November 21, 2009, marks the 10th year for National Adoption Day. Through the help of adoption professionals, child advocates, judges, and attorneys, thousands of children in foster care will finalize their adoptions and become part of a permanent home and family. The goals for this National Adoption Day include:

• Finalize adoptions from foster care in all 50 states
• Celebrate and honor all families that adopt
• Raise awareness about the 129,000 children in foster care waiting for adoption
• Encourage others to adopt children from foster care
• Build collaboration among local adoption agencies, courts and advocacy organizations

I hope that this National Adoption Day is as successful as the year before. Don't forget to spread the good news with an awesome adoption announcement!

How are you celebrating National Adoption Day?

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has released the results of a new study regarding interracial adoption. Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption findings may surprise you. Then again - maybe they won't.

The report focused on two-parent, White adoptions of 179 South Korean adoptees and the 156 Caucasian adoptees out of the 468 adopted adults that completed surveys.

I found this report extremely fascinating because of the experiences we've had with culture and adoption. My sister was adopted into a bi-racial home - White/Hispanic. She told me that growing up she assumed that she too was bi-racial. That is the culture she identified with best. She thought that upon meeting her birth family she would discover that she was bi-racial. Nope. To my knowledge, Caucasian only. I wonder how that impacted her identity or did the adoption reunion itself fill in the needed pieces because now - she no longer has to guess or assume?

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Suggested Reading:
My Adoption Reunion Story
Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption
Why Choose an Open Adoption?

Ever have those feelings when you just know something is missing, but you don't know what that something is? I've been feeling that way lately, I keep wandering around, rummaging through drawers, blankly staring at the TV. But I think I've finally figured out what was missing. We haven't heard anything about Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt adding to their family. Angelina Jolie hasn't added to her family through adoption since completing the adoption of little Pax from Vietnam in 2007. And she hasn't given birth since the twins joined the Jolie-Pitt crew in July 12, 2008. Well, guess what - she is adopting again! This time Angelina Jolie is looking to adopt a little girl from the Asian country of Syria and her partner, Brad Pitt's name is not on the adoption paperwork. Some are saying this means that Brad Pitt is against the adoption. I think some people have forgotten that Angelina adopted Pax singly as it went against Vietnam law for an unmarried couple to adopt a child. Pitt then adopted Pax once he got home. This could very well be the case with this latest adoption.

Congrats to the family! I'm looking forward to reading more about the new addition to the Jolie-Pitt family.

SOURCES:
Report: Jolie to adopt again
ANGELINA JOLIE - JOLIE TO ADOPT AGAIN - REPORT

The International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR) was developed with the idea of providing a means for families that have been separated due to divorce, adoption, or foster care to reunite. ISRR is a mutual consent adoption registry, meaning that for the registry to work, each adult (18 and over), has to have registered with ISRR in order for a match to be made. Many volunteers and visitors to the booths share their touching stories of adoption reunion or the pain of a fruitless adoption search.

RegDay or Adoption Registration Day is an annual one day event to increase public awareness of the International Soundex Reunion Registry. RegDay will be held on November 14, 2009 this year and is in need of more volunteers in established sites as well as for volunteers willing to coordinate new sites.

If you were involved with RegDay in the past, please leave a comment below and share your story!

One RegDay volunteer shares the following:

"One young woman(an adoptee) - late twenties I think - came in with her boyfriend - took the form to register and got some info about searching as well. She was quite soft-spoken and articulate. Said she had wonderful parents, did not have to know about her past, but, felt somehow it was part of her essence as to who she was. Said that she felt if she did not search, on her death bed, she would regret it.

Our event touches a few people very dramatically, but, we need to find ways to bring in more people - especially those birth moms still in their safe cocoons as I was until over 3 years ago. Many of them have children who are signing up, but, Soundex only works if both parties register. The fear of the unknown paralyzes many of us though - that's why those of us who are reunited work tirelessly to de-mystify search and reunion for people. We know what a difference reunion has made in our lives."