If your child is escorted (like mine), you have had or will have your day at the airport. You will join the ranks nervous parents who have paced the waiting rooms in airports all over the world while waiting for their babies to come through the doors. Someone recently asked me who they should bring with them.

It’s up to you, but I know that our social worker suggested that we keep it on the smaller side. We brought both sets of grandparents and my sister (since she is also adopted from Korea). Truthfully, that seemed like a lot to me…but I’ve heard stories of whole extended families coming to greet the newest member of the family.

Here are some things that you may want... more

I have been exchanging e-mails with someone who is in the very first stages of the adoption process. She hasn’t even picked an agency, but it has made me feel nostalgic. I never thought that I would miss being an intricate part of the twisted process, but I do. If I were in the process, I would be so much closer to the second child that I really want right now.

My son took me by surprise because the process moved so much faster than I was expecting. This time, things are moving very slowly for us. I explained in my earlier series about deciding to adopt again that my husband and... more

I came across an article in New America Media about Asian Americans and cancer. I never know how much of these articles I should worry about and how much I should ignore. After all, Korean American adoptees are generally raised differently than ethnic Korean Americans – different cultures mean different foods, health patterns, etc… However, we also can’t ignore the statistics – some of it has to be genetics.

Cancer is the fastest growing cause of death for Asian Americans compared with other ethnic groups. – New America Media, see link above... more

When I was studying to be a teacher, someone asked me if I would consider teaching in the middle school grades. I shudder at the very thought. I hated living through my pre-teens, so you couldn’t pay me enough to go teach in that sea of hormones. Adopted or not, this is the time of identity crisis for children. For me, the pre-teens were not full of ... more

1. I wrote “In Korean American News” today on my personal blog. Everywhere I’ve turned, Virginia Tech has been the prominent story and in big bold letters “South Korean” starts the story. I know what I’ve been thinking, but I wondered what the Korean American media was thinking, so I checked it out and added some of my own thoughts too.

2. Jan Baker on the Adoption Search blog wrote a post about Korean Focus. Korean Focus is a very interesting organization that I take... more

I was reading Nancy’s post on the Reactive Attachment blog about the Virgina Tech shooting and I was wondering at my own compulsion to write about the incident. I hadn’t planned on writing anything about it, but every time I attempted to write something else…it was all that popped into my head.

I can’t even begin to imagine what was running though the head of the young man who open fired on students and teachers on the Virginia Tech campus. Most likely,... more

One of the most common questions in the adoption forums is “How long does it take?” It’s phrased differently. Some ask how long it takes to get a referral after their homestudy is done. Others ask how long it takes from the referral to get a travel date. No matter how it’s asked, everyone wants to get a timeline.

When we adopted my son, the timeline was simple:

• Application... more

May 5th is Children’s Day in Korea - a day to celebrate children. In Korea, parents take children to parks, zoos, etc… to celebrate the day. I found it interesting that these are the same things that my family has always done to celebrate our arrival days.

Last year, we didn’t do anything special. Since we have a tendency to lean towards spoiling our... more

Third Mom wrote a post called Absence of Grief where she was actually responding to yet another blogger, but I couldn’t make the link work. From Third Mom’s summary, it was about a mother who worried that she doesn’t see her daughter grieving.

So, I had to think about it for awhile. Did I grieve? Do I grieve? Should I grieve? All of them are valid questions and I have to say the answer is still no. Sometimes, I think that our society is a little too... more

There was a letter to the editor in the JoongAng Daily that was written by a Korean adoptee in Korea. I read it and then I came back and read it again. I think there is a message in there for everyone to hear – not just the Korean people.

In the letter, the Korean adoptee is upset by the way he’s been treated in Korea. He has been treated with a level of disrespect that I find disturbing, yet oddly... more