Watch out all you pool owners! Ella's coming for you and she won't stop until she has explored every swimming option available to her! Ella's aunt and uncle have a beautiful swimming pool at their home that provided her with her first big pool swimming experience this past weekend. Now that she’s enjoyed the vastness of their pool, our dinky little blow up baby pool in the backyard may not be good enough for her.

She really did great swimming, and even more importantly, she did great socializing with the other children... more

I thought it might fun to post some trivia about Guatemala. I tried to include information that might be fun and might even be news to a few of you. I have listed the sources at the bottom of this post.

Official Name: Republic of Guatemala

Original Name: Goathemala

Origin of Country’s Name: Maya-Toltec word meaning “land of the trees”

Form of Government: Republic with only one legislative house

Legal Voting... more

As for what adoptive parents think of when they hear about adoption laws becoming more rigid, this is strictly my opinion. I believe that they react very differently than birth parents do for several reasons. After a few recent heated debates, here are some conclusions that I have reached as far as why adoptive parents are equally as firm and resolute in their convictions.

Adoptive parents too are motivated by the love of their children – by the children that they have adopted. In many cases, they have adopted children whose original parents... more

For quite some time, I have struggled to understand the positions that some adoptive parents take when there is talk of tougher guidelines to adopt or when adoption is criticized in general. After considering it for a time, I realized that when there is talk of making adoption requirements less stringent, birth parents are highly affected as well, but in a different way.

However, I finally had an epiphany of sorts and think I have reached a conclusion as to why many of us are so firmly entrenched in our differing positions. The love... more

Last October I received a book in the mail, and because I had just moved for the second time that year, and because my life was upside down, I put the book on a shelf and forgot about it. That is, until Cindy Bodie blogged about it and I just had to read it. So I did, and then I blogged about it.

The book is An Unlit Path by Deborah Hannah. Those of you interested... more

It's been a long week and a half of investigation into the Core Issues in Adoption as they affect birth parents. Some of it was incredibly hard to research and then write because, as a birth parent, I'm going through some of this stuff on my own end. I didn't want to make every post about me and my journey through healing as I wanted to show that these are universal issues that hinder us all at times.

Yet today, I want to show you... more

One of my biggest concerns about adopting again was the risk of a failed adoption. In our state, a placing mother can choose to parent for 7 days after she signs the relinquishment papers.

When we adopted my son, we had physical custody of him during this time frame. Even though we had physical custody, his placing mother still maintained legal custody. If she had decided to parent at any point during this period of time, we would have returned the baby to his mother, and we would have worked through... more

There have been some interesting discussions about this on the Adoption.com forums. One of the big factors is are you getting a foster child or is this a pre-adoptive placement? You get far more information prior to placement when it’s a pre-adoptive situation.

The information you SHOULD receive and the information you will receive may be two different things. Do not hesitate to ask for more information. After all, you are the one raising this child, you are entitled to the history.

Prior... more

On my last trip to Ethiopia, I traveled with my 36 month old and my 13 year old and brought home a 6 month old. (Parent to child ratio- 1:3). This summer I am intending to go with my husband and my 33 month old and bring home 9 and 11 year olds. (Parent to child ratio- 2:3). Judging by the parent: child ratios, this trip might be a little easier than the last one. However, if you figure the "known-child" to "unknown-child" ratio (2:1 last trip, 1:2 on this coming trip) this next trip might be more stressful. Who knows? I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.

In any case, as I dream about/ pray for/ long for a June or July court date, I’ve also been thinking about how we... more

If something smells good, it probably tastes good too, right? It seems like a logical assumption, especially for a young child or even an older special needs child. That may be why several young children have licked the hand sanitizer off from their hands, after an adult placed it there, instead of just rubbing it in, to disinfect their hands. Only, the adults didn’t realize the children had eaten the hand sanitizer, until they figured it out, after the children became extremely ill.

The children were found to be severely lethargic,... more