Do you remember the time not so very long ago when I got all het up over Vladimir Putin offering citizens money to make more Russians the old-fashioned way, by putting babies in Russian mommies' tummies?

As opposed to, oh, maybe taking babies out of social welfare institutions?

Well, apparently, the Russians aren't the only one of China's neighbors to offer money to people to create... more

One of the Big Things about adoption - especially with kids from Social Welfare Institutes in China - is the need to promote attachment. They call it "bonding," which has a nice, solid construction/oath-taking sound to it. And one of the best ways to do this is to leave behind the bulky old stroller and tote a new tot around in a sling.

Bonding, you see, is fun. Slings are a great invention, because they let you hug little children for long periods of time while still leaving your arms free... more

The Been-There-Done-That families are no doubt happily forgetting about all the paperwork that goes into the wacky process of adopting from China -- especially the paperwork you have to wait for from the US government. (That's assuming some of the people reading this are Americans and not our noble friends to the north or those... Europeans, who have arcane bureaucracies of their own.) Some have suggested renaming this the WOO! BABY!" form, which would be easier to remember, if nothing else.... more

As Mo recently pointed out, adoption never ends. The paperwork gets finished, and one day the kids grow up and leave home, but the process is never done. It'll last long after the parents are gone.

This endless process - the fitting in, the explaining, the looking for a place -- was the subject of a recent ... more

Traditional Manchu papercuts

The last couple of weeks have brought two stories of double adoptions that are almost mirror images of each other. The first is a story of double happiness. Californians Michelle Teofan and Karl Garcia applied to adopt from China, They were rejected because he's in a wheelchair (this was before the... more

The Centers for Disease Control are issuing a warning that adults adopting from China seem to be at risk for developing measles.

Of all things.

Three different families traveling with the same Missouri-based adoption agency -- but traveling separately, possibly to three different SWIs in three different cities -- stayed at the same hotel in Guangdong Province last July.... more

Once again, Brian Stuy is stirring things up with a new contentious contention -- that Fuling SWI (from whence came Daughter) serves as a funnel for other social welfare institutions in the area.

Specifically, he brings up evidence (circumstantial but persuasive) that babies officially reported as being "found at the orphanage gates" of Fuling actually came from Youyang SWI, a small but well-functioning institution not far from Fuling. Though it seemed to be doing good work, the institution was suddenly closed in May 2006.

...[I]n the early morning,... more

The Taipei Times seems to be suggesting a rather odd thing.

They seem to be saying that Taiwan, a little island off the coast of the People's Republic of China, could be replacing China as the source for internationally adopted infants in the US. This is something like suggesting Newfoundland could replace the canned fish production of the United States and territories (including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).... more

I'm still thinking about heritage, and still (as ever) reading the news.

There's that iconic figure that pops up in writings on transracial adoption -- the rainbow. It's a symbol of differences (racial, cultural, ethnic, whatever) coming together seamlessly. My anxiety, of course, is that it's nothing more than sunlight passing through... more

Detail of an 18th century fresco by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

I've been thinking lately about the idea of maintaining my kids' heritage, and what "heritage" means, and the extent to which an American of recent Euro-African descent can actually somehow embody Chinese culture. My conclusion: I can't. I can only embody international adoption as its own culture within America, and... more