Viet Nam Adoptive Family Interviews : An Introduction

Many readers of this blog are currently considering adopting from Viet Nam. What would you like to say to them?

The Engelbrecht Family - I was extremely impressed with the quality of the orphanges in VN. The children all seemed very well cared for.

Christina - First, congratulations! It’s an incredible gift and a blessing to adopt a child from Vietnam. Second,... more

Okay ... it's apparently official ... I'm a pariah.

It must come naturally, because this time I've been kicked off an adoption-related Yahoo group without even breaking a sweat.

Really.

I'd actually just joined this bunch called "Adoption Agency Research Group" because it seemed a good place from which to keep a finger on the pulse of a part of the adoption world I don't hear much about otherwise, and had been accepted ... conditional on me not taking what I read there and using it for blog fodder -- fair enough.

I'd been lurking for maybe a week, when Jessica DelBalzo's anti-adoption tirade in a handy money-making paperback format was brought up as a topic.... more

In a recent blog about how fond I am of my readers I wrote about enjoying the back-and-forth that has developed between me and some very special people who I'm now lucky enough to know because of my blogging here.

One I feel very close to now, after months of getting-to-know-you gradual unwrapping of layers of comments and emails, is a woman I will, for the sake of this post, call T.

T often leaves very thoughtful and insightful comments on the blogs and adds much to the dialog that is... more

Some would say it’s a minor thing…semantics…but I think it goes much deeper. I’m really appalled at the trend to refer to my children as “my student” in any communication from the school. It was a subtle shift, and I’m not sure when it happened. But for a few years now every written or verbal communication is laden with references to “your student”.

Example: that crazy phone message I got yesterday. “

This is the high school calling and your student [inserted her computer generated name] was absent during 4th block today.”

... more

Here we go again ...

Or not.

It's the is she or isn't she tempest in a Quanlong teapot, the cash cow that is the media mania of yet another possible adoption by the mom everyone loves to hate, Madonna.

Yes, rumor is rife that a little girl named "Mercy" ... and boy won't that come in handy as the frenzy hits the fan? ... should be coming home in April.

At least at this point the reports are mentioning that legalities are being adhered to, and a time frame of eighteen... more

I am a nut when it comes to naming our kids. I have to choose a name right away. For me, it is just an important part of bonding with my child to be, whether that child is coming through birth to me or adoption.

Within weeks of getting a positive pregnancy test I would be handing Josh lists of baby names and asking his advice. Within weeks of accepting a referral or choosing a waiting child I would present him again with "what do you think about this name?" types of questions. Josh is a pain in the butt when it comes to choosing names. He doesn't like anything "fancy" or "weird". He doesn't like anything that sounds "made up" and he doesn't like anything that is spelled unusual (unless... more

I alluded to this in other posts, but the biggest step I can see toward fixing the problem with special education or public school education in general is to eliminate the bureaucratic mindset.

Maybe it’s because I have a degree in marketing and am a capitalist, but I can’t help but frame everything in the terms of meeting the needs of the consumer/client. In this case that is the CHILD (ok, maybe the taxpayer, too). But I would argue that what’s good for the child IS good for the taxpayer (an educated child who is able to be self-supporting and less likely to need... more

Rather than continually boring you with stories of my superior family and our superior children, I thought it might be interesting to try interviewing other people who've adopted (or been adopted) from China to get a few different perspectives. Carol S. is a realtor from Atlanta, Georgia.

---- How many children do you have?

I've got two daughters, S., who's 6, and L., who's 2, who're both from Guangdong province.

What made you decide to adopt from China?

I think it was growing up in the 1970s when the big threat was always overpopulation that put the idea in my head that I wanted to adopt when I grew up.

Like a... more

Within minutes of deciding that Josh and I did indeed both want to adopt Solomon, I had emailed Adoption Advocates International (who we used to adopt our Belane and highly recommend), and let them know that we wanted him! They were already aware that we were considering adopting him because we had requested his file and an updated medical report. I got an email back almost right away saying that if we could get our paperwork updated quickly, that they would put him on "unofficial hold" for us.

Well, "quickly" is my middle name when it comes to doing adoption paperwork. I got right on the phone with our homestudy agency and... more

As we jump back into the chapter review of ... more