donation really help? Does our sharing of all the articles that float around social media have all that much reach? Haley Coon believes it does. They are an adoptive family, but that just wasn’t enough for her. She felt the pull to do more to raise awareness and CASH MONEY for foster care and adoption. Enter: Restoration Threads. Haley started her t-shirt company in 2018 and has grown it like crazy over the past year and a half. Designing and creating and selling t-shirts with messages of hope written on them and then donating LIKE A TON of the proceeds to different nonprofits is her game. They have been able to help so many companies doing the absolute most and in turn, countless kids in need.

S5E70: Can Adoption Be Funny? - Lucas Bohn Sep 30, 2019

Show notes

I love to laugh, and I follow several comedy pages on Facebook and Instagram, one of which is Dry-Bar Comedy, a page dedicated to promoting stand-up sets that are more on the clean side. So there I was, scrolling through Facebook as I do, and I see a stand-up routine with adoption in the title. I tapped it to turn the sound on and I sat through the whole set talking about hilarious and inappropriate responses to incredibly inappropriate questions that we as adoptive families get all. the. time. SO FREAKING FUNNY. I reached out asking for an interview and Lucas himself responded, which was so cool! We got to talk about their adoption story and how important it is to highlight the ups and downs of the adoption world in different ways that people can understand. His is through comedy, which I just love.

AMP Plus #5: Fear and Adoption Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

Every week over on Patreon, I do a bonus show for Team AMP - the AMAZING listeners and supporters who choose to invest their cash money in helping to produce the podcast starting at just $5 a month. Today, I wanted to give all of you guys a preview of what these shows are like! They are always a deep-dive on the topic discussed in the regular show, and always chock-full of research, practical tips, and my heart for the issue. They usually run about 10 minutes long and go along with the Bible Study Guide for the week that Team AMP receives every Monday morning.

In this AMP Plus episode, we’re deep-diving on the topic of fear and how it affects us as the adoption community. When you glance over what we do every day, fear makes total sense, right? I mean, we do really hard things day-in and day-out. It’s what we signed up for, but that doesn’t mean it’s not scary as crap. We invite evil itself into our homes in the form of brokenness and pain and destruction. We ask for hard times and hard questions and hard circumstances. That’s so scary, you guys. There are ALL THE WHAT-IFS wrapped up in that.

So how do we keep from allowing that fear to cripple us? Let’s find out together!

S5E68: Afraid of All the Things - Scarlet Hiltibidal Sep 16, 2019

Show notes

www.TheAdoptiveMom.com Do you ever get yourself into just a pit of fear and frustration and paranoia that the worst is bound to happen any moment now? That’s how Scarlet Hiltibidal has lived most of her life as well. It was such a deeply-ingrained part of her being that she continually has to overcome that she wrote a whole book about it. Not just about her fears, but about how she has learned to hold the gospel up against them. One of my favorite things about Scarlet is that she’s afraid, but she’s a fighter. Even through her fears, she does such hard things and fights through them. In her episode, she talks to us about these fears specifically with adoption, and how she shows up to overcome them and be a warrior for her kids every single day.

S5E67: Following the Dream to Adopt AND Win the Gold - Laura Wilkinson Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

www.TheAdoptiveMomPodcast.com Beating what many said were impossible odds in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, Laura, starting in eighth place and with a broken foot, came from behind to win the 2000 Olympic platform gold medal. Laura has also won the 2004 World Cup and the 2005 World Championships, becoming the first woman in history to win all three coveted world titles in platform diving. Along the way, she has won 19 US National Titles, been voted by the American public the 2000 US Olympic Spirit Award winner and was nominated for an ESPY award. Laura has also been inducted into five different Halls of Fame including the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Laura and I got to talk about her story and how she makes it all work with being an adoptive mom and dealing with the unique circumstances that come with that and training for the freaking Olympics (No big deal, right?). I love her heart for blending the aspects of her life together and including her children every step of the way.

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