From the Back Cover: In recent years, the number of adopted children from abroad has grown dramatically in the United States. As open adoption laws and increased competition for adoptable children have made adoption more complicated in this country, international adoptions offer an easier, faster, and less expensive alternative.

A comprehensive guide, Adopt International provides step-by-step advice on everything from selecting an adoption agency to traveling abroad to pick up your child to adjusting to a new life at home. The book walks you through the myriad government regulations and complicated forms (both American and foreign) as well as the financial issues involved. Finally, it includes the stories of people who have successfully adopted one or more children from across the world.

About the Author: Robin Sweet, the author of several books including The Hell Fed Baby, adopted her third child, Nicolai, from St. Petersburg, Russia. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Patty Bryan lives in New York City.

From the Back Cover: In 2000, Julie and Mark Gumm declared war on their debt--credit cards, student loans, cars and the house. Seven years later, as they wrote the check for their last mortgage payment, God called them to adopt two children from Ethiopia. A few months later, with their income unexpectedly cut by two-thirds, they wondered if they could finish the adoption without crossing back over into the red.

When they brought Wendemagegn and Beza home 12 months later, Julie and her husband proved debt-free adoption is possible!

Passionate about helping others achieve their adoption dream, Julie shares how to find extra money in your household budget, apply for grants, and fundraise in order to build your family without saddling it with debt. With over $65,000 worth of creative fundraising ideas from more than 25 adoptive families, Adopt Without Debt shows you how to fulfill your adoption dream without signing away your financial freedom.

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About the Author: Julie Gumm is married to her high-school sweetheart and the mother of four children from two continents. She and her husband Mark paid off $235,000 in debt, and have been dreaming and living God-sized, debt-free dreams ever since. Julie blogs about their crazy, fun-filled life at fourplusmore.com. She loves networking with other adoptive parents and speaking on adoption, global orphan care and financial freedom.

Thousands of childless couples in North America are increasingly turning to international adoption in order to become parents. While there are many wonderful things about transracial international adoption, it is—at its heart—a breaking away. To adopt a child from another country necessarily means taking them away from their culture, their language, and their ancestral background. As the child grows up, what affect does this have? In this new collection, Patrick Hicks explores the thorny connections between home and away, blood and belonging, fatherhood and place, and he examines what it means to be a family. Full of humor, sensitivity, and startling honesty, these poems are about one man’s journey to understand his son. About the Author: Patrick Hicks is the author of eight books, including The Commandant of Lubizec, This London, and Finding the Gossamer. His work has appeared in some of the most vital literary journals in America, including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, and many others. He has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, been a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, and also the Gival Press Novel Award. He has won the Glimmer Train Fiction Award as well as a number of grants, including ones from the Bush Artist Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana College and also a faculty member at the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College. His first collection of short stories, The Collector of Names, is forthcoming with Schaffner Press.

This is the story of one couple’s time in China and the battle to adopt a Chinese orphan with cerebral palsy. It is also the story of how this little girl overcame so much to prove those who thought she would never be able to do anything wrong.

Two baby girls adopted from China into our family. As they were growing up it became clear that the things they were doing, their life experiences and the things that they said would be something to remember. Here, in this book, are the real life experiences of Mayli and Baiyin and their new family. The events were all written down as they occurred, and tell how they reacted and how they were treated. The things recorded in this book are not only for parents of adopted children, but I am sure it will bring back memories for many grandparents. Is it not a fact that we, as humans, cannot recall all the good things our children did as they were growing up? May this book help you to remember.

Takes the reader through the decision to adopt, the adoption placement procedure, and the transition from “applicant” to “Mother and Father.” A central concern is secrecy and disclosure with regard to the adopted child’s origins.

With the intercountry adoption of children being an ever-more-common phenomenon, the question arises as to how the adaptation of foreign children in Western society is working out. This book gives an account of the investigation into the experiences of 88 Dutch families with 116 children adopted from Thailand, providing information of interest to adopted children, adoptive parents and interested professionals.

From the Publisher: Have you ever told God that he picked the wrong woman? That you’re not ready for what he’s throwing at you in the midst of your adoption, or that you’re not prepared to parent the particular child you’re adopting? Have you ever been lost in the paperwork, waiting, and curveballs? Or felt like you’re all alone, with no one who really understands what your family is going through?

Take heart, dear friend, because this book was designed just for you. Adopted for Daily Life: A Devotional for Adopting Moms is a collection of daily readings to encourage and support adopting moms. No matter where you are in the process, this book provides six months of readings to keep you focused on the Author of Life, the Creator of Family, and our Guide in Adoption.

Each week, moms who’ve been there offer insight on life topics as they relate to adoption, in the form of five daily selections. The five-minute readings are rooted in scripture, to ensure you stay grounded safely in God’s Word throughout the adoption journey. The contributing moms represent families grown through both domestic and foreign adoptions from all over the world, including China, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Poland, Korea, and Ethiopia.

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About the Author: Wendy Willard is an author, designer, and adoption care worker. She and her husband founded FIT (Families in Transition) in Nicaragua to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of families traveling to adopt there. Over the last decade, she and her husband have fostered at least 17 kids, between the ages of 15 months and 17 years, in the U.S., and cared for more than 25 adopting families in Nicaragua. She is also the mom to two teenage girls.

From the Back Cover: From the Author of Adopting a Toddler, Denise Hoppenhauer brings you Adopting a Daughter from China. Written for first-time parents, the practical advice offered here combines the challenging aspects of parenthood, with personal experience and the unique needs of adoptive families.

This easy-to-read book covers every aspect of adopting from China: preparing the nursery, changing a name, the baby wardrobe, child development, selecting a pediatrician, child safety, feeding baby, the wait, packing for your trip, travel to China, early days together, pre- and post-adoption resources, and more.

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About the Author: Denise Harris Hoppenhauer is an Adoptive Parent and Adoption Advocate. She is the author of Adopting a Toddler: What Size Shoes Does She Wear? and has had numerous adoption-related articles published in various media.

She is a founding member of the South Carolina Adoption Coalition for Education and Support (ACES). Denise teaches pre-adoption education course and is a post-adoption support group leader. She was the 2003 recipient of the Dave Thomas Award from the South Carolina Council on Adoptable Children.

She is the Executive Director of Adobaby, LLC, which specializes in Adoption Consultations and Dossier Assistance. She lives in Greenville, SC, with her husband Michael and their two children Callie and Sean.

What do you do when you encounter a spirited little girl in a Russian orphanage and know in your heart that she is yours and you have to adopt her? For single, childless, 40-year-old Dee Thompson, it began with an astonishing dream of a little girl reaching out to her. Meeting the little girl led to an almost two year odyssey that changed Dee forever. Throughout the adoption, hurdles kept popping up that sent Dee reeling—a job layoff, an uncooperative orphanage director, a boyfriend who broke her heart, friends and family members telling her she was crazy, an uncaring agency that kept telling her to choose a different child—and many others. Despite everything, Dee’s faith in God, support from her mother, and single-minded conviction that she had to bring her daughter home helped her stay on course. Letters from her daughter Alesia brightened the long, scary months of waiting. Finally, all the mountains had been moved, and a mother and daughter came home from Russia, a family at last.

From the Publisher: At its simplest, this is the story of an adoption. Simple stops there. How is this different? The 13-year-old boy initiates the process himself. None of the boy’s living parents has ever met each other, and they do not share a common language. He comes from one of the remotest, yet loveliest, locations in the world—the North Caucasus. The rules for this process are unfathomable, especially as he comes to America at precisely the moment the USSR collapses. The parents—all of them—decide to form an extended family, which is how Siberia comes to a guest house in Bellingham, WA. At every point where the process seems irremediably impossible, exactly the right person appears with the powers to cut through the Gordian knot; over and over again. At the final moment, when everything has been achieved, the story takes a turn no one could have anticipated, and another roller-coaster is set in motion. This is a book that takes you to Europe’s highest mountain, to Moscow in chaos, to the streets and valleys of Bulgaria, and the palaces of Vienna, all part of the unimaginable tangle that begins when a 13-year-old Russian sends a fax to America. Anyone who has been involved with adoption, or has contemplated adoption, will feel the twists and turns, the emotional peaks and valleys. Normally, international adoptions involve infants, who in effect, start an entirely new life before they are old enough to remember anything about their pre-adoption days. On the other hand, a 13-year-old is already formed; has a culture and a language (which isn’t yours); has parents who have raised him—so why would they let him go? He still loves his birth parents, and they have raised him well. So, what is going on? In this case, has had more than his fair share of tragedy, dislocation and trauma, and is in for a lot more before the book is done The story truly has all the elements of a suspense novel, and it teaches you never to take anything for granted, never to give up, and never to think that anything is hopeless. There is deep, deep sadness in this book, as well as the miracle of two families fusing into one. There is a lot of laughter too, and many, many wonderful characters, some of whom could have stepped out of the pages of Dickens. Furthermore, what happened next—well that is even more remarkable. But, that is another story.

From the Back Cover: In recent years the Chinese government has made it easier for foreigners to adopt Chinese children. It is estimated that there are up to four million Chinese baby girls in orphanages, and the number of Americans adopting these orphans is growing steadily.

This book is a resource guide for people interested in adopting in China—what to do, who to see and how much it will cost. It simplifies and explains important information about a sometimes mysterious subject. It is also a personal story of a middle-aged couple’s quest to become parents—why and how they made the decision and what went on before, during, and after their trip to China.

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About the Author: Doug Werner is the author of all ten books in the Start-Up Sports series—a series of sort instructional guides. Adopting in China is a chronicle of his first foray into the extreme sport of parenting.

Kathleen Wheeler/Werner works in the field of Human Resources and Development. She holds a doctorate in psychology and needs it to live with Werner (her husband) and to mother their supercharged adopted daughter, Joy.

The Werner family lives in Chula Vista, California, just outside San Diego with their two cairn terriers, Billy and Lulu.

Adopting in Russia is a book that contains clear and comprehensive information about adopting in Russia and the Laws that apply. These important laws have been translated from Russian into English and provides the readers with true and accurate content in order to understand their legal rights as they apply to adoption in Russia. It is also intended to answer many of the common questions that will guide adopters through their adoption and decision-making process.

Adopting Natasha: My First Year as a Mother describes the realities of adopting an older child from Russia. In vivid personal detail, Carol Lee shares her experiences with international adoption procedures, the Russian legal system, and the considerable at-home preparation involved in adopting. Most importantly, she describes what it is really like to suddenly become mother to a four-year-old, non-English-speaking child. After 40-plus years of being single and childless, the author grapples with the challenges of being a new mom. To her surprise and glee, she also finds herself engaged to a Russian man.

Intercountry adoption is the most common form of adoption in Australia. This wonderful book looks not only at the processes involved in adopting a child from other countries into Australian families but also includes the findings of the largest survey of adoptive parents in Australia. The information they share with us and their personal experiences are heartwarming, inspiring, and sometimes confronting—but regardless, the stories always make for compelling reading. Adopting Overseas offers both expert advise and personal accounts on how best to manage a range of issues that some adoptive families will face such as: Why choose intercountry adoption? and Will our child attach to us? It also covers tantrums and how to manage them; anxiety about being abandoned; health issues such as skin, teeth, delayed growth, and motor development; behavioral/psychological issues; the importance of finding out about your child’s background and keeping the birth culture alive; and racism. The authors are donating their royalties from the sales of this book to overseas aid for children.

Adopting the Father’s Heart is a vulnerable and challenging look into God’s call to orphan care through one couple’s experience with adoption. Kenneth and Danielle were on a path to return overseas as missionaries when God redirected them—at least, temporarily. Both felt God leading them to foster children with the possibility of adopting. How did they start the process? What were the challenges and the rewards? Their story informs, convicts, and inspires others to care for the orphans in our communities.

Adoption Training for Parents and Professionals. The purpose of this training is to help those of you who will become parents to these children understand what happens to a child when he has been exposed to extreme stress, whether in a single event, or over time. In sharing this information with you, it is our hope that when you have finished this training you will have gained understanding of these emotional wounds and, armed with that understanding, have new skills to address and help heal them. Visit our website at www.AdoptionTrainingOnline.com for information about Certified Training for The Hague International Adoption requirements and Continuing Education Credits for Professionals.

A Christian couple’s fight to adopt a child from overseas.

From the Back Cover: In this essential contribution to the current literature on adoption, Peter Conn seamlessly draws upon philosophy, history, literary criticism, and related fields to offer a fascinating narrative of the global history of adoption. By bringing an unprecedented historical perspective to bear on the subject, Conn advances our understanding of the role of the concept of “culture” in attitudes toward international adoption and provides an enduring conceptual and historical framework for future research. This book is crucial to understanding the issues faced not only by the ever-growing number of adoptees in the United States, but also to the welfare of children the world over.

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About the Author: Peter Conn is Vartan Gregorian Professor of English, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

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By the Same Author: Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography (1996, Cambridge University Press), among others.

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Compiler’s Note: The author and his wife adopted their youngest child, a daughter they named Jennifer, from Korea in 1975, when she was about two years of age.

Are you unable to have a child and considering adoption? How difficult is the process? Does it take a long time to find a child and then adopt them? There are so many questions that come to mind when people start considering adoption. The process can be a bit grueling, but the rewards far outweigh the pains of the process. Foreign adoption processes can be a bit more grueling as far as getting qualified, but there are usually a lot more children available and you might see results quicker this way.

From the Dust Jacket: Adoption has been practiced since antiquity, but over the centuries its rationale and the laws that govern it have undergone many changes. Adoption: International Perspectives helps meet a need for a comprehensive understanding of issues surrounding adoption. The previous objective of providing children to childless couples, still common a few decades ago, has been balanced by consideration of the best interest of the child. Legal provisions have been enacted to ensure a stable environment in which the child’s physical and emotional development can be secured.

Today, on the threshold of the 21st century, new issues have surfaced: open versus closed adoptions, independent adoptions versus those through specialized agencies, international and cross-cultural adoptions, and the adoption of children with special needs.

In this volume, professionals from many countries and different disciplines share their expertise and experiences on the subject of adoption. Areas addressed range from legal issues to the dynamics of adoption, from the selection of prospective parents to programs facilitating adoption, from developmental concerns to adoption outcome. In addition, techniques are presented for evaluating prospective families, preparing children for adoption, and working with special needs children.

After reading the variety of reports, one cannot but emerge enriched by the understanding gained in, and sense the controversy surrounding, the sensitive field of adoption.

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About the Author: Euthymia D. Hibbs is a clinical/research psychologist at the Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institutes of Mental Health, Intramural Research program. She is also President of the International Study Center for Children and Families. Dr. Hibbs has many years of clinical and research experience with children and families. She has authored many articles in the field and is the editor of Children and Families: Studies of Prevention and Intervention (1988).

For single males considering adoption to start a family, this short and concise book provides the practical advice that the prospective parent, family and friends need to begin the process. Written by a pediatrician who adopted two young boys from Vietnam, the valuable hints and perspective help to minimize the anxiety associated with the adoption process.

Based on his personal journal, the author combines the details of an international adoption with religion, the Bible and spirituality. Intimate reasons why his family adopted (including experience with infertility and failed private adoptions), the process they followed, and the positive effects on their family are provided. The practical advice, expectations, and considerations have applicability to both domestic and international adoption. About the Author: John D. Rudnick, Jr. and his wife, Kathleen (Cranley) are the parents of Katie, Jonathan and Jane. A native of Boston, MA, and a U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps veteran, he served as a healthcare administrator for 25 years. His responsibilities included management of several children’s social services programs. Mr. Rudnick traveled to China in 1996 to complete the adoption of their youngest daughter, Jane. He is a frequent speaker and writer on the topic of international adoption.

From the Publisher: When do I begin to discuss the adoption? Should I tell my child her mother was a drug addict? What do I do if my child is angry and says that we are not his real parents? How do I handle hurtful comments made by my child’s friends or other adults? How do I find out what my child is really going through inside? What exactly should we tell to children about their adoption story? And at what age? This in-depth practical guide, written by an adoptive parent for adoptive parents, explores the questions adopted children are likely to ask, with suggestions for helpful explanations and answers. Looking at different age groups in turn, the author provides a wealth of suggestions for possible dialogue with adopted children and age-appropriate answers to common questions and fears. Although the guide focuses primarily on the needs and questions of children adopted from abroad, the practical advice given is applicable to any adopted child. Adoption Conversations considers the following:

• How and when to tell your child their adoption story;

• Common fears children have about adoption;

• Advice on sharing particularly difficult information with your child;

• Useful conversation techniques, including naming and identifying feelings;

• How to make a memory book or life story book;

• How to help your child deal with adoption-related grief, sadness and anger;

• How to respond to questions from your child, family and friends, and others in your community.

The author also draws on the experiences of other adoptive parents, who provide a rich resource of case stories, scenarios, experiences and conversations. This invaluable guide contains many practical tips and will give adoptive parents the confidence with which to help children come to terms with their adoption-related grief and discuss the known (or unknown) aspects of their adopted child’s past.

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By the Same Author: More Adoption Conversations: What, When and How to Tell (2010) and Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care: Positive Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Challenges (2015, Jessica Kingsley Publishers).

This practical book answers the basic adoption questions—How much does it cost? Who’s involved? How long does it take? What do I need to know that I don’t know to ask? And more. This guide book will help prospective parents consider key emotional and spiritual issues adoptive families face. This books contains: both domestic and foreign adoption procedures for agency and independent adoptions; concerns about intercountry and transracial adoption; special-needs children; longer-term questions about the impact of adoption on your family over the years; dealing with birth mothers and birth fathers; State-by-State requirements.

Adoption in India 101: Everything You Need To Know To Adopt A Child From India! is a user-friendly, detailed guide for parents and individuals who are hoping to adopt a child internationally. This complete report is designed for couples who can’t have children, as well as families who are hoping to give a child in need a loving, stable home. The report will also cover specific guidelines for single women who are interested in adopting a child from India. Adoption in India 101 has been compiled from extensive research based on the laws, rules, and regulations that govern adopting a child from India. You will find everything that you need to know within this all-inclusive guide, like basic adoption rules in India, how to qualify to adopt a child from India, and the state of the adoption market in India today.

From the Publisher: This is a personal account of one woman’s fight to find, adopt and bring her two Peruvian children back to the U.S. The story covers a two-month period in Peru in 1986-87. The “Shinning Path” or Sendaro Luminoso, was the main terrorist group that provided the unstable backdrop in this politically-torn third world country. Their leader formed a fighting organization, which sabotaged copper mines, launched bomb attacks against remote police stations, blew up power lines, and under the cover of darkness, threw sticks of dynamite into offices, shops and restaurants in Lima. In addition, U.S. officials unnecessarily added weeks to prospective adoptive parents stay in Peru, and were unclear about the documents and procedures to meet U.S. requirements.

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About the Author: Dr. Marilyn Cochran Mosley is a retired school psychologist and has worked with children since 1973. Prior to her career in educational psychology she had been a counselor at the college level both at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, then returned to Washington to complete her formal education. She has more recently commuted to Alaska for over 20 years as an itinerant school psychologist.

Marilyn is a third generation Oregonian. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and has traveled extensively throughout the world. She and her eight dachshunds live on Vashon Island in Washington. Her son and daughter live in nearby West Seattle.

Outside her professional life, Marilyn is an avid photographer, and loves animals and the outdoors. She also enjoys gardening and baking. She writes for fun, and has held both a scuba diver’s certificate and a private pilot’s license.

Wherein the adoption policies and practices of the United States, Sweden, The Netherlands, Britain, Korea, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Chile, Australia, Germany (FRG), Israel, Denmark and Canada are examined. The object of the book is to inform those in many countries who are involved about the history and the way adoption takes place elsewhere.