Mending Families is hosted by Melissa Pemberton and she brings you weekly content that is a mix of trauma aware interviews, parenting tips for those caring for kids from adversity, and stories from people just like you as they share their beautiful messy moments. Melissa hopes that when you listen each week, you will feel encouraged, inspired and take a little something away to help you and your family move from broken to mended.

Meaghan is a mom to 6 kids and is a proud StoryMaker both as a PaperPie associate and a foster/adoptive mom. She is married and lives in the country with her family, fur babies, and neighboring peacocks that visit from time to time. Meaghan is a fierce advocate for the kids in her home, but also has a heart to help others learn and grow as well.

On today’s episode, Meaghan starts out by talking about how she became the “book lady”, or more commonly known as a Story Maker. We talk about books that can help with social/emotional development and mindfulness. Meaghan then shares about what led her and her husband into becoming foster parents, which ultimately led to adoption. We discuss adopting out of birth order, adopting from the foster care system, open adoptions and continued contact with birth families, including sibling connections. What an amazing start to National Adoption Month!

If you are interested in learning more about Meaghan, you can find her on Instagram or Facebook. You can also purchase books from her on her PaperPie website, but also feel free to reach out to her with any questions or if you need recommendations!

Topics Meaghan mentions:

*Meaghan is a Story Maker for Paper Pie Books and knows all things books! If you want to check out any of the books we talked about, check out her website HERE!

*Specifically we talk about the books Leo the Octopus, All Better (or any of the reusable sticker books), Unworry/Unhurry magic painting, and the Mindfulness journals

*Choosing adoption involves so much more than just adopting. Meaghan talks about considering cultural needs, biological needs, and family connections.

*Adopting out of birth order is not a blanket “yes” or “no” answer so Meaghan helps us understand how they made the decision to adopt out of birth order

*Meaghan shares that there are several things that she wishes someone would have told her sooner, such as age 5 is really hard, behaviors don’t always settle at adoption, and that their job is to love the kids in their home while they are there and hold things with the case plan loosely.

*”I am their right now mom” is something she says about all of her kids

*Avoid futurecasting with your kids because we have to take “bite sized” approaches and not look too far into the future

*Connections with biological families is something that Meaghan has learned to love over the years and she shares really easy ways to build and grow those relationships

*Meaghan recommends these resources for current or future adoptive families