In my last post, Adoption Home Study: Child Abuser in Extended Family, I discussed the impact of having a child molester in the extended family on a person's ability to pass a home study. This post broadens the scope to having a lawbreaker of any kind in the extended family. Will you still be able to adopt if you have lawbreakers in your family?

As with having a child abuser in the extended family, the short answer to the question is yes – You can still adopt... more

Over in the Adoption Forums, I saw a question posted about issues in your family that could affect your home study. The person posting the question has a brother who was convicted of child molestation. He never molested her, and she only sees him at the family's annual Christmas party. Her question was whether having a child molester in the extended family would prevent her from being able to adopt.

The short answer to this question is no – you will not be prevented from adopting solely because a blood relative has abused children.... more

In my last post, Adoption Cost: Putting Certain Races "On Sale", I talked about the practice of some adoption agencies charging different adoption fees based upon the race of the child adopted. In most of these situations, Caucasian babies cost more money to adopt than non-Caucasian babies through the same agency. I provided arguments for and against the practice of putting non-Caucasian babies "on sale" and asked for readers' opinions. One reader left the following comment:

I... more

A controversial area of adoption is providing discounts for adopting a child of a certain race. For example, an adoption agency might charge $20,000 for the domestic private adoption of a Caucasian newborn but only $15,000 for the domestic private adoption of an African-American or biracial newborn. Is providing a discount a practical way of providing more homes for children who might not otherwise be adopted, or is this blatant racism?

Arguments For the Practice

Those who believe it is a good thing to charge different rates argue that reducing... more

On my last post, Are Portrayals of Adoptive Parents on Television Realistic?, Coley, our Crisis Pregnancy and Open Adoption blogger, asked the following in the comments:

Is there any kind of statistic as to how often that really happens? Adoptive parents adopt then get pregnant?? General society talks like it happens often but from the adoptive parents I know it happens very little...

Just... more

In my last post, Are Portrayals of Birthmothers on Television Realistic?, I talked about the unrealistic portrayal of birthmothers on various television shows. In this post, I will focus on the portrayal of adoptive parents.

I know many adoptive parents, and none of them are like most of the adoptive parents I have seen on television. Let's start with Mary Alice, the narrator on Desperate Housewives who killed her son's birthmother, chopped up her body, stuffed... more

In my last post, Adoption: Separating Reality from Fantasy, I talked about how the portrayal of adoption on television and in movies was very different from reality. In this post, I would like to focus specifically on the portrayal of birthmothers.

Just last week, Desperate Housewives covered this topic with teenager Danielle, who placed her baby with her mother, Bree (the baby's grandmother), to raise as her own child. (Bree has been faking her pregnancy, so her friends will not... more

Before I decided to adopt, I did not know much about adoption. I had a few acquaintances throughout my life who were part of the adoption triad, but I did not know any of them well enough to talk about adoption in detail. Most of what I knew about adoption came from the movies and television, so I had a lot to learn when I decided to adopt.

The only adoptions I had ever heard of were closed. I was floored when our adoption agency talked about meeting the expecting mother and... more

If you are waiting to adopt, you have probably asked, "When we will be matched?" about 300,000 times. I would have given anything to have a crystal ball tell me when the match would happen. I could have handled waiting another year if I could only know that a baby was definitely coming in twelve months. I have always dealt better with bad news than no news at all. The uncertainty can drive me crazy.

One really odd thing about newborn adoption is that your forever child could already be conceived and growing in another woman's body while you are crying into your pillow... more

When I was waiting to adopt, I wrestled with how much time and energy I should invest into preparing to parent. I am a planner by nature, so if I had been pregnant, I would have worked out a schedule for learning all I needed to know by the time the baby was born. When you adopt, you have no idea when that might be.

I worked with a man who got a call at work to hop on the next plane to Las Vegas because his son had just been born. The placing mother had contacted the adoption agency after the baby was born, and she selected the adoptive parents after looking through profiles... more