I was running a Web site when I did my first adoption, but Web software was so clunky at that time that I never would have used it for anything but work. By the time of my second adoption, I was seeing a few people using the Internet as a personal journal. But last week, when I sat down to compile a list of all the people writing about their adoptions from Russia on the Internet, I was simply astounded by the number of personal Web sites out there.

A blog--as these online journals have come to be known--can be a great way of keeping family and friends up on the progress of your adoption journey. They can be a way for you to vent frustration during the inevitable delays. And they can be a marvelous way to find a community of people going through exactly what you are going through: Take a look at this entry from "Lauren, Marco & Our Russian Adoption Story".

People are writing as they start the process and after they bring their kids home. I marvel that Lea can write such informative entries and raise two busy toddlers. And some people, like Darren Moore on "Weary of the Moon", are coming back to the subject of adoption after a great deal of reflection.

How do you get started? There's lots of free blogging software available on the Internet, from services like Google's Blogger. You set up an account with the service, enter the name of your blog, pick a template, and go. Most of the services now make it very easy to add text, photos, videos and links.

But once your blog goes up on the Internet, it's there for all to see. Not just friends and family, but your agency, your boss, Web wackos and maybe even Russian adoption officials. Many of the blogs I've read have taken very smart steps to protect the privacy of adoptive parents and children, like Jennefer on "Three Sons and a Princess". This is Jennefer's post on her daughter's blog nickname . Frank and Christen put up a post recently on the origin of their blog nickname.

The New York Times had an interesting story the other day on blog services being outfitted with privacy filters. It said that a new service called Vox allows users to restrict the viewing of some blog entries--like family photos--while making others open to the general public. I haven't used this service, but I did find some folks already are to chronicle their adoption efforts, like the interesting post trying to create a baby registry for an adoption at Amazon.com in "Welcome To The Dollhouse". And that sounds like another blog topic for me to run down…