caf's blog

Picking an adoption agency is hard, confusing and often anxiety provoking. It doesn’t help when so-called experts—like me—tell you that it is the second most important decision you’ll make when adopting. Talk about pressure! I often get asked if there is a “best agency”. The answer, of course, is “yes”, but not one best agency for everyone. I think the enormity of the decision often blinds us to that fact. So how should you go about picking this all important arbiter of family making?

I wasn’t going to blog about Haitian orphans again. Really, I wasn’t. I figured I had worn my audience thin on the subject; it was time to move on. My resolve wavered, but held firm even when last Friday’s mail brought Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal both running stories on the “Haitian orphan crisis”. But after reading both articles I couldn’t get them out of my mind, try as I might. Oh, what the heck, as long as I’m obsessing on this subject, why should I suffer alone.

Sitting as I do with one foot in the infertility world and one foot in the adoption world, a question I hear a lot from people is whether they have to stop infertility treatment before they can apply to adopt. I suspect adoption agencies and social workers don’t hear this question as much since most people aren’t comfortable asking them this question. Quite frankly, it is a bit of a sensitive hot topic in adoption circles.

When the American group was arrested for trying to bring Haitian children over the border into the Dominican Republic last week I literally screamed at my television. Among my shouts were “Are you nuts” and “Think before you act”. Their actions played right into the “international adoption equal child trafficking” argument that I railed against in last week’s blog. Everything about this case is confusing, and the more I learn, the more the actions of this group don’t make sense. What is clear is that their actions were ill informed (read: stupid) and may well have been illegal.

‘Tis the season of light, so let’s lighten things up with a touch of the funny. A couple of years ago, I was out running errands with my three youngest kids. The errands took longer than anticipated (don’t they always), so we stopped at a fast food place to grab something to eat. The lady taking our order stared and then did a double take, staring first at me and then at each child. It is worthy of mentioning at this point that two of the three kids look absolutely nothing like me and none of them share any resemblance to each other.

It was one of those perfect summer days–on a boat, at a lake, with my family. The sway of the boat, the smell of sunscreen, and the taste of watermelon and fried chicken is a particularly intoxicating mix. The gallons of iced tea we downed required frequent swim breaks. With my kids, no opportunity is lost to get away with potty humor, so the swim breaks quickly were dubbed pee breaks. Son # 1 was in the water when I jumped in, followed quickly by daughter # 2.

Son # 1 (17): Oh gross, you just jumped into Mom’s pee.

Read the full post at www.creatingafamily.com/blog