I have a wonderful, heart-warming, extremely touching adoption story to share with you. This is a story that truly shows the depths of a mother’s love and heart, and how transracial and even international adoption can truly unite two families.

My dear friend Tana and her hubby are in the process of adopting three children from Haiti. Two of the children are siblings, and the third is a special needs infant. As many people know, the adoption process from Haiti can be long and difficult, and the care in the orphanages can be less than ideal (there are some good orphanages though).

Anyway, it came to be that Tana was able to meet the birthmother of two of her children, and they... more

Last night Josh was working late and I had all of the kids but Marcus in bed early, so he and I were lying on the floor in the living room flipping through the channels. With all of the big “season finales” mostly over, I was finding that there wasn’t much on that interested me.

As I was flipping through the Discovery channels, (which I love) I noticed a show titled “Our 27 Kids”. Ok, curiosity got the best of me and I had to watch. The show was an hour-long special about the Murphy family. Jeanette and John Murphy have raised four biological children and adopted 23 children. Even more staggering than the numbers is the fact that all 23 children that they adopted have significant special... more

Today I heard about sweet Baby Angeline, a three-month old little girl who was recently brought to the United States on a medical visa for emergency surgery. Angeline was born in Haiti with spina bifida and clubbed feet, developed hydrocephalus and has several other medical issues. Upon arriving in the U.S., Sarah, the woman in process of adopting Angeline, was told by doctor after doctor that it was a miracle that Angeline was alive.

It was a miracle she lived to be three months old with her birth defect because most children who don’t receive surgery within 48 hours after birth, die. It was a miracle she was able to get out of Haiti as fast as she did, because as many adoptive parents... more

Happy Birthday to my baby boy today! It’s so hard to believe that my Marcus is two years old.

What a two years it has been. While it appeared at birth that Marcus was healthy, at around the age of four months his health really started to deteriorate. He struggled with breathing and eating. Our family doctor got to the point where he didn’t know what else to do for us, and sent us to specialists. The specialists tried some things and even after multiple hospitalizations, did not know what to do for Marcus. At this point it was early January and he had been hospitalized... more

Click here for Part One of the story

I went running into our hotel room and woke up Josh, and frantically started trying to get in touch with T. It turned out that the phone in our hotel room wasn’t working right, and none of her calls had been reaching us. UGH! We ended up calling the birth father, and he told us that T. had gone into labor the night before and had been trying to reach us. He gave us the number of where we could find her.

We called the hospital and got T. and she confirmed that she was in labor, and probably just two to three hours away from having the baby. Our original plan was... more

Two years ago today, my husband and I had left the blustery, still-winter like weather of Wyoming and were sitting in a hotel room in South Carolina, waiting for news about the baby we were hoping to adopt.

Let’s rewind just a little bit…in December of 2003, Josh and I had three biological sons, a Vietnamese daughter and a Korean daughter. We had recently had the adoption of a beautiful little girl from India fall through, and we were trying to decide what to do next. We were spending five days at Disneyland in California, and right before we had left, the agency we had been using for our India adoption and told us that they were needing families for their U.S. African-American infant... more

Almost two months from the time they last saw each other, Bekalu and Terefe are together again!

It is hard to believe how much that they have been through and how far they have come to be at this point and place in their lives. They are two little boys, both about five years old, who have been through more than most people you know. They each have their own tragic background and story that led to them ending up at the place where they met, an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Living together for almost a year, they saw other children come and go. They met new friends and then... more

Does it ever amaze you how fast time can go??? The week in Ethiopia for our friends is already over and as we speak they are on the long, grueling 19-hour flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Washington D.C. If you are religious, I am sure that they would appreciate a prayer on their behalf.

I was able to talk to them on the phone three times this week and they really are doing well. I don’t want to tell too much of their story or their private information, but it has been really fun to follow them along on their journey.

As with all adoptions of older kids from another country, they are facing typical issues of speaking different languages, testing limits and just “getting... more

Woo hoo! My friends just called a little while ago from Ethiopia! It seems like just yesterday that they were calling Josh and me while we were in Addis getting our new son and now they are the ones feeling far, far from home and a wee-bit overwhelmed, and we are the ones at home jumping up and down and being excited and nervous for them.

All things considered, my best friend B. sounded great! This is their first adoption, first time in Africa, etc. so I certainly expected her to sound anxious or frazzled, but she really sounded good. They had arrived safe and sound, all of their luggage turned up fine, their hotel was good, they weren’t too jetlagged and they had their new son with... more

I have not been this excited for eight weeks. Eight weeks ago my husband and I were just a few days away from getting on a plane (or two or three) and going to Ethiopia to get our little boy. I was excited about the trip, I was excited about meeting Ben. I was excited about going to Africa…you name it, I was excited about it. (O.k., maybe NOT about the 15 hour flight,... more