Not often do two major parts of my life (international adoption and kidney disease) cross paths, but this news article out of Canada speaks to my heart (and kidney) in more than one way.

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Regardless if you’re pro or anti-adoption, this article is worth reading, and is especially important for those of you who are internationally adoptive parents (or potential parents.)

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Intercountry Adoption and Poverty: A Human Rights Analysis

David M. Smolin, Cumberland Law School, Samford University

Abstract:

This Article explores the question of whether intercountry adoption is an effective, appropriate, or ethical response to poverty in developing nations. As a matter of methodology, this fundamental question of adoption ethics is explored through the lens of international human rights law. This Article specifically argues that, where the birth parents live under or near the international poverty standard of $1 per day, family preservation assistance must be provided or offered as a condition precedent for accepting a relinquishment that would make the child eligible for intercountry adoption.

Please go here to read this article.

This grainy webcam photo was taken on December 4, 2000 and was the very first picture the world saw of my baby boy after we brought him home from Ukraine.

Today he turns EIGHT.

I’m a mother to an eight-year-old!! How did time pass so quickly!?

Happy 8^th Birthday, Kidlet!

Also on this day, I like to reflect about his First Mother – I usually re-read this post that I made on his second birthday…

When we adopted my son (2000) there was a fairly common (but maybe somewhat unknown?) practice of giving an internationally adopted child a “new” birth date to more suitably match his/her retarded physical/social/emotional development caused by years of institutionalization.

Sometimes a kid would end up (on paper) a whole year or 18 months YOUNGER than he/she actually was.

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She Just Had to Say It is having a contest, so here I am – admitting to you – one of the moments in my life for which I am eternally embarrassed.

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