A Small Miracle Adoption Agency
Tower 1, #2020, 10060 Jasper Ave T5J 3R8 Edmonton, AB, Canada

Couples hoping to become parents through open adoption have been asking us to find new ways to share their information with prospective birth parents who are considering making an adoption plan for their child. Allowing prospective parents to advertise their profiles online through licensed adoption agencies gives us a new way to share information with birth families while guarding the safety and privacy of all parties. - Edie Pendleton, Executive Director https://globalnews.ca//adoption-process-changes-on-t/amp/

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Small Miracles ... happy birthday to you! Happy 6th birthday!!

Love this. Always brings a smile to my face.

Lest We Forget. We remember.

Finally - after several years of working behind the scenes with other agencies and the province, existing barriers for families are being removed - here is the government's media release: https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm

We love seeing all these faces and hearing all these voices celebrating adoption all over the world today! World Adoption Day

WE WANNA SEE YOUR SMILES!!!!!! Happy World Adoption Day! If your life has been touch by adoption in anyway, we’d love to see it! Post a photo in the comments of you with a smiley face on your hand in celebration! World Adoption Day PS - Meet Lindsey, our international coordinator. She's awesome, friendly and if you get to work together... you'll LOVE her!

Hello! We have so many new and VERY EXCITING things planned for sharing stories and inspiration with you! For now - we are thrilled to share our new blog with you guys. We have so many wonderful topics coming up. In this first post - we are hearing from a family who recently adopted through SMA. This family shares their experience in parenting children who have walked through trauma... the things that have worked for their family. If you know someone in your life who has adop...ted or are thinking of adopting that would enjoy this article feel free to share it! Also - We'd love to ask YOU - is there a particular topic that you'd like to learn/hear about? Drop us a comment below if there is and we'll see what we can do! Love the SMA Family https://smallmiraclesadoption.com/index.php/blog-resources

We have been working hard at connecting with all areas of the province to ensure that women are aware of our services (for making an adoption plan). We are pleased to share that we now have social workers in almost every major city of the province. This means that we are able to help women in a timely fashion and they have adoption options! We have been to Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Lloydminster, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Calgary and many other areas as well :) Please share!

We want to take a minute to encourage families who have a heart for International Adoption. With uncertain times couples are cautious to start the process but this is a great time to START. The beginning steps of the process are to complete an application, preparation training, and a homestudy. This beginning process does not require any travel and can take upwards of a year to complete! For more information please contact our International Program Director, Lindsey, at [email protected] #internationaladoption #albertaadoption #albertafamiliesgrowing #growthroughadoption

HAPPY WORLD ADOPTION DAY!!!!!! There are so many beautiful stories throughout the adoption spectrum. Maybe you where adopted as an adult and now have the gift of a new family tree. Perhaps you are a birth parent who selflessly chose a different life for your child, or it is possible that you are learning how to raise a child who found life outside your womb! You could be someone whose life was blessed with a loving step parent or, a step parent who was awarded the new title of Mom or Dad! Whoever you are, whatever your story is we CELEBRATE your life, your journey and your adoption story. New Blog Post: https://smallmiraclesadoption.com/index.php/blog-resources

Have you ever wondered what open adoption can actually look like? This video gives you the privilege of listening in on a conversation between a birth mother and an adoptive mother. Better go grab your tissue box before you watch this - I cried through most of it! #adoptionawarenessmonth #adoptionawareness "It’s the constant compassion, it’s the constant openness. You want to make that mother and daughter relationship special, and that’s everything. - Brindan, birth mom https://www.bravelove.org/conversations_part2

We have some winners!!!!! Thank you to Laara from Float Wellness & Massage for donating some turkeys to this give away! A huge congratulations to our two grande prize winners Candace Frenchman and Kimberly Webster!!! A second congratulations to our turkey dinner winners Lori Updike & Robyn Stewart. We will be in touch with you tomorrow morning to make arrangements to get you your prizes! Feel free to email us in the meantime if you like! [email protected]. Als...o - to everyone else. We want to say THANK YOU for entering and an even bigger thank you for sharing your story with us. It means so much. Our hearts where so moved by your stories we will be doing some more big giveaways for Christmas! We have some big things planned. Love, The Small Miracle Adoption Family

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! We had a really amazing weekend meeting (at a distance) and providing full Thanksgiving dinners to cook (turkey, cranberries, potatoes, sweet potatos, carrots, turnips, gravy mix, buns, onions, stuffing mix, pumpkin pie). Such a pleasure to meet you all! Photos shared with permission.

Breathe. Its going to be okay. Small Miracles Adoption is here for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lXPKm5d3-s

EXCITING NEWS! Today we received a donation / partnership of two more thanksgiving meals to giveaway. We want to extend this giveaway to the end of the day to allow more families to apply. We will now have four winners!! Two families will receive a full turkey dinner and two families will receive our original grand prize. We will continue to accept entries until 10 pm this evening and announce the winners shortly after. If you have not entered - yet you still have time. Ple...ase share this post if there is someone in your life who should see it and can benefit! We’ve had such a wonderful response to this give-a-way! We are taking time and reading through each and every entry. Love the Small Miracle Adoption Family

EXCITING NEWS! Today we received a donation / partnership of two more thanksgiving meals to giveaway. We want to extend this giveaway to the end of the day to allow more families to apply. We will now have four winners!! Two families will receive a full turkey dinner and two families will receive our original grand prize. We will continue to accept entries until 10 pm this evening and announce the winners shortly after. If you have not entered - yet you still have time. Ple...ase share this post if there is someone in your life who should see it and can benefit! We’ve had such a wonderful response to this give-a-way! We are taking time and reading through each and every entry. Love the Small Miracle Adoption Family

$500 GIVEAWAY! This Thanksgiving we are reminded that the holidays can be a difficult time for some families. We want to take away the stress for two families with this giveaway! We are passionate about serving, supporting & helping women in need. We would LOVE for two families that may be struggling, to be the recipients of this giveaway! It includes: - A FULL thanksgiving meal (turkey, potatoes, squash, corn etc Valued at $100) - A $200 gift card to The Children's Place (c...lothing store) - A $100 gift card to Superstore - A $100 gift card to Toys R Us How To Apply: 1. Click on this link and fill out the form on our website http://smallmiraclesadoption.com//inde/contact-us/giveaway 2. For an extra entry - "Like" our Facebook page - please comment on this post to let us know you've done it! 3. For another extra entry - Share this post to your personal page - please comment on this post to let us know you've done it! If you're on Instagram you can also head over to our page and find out how to receive additional entries. Our two winners will be announced on Friday, October 9th, 2020. YOU MAY ENTER ON BEHALF OF ANOTHER FAMILY. If you choose do this - use YOUR contact information - and in the message section tell us more about the family you are nominating / entering on behalf of! If you're not a family in need - please help us spread the word by sharing this post to families who are by sharing this post! Thank you! Love, The A Small Miracle Adoption Family

NEWS - Officially operating as: "A Small Miracle Adoption" but really, we will always be Small Miracles Adoption!

Every child matters. Orange shirt day! https://www.cbc.ca/kidscb/the-feed/what-is-orange-shirt-day

Every child matters. Orange shirt day! https://www.cbc.ca/kidscb/the-feed/what-is-orange-shirt-day

Congratulations to the families who completed their International Preparation Seminar with us this weekend. We look forward to working with and following our International program families on their journeys. For more information on our international adoption program contact our Program Director, Lindsey, at [email protected]

Shared with honour (and permission)! :)

Shared with honour (and permission)! :)

"I know it is hard to deal with people who judge you and who have NO idea what you went through when experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Remember, unless they were in the EXACT same circumstance, with the EXACT same resources available to them at THAT time, they arent going to understand what you went through. Thats ok. Its not their journey. Its important though for you to remember the circumstances at that time and to remind your brain every time it tries to pull yo...u in a downward spiral. You made the best decision that was available to you at the time a decision needed to be made. That is what good mothers do. They make a plan for their childs future even if parenting is not able to be the option they choose. Sending BIG love to all birth moms!! Before you boldly say.... would NEVER place my child for adoption!"..... walk in the other womans shoes and in her EXACT circumstances. You just might see her choice a little differently. (Borrowed with permission from a private source). Small Miracles Adoption

We offer confidential pregnancy options counselling across Alberta. No transportation? No problem. We will come to you. You are not alone. https://pregnancycounselling.ca/

FREE online course about our Indigenous Peoples for parents, social workers, children, professionals: https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada

NEW website with the best video ever (for expecting moms) https://www.smallmiraclesadoption.com/

It was a pleasure to meet many of the NFLB families this week. Thank you for your time, for sharing, for your honesty, and willingness to trust us in walking through this journey together!

Breathe, its going to be okay. Youre not alone. https://youtu.be/_lXPKm5d3-s

Unplanned pregnancy or pregnant and not sure what to do - its complicated right? Its Not easy. You are Not alone. We Can help. We offer free pregnancy counselling options. Adoption is an option :) Call or text 587-596-5380

Many Alberta families choose to grow their families through our domestic adoption program. Although we mainly work with pregnant women, most often we are placing newborn children; there are times we are contacted by parents of older children. We are a boutique agency who lovingly facilitates the growth of families through adoption #Albertaadoption #albertaadoptionagency #albertadomesticadoption #smallmiraclesadoption

Happy Canada Day!

Happy National Indigenous Peoples Day!!

Happy Fathers Day to all of the fathers, stepfathers, birthfathers, grandfathers and fathers-to-be!

Part 2 of the series.

To Former ABC clients, we created an email address specifically for you to contact us; if you did not receive our email/invite the other day, please contact us [email protected]

Congratulations to the families who spent the weekend with us for their adoption seminar; such a pleasure to meet you all. We are looking forward to working with you!

Dear ABC Client: We understand the difficult position that the closure of Adoption By Choice (ABC) represents for your family. As one of the surviving adoption agencies, and as social work professionals, you have our sincere empathy. We have already spoken to many of you over the phone or tried to answer your emails / phone messages; we have been swamped! Frankly, for the most part, we have not known how to respond. SMA desperately wants to be part of a solution. From an a...gency perspective, we were informed of ABCs impending closure at the same time as yourselves and the public in general. We did not have an opportunity to advance solutions beforehand. Thank you for reaching out to us about our model and our services. It is important that you understand how we work and why this situation creates unique difficulties. The small in our name is purposeful. The growth we have experienced over the last several years has been slow and incremental. Our business is built on a small and dedicated staff serving a correspondingly small number of adopting clients. Our goal is to build and maintain intimate relationships with our clients and to accommodate adoption placements within a 24-month window. That is our business model. We did not, and do not, currently view the closure of ABC as an opportunity. We already maintain a list of potential clients waiting to attend seminars. These seminars are only scheduled when there is capacity on our capped Waiting Families List. Analogy - The best way to illustrate the problem that the closure of ABC represents is to think of SMA and the other agencies as lifeboats. We have all come to help, but have limited capacity, which had been set aside for our existing clients and/or potential clients who have already been waiting. We do have some capacity (we are coming from a successful year) which meant some of the seats are on our lifeboat are available. Additionally, with the closure of ABC, it is realistic to believe that we can launch a slightly larger lifeboat (although, at this time, we are just guessing as to how many more seats we can add). As an agency, it is our desire to ensure that every ABC family finds a new agency home and is ultimately successful in growing their family through adoption. We continue to work behind the scenes in pursuit of partnerships / arrangements that we believe have the potential to address your concerns. We are reluctant to provide further details as there is no guarantee that any of our initiatives will be successful and we do not want to raise expectations in a manner that may contribute to your already significant disappointment. Sincerely, Small Miracles Adoption

International Adoption may be put on hold because of COVID restrictions BUT it is a good time to start all the process. A majority of the process is administrative or paperwork, and we are still working to get this completed for our families. #albertaadoptionagency #albertaadoption #smallmiraclesadoption #internationaladoption

Small Miracles takes a knee for 8 min 46 sec (for George Floyd and others) - Black lives matter. We do not and will not tolerate any level of racism.

A beautiful day for a road trip today! Wishing everyone a wonderful day.

With the recent development of ABC closing, we are very sad for all members of the adoption community. We will continue to do what we can to help, to provide the best support possible to our clients, and to provide the best service we can!

In our last post, we advised that we had reached out to ABC. At that point, ABC had not yet had an opportunity to respond. We are pleased to announce that SMA has submitted a framework memorandum and that substantive, good faith discussions are now under way between the two organizations. Admittedly, bridges must be built to ford the many difficulties and issues. Only time will tell what proves possible. We will do our best to keep you informed. (fingers crossed emoji)

An Open Letter to the Families of Small Miracles Adoption (SMA) & Adoption By Choice (ABC) Families Dear Friends/Families: Along with the other licenced adoption agencies, we learned that ABC was closing. While we believe that at least one of the other agencies knew what was happening, SMA had no idea of what to expect. We were shocked to hear that ABC was closing. ABC publicly announced this news May 27, 2020....Continue reading

We are incredibly saddened to learn that Adoption By Choice will be closing. Our hearts go out to their families, birthparents/birthfamilies, and their staff.

"Helping others effective coping strategy to reduce pandemic stress, psychologist says" = https://www.cbc.ca//mental-health-support-volunteers-covid Where to turn for support Counsellors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for children, teens and adults at Kids Help Phone. ... Children, teens and young adults: Call 1-800-668-6868. Text TALK to 686868. Adults: Text WELLNESS to 741741. Front-line workers: Text FRONTLINE to 741741.

So excited - just arrived.. cant wait to read!!

Building Resiliency during COVID (borrowed from the Canadian Mental Health Association)

Fantastic! "Edmonton artist creates online show to teach children about Indigenous culture" https://www.cbc.ca//edmonton-artist-creates-online-show-to

Happy Mothers Day to all Moms, Grandmothers, Aunties, Moms-To-Be, Pregnant Moms, Miscarried Moms, Those Who Are Trying, Those Who Cant, Step-Moms, Adoptive Moms, Birth Moms, and Pseudo Moms: You are all champions, every day of the year. Especially at the times that it doesnt feel that way.

A friend posted this earlier today and, after reading it, I had to borrow and share this direction! (it is from Jann Ardens FB page). "Jann Arden" May 5 at 8:24 AM I asked my grandmother once, if she ever felt "anxiety" when she was growing up. After a thoughtful pause she replied, "Well- we never thought about ourselves back in those days. We didnt sit and think about what we felt like, we just didnt have the time. We got up and went outside to work."... I didnt expect her to say anything remotely like that-, I thought she was going to say, "Well OF COURSE we did!" But -she did not. We spend a lot of time thinking about what we feel like every second of the day and I am guilty of that as well. This piece of time- this slice of history weve been presented with has exacerbated our thinking process. It has escalated the speed and the volume of our thoughts. Were all on a wheel that is rolling down the side of a mountain, headed for a speeding train. You get my drift. Ive decided that I am going to quit thinking all together. Thats right, Im not thinking anymore. I am going to start doing instead. I am going to find purpose in seemingly small things. I am going to walk down the road and feel the gravel beneath my crappy old rubber boots. I am going to listen to the birds yatter and chatter and yell at each other. I am going to stop dwelling on old things, old memories, what was, where I was a year ago, a decade ago, a lifetime ago. I am going to be right where I am. I am going to phone three friends everyday and cheer them on. I am going to plant things and check them every single day to see how theyre doing. I am going to watch old movies and probably bite my nails. I am going to hug my dog. I am going to say goodbye to controlling my life and hello to being okay with it. I am going to talk out loud to my mother. I am going to ask for help when I need it and even when I dont need it, because we all want to help each other even if we dont think we do. When one of us is sad, we are all sad. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is hungry, we are all hungry. The things weve learned in two months, would have taken us 20ty years. What a gift this has been. Even if you dont see it yet, you will. The universe just handed us a piece of time. The thing we have always wanted the most. Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Edie

WONDERFUL - Karen Pheasant-Neganigwane launches powwow culture book: https://www.manitoulin.ca/karen-pheasant-neganigwane-laun/

BWSS - Battered Women Support Services = If you or you know someone who needs to plan around leaving an abusive home, please call our crisis line when it is safe for you at 604-687-1867 or 1-855-687-1868, text 604-652-1867 or send an email at [email protected]. https://www.bwss.org/six-cases-of-gender-based-violence-r/

Small Miracles Adoption has a growing international adoption program for Alberta families! We understand international adoption can be challenging and confusing. We will do our best to help and guide you through this journey. If you would like more information, please feel free to contact our International Program Director at [email protected]

Congratulations and thank you to our amazing social worker, Lindsey, our birth couple, and their adoptive family on the birth of their son! Birthparents, babe, and adopting family are doing so well considering the limitations of physical distancing restrictions.