Here's a nice little article in the Charlotte Observer about how families who've adopted their children internationally manage to integrate a little bit of culture into their family's lives.

I was interviewed for this article but alas, I did not make the cut. Probably because I don't live in Charlotte! And also because despite all my big talking I don't integrate very much Russian culture into my son's life besides the odd folktale and picture book. But this has more to do with his age than... more

I've written about this website in the Russia adoption blog, but in case you weren't around that day or didn't care because it was about Russia, I want to mention it again for those of you who have or are thinking about adopting internationally: Kids Culture Center.

The site contains links and/or kid-friendly activites for the countries of Russia, Mexico, Guatemala, China, Korea, India, Vietnam and soon, Ethiopia and Ukraine,

Here's how Barbara Blackwell,... more

It looks like India is moving in the right direction by providing benefits for its citizens who want to adopt. In this article in the Hindustan Times, it reports of an amendment that a large organization has passed in their employment guidelines to allow for adoption leave:

According to the amendment, a female employee of Mahila Samakhya with less than two surviving children, may be granted leave (similar to maternity in terms of pay and medical due and balance without production of medical certificate, if required) if she adopted a child till such time the latter turned three years of age.... more

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting someone new. I met her through our local university's international student conversation partner program.

I applied last year, but since I specified somebody Russian (since my son is adopted from Russia) and it was late in the year there was no one they could hook me up with. I reapplied about a month ago and was given this woman's name. Yesterday I went to see her.

I was open to her about my motivation for participating in the program. I told her that since we've been to Russia I was interested in learning more... more

Here is part 1 of this blog entry.

Some agencies permit travel to India, some don't. India is a challenging country through which to travel and I imagine it can also depend on the region where your referred child is located. From what I can tell, parents only travel when it's time to get the child: travel at the time of referral does not usually happen. (If you've been through the process and know differently PLEASE let me know. I looked at some agency sites in addition... more

The grandmother of all information sources for adoption from India is IChild. That's where I've gotten most of my information for this blog post.

As with all other international adoptions, the prospective adoptive parents will first complete a homestudy, apply for the I-600A, and complete a dossier for the Indian government. You must use an agency to adopt from India; they partner with an agency in India who will locate a child for referral.

Once you receive your referral then you will have several more... more

It was with excitement that I googled "adopting from Kyrgyzstan." I read someone recommending it on a message board and I wanted to investigate it further. Adopting from Eastern Europe still remains a possibility for us and I'm interested in any and all of the programs available.

Unfortunately, it looks like adopting from the Kyrgyz Republic is neither easy nor recommended at this time. According to the state department's website, only 5 children were adopted from the Kyrgyz... more

For the past 5 years about 300 children a year were adopted from Colombia. Here is what the JCICS says about adopting from Colombia:

Colombian law allows for adoptions by a married man and woman and common law spouses of more than three years. Single men and women are eligible to adopt children over the age of seven years only and on a case-by-case basis. In practice, newborns are assigned to younger couples, and older children are assigned to older couples.

Both parents are required to be 25 years of age and capable physically, emotionally to adopt. The... more

I am very surprised that more people aren't adopting from Haiti. From what I've been able to find out, Haiti is one of the simpler and least expensive countries to adopt from and there are many children who need homes ranging from infants to older children. In some cases and with some agencies the adoptive parents do not even need to travel to the country, but if they do the time in-country can be as little as 2 days. Children are adopted from orphanages, so if an older child is adopted there will probably be developmental delays because of institutionalization (depending on how long the... more

I don't think I've had the pleasure of writing about Angelina Jolie yet in my blogs. I suppose it's because she doesn't have much to do with adoption from Russia (except for that business about little Gleb last year) so I haven't written about her in that blog and my time at this blog hasn't been long enough so I'm reduced to talking about celebrities.

(Not that there's anything wrong with talking about celebrities, mind you. I enjoy People or Us Weekly as much as the next person waiting in the grocery-store check-out... more