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John Eastman, chairman of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, shockingly and patronizingly denigrated adoption in an interview with the Associated Press, calling it the "second-best option" for families.
A while ago, I was thinking of adopting a child. When I told a friend, she asked, "But don't you want any of your own?" I was floored. Years later, a co-worker always referred to her friend's kid as "Lisa's adopted baby." That would be like saying, "Lisa's egg donor baby."
The recent explosion in transracial adoptions within United States, especially by high profile celebrities, sends an inaccurate message to ordinary Americans that race, racism and the persistence of discrimination has all but faded from our national memory
The proponents of safe havens and Baby Boxes most effectively answer criticism by saying their approach is worthwhile even if it saves just one baby's life. I have an alternative suggestion: Let's aim higher.
During a self-congratulatory mental victory lap after a successfully thrown one-year-old birthday party, my mom busted out with a question that hit the room like an anvil/headache/roadside bomb all wrapped up into one.
Bim arrived at the Chabad House last year, naked but for a plastic bag that he used for some cover. One of hundreds of children exploited for profit on Kathmandu's dangerous streets, he fixed his eyes on a rabbinical student, and asked for help. He wouldn't leave until the student brought him back to Chabad.
We were told that of all the families presented to her, this young mother chose us. She said that the baby would be her Christmas gift to us. And attached to that same email was the ultrasound she had done the day before. All I could do was stare.
When we were given Athena's photo from her orphanage in the same week that you discovered your pregnancy, we crossed the Rubicon. Yes, of course (says every parent in America), having children changes you in a ways that are so unpredictable as to be surreal.
Aside from essentially mourning a death or two each year, coping with infertility was -- and is -- a lonely, lonely place.
On my younger kids' birthdays, my husband asks me in passing, "What time were they born?" before catching himself foolishly. They've started turning away when they hear this, cognizant of the fact that none of us know. But, here's the truth: They are mine, and they aren't.
Through all the dark shadows that Russia has cast with its ban on adoptions by Americans -- on the affected girls and boys, on the U.S. citizens seeking to become their parents and on the process of international adoption itself -- a thin glimmer of light is struggling to emerge.
Everybody knows everybody and we look out for each other, especially one segment of our little community: 76 foster kids Possum Trot families have taken in. Not bad for a town of 600, right? Some people say it's a miracle.
When is being done, done? Is "done" the exact same for someone as capable of conceiving as someone who must, or who chooses, to adopt or foster? Should age, in and of itself, determine this?
It was the worst when I was home alone with the children. That superstar mom our social worker described in her reports was nowhere to be seen and I found myself wondering how to summon the strength to meet their basic needs. Dress, feed, kiss, play -- these felt like monumental tasks.
I recently met a guy named Jason Saunders who spent most of his childhood in the LA County foster care system. His story really brought home to me the urgency of finding permanent homes for the 500 children in Los Angeles County and the 104,000 children nationwide in the system who are eligible for adoption.
For a while I did think I'd neatly avoided all the complexities and emotional upheaval of infertility. I was wrong. Adoption is not straightforward and it is not simple.
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