Ron Reigns:
Welcome, and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me, Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad and assist pregnant mothers looking for adoptive parents and starting an adoption plan.
Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid, and for yourself, because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid and that’s not fair.
Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter will be well taken care of with them.
Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion; give this child a chance.
Speaker 5:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m the Executive Director, President and co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency, the Donna K. Evans Foundation, and creator of the You Before Me Campaign. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Family Studies and Human Development and a Master’s degree in Education, with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption, and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.
Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the co-host of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now, I work for my wife, who’s an adoption attorney, and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Today, we’re going to talk about gender reveal celebrations in adoption. This is becoming a huge trend on the outside of adoption, meaning that when women are pregnant and they are learning the gender of their baby, gender reveal celebrations are becoming a huge deal. Kind of like Sweet 16 parties or Quinceañeras or those kind of things. So what people are doing is when they’re pregnant, they are waiting to find out the gender of their child, or they’re waiting to surprise other people with a gender. So sometimes a woman who’s pregnant will have the gender sealed in an envelope by the ultrasound technician and somebody will look at that and then do the behind the scenes of the revelation of what it is. Or sometimes the pregnant woman and her significant other will know the gender and then have family and friends come over and then surprise them. And some of these are exceedingly elaborate. I mean, we’re talking firecrackers and huge cakes that they’re cutting into and confetti and balloons out of boxes. I mean, you’ve seen these. But pregnant mothers looking for adoptive parents also celebrate this moment with their family.
Ron Reigns:
Absolutely.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right, Ron?
Ron Reigns:
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So this has now in infiltrated, this gender reveal celebration, into the adoption world, which is exciting. I mean, why shouldn’t it?
Ron Reigns:
Right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’re still celebrating the gender of a baby, and birth mothers want and have a right to have that celebration. So I’m seeing this more and more with some of our birth moms wanting to do a gender reveal for the adoptive family. So I thought that today we would talk about pregnant mothers looking for adoptive parents still wanting to celebrate and why this is an important milestone for birth mothers and for adoptive family.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, with baby showers, that’s not really customary for a birth mother in an adoption situation. I have seen it in the 16 years that I’ve been in the field, where a birth mother has had a baby shower. That can be considered a red flag because that means that not everybody knows or agrees with her adoption choice. However, if you have a birth mother that really just wants that milestone and really wants to celebrate that, I have seen a birth mother have a baby shower. Our case worker that was her actual case manager was so concerned she actually went to the baby shower and everybody knew who she was. They knew she was doing an adoption. And what they did is they bagged up all of the gifts and gave them to the adoptive family, which was beautiful.
Ron Reigns:
Oh, that’s sweet.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. It was really sweet. So sometimes when you look at something at first glance, you’re like, “Ooh, that’s a red flag.” And then as you dig deeper and find out more, it’s just someone’s doing something a little bit different, but the gender reveal is not by any means, in my opinion, a red flag. I mean, anything can be turned into one, but just as a whole, it’s not a red flag. And we’re having more and more birth mothers want our assistance in having a gender reveal celebration for their adoptive family. What do you think about this?
Ron Reigns:
To me, the gender, because I’m older, I mean this wasn’t a thing when we were kids or when we were growing up or when we had kids even. So it’s just strange to me, not in a bad way, just it’s a different world now. But I think it’s awesome actually. I mean, I haven’t been to one. Just like anything, like you say, it can get out of hand and you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on anything, I guess, but as a concept, I think it’s great. I think it’s fun. And I think, like you said, instead of being a red flag in adoption, it’s just a nice, sweet, family oriented event. So there’s nothing wrong with it when a pregnant mother looking for adoptive parents celebrates the gender of the baby.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And it can be toned way down in terms of expense. What we’ve had, and I’ll go over some ideas for families out there and for birth moms that are thinking about having a gender reveal, you can tone this down to even a text message, where you surprise them or a quick video. And so we’ve done that, especially if it’s an out-of-state adoptive family. Some of our birth mothers have done like the balloons, like they’ll fill a box with the balloons in the color, pink obviously for a girl or blue for a boy. And they have helium in them so then when they’re FaceTiming the adoptive family, they open up the box and out go the balloons. And that’s really fun. It’s cute. It’s a memory that they’re making, and it’s something that they’ll always have to think back on.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And it’s fun for the adoptive family because otherwise they wouldn’t get to participate, if this is their only child or their first child, in a gender reveal. And so this is a way that they too can join or have this new celebration that they may not have been able to have. So I think it’s kind of a win-win. Again, it can be done very inexpensively. I’ve seen where you take those little blocks and you can put boy or girl and you can hold something in front of it and then slowly lift it up. It doesn’t have to be $500 gowns and fireworks and so forth. But I can definitely see how an adoptive family can really have fun with that and then in turn, if they want to, they can have a gender reveal party for their family and friends once they know the gender.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So they can then carry that on and show even the birth mother what they did at their gender reveal. So that would be really fun. It’s something that they can talk about and work through together. And it can help create a bond between the adoptive family and the birth mother.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So some ideas, if you are a pregnant mother looking for adoptive parents and considering adoption, or have an adoption plan, if you choose an adoptive family that is local and you could meet with them in person, we’ve done these at our office. And what we do is, is either just pick up some cupcakes and then when you bite into the cupcake, the color of the cake is blue or pink. I’ve seen cake pops. Those are really cute. Also confetti.
Ron Reigns:
Real quick. What are cake pops?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Are you being serious, Ron?
Ron Reigns:
I’m being completely serious. I’ve never heard of cake pops.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Have you ever been to Starbucks?
Ron Reigns:
Well, I’ve been there, but I don’t buy their food.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay. Well, a cake pop is a round donut, basically, with frosting over it on a stick.
Ron Reigns:
Okay. Okay. Well, just like I guess it would sound. Interesting. Okay. Just carry on. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt the whole proceedings here.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Well, welcome back to 2020.
Ron Reigns:
I told you I’m old.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
All right. So moving on, a gender reveal confetti. Maybe you have confetti in a balloon and the balloon’s not see-through and you pop it, and again, it can have the colors. Create a box. Sometimes I’ve seen baby girl clothes in pink or pink pacifiers or pink baby bottles and they open up the box and, voila, there’s pink stuff which means a girl or blue if you’re having a boy. Or I’ve seen also to play a game of trivia. So they have to ask questions and try to determine if it’s a boy or a girl, kind of pictionary-esque.
Ron Reigns:
See, I love those kind of games too, with family and sitting around and doing.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right.
Ron Reigns:
We did one for Adam for his birthday. And it was a bunch of questions about Adam’s, your husband’s, life, and I thought that was so much fun and so clever. And you came up with that, didn’t you?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah, yeah.
Ron Reigns:
That was fun. So yeah, I like that idea. To kind of make it a trivia game.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah, just for fun. Again, like I said, baby clothes, maybe give a gift to the adoptive family and when they unwrap it, there’s the clothing for the baby, which is fun. I’ve also seen just very, I guess, calm, nothing elaborate, framing the ultrasound with color around the picture. So that’s fun.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If you have an adoptive family out of state, a lot of those ideas you can also video and send them a short clip, or a picture, or you can make a gender reveal card and send them. You can pose with like a blue or a pink onesie, just like put it on your belly and send a picture of that. You can, again, use the blocks and do a really cute picture with that. Or hold up little pink or blue baby shoes. That’s cute. You can paint your baby bump blue or pink if you want to, if you’re not shy to show your tummy.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The gum, I think is adorable, blowing a pink or a blue bubble gum and when it comes out then you can see what the baby’s going to be. Or just doing a box. Taking everything pink or blue that has to do with the baby and putting it in a box and you can either make it into a game, so each of the adoptive parents would pull out an item, you’d have to mail this to them, but they pull out an item, and then the one that’s left, like you pull out all the pink, I’ll pull out all the blue, alternating, and then the one that’s left is what they’re having. So I mean, you can do a lot of really fun things to make it really fun and in good spirits.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And again, you can be FaceTiming the opposite, whether it’s the birth mother or the adoptive family, just so that you can be a part of that.
Ron Reigns:
Yeah.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And it should be fun. So we help our birth mothers do this. I think that it is important to celebrate the good things in life and this is such a small thing that we can do to help show them how much we support them, that if they want to have a gender reveal, we do accommodate that. So it’s just something really fun.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, and again, unfortunately we can’t always do the gender reveal because they know the gender sometimes when they’re matched. So it really just depends on the timing, but for those who do it, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences. So something to think about, if you are in a position to be able to do a gender reveal and you want a really fun bonding moment between you and your adoptive family, or you, the adoptive family, and your birth mother, consider doing a gender reveal and talk to your agency about it.
Ron Reigns:
Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters In Adoption. If you’re listening and are a pregnant mother looking for adoptive parents and want more information about adoption, Building Arizona Families is a local Arizona adoption agency and available 24/7 by phone or text at (623) 695-4112. That’s (623) 695-4112. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get started on creating an Arizona adoption plan, or just get you more information. You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website at azpregnancyhelp.com. Thanks also go out to Grapes for allowing us to use their song I Don’t Know our theme song. Birth Mother Matters In Adoption was written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me. Please rate and review this podcast wherever you’re listening to us. We’d really appreciate it. We also now have a website at birthmothermatterspodcast.com. Tune in next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption. For Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I’m Ron Reigns.