Special Guest Blogger!

Our dear friend Virginia Ingram takes the blog reigns today.  She's been ever so helpful and supportive in helping us create a social media presence.  Her expertise, ideas, support and know-how have been invaluable to us and here she sheds a little more light on why/how social media plays into the open adoption process:

For an application to a professional program, I was asked to invent a word that could be adopted into the language and change the culture’s attitude to a particular issue.

There are very few words that I feel are able to do something so powerful.

While working on the application, I was talking with Heather (almost daily) about the Open Adoption process and the social media campaign that needed to be developed.

My hilarious and caring friend was getting ready to start sharing a lot of information online and open herself up to the kind and caring people on the internet – as well as all the trolls.

I was struck by her willingness to share, on social media, information about what makes her tick. Information about what makes her a special human being. Information about her relationship with Holly and what they love about each other. Information about the struggles they have had adopting a child. 

Their story was my inspiration.

Adoptsomedia  (noun)

1. A type of campaign where people willingly divulge personal details they wouldn’t

usually divulge. 

Adoptsomedia  (verb)

2. When you, begrudgingly, decide to make private information public to be

evaluated by unknown parties particularly when looking to adopt a child. 

Origin: 2012, United States

In context:

The term adoptsomedia was created to explain the phenomenon where potential

parents who want to adopt through Open Adoption are encouraged to create a social

media campaign to help birth mothers find them. 

Many of the potential families have already faced many private struggles through the

years when trying to conceive. The private struggles include fertility issues, trouble

conceiving and/or staying pregnant, and/or identifying the appropriate sperm donor

and/or surrogate. Before going “live” with a social media campaign, the would-be

adoptive parent(s) must be vetted by the FBI, local law enforcement, social workers and

the Open Adoption agency. This process takes more than a year. Once approved, the

adoptive parents may begin a social media campaign. To find a birth mother, many of

the adoptive parents make their struggles public and reveal information they would

never put online otherwise.  

Antonyms: 

fertileness, proliferation, easy, straightforward, perspicuous, effortless

Synonyms: 

transparent, laborious, emotional

In use:

At first I thought it was unusual that Ben and Stacey had a Facebook page to adopt a

child; now I understand it is all part of an adoptsomedia campaign. If I share what they

publish, I might be able to help them find a child who needs to be adopted. 

I’m still not sure the word is right, but the concept is right. What do you think? What would you name an “Adoptsomedia” campaign? How would you modify the definition?