We're still on things you can do while waiting for your referral, or – even harder – after your referral and before your child comes home. One of the tasks for you to undertake is to find a pediatrician or family doctor, if you don't already have one. You will also want to find a pediatric dentist or one who is comfortable with children with NO experience visiting the dentist.

Adopting a child from Africa involves different health care issues than adopting domestically, as you might imagine. For example, one problem that can be common in some areas of Africa are “jiggers”. Not referring to lost jiggers of salt, these little... more

One aspect of adding a child to your family via adoption is the issue of “claiming” that child as your own. Adoption.com has several articles about this subject. One on Entitlement vs. ownership is here, while one that asks “Are we the real parents?” is here. This entry... more

One thing you can do to prepare for the day when your child is finally in your home is to make a list of questions you would like answered by your child's primary caregiver – generally orphanage staff, if you are adopting from Africa. This can include the following types of questions:

*What types of food are they eating? Are they on solids? Which ones? Do they use a spoon and fork? Their fingers? Do they feed themselves? Don't assume that because children are a certain age that the food they are eating... more

There are many ways to wear your baby and I will have a series on the various types of carriers you can use. Today, though, I'm going to tell you how to tie on a baby wrap. It looks fairly simple and the tieing part is fairly simple, but it does take some trial and error to get the snugness right.

First of all, if you are going to tie your baby on, you should go and read the safety information on the "Wear Your Baby website. I, for example,... more

Fabulous book! How could I not love it, when it combines Africa and midwifery - two of my greatest passions (the other broad category being adoption, of course)?!

This little gem, published earlier this year, are the memoirs of a young Peace Corps volunteer and the midwife she worked with in a village in Mali. (A country that is easy to confuse with Bali, a tropical island, but is in fact a land-locked country in western Africa.) I couldn't put it down - I even read it through one child's soccer... more

Zimbabwe's inflation rate, which is the highest in the world, climbed to a record 3713,9% last month as food and energy costs rose, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) said yesterday.

The CSO said yesterday that consumer prices jumped to this year-on-year level from 2200,2% in March. Month-on-month inflation increased to 100,7% last month from 50,5% in March.

"This is a classic case of hyperinflation, and it shows we are going downhill. There is no visible sign that the government has the capacity to end this crisis," consultant economist John Robertson said yesterday.

Economists... more

There are three primary ways to talk on the phone from the US to Africa. You can use your computer, you can use calling cards, or you can use the “regular” phone. I will rank them from least expensive to most expensive.

Least Expensive: That is calling over the Internet via a program such as Skype or Vonage. These programs require some sort of speaker/headphone system with a microphone. They do not always work, but when they do, they can be fabulous and mere pennies per minute. I called from Zambia to multiple numbers in the US and... more

There's an article today in our local paper about a child soldier who is now an author of what sounds like an amazing story. I can't wait to read the book, even though I already know that much of the story is sad. (But what a triumph in the end!) It's called A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

Here's a snippet of the newspaper article:

He used to be a boy soldier, a 13-year-old who learned to slit a man's throat... more

Did you know that today is the International Day of Families? This annual celebration was inaugurated in 1994, the International Year of the Family, to enable local communities to highlight the importance of family life and the various ways in which families - birth, adoptive, foster, a combo of all three or some other combination - can be supported.

Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, this annual observance reflects the importance the international community attaches to families regarding their situation around the world. The... more

Did you know there is a National Wedding month (no, not June – it's February), a National Prepare Your Home to Be Sold Month (April), a Shameless Promotion month (September) and a National Tie month (December)? There is a National Cowboy Poetry week (January), an Egg Salad week (April) and a Weird Contest week (August). But there is really only one day every year where we set aside time to focus on mom.

In church today, one of the people who spoke said this day is for all mothers – birth mothers, adoptive mothers and foster mothers, married mothers... more