Clothing Drive - Fort Worth, TX

Ten years ago this month on Martin Luther King Weekend I moved into the Gladney Center for Adoption to place my birth daughter with her new parents in a matter of months.

I have a semi-open adoption plan which means I get letters, emails, and pictures and I send the same.

During my stay at Gladney, located in Fort Worth, Texas for eight months residents were taken shopping for maternity clothes at one point but we could also choose from donated clothes in the clothing closet at the center.

A group of birth moms while I was there went to a maternity clothing store in Fort Worth that has since gone out of business to find some new apparel.

When they entered the store the manager asked jokingly, "What? Did all of y'all go to the same party?"

Appalled, these girls never went back and were upset at how they'd been treated.

Thankfully now the Omega OB/Gyn is hosting a Maternity Clothes Drive at their three locations to benefit Gladney birthmothers. They are located at Arlington - 505 Omega Drive; Mansfield, 1200 US Highway 287 N., Suite 103; and Grand Prairie at 2912 Kraft Street, #30.

You can also bring donations to Gladney in Fort Worth which is at 6300 John Ryan Drive.

After McKenna, my birth daughter, was eight months old I got to see her for the first time - something that was not expected, but definitely welcomed.

Since that time I've gotten to see her two to three times a year which rarely happens in adoption cases.

I know I'm one of the lucky ones.

Our most recent visit Dec. 22 was held at the park where we had Placement Day in August 2000 when, in a ceremonial arrangement, I delivered McKenna to her adoptive parents with me sobbing uncontrollably during and after.

Flash forward to one of our visits January last year with my birth daughter.

She said the sweetest thing:

"Thank you for giving me such a beautiful middle name (Hope)."

She had been so excited that I was coming to see her, according to her adoptive mom. She ran up to me and hugged me and wanted to know where we were going to meet next time.

She had been watching her baby tapes and wanted to meet at the park where we had Placement Day since she had seen it on the videotapes.

Then at the end of Jan. 2009 I got to see McKenna cheerlead for the first time. It was so great! I had tears in my eyes of pride. She was so adorable.

About four years ago I was in line at the post office mailing something to McKenna.

This guy behind me noticed her name on the package and said, "Oh, you have a McKenna, too."

I said yes and he said he had a 15-year-old daughter with the same name who he named after a character in the movie "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve from the 1970s.

"Well, the character's last name was 'McKenna' and I liked it so we named my daughter that," he said. "My wife didn't like it but it grew on her. At the time it wasn't a well known name for a child. Now you hear it more."

I told him I had noticed that you do hear it more now, that Olympic Gold Medalist Mary Lou Retton has a daughter named McKenna, and that I had a coach with the last name of McKenna in second grade. The man at the post office didn't know about Mary Lou and thought that was interesting.

In August 2008 during one of my visits with McKenna we got almost three hours together again like two months before. She had printed out a picture for me and told me so.

She also had a butterfly. Her adoptive mom had gotten her an educational butterfly kit from a TV ad and it came with several cocoons, food, containers; etc. You had to take care of the creatures for a certain amount of time then let them go.

Well, the one that McKenna had left after releasing the rest of the butterflies at school didn't want to take off yet so she was still caring for it. She had taken the rest of the butterflies to school and the kids went wild. She said they were all gathered around the butterflies and the class released them together.

The teacher was so crazy about them that Vicki, McKenna's adoptive mom ordered some kits for her to teach the class.

So, McKenna was quite a hit at school.

That's my birth daughter.