While many of the lessons that Josh and I have learned through our transracial adoptions have been lessons in parenting and in life, some have been more personal. For me, one of the biggest lessons I have learned (and am still learning) is that I have very little control over the process (and that I do not enjoy not having any control over such an important thing).

Adoptive parents do have control over certain aspects of the process. The agency and program that you choose, how quickly you get your paperwork done, how timely you pay your adoption expenses, what... more

Yesterday, December 12, the United States of America signed on to and become a full member of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. The Hague will be put into affect as of April 1, 2008, and the U.S. will have to follow the Hague's guidelines and procedures with adoptions between the U.S. and other countries that are Hague members.

Those who are against the Hague worry that it will cause significant delays to international adoptions, which already often take a significant period of time. Some worry... more

Not knowing how old your child is can be a stressful thing for adoptive parents. Some parents know before their child arrives that the child's given age is a "best guess" (and could therefor be inaccurate) and some people discover upon placement that the age they were given for their child is off big time. I traveled with a family to Ethiopia last year who thought that they were adopting a toddler and a preschooler, and got to Addis and received two children who were years older.... more

The idea that you could possibly not know how old your child is, sounds really bizarre to most people. I cannot tell you how many times after Ben came home that someone would ask me how old he was, and my answer of "about five" would be met with crazy stares and looks of disbelief.

In reality though, it is really not uncommon for adoptive parents, who are adopting internationally, to not know the exact age of their child for a variety of reasons. In many countries, birthdays are not celebrated or even acknowledged. Birth certificates and records that we are used to are... more

Adoptive parents know that one of the hardest aspects of the process is the waiting (and if you notice this theme in my posts lately, you can tell this is not being easy for me!)

Waiting on any given day to be united with your child is tough, but waiting through special occasions, like the holidays and birthdays are even more difficult.

Today is Solomon's birthday. He is two years old.

Well, technically today is the day we are choosing to be Solomon's birthday, as the day he was born is unknown (as is... more

Mary over at the Ethiopia adoption blog started this meme, and I thought it would be fun to join in.

Four things I thought about adoption when I was a child:

- I first heard about the idea of adoption on Little House on the Prairie (which was my absolute favorite show!) Albert, Alicia, John and the kid who was played by Jason Bateman but I can't remember his name on the show, were all adopted.

- I thought that only "cool" and famous people were adopted in real life, and that only rich people were able to adopt children.

- I wanted to adopt a baby girl from China.

- Thinking of... more

I have a confession to make.

I am an adoption rule breaker.

I am really not usually the rule-breaking type. I was on the honor roll in high school and graduated fifth in my class of over 500 students. I have always been “early to bed, early to rise”. I don’t curse. I go to church every Sunday. When I was little, all that my dad had to do to discipline me was to say he was disappointed in what I had done, and I was a blubbering mess. I have been accused of being a “goody two shoes”. I have never even had my ears pierced.

And... more

In my last two posts, I have written about how we found the right adoption program for our family for our first transracial adoption, and then how we decided on where to adopt from for our second transracial adoption.

At that point, we had three biological sons, our daughter from Vietnam and our daughter from Korea. This time, the feeling that our family was complete did not come, and I felt pretty sure that we had more kids out there after Amanda had been home only a short while (she came home in April of 2003).... more

Today I am up to the letter "N" in my Transracial Adoption ABC posts, and the first topic I am going to discuss is the ever-popular issue of naming your adopted children.

Naming – How to handle naming your adopted child is one of those hot topics that is often starting discussions and heated arguments on adoption email groups and forums. It is one of those topics that does not have a clear-cut right or wrong answer, as naming a child is a very personal decision. However since it is also... more

ME NEITHER.

As you have probably heard around the web lately, United States Citizen and Immigration Services is trying to raise the already way-too-high in-my-not-so-humble-opinion-fees that they charge adoptive parents. There is a comment period that is ending in the next few days (April 2), so please, if you haven't already, let them know that this STINKS.

Here is the press release, dated Jan. 31, 2007.

January 31, 2007

Press Release

BUILDING AN IMMIGRATION SERVICE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

USCIS Proposes New Fees for Immigration and Naturalization Benefit Applications

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship... more