This morning I had an appointment for a check up on my knee. Two weeks ago I had a big fluid filled lump on my knee cap. This is not terribly unusual since I have inherited bad joints from my Great-Grandmother. Fortunately, I inherited many of her wonderful traits as well.

I don’t remember how this discussion started, but Hannah said to me:

“Mama, you have to ‘dopt me yet.”

Hannah has been with us for ten months, but we have not started our home study yet. We attempted to on a couple of occasions, but we were hitting road... more

With National Adoption Awareness month coming up (more blogs on this coming in the near future), I decided to do some checking on foster care adoption statistics. It is still a fairly bleak picture. The latest statistics are from 2005.

114,000 children were waiting to be adopted on September 30, 2005. This only includes children under the age of sixteen and whose status is listed as available for adoption or whose parental rights had been terminated.

Here is where a great divide comes in. Only 51,000 children were adopted from foster care from... more

When we were going through our list of “criteria” for which children we could take into our home, and which we couldn’t one of the things at the top of our not list was medically fragile children. I would probably change that decision now. I know some parents who have medically fragile children, and still lead very busy and active lives.

My husband has a good basic medical knowledge. He has been a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for a little over ten years. He says the only thing he hasn’t done is deliver a baby, and unfortunately I can’t help him... more

A few years ago, the state adoption worker that placed Kory and Mackenzie with us, asked me to come and speak to the workers that placed children with adoptive families. Her request seemed simple. Make the workers understand a day in the adoptive parents’ life.

She was an incredible worker. Unfortunately, she’s retired now. Her comment to me was awesome. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and I get it as much as I can, but I don’t live it.” She was so on target. You don’t get it, unless you live it. ... more

Adoption.com has its own photo listing of foster adopt children that you can access here.

The waiting children are shown state by state, (and also by country) and you can see if there are children in your state or close by.

You can search by boy or girl, sibling groups or a single child, age, or, if you know the child you are looking for, by ID and name.

There’s a search bar called ‘recently added’ children so you can look at the new children who’ve become available.

Once... more

How many children were in foster care on September 30,2005?

513,000

Continuing from my previous posts regarding the statistics of children in foster care I found these numbers(below) on The AFCARS Report.

(I’m not a statistical anyalist by any stretch. I just liked reading the numbers.)

Over 100,000 children in foster care are aged sixteen and above. Most children aged about 16 and above will age out of the foster system or move into adult care.

(Of course,... more

I always get confused when I read the stats about waiting children. Everyone seems to agree that there are about 500,000 children in foster care right now, but the numbers differ when you look at how many of those children are eligible for adoption.

The numbers vary because of who is doing the counting and what year the stats are from, and where the children are.

Some agencies might include legal risk adoptions - those... more

Watch, Tivo, Tape, Record.

Make sure you get to see this great special coming up on CBS next Friday.

CBS in conjunction with the Dave Thomas Foundation for waiting children is putting on a terrific prime special.

How do I know it'll be terrific? Look who's in it:

Rod Stewart, Five for Fighting, John Legend, Katharine McPhee and Mary Mary.

The... more

The stress of Christmas must be catching up. Our whole family is sick. Coughing, sneezing, head colds.

Uck.

Better this week, than next week, I suppose, but I’ve still got presents to make, buy, wrap. Cookies to bake, turkey to buy. On and on it goes.

We are stressed because we have too much. What about those who have nothing?

I like to think about the various children we have had over the past years and what they may be doing for Christmas this year.

Are they warm?

Are... more

Continued from here

The caseworker went on to tell me about severe abuse in this little girls life at a young age, that resulted in the girl acting out in sexual, violent and abusive ways herself. When stable, the girl was a joy to be around, but could explode without warning creating havoc to everyone near her.

The girl had worn out her welcome at many foster homes until, finally, this home seemed to be a good match.

The foster... more