If you want to read a really great article about what open adoption can be like, check out this story from The Washington Post. In the piece, entitled Open (Secret), reporter Liza Mundy follows the story of Hava Leichtman, a 26 year old woman who surrendered her son when she was 22.

Hava entrusted her child to other parents based on her mental illnesses (OCD, bipolar disorder, an eating disorder) and a lack of support from her baby’s father.... more

I’ve written before that teen pregnancy is considered an epidemic in the United States. Facts I recently surfed upon are startling. However, it is important to keep in mind that the rates are lowering. As startling as they may be, they have been higher in the past and seem to be taking a decline. But the United States teen pregnancy rates still remain the highest of other countries such as Canada and Australia.

Here’s a fascinating story from Orange County, California – illustrating yet another way that babies can come as a total surprise.

In early March, a 39 year old woman named April Branum learned she was having a baby less than two days before his birth. Her obesity and various other factors had coincided to keep her unaware of her pregnancy until a visit to the emergency room necessitated an X-ray for stomach pain.

Of particular interest to me were the reader comments in... more

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am following the great ultrasound debate in my state regarding a law that South Carolina law makers are trying to pass. Source

If this bill is passed and becomes a law it would require women seeking an abortion to view ultrasound photos of their baby before moving forward with an abortion and to sign a document saying they had done so. If passed, this... more

I’m a big fan of the medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy which airs Thursday nights on ABC.

I didn’t see tonight’s story line coming. The show is mainly about a group of residents who work together at a hospital in Seattle. One of the residents is a young woman named Isobel, commonly referred to as Izzy (played by Katherine Heigl). In tonight’s episode, a couple comes up to Izzy at the desk and starts saying something abut their daughter who has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. Izzy starts giving them directions to Pediatrics when they tell her that their daughter looks just like her. She looks confused for a moment... more

Last week, I posted about a proposed bill in my state (South Carolina) that would require women seeking an abortion to view ultrasound photos before obtaining the abortion. Currently, abortion providers are required to tell the women the approximate age of her baby, provide her with info on fetal development, and then require her to wait at least one hour before she can obtain an abortion. But this new bill takes all of that a step further, requiring a... more

Every 10 minutes in Texas a teenager becomes pregnant. A new proposed bill would attempt to help reduce the epidemic of teenage pregnancies, educate women on sexually transmitted diseases, creating an outreach program to let women know what is available to them in the state, and changing how funds are spent.

This bill would provide the school systems with more funding to alter their sex education classes. The sex education classes would focus more on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and the use of contraception. The bill would also launch... more

In my state of South Carolina there is a big debate going on about a new proposed bill. The bill would require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound and see the ultrasound pictures before the abortion would be performed and to sign a document certifying that they have seen the pictures. This debate and bill is making national news as it would be the first law of its kind in the nation and is making headlines.

Some states do make ultrasound pictures available before a woman has an abortion through crisis pregnancy centers and other sources... more

I’ve written before that teen pregnancy is considered an epidemic in this country. But we need to be realistic about dealing with it. The program I discuss below realistically deals with pregnant teenagers. We definitely need more programs like this one in the US! Read on….

Twenty one years ago in January a revolutionary program for pregnant teen mothers and their children’s fathers was launched at Sunnyside High School in Tucson, Arizona. This program helps teen parents complete their education and receive a high school diploma at the same time teaching... more

Boy, can I ever relate to the Allison Lee Quets story...and not just because I’m a birthmom who would have revoked my surrender if I’d had a chance to. No, the thing that causes me to feel such a major sense of kinship with Quets is that I too suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum while pregnant.

In layman’s terms, hyperemesis is when you just can’t stop throwing up. It goes far beyond normal queasiness or morning sickness; it’s a chronic and miserable condition for which you have... more