Susan Meisel Levin, PA

11/30/2021

From Grief to Joy https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/how-to-adopt/grief-to-joy-older-parent-adoption-after-loss/

Adopting > Decisions From Grief to Joy When you lose a parent or grandparent, you mourn the past. When you lose a child, as I lost my 24-year-old daughter, you grieve for the future that will not be. By adopting after this unimaginable tragedy, I wasn’t aiming to bury my grief or to start over, bu...

07/31/2021

“It Takes No Special Power to Love a Child” https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/parenting/no-special-power-to-love-child-hayden-family-documentary/

The filmmaker and parent featured in the documentary, Hayden & Her Family, discuss special needs adoption, parenting outside “normal” boundaries, and how loving a child changes you.

01/15/2021

“Breathing” https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/post-placement-visit-breathing-feeling-like-real-life-family/

As I prepared to adopt my second child, I welcomed the home study worker into a perfectly clean and ordered home. The scene that greeted her at her post-placement visit was, well, different—but much more real.

09/22/2020

Thank You, Bàba https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/thank-you-baba-gratitude-toward-loving-foster-father/

Six months after she came home to us, our daughter stopped speaking. As I searched for clues as to her sudden silence, I became profoundly grateful to her Chinese foster father, a man I had never met, for teaching me a valuable lesson about selfless love.

08/07/2020

How to Be an Anti-Racist Adoptive Parent https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/transracial-adoption/how-to-be-anti-racist-adoptive-parent/

Learn how to be an anti-racist adoptive parent — interrogate your own white privilege; talk with your child about systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter protests; and more.

06/13/2020

Mothering Children of Color Who Are Becoming Adults https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/transracial-adoption/mothering-children-of-color-becoming-adults-talking-about-racial-bias/

A mother who adopted transracially shares conversations with her Latino teenagers and reflects on the fact that she can't guarantee their safety and security as they move into the world on their own.

06/24/2019

“Finding My Inner Mom” https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/finding-my-inner-mom-meeting-daughter-in-china/

"For years, I felt ambivalence about becoming a parent, and worry that I wouldn’t be 'perfect.' I look back on that moment when I first met my daughter through international adoption."

06/07/2019

Ask AF: How to Cope with the Disappointment of Not Being Chosen by an Expectant Mother https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-process/how-to-cope-disappointment-not-being-chosen-prospective-birth-mother-match/

"Our adoption profile was shown to an expectant mother, and she selected a different family. We knew this was a possibility, of course, but feel disappointed. How to cope?"

06/06/2019

Letters to the Editor, RE: April 2019 https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/resources/letters-to-the-editor-re-april-2019/

Readers share feedback about articles published in the April 2019 issue of Adoptive Families magazine.

05/21/2019

Enter Our 2019 Cover Photo Contest https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/homepage/enter-adoptive-families-annual-cover-photo-contest/

Want to see your child on the cover of Adoptive Families magazine? See previous winners and enter the 2019 Adoptive Families Cover Photo Contest.

05/04/2019

05/03/2019

“Sliding Doors” https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/openness/adoption-search-reunion/sliding-doors-adoptee-birth-parent-fantasies-imagining-alternate-lives/

We all imagine different ways our lives could have played out. Adoptees may grow up wondering: ‘What would my life have been like if I had not been adopted?’

05/03/2019

“A New Path in Our Adoption Journey” https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/openness/new-path-adoption-journey-reconnecting-with-childrens-birth-mother-after-addiction/

For years, my daughters’ birth mother dropped in and out of our lives as she battled a drug addiction. Now she is back in our lives, back in her own life, and I can’t wait to see what the future will bring for all of us.