A story in today's news, although heartwarming and hopeful, has me feeling more than a bit sad.

The focus is on adults adopted from Viet Nam as children who are now returning to their birth country for their own children, noting that agencies dealing with adoptions from the country are reporting a growing number of parents are "making the same trip their adoptive parents took more than three decades ago."

There seems a wonderful symmetry in this, a connecting on a level deeper than most adoptions allow.

For the adult adoptee, the opportunity to revisit not only the place, but also the circumstances of beginnings must be very profound, and the process would seem to have some cathartic effects.

For the child, although a biological link would be a long shot, a sharing of roots with parents will answer many questions and fill many gaps other adoptive children are never able to satisfy.

As one dad said, "My adoptive son and I will have a similar bond. Both of us were abandoned by our mothers at the hospital."

Personally, I love the adoption ripples this illustrates, as well ... one loving experience leading to others, so more children find their way from the hopelessness of institutional life, or worse, into the folds of families and the safety, comfort and joy that can come with.

Subsequent generations of families built through adoption are one of the greatest testaments to what is right and wonderful about adoption, as some of our own bloggers will attest ... Abby and Jupe, for example, and former Korea Adoption Blogger, Mo.

So, what about this story makes me sad?

The fact is that this option is not open to Cambodian Americans. No Cambodian-born person can choose to bring a Cambodian child into their family. None have the option of building a family through adoption from Cambodia, and it is not unlikely that this will continue as the case through the time many of our kids might want to do exactly that.

There are many families who adopted before the 2001 suspension on adoptions from Cambodia with kids now into their teen years ... kids who may not be all that far away from considering what they would like their families to look, feel and be like, who could be planning the heart of their future lives.

How many Cambodian-born, American-adopted children dream of returning to the country of their birth for their child? Will this ever be an option for their families? Will they be allowed the symmetry, the connection, of completing the circle or filling the gaps as so many of the Vietnamese adult adoptees are now finding?