(Please remember that this is just a piece of my definition of adoption. For my full definition of what adoption is, you can read this whole series of posts here.)

This is my last piece of my definition of what adoption is to me.

Adoption is family.

When I look at my family, I know that it would not exist as it does without adoption. Josh and I would be missing out on so much if it were not for adoption, and most of our children would be living very different lives if it was not for... more

(Please remember that this is just a piece of my definition of adoption. For my full definition of what adoption is, you can read this whole series of posts here.)

With National Adoption month wrapping up tomorrow, the last day of November, I am also wrapping up my definition of adoption. I have this post and then one more to complete my definition of adoption, and then tomorrow I will share some of my favorite definitions of adoption by readers who left comments for the giveaway, and I will also announce the winner.

For this post, I am going to say that adoption is beautiful.

One of the things that... more

(Please remember that this is just a piece of my definition of adoption. For my full definition of what adoption is, you can read this whole series of posts here.)

Adoption is hard. To illustrate my point, here is a letter I wrote to myself last week during an extra-hard day of waiting (and waiting).

Dear Erin,

This is a letter to remind yourself later on down the road (when you will need reminding), that you do not enjoy being in the process of adopting (even though an overwhelming amount of evidence would show otherwise).

You do not enjoy the sick feeling in your stomach that you get early... more

We got some long awaited news today! Our court date for Solomon Tsega's adoption is December 21, which means that if all goes well, on December 21 he will officially be our son, and we will have definite travel dates assigned at that point for some time in January.

Our case was submitted to court back on November 7 and our agency thought our court date would be a little bit sooner than it is, but the Ethiopian courts have been backed up and moving fairly slowly since they reopened in October from the two-month rainy season closure. Many families have been experiencing... more

Faith over on the Adoptive Parenting Blog wrote an interesting post today on a topic that is rarely talked about in adoption circles. Her post is titled "Raising a Less Physically Attractive Adopted Child".

In a nutshell, Faith points out that not all children are "magazine cover" beautiful, and yet at the same time, all children are truly beautiful. However, in the shallow world in which we live in, many people value physical beauty as a highly important... more

This Thanksgiving week, Josh and I have talked a lot with the kids about being thankful, what it means to be thankful and all of the very many things we have to be thankful for.

We want our children to be grateful for the lives that they have. Not in the sense that they are grateful that they were adopted or in any way that they are "indebted" to Josh and I, because no child should feel like that. Every child has the right to feel that they belong in their family and that they have as much of a right to be there as all of the other family members. All of our kids... more

To advocate for adoption for children other than young, healthy infants, I have been writing about some of the benefits of adopting toddlers, older children and teenagers, and now I am going to share some of the benefits of adopting special needs children.

Many adoptive parents... more

One of the comments I get the most when people hear about my family is, "I don't envy you when all of those kids are teenagers!" Now we will never have all of our kids teenagers at once, but since our kids are pretty close in age, we will teenagers in our house for a long time once our Mercy turns 13 next year and officially brings us into the realm of "parenting teenagers".

Teenagers have a bad reputation. Many parents "dread" having teenagers. It is the time period of parenting that it talked about being "survived" instead of enjoyed. Teenagers are often depicted (sometimes accurately... more

A few days ago I started to write about deciding what age child to adopt, and then I wrote a post sharing some of the benefits of adopting a toddler. To continue on with the theme of advocating for children who are not young, healthy infants, today I am going to write about some of the benefits of adopting older children.

While many adoptive parents do not consider adopting older children... more

(Please remember that this is just a piece of my definition of adoption. For my full definition of what adoption is, you can read this whole series of posts here.)

Adoption is necessary.

While adoption is not perfect and is indeed complicated, it is also necessary. I say that it is necessary because I know how very many children there are in this world who do not have anyone to call Mom or Dad. I have seen a teeny tiny percentage of those children and they have forever touched my heart.

I have stood in an orphanage in Vietnam, and looked at babies with their names written on their legs in black... more