Advocacy - Saving Our Sisters

Our Latest Advocacy Activities

Actually oddly enough,
I think my work, the activism,
will be forgotten.
And I hope it will.
Because I hope those problems
will have gone away.

~Bono

After losing her son in 2011 to a devastating unnecessary infant adoption which closed in 2012,
Renee began reaching out for support and connecting with many in the online adoption community.
Renee realized that many mothers she connected with were describing the reasons they lost their children to adoption were like hers - temporary. She also heard many of them saying the same things over and over -
"If I'd only been told....", or "I never knew by baby would suffer by being separated from me".
After connecting with and building a friendship with Lisa Woolsey, they felt driven to their life's purpose to help ensure other mothers would avoid being unnecessarily separated from each other via infant adoption and to help preserve their families whenever possible and Saving Our Sisters became a reality.
Renee is an office professional and is married to her son’s father and together they parent their daughters in Florida.

Renee Gelin, Founder

Katie is a first mom from Atlanta, GA. While a freshman in college, Katie experienced firsthand the coercion and emotional manipulation that is so prevalent in the adoption industry. She was denied resources to help raise her daughter and felt adoption was her only choice. For many years to come, she believed she was alone in her pain and regret over the loss of her child. She and her husband began the process of international adoption in 2015. While researching, she began to read studies on adoptees and first moms and realized she was not alone in her pain. She began to correspond with adoptees and first moms. It was during this time that she began to understand that the coercion and manipulation she had experienced was common. She and her husband stopped their adoption process and began to focus solely on family preservation. She is 3 years in reunion with her oldest daughter. She homeschools her 3 younger children. Katie has become a family preservation supporter and board member at her local crisis center. She has participated in podcasts, blogging, and legislative lobbying on behalf of family preservation.

Katie Burns, Director