When we decided to adopt, I started gathering necessities as a way to pass the time, and somewhere along the way decided I wanted to use cloth diapers. I began to pick up a few here and there when I found a bargain or nearly new ones at consignment shops.

I also invested in the diaper covers which I ferreted out at garage sales and thrift stores. The covers were hard to come by, especially in larger sizes....I should have known something was up, and surmised that a lot of people, like me, get all hopped up on cloth and about the time their child is old enough for a larger diaper cover, they’ve long since dropped cloth diapers like a hot rock, or a smelly diaper, since that's what... more

After reading several accounts of the adoption process online, both here and on the internet abroad, I must say I feel extremely fortunate to have had such an easy adoption experience. We decided to adopt in December 2003, made the call to the agency and met with them just after the new year.

We began to plow through the paperwork in January 2004, our dossier went to China in July 2004 and by January 2005 we had our referral and were headed to China in April 2005. The *entire* process took a little over a year, from inception to insta-family.

I marvel at the stories of bureaucratic stalls. Not that we didn’t face our share of possible hold ups, but we forged ahead... more

...its not always a series of calculated events that leads to gold.

Come closer, sssshhhhh....I am going to tell you my secret addiction, knowing full well there is an end in sight and the cure will come on February 26th. I am an Olympic-aholic. Every 4 years I am smitten with olympic fever. I don’t know why. I love the winter games, I’m a full-blown armchair athlete. I sit there in my down filled chair, snacking and fantasizing what it must feel like to glide across the ice or rocket through a tube at upwards of 80 miles per hour. The strange thing is, I don’t watch any of these sports with any regularity in the preceding 3 years, but as soon as I hear the staccato drum and horns... more

I got this in my email a couple of months ago from an unknown source. Even though I don't know it's origins, I think it's pretty clever and certainly all mothers out there can relate to it regardless of how you came to be a mother and what country or circumstance your child is from.

POSITION: Mother, Mom, Mama, Mommy, Ma

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight... more

We did not entertain the idea of having a child until we were both into our 40’s. By entertain, I don’t mean we waited, or tried without success, or suffered miscarriages, or even coveted other peoples cute kids. I mean we decidedly did not want children. period.

As you may already know, being childless lends itself to focusing on two things, your career and hanging out with others who are childless. Our friends fell into 3 categories:

Childless by choice, with NO desire to procreate, adopt or waste your time and money on anything other than yourself.

Considerably younger, with the attitude and energy to spare. Their... more

I’ve searched Amazon.com for “older parent adoption” books and found there to be exactly zero, zip, nada, none... There are several on older child adoption and a few on how to deal with your aging parents, (which I should maybe have on hand for Lola’s benefit) but we appear to be on the forefront of information about the older parent adoption game.

Is it really *that* alien a concept? Probably not, I think a lot of people in their 40’s and beyond do adopt, I just don’t think age is the first thing they think about when plowing through the long and arduous process.

When we first decided to adopt I never once looked for information about adopting after or at a certain... more

Giving “cred” to older adoptive parents is Meg Ryan, who last month adopted a baby girl from China. I am thrilled about this in a number of ways:

• I personally really like Meg Ryan and am a fan of her acting. • She is 44 and is adopting for the first time. • She wanted a girl and chose China as the country to adopt from. • She makes a great statement about women who can conceive, but instead make a conscientious decision to adopt. • She gives hope to prospective single mothers who would rather adopt than visit a sperm bank.

China is one of few countries where a single woman or “older” couple can adopt a healthy baby.

In the old days,... more

Yesterday was my birthday so Bobby and I decided to take a much needed little getaway without Lola. I was looking forward to some long forgotten silence and dinner in a restaurant without crayons and keeping the food at the far end of the table.

We hit the road at 11:00 am because we simply cannot get out of town at a decent hour anymore. We have to get ourselves ready, walk the dogs, feed Lola, pack up everything she needs and may possibly want while we’re away and drop her off at my moms house before we can actually get on the freeway.

Once on the road we decided to abandon our plans to head into the big city and hang around the uber-hip folks in Portland’s... more