Photo: Magnar teaches Sam and Cj to groom a horse

After 10 days with their dad, Sam and Cj are now home again, and home is once again a calm environment, albeit punctuated with girly giggles and the occasional squabble.

This reality, the one that has them having another place that's home-like with the man who is their father, along with some woman I've never laid eyes on ... and a baby on the way ... is one that I never saw coming back when Mark and I were going through the adoption processes for them.

I'm not going to whine on here about ends of eras or dashed dreams or bumpy roads. In fact, I'm not going to whine at all.

The largest circulation newspaper in New Jersey is calling on state legislators to reject a bill to open sealed adoption records. The Star Ledger takes issue with most of the arguments that the bill's backers have used to advance it, from adoptee rights to the need for medical histories. "Changing the law retroactively," it concludes, "is just plain wrong". The bill (S611) passed the New Jersey Senate earlier this week and now goes to the state's Assembly. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has written an editorial against a similar bill pending in Minnesota.

New Jersey's attorney general

Adoption Ally is the mother of three - one home-grown, two hand-picked. She lives in Maine with her husband, Maya who's 9, two dogs and assorted cats.

There is much talk out in the international adoption community about the importance of valuing our children’s heritage. I am not at all convinced that emphasizing the child’s country of origin is necessarily beneficial.

Both of my children have always known they were adopted,

Along with all the other thoughts we have related to the fact that our kids started out somewhere else with other parents, many adoptive parents have occasional cause to wonder about the possible fate the lovely humans that are now our children may have had had circumstances, timing and fate fallen differently.

Orphanages, Cambodian and otherwise, are not normally equipped in any way to provide anything over and above reasonable amounts of food, clothing and shelter, if that, and with dozens, if not hundreds, of kids to care for, sparse resources do not get focused on one child over others, even if that one child needs more.

Although Mark and I don't dwell on might-have-beens ... in our family those are huge walls needing either x-ray vision or power pogo sticks to allow even a glimpse of other paths we may have taken if not for the graces or fates ... but the occasional wander of wonder does happen when provoked.