Thank you!

That is a wonderful goal! I hope you get there :)

Roo is doing very well! I saw her ... oh, probably like a month ago. She is as smart and happy and adorable as ever :)

Yay! Good for you! And you are very welcome. How awesome would a PhD be? Go for it :)

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You're welcome, and thank you :)

I had a million little questions in my mind when I was looking at adoptive families. I'll try to narrow it down for you!

I wanted to know about openness, first of all. Openness was important to me. I wanted to know some of their basic parenting philosophies. I am very much anti-spanking, and pro-eating cookies and candy as sometimes foods (sorry, organic-and-vegan peeps). I wanted to know if they had pets, because I am allergic. I wanted to know that adoption was something they were excited about, not a second-rate way of becoming parents. I wanted to know whether my baby would have a stay-at-home mommy. I wanted to know what things were important to them - and I wanted education to be one of them. I wanted to know whether they were politically conservative or liberal. I wanted to know if they were baseball fans :)

I think those were the biggest things I looked at. I hope that helps.

Yes, I would.

It depends - when you say "ask" do you mean "ask" or do you mean "request in a way that isn't a question but rather a demand," because those are two different things.

I feel like it's the adoptive parents' absolute right to name their child. I think the birth mother should certainly be allowed to offer her suggestions and opinions but ultimately, the people who are going to have to use the name every single day for a long, long time should be the ones to choose it.

Most of the adoptions I'm familiar with were done within a few days of the child's birth, so the child didn't have a name to be changed at placement. My situation is less-than-average in that respect.

I can't imagine either. I'm not sure I could have placed in a closed adoption. There is a great peace that comes from knowing how Roo is doing and in getting to see first-hand what an awesome little person she is.

I would guess that your cousin's birth mother thinks about him a lot, and that she loves him dearly, and that she hopes every day that he is happy.

It is the hardest thing in the world to do! But when it's the right thing to do, it's worth it. I hope that everything works out with your friend.

They like the name. I told them they were welcome to name her whatever they wanted.

Please, for the love of all that is good and decent, obtain a modicum of self-control. I'm assuming you found my Formspring through my blog, and if nothing else my blog is a good example of how selfishness and parenting are mutually exclusive.

I believe that a baby is always a good thing, but I also believe that there are a lot of really crap reasons to have a baby, and yours is on my list. Pregnancy and parenting shouldn't be about you and what you want. They should be about the baby - what you can provide for him or her, what kind of life he or she will have, what's best for the child. Not what's best for you.

Also, can we talk about the unsafeness of unsafe sex for a moment? Please, please, please protect yourself. There are a whole lot of really nasty diseases you could end up with, that will never go away, that can make you sick, and that can trash your fertility. Some of them can make your baby sick if you get pregnant.

Please don't be stupid, okay? You may think you are a loser, but some of my favorite people in the world have thought at times that they were losers as well, and none of them ever was. Don't devalue yourself. You have a lot to offer the world - after you've grown up a bit.

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If your therapist says you don't, I'd trust that. He or she likely knows the diagnostic criteria better than you do. Congratulations, you're just socially awkward! The good news is that the world is full of socially awkward people, both with diagnoses and without, who manage to get married and procreate and live perfectly happy lives. Both Aspergers and social awkwardness are only end-of-the-world situations if you let them be. Don't let them be.

Did you ever watch the show Lost? There was a character, John Locke, who used a wheelchair, and one line he used a couple of times was "Don't tell me what I can't do!" because people thought that someone who used a wheelchair couldn't do the things he wanted to do.

I was going somewhere with that, I know I was.

Oh, right. Don't let anyone - including you - tell you what you can't do, whether you have Aspergers or just don't know how long to maintain eye contact. If you want to get married and have babies and be happy, do it.

I'm counting on it.

Not really. I've tried, I promise I have. But I find country music to be physically painful.

I think that if the child is three, he needs to accept that his ship has sailed and take into consideration what is best for the child. I'm a little concerned at the "without consent" part. Where can a child be placed without the birth father's consent? It feels a little underhanded to me. I don't know.

But I think that fighting for custody is selfish, because of the emotional damage it would do to the poor child at this point.

I've never watched Teen Mom, so I don't know the whole story. I don't really have an opinion on them dating. Sorry.

You would have to ask M how she sees me. But I would reckon she sees me as a birth mother, which is how I see myself.