Adoption, Parenting | featured news

In July 2011, my husband and I traveled to a Russian orphanage to meet a 2-year-old girl. We petitioned the Russian courts to adopt her, and waited 14 agonizing months to be granted a court date, all along fearing we would never be able to bring her home.

Brothers and sisters facing adoption should in some cases be split up for their own benefit, the government's adoption adviser has said. Martin Narey said the presumption that siblings are kept together can sometimes "disadvantage children".

China does not permit surrogate parenting, but that country's rising affluence has given many couples the option of using U.S. surrogacy clinics. Americans have long gone to China to adopt babies.

An Alaska woman was convicted Tuesday of misdemeanor child abuse after squirting hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted Russian son as punishment in what prosecutors said was a ploy to get on a TV show.

Census data revealed the percentage of same-sex parents with adopted children has risen sharply, but legal challenges in many states leave the children without equal rights and protections.