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How A Photo Book Changed My Family Forever
By Teesta Bhola-Shah When people hear the word adoption, they usually picture a happy ending. A baby comes home, a family is complete, everyone smiles in the courtroom photo, and that’s the story. But after sitting down and interviewing my mom about my younger brother Jay’s adoption, I realized how much people do not see…
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Sarvari Ferraris and the Inspiration Behind ‘A Mosquito in the Ear’
By Teesta Bhola-Shah A Mosquito in the Ear is not your typical coming-of-age story. Told through the lens of a graphic novel, it follows the journey of one family’s international adoption experience, tracing the story of a young girl from India into a new family, and the challenges and connections that unfold along the way.…
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Adoption over Time: Change, Policy, and the Complex History
By Teesta Bhola-Shah For much of the twentieth century, adoption in America followed a familiar pattern. Agencies facilitated placements, birth records were kept private, and contact between biological and adoptive families was rare. Today, that system looks very different. Through decades of firsthand experience, Richard Pearlman has watched adoption evolve from a largely closed process…
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Indian Child Welfare Act – A Deep Dive into one of the US’s Most Interesting Pieces of Adoption Legislation
A while back, I started MyAdoptionStories to talk about adoption from a personal perspective, especially because of my adopted brother. Early on, my research included learning about the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, which is a policy that sets standards for Native American adoption. When I started researching this act, I realized there…
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Adoption With Special Needs – What You Should Know
