November is National Adoption Month. Its origins go back thirty five years to 1976 when the governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, announced an Adoption Week for his state. Later that year, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the week-long event would become national.

As the years progressed, adoption advocates realized that more time was needed to raise awareness about the need for adoption and to hold adoption related events. So in 1995, President Clinton made the event a month-long observance.

Each year, the president begins the month with a proclamation and community organizations, nation-wide, arrange and host programs, events, and activities to share positive adoption stories, challenge the myths, and draw attention to the thousands of children who are waiting for permanent families. While adoption of all kinds is celebrated this month, the national focus is on foster care and the 510,000 kids currently in the system — 129,000 of whom are waiting for families.

A few organizations provide a calendar with ideas for promoting adoption in the home as well as in one’s community. You can imagine the smile on my face when I looked at this year’s calendar and saw the idea for November 1, 2011: Start an adoption blog.

Many people start adoption blogs to keep friends and family updated on the progress of their adoption. But there are many other facets to adoption that reach beyond “here’s what’s happening next.” Posts that seem to resonate most with readers are those that speak to the kinds of human stories everyone can all relate to: hope, longing for connection, creating family, even loss.

Blogging also helps connect fellow travelers on the same journey. I’ve heard several people say their first steps toward adoptive parenthood were informed by, or even inspired by, blogs they’d read: blogs written by adoptive parents, adoptees and birth mothers.

Blogs are also one way a family can write–and keep–the story of how their own family was created and, one day, adopted children can weave this story into their own story. Life stories, with all their imperfections, disappointments, trials, successes, beauty and growth tell the tale of who we are.