Need suggestions, plus a neat story

[DeChRi]

Hi mamas. I woudl like to get a little something for a friend in the process adoption. More of a from the heart kind of thing. Here is her story: She has cystic fibrosis. A couple years ago had to undergo a double lung transplant, and a kidney transplant. She fought her way through, and I met her at a fitness competition, a year afterwards, as she was dragging herself over a 10 foot rope wall. SHe is so inspiring to me, and one the most amazing souls I know. ANyway, she and her husband were starting the adoption process, not expecting to actually adopt for a couple years. Then a friend of a friend kind of situation came up, where a 20 yr old with one lil one was pregnant and wanting to put her child up for adoption. Long story short, a couple months ago this all happened, the girl wants them to adopt her child, who will be born next month. The technical problems involve the father, as he has not signed off parental rights, however he has not around, nor can they locate him. So they are on egg shells, already bonded with the birth mom and child. I was thinking I would like to send her some kind of meaningful poem, saying, or story regarding adoption, that I could frame, etc. Anyone know of a one?

[Evergreen]

Well, its not quite what you are looking for, but I think what everyone is doing in the situation is wonderful. I am also sorry that they are dealing with the issue of the father's not having signed off on the rights yet. I placed a baby for adoption years ago, and we could not locate the father,either, turned out he was in jail. We managed to get around it by placing an add in the legal section of the newspaper saying "If you may be the father of xxx child come foreward within xxx days.
' It was really small, and, of course, no one came foreward.

[Momma Aimee]

There is a poem: the legacy of an adopted child. (spelled??) I got a framed copy for a friend who adopted; and she burst out in tear reading it at the post adoption party. I remember very little of it -- that was 7 years ago -- but I cried when I first read it and that is why I bought it for her. I would search for it on-line and see what you find.

(our's was a similar story...one of my friend's foster girls had the baby and the dad was underage and the paternal grandmother would not sign over rights .... got hairy -- how could he be an unfit dad and a child both and so on -- but it worked out. It will be easier for your freinds with mom and dad are both legal).

Aimee