So, at the aforementioned thing, My Academic Spouse got turned on to this online adoption education resource:

http://www.adoptionlearningpartners.org/

"Resource?" Right. It's a site that has courses you kind of read through, discuss and think about. If you want... more

Grim day for would-be China travelers.

Item 1: is everywhere, but yes, Carry-On Only traveling is going to be really difficult for a while, which is a real pain in the expletive.

Long... more

Quick note to frazzled parents-to-be: There's a rather helpful discussion on assembling paperwork over on the adoption.com forums.

The bureaucracy is intimidating, and always will be, but people get through it all the time.

Odi advises:

1-Order 3 birth and marriage certs. It is cheeper to get the second and third now than having to reorder. You need originals for your dossier and for the 1-600 from our government and then maybe an extra one just in case. 2-Check each Notary... more

My Ever-Vigilant Spouse was just scouting around the web for adoption-related stuff or for vacation stuff (or, for all I know, for the price of real estate in Shanghai) and found the Adoptive Family Travel home page. It seems like an interesting service -- like a travel agency for internationally adopted kids & parents.

The Ties Program is a travel program for adoptive families who would like to visit their child's country of birth, and travel in a supportive environment with other adoptive families.

They handle things ("handle things"?) for a bunch of different countries. Their China... more

You want to know how to get a Social Security card for bouncing young adopted Chinese child? The Social Security Administration has the application online.

But as for what to do with Line 8, well, that's sort of up in the air right now.

Oh, and although the application's online, the thing still has to be smeared onto a dead tree and mailed to the government or even better handed over in person with your authenticated, original documents, instead of confining the whole business to clean, elegant electrons and submitting with buttons.

Last time, we would have... more

Go read this list now.

Is a list from Sherri Eldridge, who makes lists like these.

That's all.

Last week, I and my antisocial family went to not one but two events with different FCC (Families with Children from China, not the Federal Communication Commission) groups.

These are always sort of nice, but I always feel sort of awkward, mostly because when I'm in any kind of group that isn't either a family, a class or some kind of performance, I feel awkward. This is neither here nor there. No, what I found interesting at these things was that there were people who chose to come to either a beachfront park with one of those chlorine fountains attracting packs of gleaming, screaming children or to a slightly overpriced all-you-can-eat... more

From a recent comment:

As you know, China adoption is getting backlogged resulting in I-171H expirations. There is an active campaign to contact U.S. Sen and Reps on this. Now, Sen. Sam Brownback serves on the subcommittee for immigration and is a China adoptive parent. Several parent groups are trying to now focus their efforts on getting his help. Could you please write a little something about the expiration of these approvals and why it is important? We are estimating $2000 plus for each family that expires in extra fees. Thanks!

So. What's an I171-H? That's your Homeland Security paperwork (specifically, the U.S. Center for Immigration Services,... more

* This site is new, but could be useful: Adoption Search. It's an index of adoption-related stuff on the net, all in one easy-to-search location. Including, uh, this blog here.

* I've just been browsing a bit through Wikipedia's "Adoption" Category, which makes for interesting reading, and even more interesting links out to other sites. Articles range from Adopted Child Syndrome (a controversial diagnosis of which I'd never heard before) to ... more

I have no idea how to react to this thing:

http://wiki.ehow.com/Adopt-a-Baby-from-China

It seems to have swept the internet while I was away, judging from the number of times it appeared in my email inbox from various correspondents.

I suppose we all need how-tos on everything. I haven't looked -- do they have "survive a shark attack" or "build a hut from palm fronds and coconut shells" in there?

What a strange way I've chosen to build a family....