Guest names: Melissa McGovern & Lynn McJohnson

In this episode:

• Lynn and Melissa both met Ashley while volunteering at One Mission helping kids get through cancer. 
• As a same-sex couple who had tried to have children on their own only to find that this wasn’t their path, they decided to adopt. They attended classes for prospective parents at their local library in their home state of Connecticut to learn more about the adoption process.
• They discuss the lengthy process of their adoption experience, from informative classes, to licensure, background checks, and more over the course of a year and a half. Thankfully in their home state they were able to provide some preferences in a candidate, and eventually got the opportunity to adopt their first child - a 7 year old boy named Logan.
• Melissa and Lynn have had multiple foster children and teenagers in their home, all with varying backgrounds and levels of trauma. In some cases, the children are able to open up about these traumas, while in other cases the child remains more reserved in what they choose to share. They speak about how to offer support in these situations and how each parent can play a different role to balance out the support.
• They share advice to individuals who are considering adopting children who have abusive backgrounds, and share their own experience of how they never could have imagined how the process has gone for them.

Organizations discussed in this episode:

Massachusetts Adoption Resource Eschange, Inc. (MARE)

https://www.mareinc.org/

This is a One Mission Podcast.

Cancer can steal a kid’s childhood – we help them get it back through
programs and activities that foster friendship, fun, and positive
distractions from treatment. Whether it’s putting on holiday
celebrations, providing art and music therapy or paying for expensive
hospital parking, we make life brighter for children and their families
from the moment of diagnosis, through treatment and beyond.

https://onemission.org/

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