In today's world I have met more than a few people who were the "only child." I found that interesting when we began our journey to adopt.

One of my best girlfriends is an only child. She recently lost her mom, the last person in her family unit. Her dad had died years before so she and her mom were really close. Needless to say she has been in a depression since mom died.

I have kind of looked after her and invited her to spend holidays with us. My family loves to have her come visit. Sometimes you can see the sadness on her face when everyone is happily teasing and giggling the day away.

We have talked a lot and she has told me she would have loved more of a... more

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, because as long and strenuous our trip was in Kazakhstan, it was terrific. I consider the people we met and stayed with in Kazakhstan to be extended family. In fact, we will be graced with a visit by our coordinator and translator this spring. We are so excited!

As previously discussed, your adoption trip can either be broken into two separate trips, one of approximately three weeks, and another week long trip, with a gap in between, or one very long six to seven week trip. A third option, an escort service, is becoming more available for the second trip.

So assuming everyone reading this will stay at least three weeks in Kazakhstan... more

Ukraine has a very homogeneous population. Based on a 2001 census 77.8% of the population is Ukrainian and 17.3% are Russian. The remaining 4.9% are Belarusian, Moldovan, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Jewish and Other.

The African and Korean people of Ukraine fall into the Other category.

While many people realize there are Rom children... more

An excellent response to one of my recent posts got me thinking. What should we call it when a woman is considering adoption for her baby?

If you didn't see it, here's what my fellow blogger Jan wrote:

I have gotten so much grief from some for using the term "give up". However, I prefer either "give up" or "relinquish". "Give up" - that is how it felt to me. The term "place" thankfully did not exist in my era.

"Placing" sounds like such a logical, reasoned and positive decision. I do not believe that to usually be the case. "Placing" tries to sound less harsh, but, I think the reality of giving your child to others to raise IS harsh. I would rather us be... more

Brangelina.... hm...

...

I have to say that I admire Angelina Jolie for using her super-celebrity powers for good, not evil, and for bringing Brad over to a more serious and engaged-with-the-world side. To us PEOPLE readers, much of Hollywood seems to be overly involved with shopping, canoodling (to put it politely), and generally shallow and materialistic hedonistic pursuits, not to say the rest of the population never indulges in this, but we have a lot less money and generally don't do it in public, nor do we have tons of adoring fans looking up... more

This post is about Ukrainian and Russian ethnicities inside of Ukraine. FYI... I drew the Ukrainian and Russian flags in Microsoft Paint.

Ukrainian joke: Ukrainian man insists on adopting a black child. So husband and wife travel from orphanage to orphanage. And finally they find a black child at the tenth orphanage. They adopted the child and get him settled in the car to take him home. Wife finally asks, "Why did our child have to be black?". Husband replies, "This way, I am 100% certain he isn't Russian".

Ethnicity... more

I was walking yet again with my dogs yesterday. Reilly has OCD when it comes to tennis balls, but we don’t take tennis balls on our walks. So she substitutes sticks, leaves, and the occasional neighbor’s newspaper (I’ve taught her to bring in our newspaper every morning) instead. Yesterday she found a 12 inch long piece of broken PVC pipe, and decided to bring it to me… but she ended up poking her mouth instead. Other than the quick jerk when the accident happened she registered very little reaction, but she started to... more

At some point in the adoption experience, every member of the triad feels powerless and very much at the mercy of others.

We’ll start with adopted people. Because they are usually infants at the time of the decision, they never have a say in the matter. They can’t say if they’d like to go to a new family, which family they'd prefer, or if they’d rather stay with their first mom. They are truly without a voice. (For many adopted people, this feeling of a lack of control over their own destiny lingers, returning to haunt them throughout their life.)

For potential adoptive parents, the sense of powerlessness comes mostly at the beginning of the process. First there is the loss... more

In my book on guilt-free parenting I include several parenting affirmations. One of them is particularly affirming for parents of adopted children, though, I didn't write it with that particular group of parents in mind. Still, those who have read my little self-help book seem particularly moved by this one affirmation:

"I was destined to parent this child in this space and time. We chose one another. There is profound purpose in every element of our union."

Remember: There is profound meaning and purpose in every parent-child relationship. Part of the responsibility of the journey is extracting, honoring,... more

When I was about eleven, my parents bundled me into the car one summer day and we drove to Akron, Ohio to attend a Korean-American picnic. We went with another family who had just adopted a little girl from Korea. They also had their two biological children with them.

We arrived at the picnic area and we could see the festivities from the car. Everyone piled out of the cars and my parents unbuckled my sister from her carseat. There was the usual mass chaos as strollers are unfolded and picnic baskets are unloaded from trunks, so it was a few minutes before my... more