Today is the day.

This is my second year posting information on World AIDS Orphans Day, and although I put the word out earlier in hopes that community leaders would be encouraged to join in on events, today is the special day set aside in efforts to draw attention to the plight of millions of the world's children who have lost parents to AIDS.

At last count there were... more

Kailee Wells, an international adoptee born in China, fell victim to Severe Aplastic Anemia at the age of five. Five years of perpetual transfusions, immuno-suppressant drugs and heart-stoppingly close calls followed. The only long-term hope was finding a perfectly matched bone marrow donor who would agree to provide tissue for a transplant.

In hopes of finding a possible donor among the Asian and Pacific Islander population... more

Contrary to what some may think, Jan Baker and I very often think alike. Not assumed to be a common phenomenon between birth moms and adoptive parents, the more we learn, the more we alike we find ourselves to be.

Case in point ... today's blog posts.

As I was sitting down to write about an international adoptee's recent bone marrow transplant, I scrolled to see what else people have been writing about... more

"Bones That Float: A Story of Adopting Cambodia" is more than a book; it's a movement!" says Kari Grady Grossman, the book's author. Determined to make a difference for the positive, Kari turned down a publishing deal with Beacon Press and opened her own company ... fixing the date of publication to coincide with the anniversary of the day the Khmer Rouge began the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh ... to assure that every penny possible made... more

" ['Bones that Float'] ... is truly a gift for every adoptive family out there." This quote came from an adoptive mom after reading Kari Grady Grossman's wonderful new book about the Cambodia she came to know and love through her family's adoption journey.

Much more than a story of one child and one family, "Bones that Float: A Story of Adopting Cambodia" is a tapestry of Cambodian lives, past, present and future, that conveys context and encourages... more

May is big on events. Not only does the month celebrate Mother's Day, Memorial Day Older Americans, Teacher Appreciation Month, Tennis Month, National Egg Month, Better Sleep Month, and more, it is also Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

This celebration began by congressional resolution in 1978, setting aside the first ten days of May to acknowledge... more

There's no doubt that adoption is a hot topic these days. For starters, Nickelodeon is coming out with a cartoon voiced by a young adoptee from China, and there are a couple of books getting press at the moment that have adoption-related... more

Celebrity and international adoption go together like soup and sandwich in the media, and so many people are happy as clam chowder to be served up whatever can be scraped from the bottom of whatever pot happens to be going around at any given moment ... most of it unpleasant pap with a revolting flavor and lingering aftertaste.

I'm... more

In my continuing efforts to expose hidden agendas, to pull back the blanket and show the ugly face hiding under covers of "caring" or "research" or "information", I'm following along on the post I wrote a couple of days ago that did just that.

A couple of people left comments disagreeing with my assessment. A "law review article", according to one comment, " ... need not be written without opinions, observations or even a smattering of inside information."

Dandy.... more

With the news that a planet has been discovered outside our solar system that could support life in a form we would recognize, in my last post I started thinking about expanding the sphere of my adoption-related thought bubble to take in what could be out of this world.

Say Planet 581c is populated, and just like Earth has problems that result in millions of the young 581c-ians having to be raised in institutions or on whatever passes for... more