Welcome to the February issue of The Beacon.
Please consider joining us
April 26 - 29 for the 33rd Annual International Conference,
Mile High Expectations - Adoption in 2012.
Take a moment to look over the newsletter and learn more about the upcoming conference in Denver, Colorado.
Please feel free to share our newsletter with friends, family and co-workers by using the links at the bottom.
With warm regards,
Susan Bennett & The Beacon Team
If you are an AAC member, watch for the Spring issue of The Decree arriving in your mailbox this March.
 If you're not a member yet, won't you consider joining and enjoy conference savings and being a part of a growing community who support openness in adoption.
If you have a story idea, we'd love to hear from you, or if you have a comment or question, contact us at AACBeacon@gmail.com.
Conference Happenings
Get EXCITED...
We're pleased to bring you great Keynote Speakers:
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD, is an internationally recognized scholar, award-winning poet, diplomate senior Jungian psychoanalyst, and cantadora (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition). She is the author of the bestselling book,"Women Who Run With the Wolves," (Ballantine 1992, 1995) and the multi-volume audio series, "The Dangerous Old Woman."
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Sherrie Eldridge -
The Adoptee’s Heart Language
Sherrie Eldridge, a reunited adoptee, is an award-winning author and internationally-recognized speaker. Her first book, "20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew," has sold more than 160,000 copies. Her latest book, "20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed," is pure encouragement to parents. Every chapter contains the voices of adoptive parents she interviewed plus tips on how parents can learn to speak the heart language of their children, thus deepening connections. She has been married to Bob Eldridge for 46 years and they have two married daughters and six grandchildren.
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao (Presenting for our Professional Day) is the founder and CEO of Center For Family Connections, Inc. (est. 1995) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Pavao has done extensive training, both nationally and internationally. She is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and has consulted with various public and private agencies, schools, and the court system.
Ground-breaking legislative panels:
Living With the Law: Ambiguous Language, Unintended Consequences, and Slippery Slopes
- Honorable Dennis Graham, Ronald S. Hyman, Connie Vigil
Dismantling the Barriers to Identity Access
- Adam Pertman, Elizabeth Samuels, Bob Tuke
Enjoy Saturday night with:
The one and only- Pekitta Tynes, Commedienne.
Pekitta has opened for popular comedians, including Martin Lawrence.
 Pekitta is one of the 100 memorable adoptees in the book, "Finding Our Place." She currently lives in Las Vegas. Click on her picture to learn about her adoption connection.
Early registration ends February 29. Visit the beautiful hotel, Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center, to see where you'll be staying.
AAC Adoption News and Views
Pam Kroskie
Mark your calendar for February 24, when Steve Lickteig will be our guest to discuss his new documentary, Open Secret.
If you missed any of our shows, you can listen by going to our link on Blog Talk Radio.
Pam Slaton visited January 27, click here if you didn't get a change to listen. You can also catch up with Pam on her website.
Ways to Stay in Touch
We have MANY new items on Cafe Press. (Watch for sales posted regularly on our Facebook page.)
Join us on social media pages like Facebook and Twitter.
Our Twitter ID is AAC1978.
Ways to support AAC~ Please bookmark this link:
for all your Amazon purchases (AAC receives a small donation, thank you!)
Show your support with every purchase you make with Capital One VISA.
Whether you give to AAC,
or talk to your local United Way
representative about directed giving,
we sincerely appreciate your support!
Check out what's new on our website americanadoptioncongress.org
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New Legislation in Georgia
There is a clean bill in Georgia this session, HB 748 with six sponsors! If you live in GA please contact your legislator regarding this bill, supporting access to original birth certifcates for adult adoptees. Learn more at OBCforGA. To view activity in all states go to our State Legislation page.
Spotlight Blog
Lorraine Dusky
 Joan Didion's Blue Nights is really an adoption memoir.
Joan Didion's adoption of her daughter Quintana Roo has been on my radar ever since I realized she and her husband had adopted a daughter because their daughter was born within weeks of mine, and both girls were surrendered as infants. It wasn't until Quintana was ten or eleven that I paid more attention because one of my best friends in New York, who followed the lives of literati with interest, began insisting that this girl Quintana had to look a great deal as I must have as a child.
It was true. Except for the fact that I was a bean pole growing up, she did seem to me (and most assuredly to my friend) that she looked like I did as a kid. Photographs bore this out. Quintana was often mentioned in the magazine stories about her famous parents, including her age, and just as my daughter turned eleven, so had Quintana.
Now mothers who have surrendered their children in closed adoptions can do crazy things, and eventually it seemed as if I surely should write to Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and find out once and for all if we indeed shared a daughter. To add to the "clues" that seemed to be piling up, I myself had recently come back from the Yucatan, Quintana Roo in particular, and found the Mayan lore magnetic, mystical, mesmerizing: virgins sacrificed to the gods and the deep-in-the-jungle sink hole with water so black you could not see into it. At the ancient temple of Tulum, situated hard on the shore of the azure blue Caribbean, I climbed to the top and sat there alone--that was when you could do that, before there were crowds--for a long time and I remembered wondering that day, as the sun sparkled in a cliche of diamonds on the impenetrable sea, if I would ever find my far-away daughter, my daughter always out of reach, lost in a closed adoption. Was her name--Quintana Roo--indeed, a sign?
To learn more, read the rest of the blog post here.
Lorraine is an author, blogger, and has contributed to our newsletter, The Decree.
Visit Lorraine at [Birth Mother,] First Mother Forum.
Webinar Series
Wendy Rowney
Introducing the
AAC Webinar Series*
Join our guest, Nancy Verrier, online on February 5
beginning at 4:00 pm EST for
WHO AM I?
DEALING WITH GENETIC CONFUSION IN THE ADOPTIVE FAMILY AND BEYOND
Few people think about how confusing it is for adoptees to grow up in non-biological families, especially if they came into the family at birth or soon after. In this webinar, Nancy will address the many ways a child struggles to fit into a family and why it is so difficult for many adoptees to do so.
Pre-registration required, space is limited, and for more details visit our website.
*Watch for information about the AAC's next webinar, scheduled for April 1 with- Dr. Michael Grand.
Adoption Triad Dance
Jamie Nagy
 "It's like dancing with a Gorilla."
Reunions can be that way. Do you dance? Here are a couple of excerpts from a blog by Jamie Nagy.
"It’s like dancing with a Gorilla." That's a direct quote from my dear friend P, describing her 20-year-long reunion with her birth family.
Why is it so accurate? Why does it strike such a chord of truth deep within both of our hearts?
First, I have to preface my thoughts with a recent realization. I am an adoptee, a biological mother, and an adoptive mom. I am most qualified to write as an adoptee, a biological mom, and then as an adoptive mom who never experienced infertility. I am not qualified to write as a birth mom, or any such birth family member.
I am an adoptee.
Dancing with a gorilla . . . ouch. First of all, he is a BIG dance partner. He is HUGE. Birth moms especially are BIG and HUGE in an adoptee's life, known or unknown. We were inside their tummies for nine months! We were connected to their nutrition, their hormones, their central nervous systems, their emotions, their voices, their heartbeats. Their presence in our lives is BIG and HUGE and sometimes even DARK like a Gorilla because their identity is a secret. She looms in our thoughts, our dreams, our relationships, our birthdays, our self-worth.
Next, he is POWERFUL. Gorillas are powerful. And they don't really know their own strength perhaps. So, a seemingly insignificant move on the gorilla's part can KNOCK us (the adoptees) over. It's not their fault, mind you. They just are POWERFUL. Their physical presence can overwhelm us. Their physical absence can do the same. Their growl can send us running. And their silence can leave us paralyzed, staring, and wondering what they are thinking. Are they about to hurt us again? Careful. Maybe we should tiptoe, just in case.
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Are you getting tired of dancing? Is your Gorilla getting tired too? You start to worry.
And if the Gorilla accidentally steps on your foot several times while dancing, will you keep wanting to dance with him/her? Or will you eventually be conditioned to avoid the Gorilla? The Gorilla you sacrificed so very much to find, to see, to hold, to know, to love. Can you speak the Gorilla's language enough to communicate what hurts and keep trying?
Click here for the entire dance… post.
Visit Jamie's blog, Adoption Triad Dance.
Pulled Into Adoption
Susan Bennett
The world of adoption can draw you in when you least expect it, whether it's the late discovery of your own adoption – as in my case – or a compelling image of international adoption that pulls you into a years-long investigation.
That was the case with Erin Siegal, whose world was forever changed when she witnessed over a dozen American couples in an airport in Guatemala each leaving with a Guatemalan child. That scene lead to a shift in consciousness that ultimately guided her through the international adoption maze and led to her much-anticipated first book, “Finding Fernanda.”
 In the Preface, Erin writes:
As a photojournalist, I found the image arresting. Back in New York, I began skimming through press clippings about adoption, trying to find a compelling story angle that would enable me to return to Guatemala to photograph an adoption story. I imagined a human-interest piece touching on cultural blending, or perhaps on the love and generosity that seemed intrinsic to adoption.
Instead, the news articles I found were anything but uplifting. Many were downright shocking.
Photographing a straightforward human-interest piece no longer seemed appropriate. In fact, the issue felt better suited to detective work than to visual storytelling.
Erin shared that she had no previous adoption connection as she was simply on vacation with her sister in Guatemala. It was December 2007 when the airport scene guided her path to information gathering about international adoption.
And so Erin became an investigative journalist on a topic that seemingly picked her. With the help of specialized training from Columbia University, that detective work led to Finding Fernanda.
Read more about Erin, her accomplishments, and the book Finding Fernanda.
For a recent in-depth review and article on Guatemalan adoptions click here.
Call for Book Room Merchandise
If you are attending the conference in Denver, Colorado and have merchandise (Books/CDs/DVDs) you would like to sell in the book room, please contact Mike at AACBookRoom@gmail.com and he will send you information and the necessary forms. Last year the Book Room was a big success and we look forward to sharing your merchandise with this years conference attendees. You must be a keynote speaker, workshop presenter, or attendee in order to participate.
Book Club Corner
Our February Book Club Corner selection is~
"Any Skeletons in the Closet?"
by Ann Fedeli
 “My heart was in my throat, and my breaths were shallow. I handed my treasure to the adoption worker with tears streaming down my cheeks. I do not think I uttered a word. ... I went to my room, closed the door, and drew all the blinds. I spent the rest of the day weeping."
Click here to order this newly released book from the publisher. Available soon on Amazon.
If you are interested in having your book highlighted in the AAC Book Club Corner, or on our website, write to us at AACBeacon@gmail.com.
View AAC's entire Recommended Reading book list.
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