It has taken me a few days to pull myself together enough to blog on the Prime Time TV interview with "Yates."

I listened as they told of her being a nurse. I listened as they said she was on medications for mental issues. I listened when they said that her doctor had taken her off "Halladol."

I listened as they described how her husband took her to a street preacher, who dressed as a devil and told his followers that "It was the mothers who responsible for their children going to Heaven or Hell."

I listened as her therapist told of how she had "Post Partdom Stress Disorder." Which got worse with each pregnancy. By this time she was pregnant with her 5th child.

Hello.....why... more

Picture: This is Methylphenidate which is a generic drug. Many people think of it as Ritalin but this is a brand name.

I am slow.. I just spotted this comment on my blog. And it made me think and do some research of my own. Interesting questions...

I adopted my son from Russia. He is now 5 1/2. He was diagnosed with ADHD last summer. We have been testing different meds and found one to be working well since Jan. I am also a special education teacher - I teach middle school students.... more

Adoption laws, agency attitudes and practices have been changing the past few years. Some of these changes may be very significant and meaningful to a triad member searching for birth family. If it has been a few years since you checked agency policies, you might be pleasantly surprised to find some positive differences. These changes could be reflected in both differences in policies and attitudes of the agency workers.

Check your state laws to determine if any important laws have changed. Some states have made important changes in the past few years that could make an... more

One of the tough things adoptive parents might face when adopting a little girl from Ethiopia is the possibility that she may have undergone female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation. This practice is widespread across Ethiopia, among all people groups and all religions.

The World Health Organization estimates that 6,000 girls a day are genitally mutilated across Africa. There are different degrees to which this is done. The least extreme form is known as clitoridectomy, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris. The most extreme form is infibulation, which is the removal of all external genitalia and the stitching together of the two sides of the vulva,... more

There's a new angle on the ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions -- news sources from all over are reporting that it's going to cause a slowdown in adoptions from Guatemala:

The U.S. will then require all foreign adoptions to meet tougher international standards, which Guatemala ratified in 2003 but has yet to implement.

"We don't want adoptions to stop but we believe the current system does not provide enough protection to the child's needs," said John... more

Shiatsu and Labor Induction

I just finished reading the above article in Massage Magazine. They are reporting about a study done in England in 2000.

The subjects attended a hospital consultant clinic appointment at 40 weeks gestation and were taught the massage techniques by a midwife who had completed a six-day shiatsu course. The control group consisted of 76 women who attended similar clinics but were not taught the shiatsu techniques.

Three... more

7 Whether you are a natural parent or an adoptee, file waivers of confidentiality. This is to reassure record keepers that if the persons you specify come looking for you, you WANT them to get your identifying info. There are no guarantees, but it may very well help. You want to file these with the agency, attorneys, but especially with the county court in which the adoption was finalized, which is usually the county the adoptive parents lived at the time of the adoption. If you are a natural parent and do not know what county your child... more

My mother-in-law (MIL) is moving to be nearer to us.

My hubby, her only child, has gone to Dallas to help her pack and put her on the plane. She arrives this morning after giving up her home of thirty years.

I am leaving in a few hours to pick her up at the airport, and Hubby is driving the moving van back home. She won’t be living with us, but in an assisted living facility. Still, we will... more

Korea has the stigma of being known as “a child-exporting country.” In order to battle that label and to promote domestic adoption, the Ministry of Health and Welfare had decided that singles will be allowed to adopt children beginning next year.

The number of single households is steadily increasing in Korea; by 2020, more than 20 percent of total households are predicted to be single-parent families. In the past, many Koreans have been reluctant to adopt domestically, citing the financial burden and lack of a social support system for adoptive parents.

In... more

I can give people advice about waiting children, but it really isn’t worth much. I can tell you that everyone who answered my questions is an advocate of adopting waiting children. In fact, many of them answered my questions for the soul reason that they hoped it would help people make the decision to adopt a waiting child. Don’t listen to my advice, listen to theirs. They had the following words of advice to give:

“Review records carefully and don't hesitate to ask questions whoever they are uncertain or find red flag areas they... more