It’s been so very long since I updated or added new content on this blog. At this time I don’t plan to write any new updates after this post, but will keep the site online in the hopes that the archived information might be be helpful to someone else (or at least an interesting story!)

I’ve stopped blogging about adoption for several reasons – because it’s been ten years since adopting my son from Ukraine most of the information found herein is out-of-date and/or incorrect for 2010. During the last ten years the process by which I became an adoptive parent as well as the adoption laws themselves have changed drastically. Much of my adoption journey is now obsolete, aside from it being a special personal story we share with our family and son.

As this blog evolved as time passed, so have my viewpoints about adoption, adoptees, adoptive parenting, and natural vs. adoptive families. I don’t consider myself a hypocrite for having a different opinion or an opposing viewpoint from that which I once held – I feel, quite simply, that I’ve learned and grown from the experiences I’ve had and my thoughts are now oftentimes different than they were before becoming a parent.

I also feel very strongly that my son’s story is his (and his alone) to tell as he chooses. He has grown into a very amazing young man with a keen insight about himself that I’ve seldom seen even in adults… one day he will tell you how he feels about adoption from his point of view and I believe he will tell it better than I ever could. In the meantime, I’m here to be his mom and protect his privacy.

May the best of luck come to you… Thanks for all the great years of adoption-related communication!

Krissi

Babies adopted from China may need kidney testing, agency warns

CBCNews.ca | Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | 7:12 PM ET

Parents who have recently adopted a child from China may want to have them tested for kidney damage, according to an Ottawa-based adoption agency.

The Children’s Bridge is sending warning letters to adoptive parents following a tainted baby-formula scandal in China that has left four babies dead and more than 50,000 ill.

Although none of the recalled products are believed to have been used by the Children’s Bridge agency in China, executive director Sandra Forbes said the organization is warning parents as a precaution.

“We have contacted our on-the-ground people directly in China, and the products used by the child welfare institutes are not on the list,” said Forbes, whose organization is the largest international adoption agency in Canada.

None of the adopted children have shown any symptoms of melamine poisoning, Forbes said.

She recommended, however, that adopted Chinese children who may have consumed dairy products in China between December 2007 and August 2008 be tested for kidney damage caused by melamine, a toxic chemical that was added to milk to help boost the appearance of protein.

“Those folks may decide to have their children examined by a pediatrician or tested, given that they really wouldn’t know whether their children would have been exposed or not.”

Melamine is used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants. It has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen, which makes the products appear to have higher protein content than they actually do. Suppliers to the dairy companies that produced the tainted baby formula have been accused of adding the chemical to watered-down milk.

For families still in the midst of the adoption process, the scandal has been particularly disconcerting.

A Halifax man who is waiting to collect his adoptive eight-month-old daughter, Catherine, has learned her orphanage in China used some of the products suspected of contamination.

“I’ve heard it can cause kidney stones,” said Craig Fraser.

“OK, well what does that mean for a child? Obviously it [can] cause death, so that’s the worst case. What if it doesn’t cause kidney stones, are there any other impacts? So it’s unnerving. We’re in kind of a wait-and-see game right now.”

Fraser said the orphanage in China has already run some tests that indicate Catherine’s health is fine. However, he is still waiting for a second set of test results.

“She’s not showing signs, or obvious signs, that she’s been harmed by it. That being said, you still want to know for sure.”

Fraser said he knows many people who have adopted babies from China, and the concern is growing as the scope of the tainted-milk scandal spreads.

Canadian public health officials said they have yet to find evidence that children living here have been sickened by the contaminated products. Doctors’ offices and adoption agencies across the country, however, are reporting a surge in calls from concerned parents.

Canadian adoptions from China peaked in 2005, with about 1,000 babies coming into the country. This year, about 400 babies are expected to arrive.

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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…

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

I’m not talking about choosing an approximate birth date when the true/real birth date is unknown (in the cases of ‘abandoned’ children where no known info exists) I’m talking about rebirth(dating) a child knowingly.

I don’t even know if it’s legal in the US to do this to any person (adopted or not) – but I know it has, and probably still does happen, in international adoptions, most likely on the international legal/adoption side of things (i.e. before the child ever reaches US immigration).

Isn’t there (or shouldn’t there be) something about falsifying a birth certificate that is not only ethically wrong, but downright illegal?

I always thought the practice was weird/wrong/uncalled for… and just kinda creepy. How can a parent “rebirth(day)” a child and completely dismiss months and months of his/her life as if they’d never existed?

It seems that giving a child a new birthday is almost like pretending the child is a completely different person – which only adds to negative adoptive parent stereotypes. It proves that the adoptive parents want to dismiss the child’s nature, culture and “original existence” and it will most definitely add to the confusion the adopted will deal with later in life.

While I understand the want of any child’s parent(s) to see their child among peers to whom he/she can relate to on similar levels, I feel the better alternative is to keep the child’s REAL birth date and follow the child’s lead when it comes to schooling, friendships and learning.

Thoughts?

Here I go: I’m going to tell you something that had/has me felling like I was really sinking low. And it’s pretty low.

November 2000 – I was way beyond culture shocked when I first traveled to Ukraine to adopt my son. Within the first 24 hours I’d convinced myself that I’d either die of starvation/dehydration, or panic-attack myself to death due to the language barrier.

Yet, I greedily vowed to stick things out in order to “get” the baby I came for.

Shame on me.

I shouldn’t have been so arrogant and upset about my son’s own country. I look back on that now and I’m beyond embarrassed for myself.

In hindsight, I don’t think it was ONLY being in Ukraine for the first time that upset me, I think it was also that I was completely and totally out of my element (and unable to accept it) and about to become a first-time mother (scared to death) while questioning MYSELF at every place along the way.

… and yes, it was also a bit of the ‘weird’ food (and water ‘with gas’??) and the fact that I couldn’t tell any one to stop shoving me in places like the market and train station (I later learned a bit more about my ‘Western’ concept of “personal space” vs. the very different concept of the same, in that part of the world.)

Of course you know by now that I do love Ukraine and that we’ve been back “for fun” since…

The fact that my FIRST choice in “how to become a parent” was to adopt (totally bypassing the very idea of doing it the ‘natural’ way) is an abstract concept that is often misunderstood…

… but I don’t feel guilty that my son was adopted.

As far as stereotypes go, I’m probably the MOST hated ‘adopter’ (at least in the anti-adoption world) in that I’m simply seen as ‘baby stealer’ – my child came to me as a first choice and I had no intentions in my lifetime (for as far back as I can remember!) to ever have a biological child.

Therefore, my fertility (or lack thereof?) had zero to do with my son’s adoption. In the eyes of certain groups not desiring a biological child further proves me to be a baby-stealer.

While some see adoption as a “second choice, that last resort” to parenting, I see my son’s adoption as simply my selfish desire to become a parent. Further, I truly believe that ALL parents who adopt do it for this singular reason, regardless of any pre-adoption circumstances that might have lead to their decision to adopt.

Although I fully admit to my naivety about the many negative aspects of a ‘closed’ adoption at the time I adopted, I have earnestly tried in the years since to educate myself and right the wrongs (or at least do my best to acknowledge the mistakes in my thought-processes) that I see. I do acknowledge my son’s losses, while also recognizing that I have lost nothing, and gained everything. I do include his family as much as possible (I spent much time and money to find his First Mother) in our discussions and celebrations about his life, even though most of his biological roots are elusive to us and is First Mother’s desire for contact is inconsistent.

While I struggle to find my way though a closed adoption (one that I chose, and only now understand the difficulties and complexities that my son and I both face) I see other adoptive parents in good, healthy and beneficial open adoptions – and yes, I’m jealous. I wish with all my heart that I could ’share’ (for lack of a more articulate word) him with who he deserves to be with.

BUT I can not change the past or how my son became my son – the fact is, I’m proud of him, and he is my son because of adoption.

Adoption was my first choice, I never thought of becoming a parent by any other means.

… I believe in celebrating my son’s First Mother on the same day that we celebrate my motherhood – on “regular” Mother’s Day.

I believe that I should decide how to celebrate my son’s First Mother, and as [The Kidlet] gets older, I believe HE should decide how to honor her when/where/if he wants to do so.

I believe that because I am not a birthmother, I don’t have the right to tell birthmothers how to celebrate themselves as mothers. If they find it appropriate (comforting/empowering/easier) to celebrate “Birthmother’s Day” then they have that right.

I don’t think there is any harm in those who want to celebrate “Birthmother’s Day” so long as they also recognize the fact that a mother is a mother is a MOTHER – and that they don’t criticize those who believe in celebrating Mother’s Day for anyone who is a mother (by any way).

I don’t agree with some (adoptive) mothers who feel compelled to make a sharp separation between their child(ren)’s birthmother and themselves, on a day that, by definition, celebrates mothers – all mothers. In fact, I see the necessity to define a mother as “not enough of a mother to be recognized as a mother on a day for mothers” as a blatantly obvious sign of jealousy or insecurity (or both).

I also don’t agree with the idea that celebrating mothers (of all kinds) should only take place on certain ‘defined’ days, or by someone’s idea of which day ‘belongs to’ whom.

Last year I managed to get myself kicked off of the adoption forums because of these thoughts – a year later, I’m still sticking to my guns. Celebrate Mother’s Day as you will, but without the dismissal of any particular ‘group’ of mothers.

I reject your (Birth)Mother’s Day reality and substitute my own.

Here’s my cat out of the bag, so to speak, when it comes to some facts about my son’s adoption:

You completed a foreign adoption under false pretenses – you KNEW you were getting a divorce…

Very shortly before I traveled to adopt and immediately after, I realized that I wasn’t in a happy marriage, or even being a happy person. However, I never thought in a million years that it would eventually end in divorce.

Adoption wasn’t the reason our marriage ended, but it was unfortunate that my son was caught in the middle. Getting divorced was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done and I still hold deeply cut feelings of guilt about being divorced post-adoption. For that, I have no excuse other than I’m human and imperfect, adoptive parent or not.

… you [adopted] knowing you had a possibly TERMINAL illness…

I do not have, nor have I ever had, a TERMINAL illness.

I adopted with full disclosure of my chronic health condition. In my dossier I was required to provide a ’standard’ certification of health, as well as many additional documents regarding my specific chronic illness. Several doctors/specialists were required to write letters on my behalf and explain in great detail the specifics of my chronic condition.

Being allowed to adopt/parent while living with with a chronic health condition wasn’t up to me to determine. The US government and the government of my son’s homeland decided that for me.

…which by the way you CHOOSE for years to endure possibly worsening your health [by your treatment choices] at the expense of your son’s [well-being]…

I was/am a 100% compliant patient. I followed every doctor’s order, went to every treatment, followed my diet restrictions to a ‘T’ and vigilantly swallowed every medication prescribed to keep me as healthy as possible. I honestly couldn’t have done MORE to keep my health as strong as it is/was.

Further – during the times when I’ve needed to make major decisions about treating my my chronic illness, I have always made them with my son’s well-being at the forefront.

I have always chosen the treatment that would keep me the healthiest while having the least impact my son’s life, until he reached an age where attempting another, more complicated, treatment would be easier for him to understand and emotionally deal with.

You also LIED to the government by getting married when you really aren’t. In order to get what? Money? Him to avoid being deployed. Tell that to all of the soldiers who go everyday when they are called, no matter what the situation.

We were legally married for 3 years before adopting – we had to provide proof of that as well, before we were approved for adoption.

The military didn’t give us any money to adopt a child, and other than the fact that the adoption made our son another military dependent (for the purposes of health care, and so-on) we weren’t given any extra help of any kind.

And avoiding deployment? LOL – At this moment, my ex is serving his third deployment tour in the middle east… even though the longest tour he had was 15 months in Afghanistan when our son was four.

YOU are part of the UNETHICAL part of adoption.

I’d also like to point out that we adopted using a non-profit organzation who (at the time) only worked with internationally adopting families. I also kept a complete itemized list of every penny that was spent to complete the adoption. A year and a half after my son’s adoption, the agency asked us if we would help facilitate a humanitarian aid trip to our son’s former orphanage (which we did)… and years later, when I needed direction to help find my son’s First Mother, they provided us with as many contacts to persons in his homeland that could help us, if it could be possible.

YOU are part of the UNETHICAL part of adoption.

I don’t think I am, but I suppose there is always someone in the world who will disagree with anything they don’t like or can’t understand.

Letter writing campaigns? Boycotting your kid’s favorite place to eat? All because of a WORD?

Google “mcdonald adoption commercial” and you will get a plethora of anger about one tiny adoption reference. Instead of falling prey to all this stupidity, here’s my take:

(Scene: McDonald’s food in a meeting. They are sitting and talking at a round table)

Chicken nuggets: We’re related? Get out. (rural American accent)

Chicken Sandwich: Yeah, third cousins. Too bad you have to leave so soon. (Hispanic accent)

Parfait: You know fries and I are related. (French accent)

Fries: Just because I am French fries doesn’t mean we’re related Parfait. We look nothing alike. (Common Midwest American accent)

Chicken nuggets: Maybe you’re adopted (rural American accent)

(Long silence)

Chicken nuggets: or not (rural American accent)

During the “Long silence” (and as I picture in my mind, with the cartoons my thoughts have become at this stage of ridiculousness) both Chicken Nuggets and French Fries turn their attention away from each other and are now eying Parfait (off camera, of course).

At that very moment Chicken Nuggets begins wondering why in the heck Parfait is at the table, claiming to be related, when he is clearly not – After all, Parfait is the only McTalking Food not made of chicken, fried or speaking with a commonly heard accent in America.

Then Chicken Nuggets figures out that it’s not French Fries that is adopted, it’s Parfait – Poor little Parfait is just trying to fit in with his McFamily and French Fries covered for him (remember the long silence? French Fries was only respecting Parfait’s space he is still coming to terms with the fact that no McReunion is in site) until Chicken Nuggets came to his senses to say “… or not”.

Instead of getting angry at the McIndustry as a whole, let’s get angry about the baby-stealing McAgency who sent Agent Hamburgler to smuggle baby Parfait across international borders, without regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in order to make lots and lots of money for his ninty-nine cent sale of Parfait to insecure adoptive mother, Vanilla Shake (who only believes McBirthmothers are drug dealing whores).

Because this should be about the McBabies, darn it, and not about all you mere human McPatrons who don’t understand McAdoption in the least. Shame on you ‘average’ human watchers of a McMercial who can’t even begin to understand the McFeelings involved. Stay out of it.

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* McDiculous was my point, BTW… Just in case you didn’t catch that…