In my last post I discussed a new article on transracial adoption from the New York Times. While overall it was as great article, I was irritated by this comment…

At the same time, some blacks view international adoptions by whites as a slight to black children in need of permanent and stable homes. “I can’t help but wonder why Angelina and Brad can’t adopt an African-American baby here with so many in need,” said Ishia Granger, 36, a black friend of Ms. Brockway.

This sort of mindset (from the woman in the quote above) drives me nuts. I wrote a lot about the differences between domestic adoption and international adoption in this... more

Sorry to be so quiet over the weekend…I’ve been busy.

When you’re pregnant, they tell you that as you get close to the time that the baby will be born, that something in your hormones will cause the “nesting” effect. Nesting refers to the mom preparing her home for the arrival of her new baby, as a mother bird prepares her nest for her eggs and baby birds.

I even had one book that said that “nesting” by a pregnant woman was a sure sign that delivery was near…that when a large pregnant woman started irrationally scrubbing floors and organizing... more

So what do you think about photolistings? Photolistings are websites that feature photos of children that are available and waiting for adoption. Typically the “listings” provide a small photo, age and some basic information on the child. While many countries allow this, some countries do not allow their children to be on photolistings, and some allow “text only” listings.

Advocates of photolistings feel that for harder to place children, they are a wonderful resource. Most adoptive parents do not go out seeking an older child or a special needs child, etc., but many a prospective adoptive parent has fallen in love with a photo of a child and because of that, expanded what they were... more

A recent Chicago Tribune article, titled “Interracial twins bring a new dimension to the American Family” talks about families who through adoption, end up with “virtual twins”, or children of the same age, who happen to be of different races.

The article focuses on the Goering family, whose first two children are Jenna and Sam. From the article: “Seven years ago, they entered their parents' lives on the same day. And yet, Jenna and Sam aren't twins. He was born in the U.S., the biological son of computer consultants Jody and Addison Goering. She was abandoned six months earlier in rural China, and first introduced... more

Sometimes I get tired of hearing about all that kids “lose” in adoption. Of course we all know that children who have been adopted have lost their birth parents, their extended birth families and sometimes their birth countries, birth cultures, etc. I would never discount these losses, ignore them or sweep them under the proverbial rug.

And yet I think sometimes people get so caught up in focusing on all the loss, that they forget how much good comes out of adoption too. I look at my son from Ethiopia. He was an orphan of the true sense, with both of his parents deceased. International adoption may have taken him away from his home country and culture and all that was familiar to him,... more

Writing about Marcus’ birth and our adoption experience with him has me thinking a lot about birth mothers lately and open adoptions. It is pretty amazing to think that in just the past few years, domestic adoptions have changed from “closed” and secretive being the norm, to open adoptions being extremely widespread and recognized as being the best choice for all involved in many situations.

And with our Ethiopian adoption experience we have also seen that international adoptions can have a level of openness and connection between the birth family and the adoptive family.

Personally, I think that in situations where it is possible, open adoptions are in the best interest of... more

If you spend any amount of time on any adoption forum or email group you are bound to run into the (insert ominous music here…) “name discussion”.

This is one of “those” topics, where there are several schools of thought, both of which feel very strongly that there way is the ONLY right way, which is what tends to lead into the heated discussion (and occasionally the frightening of the new member who asked what she thought was an innocent and practical question).

The name discussion revolves around whether the “right” thing to do when adopting a child is to keep the name that they were given at birth, or to rename the child when they are placed in their new family.

Some... more

One of the things that I really like about these blogs is the way that a lot of us all chime in on the same or similar topics. I think that it gives readers a fuller picture when they are able to read about the same topic from several points of view. So I am going to talk about friends too.

One of the reasons that I think that email groups, blogs, chat rooms, etc. are so popular with adoptive parents (and many other communities as well) is that it brings together people going through similar experiences. There are some things that it just takes another adoptive parent to truly appreciate.

For example, I could explain to one of my friends how EXCITED I am because I finally got... more

Here’s a question that seems to come up a lot on adoption boards and email groups often. How important is it for a child that was adopted transracially to have a sibling of the same race as them?

Is it valuable for example, for an Asian girl, with white parents and white brothers, to have sibling who is also Asian?

This is a question that my husband and I gave a lot of thought with our first adoption, because at that point, we honestly believed that our family would be complete when our daughter came home from Vietnam. (Ha! If we only knew!!) I knew that I could do a good job raising our Vietnamese daughter. I knew I could teach her to be proud of who she was and where she... more

It seems that there are lots of posts on the sadness and more difficult aspects of adoption today on the other blogs, so I thought that I would add my spin.

I have talked before on how in a perfect world, adoption would not exist. Adoption exists because of sad realities. An unplanned pregnancy causes a birth mother to have to make an adoption plan for her child. The illness and death of parents leaves a child an orphan. Extreme poverty leaves a family literally unable to feed and care for another child. Social stigmas make it extremely difficult for an unwed mother to parent her child, or for a family to have another child. Children are removed from their family because of abuse... more