There's a long thread on the forums now about whether you should take other children in your family along with you when you go to Russia to adopt. I'm going to answer this one in two parts, the first on why I decided not to, and the second on what I did to make my decision work for everybody.

If you've been reading this blog for a while,... more

OK, now that I've told you why I decided to not take my older son along on either of my trips to Sakhalin, I'll get into what I did to reassure one child at home while reaching out to another one on the other side of the globe.

I decided my parents would look after my older son while I was away, but they would stay at my house, not theirs. Our goofy dog would stay at home, too, and not go to the kennel: If my son needed something to hug,... more

I did not want to make two trips to Russia for my second adoption. I'm a single mom, with an older child I didn't want to leave alone, even if it was with relatives, for two weeks or more. And I couldn't imagine what my new child would think when I showed up at his orphanage, gave him my full attention and then disappeared, leaving only the promise of "Mommy will be back soon."

So when I started my second adoption in December 2004, I focused on a region that was still requiring only one trip: Sakhalin Island, way out in the Pacific Ocean north of Japan. Eighteen... more

You are tired and disoriented. You have seen unbelievable riches in Moscow and unspeakable poverty in the hinterlands. You are about to see an orphanage, something that has absolutely nothing to do with the pastel fairylands of American baby magazines.

But most importantly, you are about to meet your child. I have been through this twice, and experience did little to soothe the anxiety I felt meeting my second son for the first time. With almost two years since that first trip, I have had time to sort out the most important things to know about that day.

1)... more

I have traveled to Russia three times for adoptions: A three-week trip in 1999, a one-week first trip in May 2005 and a 10-day second trip in September 2005. I can distill the essential elements of first visit travel into these five points:

1) Be ready to fly on short notice. You have been waiting, sometimes not so patiently, for weeks and months to travel. Your agency has told you, more than once, not yet. Then suddenly on a Friday afternoon you get the call--be on a plane next Thursday. You hand your boss your... more