The New York Times ran an article last week on what is happening to the children of Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake.  Indeed, conditions are bleak and we are only beginning to get a handle on just how bleak.  But what caused me the greatest pause in this article, was a quote from Kent Page, a spokesperson for UNICEF: “There are health concerns, malnutrition concerns, psychosocial issues and, of course, we are concerned that unaccompanied children will be exploited by unscrupulous people who may wish to traffic them for adoption, for the sex trade or for domestic servitude.”  This statement echoed another quote from UNICEF the week before in the World Bulletin, “Orphans and children abandoned in Haiti after the devastating earthquake should be adopted abroad only as a last resort.”  Along this same vein was a comment made while I was being interviewed about Haiti on The Laura Flanders Show on GritTV.  One of the other guests was David Smolin, law professor at Samford University Law School, a prolific writer on adoption corruption, and a victim of adoption fraud.  (He was also a guest on the April 1, 2009 Creating a Family radio show.)  At the end of the show, Flanders asked Smolin if he recommended transnational adoption as an option for the children orphaned in Haiti.  He began his response with, “The problem with transnational adoption [is] corruption and child trafficking.”  It seems to me that all three statements confuse the role of international adoption and serve to undermine the best interest of  Haiti’s children, making them more vulnerable to unscrupulous adults.  Excuse me one moment while I upend this box, step over the spilled soap, and climb on up.

Filed under: Adoption, General Musings
30 Comments »

Dawn, over at Fertility Authority , asked me to write something for them on how to know when you’re ready to start exploring adoption. She didn’t want this to be, a “Here’s how you know you’re ready to adopt” article, but rather a “How you know when you’re ready to even THINK about it.”  She also asked that I keep it to 300 words—Ha, like that’s going to ever happen!?!.

It’s only fair to start by saying that lots of folks who find they are struggling with conception are open to adoption from the very beginning.  Their first choice may be to get pregnant, but they are mulling over adoption while they try.  It’s also fair to point out that others will never be ready to think about adoption.  Their Plan B if trying to conceive fails is to make peace with living child free.  But indeed, there are lots of people who fall in between, so here goes.

You Know You Are Ready to Start Thinking About Maybe the Possibility of Adoption When…

1. You find yourself noticing families that don’t obviously match and wondering if they were created by adoption.

Filed under: Adoption, Infertility
5 Comments »

We have been inundated with calls and emails by folks wanting to help Haitian children in some way-any way- and preferably in some concrete way.  Rumors are rampant about children orphaned by the earthquake being airlifted from Haiti to the US and about the possible need for foster families for these children.  I’ve seen reports in the last two days from Indiana, Florida and Pennsylvania about the possibility of mass airlifts of Haitian children.  For better or worse, these airlifts and the possibility of fostering are just rumors.  But this overwhelming desire to help is both touching and deeply beautiful.  It’s hard to maintain cynicism in the face of such kindness.

There is both so much happening and so little happening, that the confusion is understandable.  First, let’s talk about what is happening.  The US State Department and Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an unprecedented policy on Jan. 18, 2010 allowing children from Haiti that were already in the adoption process to come to the US before their adoptions are finalized.  They walked a fine line, and in my opinion walked it well, when crafting this policy.  They wanted to expedite bringing children that were legitimately “orphaned” over to the US, while at the same time, not opening the floodgate to children who could and should be cared for in Haiti.

Filed under: Adoption, Adoptive Parenting, Main
22 Comments »

Haiti had an active, if somewhat unpredictable international adoption process, before the earthquake struck last week.  The approximately 50,000 Haitian orphans (pre- earthquake) are found in about 177 governmental orphanages and 200+ orphanages run by non governmental organizations.  Most of these children had no hopes for adoption, but a lucky few were in the process of being adopted by families in the US (about 800-900 cases) or families in France and the Netherlands (about 1500).  What will happen to the Haiti adoption cases that were already in process when the earthquake struck?  There has been talk both in the media (Washington Post , CNN and Associated Press , to link just a few) and the US State Department of trying to expedite these adoptions so these children that were already matched and referred to a US family could be brought home faster.

Filed under: Adoption
5 Comments »

My heart is breaking for the people of Haiti.  As I watch the news, I am moved beyond words by the pictures, especially the pictures of children alone.  The mother in me wants to scoop each of them up in my arms and protect them, feed them, cuddle them.  I want to mother them because that’s what I do and what I am.  From the phone calls and emails I’ve been receiving about adopting Haitian children orphaned by the earthquake, I know that many of you feel the same way.  While the desire to come to the aid of orphans is wonderful, it is usually not possible to adopt these children, at least not in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.  Adoption is not the first solution considered for these children for many good reasons.

• Right after a natural disaster, it is surprisingly hard to determine if a child is truly an orphan or just temporarily separated from his family.  Haiti and relief organizations need to move slowly to allow immediate and extended family members to find each other.  US law supports this by requiring that all children adopted by US citizens meet the strict legal definition of orphan, and just losing a parent is not enough to meet this definition.

Filed under: Adoption, General Musings
23 Comments »

Cue the music.  “Tooniight, tooniight, is not just aanny night, tonight is….” LEFTOVER night.  Yay!  Tonight, I don’t cook, and the fridge gets cleaned out. The perfect two for one deal, and I’m nothing if not a sucker for a twofer.

I was walking with a few friends after we dropped our kids off at school and shared my excitement that tonight at my house was leftover night.  One, wrinkling her nose with disgust, said she hated leftovers; the other said she never had food leftover.  I was dumbfounded by both.  If you liked it the first time around, why wouldn’t you like it the second time around.  Lots of casseroles and soups are even better the second day.  Now if you’re moving onto the third or fourth day, then I get it.  I’d be sick of it too.  But the second time in a week is fine by me.

As to my other friend that didn’t have a refrigerator full of leftovers, I don’t know whether I was more surprised by her ability to guesstimate serving amounts exactly or by the fact that she didn’t actually aim to have leftovers.  I may be a lousy serving size guesser, but usually I plan to cook enough for two meals.  I’m also a sucker for efficiency.

Filed under: General Musings, General parenting
10 Comments »

A friend of mine is soon to be a grandmother.  She is thrilled for her son and daughter-in-law and can’t wait to see her first grandchild, but is really struggling with her soon-to-be new name.  “This,” she says, pointing to her size 6, running trained, yoga toned, 45 year old body, “is not a grandma!”

What, you ask, has this to do with my usual topic of adoption or infertility?  Well, not much, but the same week I was listening to my friend wrestle with grandparent nomenclature, I consulted with a woman to help her prepare a domestic adoption profile.  For the uninitiated, prospective adoptive parents compile a “profile” about themselves with pictures and some narrative showing their life and explaining why they want to adopt.  The completed profile will be shown to pregnant women considering adoption in hopes that she will choose this family to parent her child.  As we talked she referred to these women as “our birth mother.”  And each time, I squirmed just a tiny bit.

Filed under: Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
17 Comments »

‘Tis the season of light, so let’s lighten things up with a touch of the funny.  A couple of years ago, I was out running errands with my three youngest kids.  The errands took longer than anticipated (don’t they always), so we stopped at a fast food place to grab something to eat.  The lady taking our order stared and then did a double take, staring first at me and then at each child.  It is worthy of mentioning at this point that two of the three kids look absolutely nothing like me and none of them share any resemblance to each other.  The woman gave me a sly smile and said, “Lord, you sure like your men different!”  It had been a long day and I really wasn’t up to extolling the virtues of adoption.  The kids weren’t listening, so I replied, “Yep, variety is the spice of life.”  She chuckled, “Ain’t that the truth.”

I know, I know.  Not only did I miss an opportunity to educate, I was horribly politically incorrect and set a bad example for my kids if they had been listening. Yes, and I know that they are often listening even when they are otherwise engaged.  But appropriate or not, I’ve laughed over that incident for years, and parenting is supposed to be fun, at least some of the time.  I asked on my Facebook page for funny stories to lighten up the holidays. Here’s a few.

Filed under: Adoption, Adoptive Parenting, Infertility
5 Comments »

Before I had kids, I was a nurturist all the way. I believed that the environment I created for my children would determine how they “turned out”.  Oh sure, I would have acknowledged that there might be variations, but I figured these would be variations on the same theme.  Since I was going to be the perfect mother, I would, of course, create the perfect environment for child rearing.

Our home would be an intellectual and artistic haven– stimulating, but not over the top. I would involve my well behaved progeny in carefully selected intellectual, athletic, and artistic endeavors, while leaving plenty of unstructured time for them to ponder the fate of dandelion puffs.  I would fill our house with books, educational toys (made of wood—expensive wood), and nutritious food.  Oh sure, I’d indulge them occasionally with some cheap, plastic, easily broken, mind rotting toy and a box or two of Fifth Avenue hyped, sugar laden cereal to keep them from feeling deprived when they compared notes with their friends, but since they would only watch the occasional PBS TV show, they would be protected from the dirty touch of advertising and would be more than satisfied by mom-approved toys and cereals.  Yes sir, I was a nurturist all the way because I so wanted to believe that I was in control.

Filed under: Adoptive Parenting, General parenting
11 Comments »

Lately, on both the Creating a Family radio show and on this blog, it seems like I’ve been focusing a lot on honoring the differences of our adopted kids.  We need to incorporate their racial and ethnic heritage into our lives, we need to honor their birth families, we need to talk with them about their adoption.  But lately I’ve been thinking that with all this talk about honoring differences, we need to not forget that first and foremost our children are ours and members of our unique family.  You may be of different ethnicities or talents, but you are all Jones or Smiths, and as such, you share much in common.

Not all the experts agree, but I think we should look for opportunities to point out ways in which we are alike.  The Johnson clan is known for being competitive at board games.  The Smiths all love the TV show NCIS and listening to the Beatles.  The Butler women love to shop.  When a difference is brought up, especially if it seems to be happening with regularity, I make a mental note to point out a similarity some time that day.  It’s a good exercise to look for ways we are similar to our children.

Filed under: Adoptive Parenting
4 Comments »