On my post, How Often to Adoptive Parents Get Pregnant?, a reader posted the following comment:

As someone who is CHOOSING to adopt (we already have a young bio son and no fertility issues), it drives me crazy when people say things like, "Watch, when you bring your kids home from Ethiopia you'll end up having another one of your own!" The assumptions people make are astounding. It's sad that so many people see adoption as some sort of desperate second... more

On my post, Adoption with an Unstable Marriage, Julia from the Parenting Children With Special Needs blog posted the following comment:

Several years ago I provided respite care for a teen girl in a preadopt home. The family ended up adopting her and her younger brother. She was in their church choir, maybe she still is. The parents got divorced after the adoption. I heard today that she gave birth... more

On my post, Sliding Scale for Adoption Based Upon Adopted Child's Race, a reader posted the following comment:

Somewhat off topic, but is it weird that I am annoyed with these agency websites I am looking at referring to an expectant mother as a birthmother? – Chromesthesia at Sliding Scale for Adoption Based Upon Adopted Child's Race

I... more

Over on the Adoptive Parenting blog, I have kicked off a series today about adoption regrets. Over the next several posts on that blog, I will discuss various regrets that adoptive parents might have about their adoptions and provide advice about how to heal those regrets.

I strongly suggest that all hopeful adoptive parents follow that series so they can avoid making the same mistakes that other adoptive parents have made. When you are waiting to adopt a child and desperately want to become... more

It is normal to feel a certain amount of anxiety after you are offered a referral of a child or a match with an expecting mother. You do not have to accept a referral or match right away. In fact, our agency told me to talk the situation over with my husband, sleep on the decision, and then let them know if we wanted to match with this expecting mother. Our agency was straightforward about the challenges of our situation, the biggest being the expecting mother's smoking throughout her pregnancy. The director wanted us to make an informed decision before agreeing to adopt... more

One issue with which many hopeful adoptive parents wrestle is whether it is okay to turn down a referral of a child or a match with an expecting mother. The short answer is yes – It is always okay to turn down a referral if you do not feel comfortable moving forward with the match. In fact, I believe it is unethical and unwise to accept a referral if you have serious reservations about the match. No one is well served if you cannot embrace the child as your own.

Many hopeful adoptive couples feel guilty about turning down a referral or a match. The adoption... more

When my husband and I went through the adoption process, we had to sign a paper stating that we understood that our adopted child was not "warranted" to be healthy for the rest of his life. Of course, the terminology used was less blunt, but that was the basic gist. The social worker also talked to us about this issue face-to-face, stating that while the adoption agency was responsible for accurately representing the health of the child at the time of placement, the agency could not guarantee that health issues would not arise later. The social worker even provided an example... more

In the following posts, I talked about how some adoption agencies charge more to adopt a Caucasian baby than they do to adopt a non-Caucasian baby:

As I stated in those posts, I do not support the practice of putting non-Caucasian babies... more

In a perfect world, every couple who decided to adopt a child would have a stable marriage, and the marriage would last forever. No adopted child would ever suffer through his parents' divorce. Unfortunately, in the real world, not every couple stays together. While many adoptive couples have very solid marriages, some do not. If a marriage is teetering on the brink of dissolving, moving forward with an adoption is a bad idea.

The adoption process is very stressful, and it can rock the most stable of marriages. Once the process is completed, many marriages become... more

When a woman conceives a baby, she generally starts to love her baby at some point during the pregnancy. Some women feel very strong love for the unborn baby right away, so much so that they are devastated by an early miscarriage. Other women might not feel very strong love for the baby until after the baby is born, even into the early weeks of the baby's life. Many parenting books state that, for some women, the love grows out of caring for the baby and might not be present right at birth.

Considering an adopted child does not grow in an adoptive mother's body,... more