Everything went silent, Judi told me, as if she'd been pulled underwater. She read the sentences over and over, trying to comprehend them.
The boy Sulaiman Suma had been looking for all these years was her 16-year-old son, Samuel.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia on Aug 10, 2011 - 12 comments

The Evangelical Adoption Crusade [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 28, 2011 - 137 comments

“We need to honor and recognize that adoption is different and not a replacement for birth children we never had. Not until then can we really embrace how adoption really is different and how we need to go about parenting differently. Social workers have to speak the truth about that.” An excellent, thorough, and even-handed article about adoption disruption.
posted by the young rope-rider on Apr 5, 2011 - 46 comments

In 2009, there were 423,773 children in foster care in the U.S., one of those children is "Jacket," who at age 20 months in December 2009 was placed into foster care with her foster mother Rebecca. Rebecca, single and in her early 30s, had already fostered a few young children and started blogging about it. [more inside]
posted by k8t on Mar 25, 2011 - 42 comments

Foster Care: Extreme Edition Pioneered by a 23-person St. Louis — based agency called the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition, Extreme Recruitment seeks out the foster children who are the hardest to find homes for. Via the You Gotta Believe! Adopting Teens and Tweens radio forum.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Feb 3, 2011 - 3 comments

UK adoption agencies are reporting "huge numbers of calls from 'deeply distressed' adoptive parents whose children have been contacted" through Facebook and other social networking sites, in violation of the traditional, confidential reunion process between birth parents and their offspring who have been placed with other families. Full report from Channel 4. [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 23, 2010 - 45 comments

International Adoption may not necessarily be helping the disadvantaged in Third World countries as advertised. In some countries, like Guatemala and India, children are simply stolen from their families. The Hague Convention governs the rules for International Adoptions, but like all rules, they aren't always followed. Many adoptive parents believe that their children have been given up, but in some countries, "orphanage" doesn't mean what you think it means. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon on May 10, 2009 - 18 comments

Generations of Hope is a non-profit set up to bring kids out of foster care and into extended families with grandparents. The community of Hope Meadows was repurposed from housing on a closed Air Force base in Illinois. (The NYT article erroneously refers to the community by the non-profit's name. No matter. The story is still inspirational.) [more inside]
posted by yiftach on Sep 16, 2008 - 5 comments

FosterClub is an online resource for kids in foster care, providing answers, inspiration, even downloadable forms to give to caseworkers, as well as a sister site for older kids.
posted by Methylviolet on Mar 5, 2007 - 7 comments

The American Academy of Pediatrics announces its support of adoption by same-sex parents. "...a new AAP policy statement, "Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents" supports legal and legislative efforts that provide for the possibility of adoption of those children by the second parent or coparent in same-sex relationships."
posted by prozaction on Feb 4, 2002 - 2 comments

Who do you root for when everyone's a villain? It turns out that everyone involved in the "Internet Twins" fiasco is scum. Sure as hell the biological mother is (she gave the babies up twice and now wants them back; I wouldn't trust her to care for my cat); the woman from the UK is, and now the man in the US is. A plague on all their houses.

Now the biological father, Aaron Wecker, has begun proceedings to gain custody of the babies. I hope he isn't as despicable as everyone else involved. Let's hope this circus doesn't follow the girls around for the rest of their lives. If there's any sort of lesson in this, I wish someone would tell me what it is.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Mar 2, 2001 - 4 comments