ABOUT ME

Who are you?
I'm a mother of two through domestic infant adoption. My son Puppy was born in the fall of 2005. My daughter Firefly was born in the winter of 2008. Both adoptions are fully open and we wouldn't want it any other way.

I call my husband Todd, or T in the older posts. He is a pretty nifty guy and even has his own adoptive dad blog.

I love tasty cake and good television. I believe in God, social justice, and reproductive choice.

Why did you adopt?
Like many, Todd and I talked seriously about adoption in the early days of our marriage and hoped to have a mixed family (i.e. both adopted and non-adopted children). When it became obvious there would be some obstacles in our fertility, it was an easy decision to start our family through adoption. Although I am not particularly grateful for my sub-fertility, I am in some way glad for it, because I don't know if we would have had the courage to actually adopt without it. I often feel that I straddle two camps in the adoptive parent world. One foot is in the first-choice adopter camp as we opted to bypass the whole fertility question and jump right into adoption. The other foot is in the world of infertility as I've grappled with the limitations of my body and the loss of reproductive control.

We attended our first adoption agency information session in October 2004 and brought our son, Puppy, home one year later. Both of his first parents were there for him from the beginning and continue to be a part of his life. Although we lived nearby at the time of the adoption, we now are in different states.

We started the agency process again in early 2007 and our daughter, Firefly, was born in February 2008. Posts from that time can be found in the category Adoption--it's a process. Her first parents live fairly nearby and we get to see her first mom about once a month.

As a child I could sing the entire Annie libretto and recite a good portion of the dialogue by heart. Astonishingly, this was of no use during our adoption process.

I'm confused. Is the blog named Unproductive Reproduction or Production, Not Reproduction?
It is Production, Not Reproduction. Way back, I started an infertility blog called Unproductive Reproduction with the URL unproductivereproduction.blogspot.com. It turned out that I didn't have much to say about infertility. When I started writing in earnest I changed the title, but kept the URL. Hence the confusion. I really don't care much what you call it, as long as you come visit.

How 'bout that social networking thing?
If you waste as much time online as I do, you can join me elsewhere: Twitter, Facebook (which I sorely neglect), and Goodreads.

I also write adoption news and opinion pieces for Grown In My Heart and shower love on quirky small businesses at the shopping blog Evergreen Moms. Marketers and PR firms are welcome to pitch me directly (most reviews and giveaways are posted at the companion PNR review blog) or through EGM.