In my previous post, I wrote about a birthmother who is struggling greatly with her feelings of rejection. This birthmom was aware of her son’s whereabouts and the goings on in his life through a relationship with his adoptive parents, but she relates that she and the adoptive parents agreed in the beginning that they would allow the son to choose as an adult whether to have contact with his birthmom, so there has been no contact between them. The pain in her words reveals that although she made that... more

Please, before you read this post, read this one from the Adoption.com forums and then come back and join me. :)

For readers unfamiliar with our family’s adoption stories, I will say in the interest of full disclosure that we have not adopted domestically and therefore don’t have firsthand experience with writing a letter to birthparents, deciding what sort of adoption (open, semi-open, closed) we’re comfortable with, or dealing with any of the other decisions and issues typically associated with a domestic adoption. But thanks to some unusual twists, we found ourselves in the unique... more

Looking for something fun and interesting to do with your family this summer? If you have adopted children or are considering adoption, an adoption “culture camp” or “heritage camp” may be just the thing! Here’s a list of some 2007 camp dates and locations. Be aware that many are accepting registrations now, so if you find one that’s of interest, don’t delay!

AFRICA

African/Caribbean Heritage Camp June 28-July 1 Snow Mountain Ranch, Fraser, CO

CAMBODIA

Cambodia Heritage Camp July 19-July... more

For information about applying for a social security card for an internationally adopted child: link

For a domestically adopted child: link

And for those concerned about the proposed USCIS rate increases, the public is invited to comment on the proposals until April 2. Below is the pertinent information:

Fees are increasing at USCIS. The following is an outline on how the increase affects adoption. Please feel free to forward this message to any agency, listserv, group or individual who may... more

Which leads me to the other reason I’ve been pulling my hair out this week. I appreciate the Child Citizenship Act, I really do. It was wonderful to get our newest children’s Certificates sent automatically rather than having to file a bunch of paperwork and submit a large fee. The problem is, our Haitian kids’ certificates came with names assigned by the Haitian courts, rather than the names we’d chosen for the kids. At $220 apiece for corrected Certificates, I decided to put this off until I have a spare $660 lying around (ha!). Unfortunately, I discovered that the United States Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) department is proposing a rate increase (aren’t they always?) that will... more

Or, How to Drive Yourself Nuts in Five Simple Steps

Boy, when it rains, it pours! This has started out to be a CRAZY busy week, and I feel badly that it’s taken me a few days to finally get a post up. When I was mulling over some of the topics I’ve been considering, I decided to write about something that’s been occupying a bit of my time over the past few days: getting social security numbers for our newly adopted children.

Being the tax season procrastinators that we are, I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that I hadn’t yet applied for the new kids’ social security numbers. In the rare moments it crossed my mind over the last months, a cloudy of... more

Again, my perceptions may be useless since I’m not a PBP, but the message that I get from a lot of the letters I’ve looked at is that they’re much more about the adoptive family than the placing family. Obviously, the letter is to introduce the PAP to the PBP, but I think that introduction can be made without it being quite so one-sided, and in a way that acknowledges what the PBP is going through, but not in a trite way. In a way that tells about your family in an interesting and unique way, but without relying on stereotypes. In a way that assures that you’d... more

Having spent the last couple of hours researching for this post, I’m left with a certain je ne sais quoi feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I sense that were I indeed a pregnant woman weighing adoption, I might be able to take these letters only in small doses and for short stretches at a time. Most of them tell me I’m an angel, thank me for choosing life for my baby, and thank me again for considering giving this precious gift. (Not sure how I feel about baby=gift mentality). After a while, the letters begin to run together. The people in them are... more

Before I get going with this entry, I want to make it clear right off the bat that I don’t believe any expectant parent who is merely considering an adoption plan should be referred to as a “birthparent.” I used the above title only because it is commonly used and lets you know immediately what this entry is about, but at the same time, I hope this post adequately explains why it might be best to avoid this type of address in a letter.

The letter that hopeful adoptive parents write to prospective birthparents is probably the most crucial part of... more

Who should evaluate your child

In our program, we have a multidisciplinary clinic that meets together a few times per month. We evaluate three children in the morning, with a rotating system, and then meet with the parents in the afternoon to discuss our findings and recommendations. Many early intervention programs offer a similar clinic.

In other programs, the different professionals assess a child one at a time, often in the child’s home. In some cases, the evaluating clinicians meet together at the end to compile... more