Continued from Part One...

Last July (2006), my husband and I went to Haiti to meet our two new daughters. While we were there, we decided that it would be great for our older children to experience Haiti. Haiti is like nothing I have ever personally seen before. It is the perfect description for extreme poverty. Around the same time we went to Haiti for the first time, our son, Ryland was constantly complaining about his “rough”... more

In the beginning of this blog, I shared an essay that my 8 year old son, Ryland had written after visiting his sisters in Haiti. I mentioned in that post that I would discuss the pros and cons of bringing children along on adoption trips in a future post. Over the last few days, my thoughts have heavily been on this subject.

Way back in 1999, I lived in Viet Nam for three months while I worked on getting Ryland’s... more

When you have adopted a child, you are faced with many issues. One of them is whether or not to share the circumstances of their adoption with others.

When we adopted our first child from Viet Nam, I remember reading a book about keeping the adopted child’s history private. It had never occurred to me to keep any information confidential prior to reading that. I was 21 years old. At the time I felt very mature and capable. When I look back on it, I realize how young I was. I made a lot of mistakes as a new mom, but I am proud to say that... more