It seems more people are looking at intercountry adoption from Africa. The upward trend seems to have started with Angelina Jolie's Ethiopian adoption in 2005. There was a 65% increase in Ethiopian adoptions from 2005 to 2006.

Madona's Malawi adoption on the other hand doesn't seem to have driven families to consider transracial adoption. The last time an American adopted from Malawi via the American intercountry adoption system, it was 2003. Three children were adopted that year.

I confess that I bristle whenever I hear on the radio that an adoption story is in the news. I have no question that I will hear several non-PC comments about adoption that will get all over me. I try to remember that most of the world is not as well-versed in appropriate adoption terminology as I am. However, I think about how my adopted child will react to the wording of these news stories when he gets a little older, and it really bothers me.

Last week, I was driving home after dropping my son off at school and heard the news story about Madonna's adopted child's birth father expecting to have visitation. In this little news blurb, the radio personality called the man the child's father (instead of birth father). The radio personality said that man thought he would have visitation rights after "adopting his child out" (instead of placing the child for adoption).

The Sunday Mirror, a UK newspaper is reporting that Madonna has finally been granted the permanent adoption of 2 year old David, an African born child.

While not due to appear in court for the finalization hearing, Madonna will sign legal documents, and will be visiting various projects that she has going on in Malawi, such as a school for girls and an orphan care center.  An official Malawian report on David’s progress reads:

Friends for Life! #1 (English Roses, The) author: Madonna asin: 0142411140

Normally, I practice celebrity avoidance. I do my best to ignore the headlines that seem to blare from every newspaper, magazine, TV and Web site these days, because they are mostly silly and meaningless. My life is not improved by knowing which jeans Katie Holmes wears or what Britney Spears did for an exercise workout.

But I'm making an exception for Madonna, because she has finally weighed in on that idiotic report that came out of Liverpool University earlier this month. The report, in case you missed it, asserted that celebrity adoptions were causing more poor families around the world to put their children up for adoption. Not war, poverty, disease or anything else that could be laid at the feet of incompetent governments and busted economic models--celebrities.

Nonsense, says the singer. In remarks to an Irish breaking news Web site that belongs to the country's largest media company, Thomas Crosbie Holdings, Madonna is disputing that celebrity adoptions from developing countries are a fad:

MSN's Health Channel has a lengthy feature about the effect of trauma on attention. Though the story opens with a focus on an adopted child, it draws on multiple studies to look at the prevalence of trauma in America--much more widespread than you would have thought--and its impact on different parts of the brain. And the writer (co-author of "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing") contends that what many are calling hyperactivity is actually hypervigilance because children who have been subjected to trauma are then constantly on the alert for danger. But buried halfway through the story is a bombshell: Children suffering the effects of trauma have elevated levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline, which are further raised by the drugs usually prescribed for attention deficit problems. It's not the first story to challenge the convention wisdom on ADHD, and it likely won't be the last. 

Madonna is heading back to Malawi. The singer is going to the African country next week for a court ruling on whether she can adopt a child who is already living with her family in London. Madonna met the child, David Banda, in 2006 and began adoption proceedings. But her plans ran into strong criticism inside the country and out because she was perceived as having skirted Malawi laws. Things may go easier this trip: According to Reuters, Malawi's information minister spoke out in favor of Madonna's efforts to help orphans in the country in February. 

There is a lengthy piece on surrogate birth mothers in Newsweek, which seems to be pegged to an impending Hollywood movie on the subject. Citing industry experts, the news magazine says there may have been as many as 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, at a cost to prospective parents of $40,000 to $120,000. While the numbers alone boggle the mind, Newsweek says that many of the women it interviewed for the story are military wives who have become surrogates to bolster the family income. In Hollywood's version of the tale, a movie called "Baby Mama," comedienne Tina Fey plays a single businesswoman who hires a working-class surrogate. (The movie database site IMDB.com doesn't indicate when "Baby Mama" will be in theaters.) Newsweek's story runs under the headline "The Curious Lives of Surrogates." A bit of a misuse of the word "curious", if you ask me. 

On Sunday, the Australian government unveiled an advisory group to help it reform the country's patchwork of burdensome adoption rules. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the laws can vary wildly from one part of Australian to another, and these local rules can add as much as $10,000 (Australian) to the cost of an adoption. Only 568 children were adopted in Australia, last year, of whom 404 as a result of inter-country adoptions. The government's action seems to have been prompted by a campaign started by the actress Deborra-Lee Furness, who adopted two children with her husband, actor Hugh Jackman. 

There is a lengthy piece on surrogate birth mothers in Newsweek, which seems to be pegged to an impending Hollywood movie on the subject. Citing industry experts, the news magazine says there may have been as many as 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, at a cost to prospective parents of $40,000 to $120,000. While the numbers alone boggle the mind, Newsweek says that many of the women it interviewed for the story are military wives who have become surrogates to bolster the family income. In Hollywood's version of the tale, a movie called "Baby Mama," comedienne Tina Fey plays a single businesswoman who hires a working-class surrogate. (The movie database site IMDB.com doesn't indicate when "Baby Mama" will be in theaters.) Newsweek's story runs under the headline "The Curious Lives of Surrogates." A bit of a misuse of the word "curious", if you ask me. 

On Sunday, the Australian government unveiled an advisory group to help it reform the country's patchwork of burdensome adoption rules. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the laws can vary wildly from one part of Australian to another, and these local rules can add as much as $10,000 (Australian) to the cost of an adoption. Only 568 children were adopted in Australia, last year, of whom 404 as a result of inter-country adoptions. The government's action seems to have been prompted by a campaign started by the actress Deborra-Lee Furness, who adopted two children with her husband, actor Hugh Jackman. 

There is a lengthy piece on surrogate birth mothers in Newsweek, which seems to be pegged to an impending Hollywood movie on the subject. Citing industry experts, the news magazine says there may have been as many as 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, at a cost to prospective parents of $40,000 to $120,000. While the numbers alone boggle the mind, Newsweek says that many of the women it interviewed for the story are military wives who have become surrogates to bolster the family income. In Hollywood's version of the tale, a movie called "Baby Mama," comedienne Tina Fey plays a single businesswoman who hires a working-class surrogate. (The movie database site IMDB.com doesn't indicate when "Baby Mama" will be in theaters.) Newsweek's story runs under the headline "The Curious Lives of Surrogates." A bit of a misuse of the word "curious", if you ask me. 

On Sunday, the Australian government unveiled an advisory group to help it reform the country's patchwork of burdensome adoption rules. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the laws can vary wildly from one part of Australian to another, and these local rules can add as much as $10,000 (Australian) to the cost of an adoption. Only 568 children were adopted in Australia, last year, of whom 404 as a result of inter-country adoptions. The government's action seems to have been prompted by a campaign started by the actress Deborra-Lee Furness, who adopted two children with her husband, actor Hugh Jackman.