We read a lot about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FAS) here on the blogs from adoptive parents dealing with the issues their children live with after their pre-birth exposure, and this article from Canada expands the conversation, looking at the damage down the road.

Starting with a 19-year-old with problems in many aspects of her processing life as it comes, and going on to call FAS an "under-recognized national disaster",... more

A Dutch couple has reportedly been arrested in Sri Lanka on charges of attempting to illegally adopt a child.

They are alleged to have been prepared to pay a "large sum of money to complete the adoption, and had intended to smuggle the child from Sri Lanka to the Netherlands."

Given that Holland is a Hague country, if the story is true ... and I'm having a heck of a time finding corroboration, as the few clips around are verbatim copies of one very short release ... it would be interesting to learn how the child... more

Coming up on CNN this weekend a "World's Untold Stories" segment on Romanian orphans.

Revisiting the situation in Romania all these years after Baroness Emma Nicholson and Co. put the kibosh on international adoption of Romanian kids should be very interesting ... and heartbreaking. Give the show a look on Sunday if you can.

And speaking of Romania, here's... more

A couple of IVF-related stories are in the news today, and since that world and the adoption world easily and frequently overlap, we'll take a look.

This from Boston focuses on the children created from donor sperm, with a young woman who is determined, "... finally to learn the missing half of her genetic heritage."

Wondering if she shares physical traits with the man whose sperm contributed her missing half, she was looking for information from the clinic where her mother had been inseminated, but got only a few of the most basic details: race, hair and... more

There's too much news to let another day pass without getting at least some of it off my desk and out to you, so here we go ...

From China, big news on setting up a gene bank representing minority groups in the country.

All the DNA donors were those of "pure bloodline", meaning no intermarriage for at least three generations, and living in remote areas of China.

Geneticists at Yunnan University say they believe this will aid research into hereditary diseases among the minority nationalities.

Following that, ... more

There's talk of adoption reform In Quebec, and it sounds like it's about time.

Unlike much of the rest of Canada, Quebec's present domestic infant adoption system sounds like something out of the dark ages, with relinquished infants immediately and irretrievably disappearing while birth mothers are left with nothing, as the law dictates all contact between mother and child be severed completely.

Although the study that is prompting talk of reform in the system isn't recommending anything as "radical" as allowing birth mothers... more

It's an odd but true phenomenon that on certain days certain words can dominate the news. The world for today is, apparently, "secret".

Starting with a report from Australia, an article titled, "Adoption secret a betrayal" isn't new news ... or shouldn't be to anyone reading adoption blogs ... but is worth repeating, nonetheless.

The point being that raising adopted children in secrecy, not being open about the fact of adoption itself, denying access to information about background, and outright lying is damaging to the child and makes... more

Recently Maine passed a new law that will allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.

As it currently stands, the adoptee’s original birth certificate is sealed and a new one is issued with the final adoption decree bearing the names of the adoptive parents. But the new law gives adult adoptees the right to receive a copy of their original birth certificate which bears the name of their birthmother and sometimes birthfather depending on the circumstances. Also under this law, this law birth parents can fill out preference forms that will tell the children they gave up for adoption years ago if they wish to be contacted or not. Those who fill out preference forms... more

From Reader's Digest, this article on adoption scams highlights cases of hopeful adoptive families that have been duped by women pretending to include them in an adoption plan.

Not pretty in the slightest, but an education for those in the process, nonetheless.

Anna Mae He has left the home of her long-term foster parents and will soon be reunited with her parents, Chinese nationals who put the girl in foster care eight years ago at the age of ten-months.

The fight... more

Generational adoption, where adoptees choose adoption for building their family, makes for interesting reading, as evidenced in the previous post, but especially when the job of parenting being done is spectacular and breaks a cycle of abuse.

Adopting eight older kids after serious neglect and abuse, the variety of issues these parents dealt with is heartbreaking. One sibling pair, boys ages eight and seven at adoption, are still unable... more