The Certificate of US Citizenship (form N-560 or N-561) is a document issued by the United States government as proof of U.S. citizenship. Individuals who are eligible to apply for the United States Certificate of Citizenship include those who obtained U.S. citizenship while residing in the United States or individuals who were born outside the United States to U.S. citizens. Specific details of eligibility include:

■ Your parents are U.S. citizens, but you were born abroad.
■ At least one of your parents became naturalized when you were under 18 years of age and met the special conditions of the law.

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What is a Certificate of Citizenship?

Unlike a child who has an IR-3 visa, a child who enters the country on an IR-4 visa will not receive their American citizenship until their adoption is complete in the United States.

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What is an IR-4 Visa?

To qualify for an IR-3, both parents must have seen the child prior to the adoption proceedings.

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What is an IR-3 Visa?

It is said that traditionally, young men also played a game that is similar to hockey, called genna. To this day they say that this is how Christmas came to be known as Genna.

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Ethiopian Christmas: Genna

Read her story.

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Adoption Stories: Hope

Yield:
12 Breads

Ingredients:
Flour 1 3/4 c
Self-rising flour 1/2 c
Whole wheat Flour 1/4 c
Dry yeast 1 pk
Water, warm 2 1/2 c
Baking soda 1/2 ts
Salt 1/2 ts

Preparation:
Combine the flours and yeast in a ceramic or glass bowl. Add the warm
water and mix into a fairly thin, smooth batter. Let the mixture sit
for three full days at room temperature. Stir the mixture once a
day. It will bubble and rise.
When you are ready to make the injera, add the baking soda and salt
and let the batter sit for 10-15 minutes. Heat a small, nonstick
9-inch skillet.
When a drop of water bounces on the pan’s surface, take about 1/3 cup
of the batter and pour it in the skillet quickly, all at once. Swirl
the pan so that the entire bottom is evenly coated, then return to
heat. The injera is cooked only on one side and the bottom should not
brown.
When the moisture has evaporated and lots of “eyes” appear on the
surface, remove the injera. Let each injera cool and then stack them
as you go along. If the first injera is undercooked, try using less
of the mixture, perhaps 1/4 cup, and maybe cook it a bit longer. Be
sure not to overcook it. Injera should be soft and pliable so that it
can be rolled or folded, like a crepe.

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Ethiopian Flat Bread- Injera

Will it be Guatemala, Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea, India, or the US?

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How To: Chinese Olympic Cheer

Russian Medial Reports can often be difficult to interpret because of the language translation but typically the medical care is sound, or at least they try to be with the money they are allotted.

Dr. Jenista, of Michigan, has a very detailed dictionary of Russian medical terms and how they apply to Russian adoptees.  These came in handy for us when the doctors downloaded AJ’s medical history to us in under 30 minutes. And, make sure to read this very frank PowerPoint presentation on adoption medicine and the truths of international adoption. If you are still in the process of adopting, don’t let it scare you…just open your eyes a little.

Find a medical clinic to help you with your referral or to help you when you get home.

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Medical Terms from Russian Orphanages

General

Anti-Racist Parent

A Birth Project

Adoptive Parents

Domestic

Production, not reproduction

Plain Jane Mom Letters to a Birthmother

Gotcha Baby

Baggage and Bug

Fostering Pride

Overwhelmed with Joy

This Woman’s Work

The Other Mother

Mayhem and Magic

Peter’s Cross Station

International

My Two Boys

Salsa in China

Jesus was Not a Republican

Two Different Loves

It Only Takes One Step

Pundit Mom

A New Flower Blooms

Artificially Sweetened

Alison and Jim’s Adoption Journey

Come Undone

Now What?

Just Enjoy Him

Third Mom

American Family

Hearts Wide Open

Uterine Wars

Fling Poo

First Parents

Not Mother

Writing My Wrongs

Magic Pointe Shoes

Wet Feet

Reunion Writings

Chronicles of Munchkinland

I should really be working

Paragraphein

Adoptees

Harlow’s Monkey

Ethnically Incorrect Daughter

3 Generations of Adoption

Adoption and its Triad

Land of the Nos-So-Calm

Ungrateful Little Bastard

Heart, Mind, and Seoul

Bastard in a Handbasket

Adopt This

Twinkle Little Star

Infertility

A Little Pregnant

So Close

Stirrup Queens

And I Wasted All that Birth Control

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The Best of the Best: Top 50 Adoption Blogs

According to a BBC report, a group of ‘charity workers’ located in Chad were arrested on the tarmark of the airport with an airplane full of about 103 children. The group denies they planned to sell the children for adoption, instead claiming they were sending them to ‘host families’ at a nice price of 2,400 euros (US$3,450) each. The group also claimed the children were from Darfur, Sudan and they were rescuing them from their ‘war torn lives’. It turns out many of the children were from Chad and not without families.

Apparently Guatemala is not the only place that children are seen as commodities.

Since the Vietnam War and Operation Babylift children have been ripped from their mothers arms so that the media can use adoption as the do-gooders mission and even that is wrong in all aspects of life. But since adoption has become the “mod” thing to do (note: Angelina, Madonna) it is also becoming the thing we do for orphans. Instead of “feeding the starving kids in Ethiopia” like we did in the 80’s we are now adopting them into our own homes and “saving” them because its “cool” (of course I am being flippant but some part of me and even the media sees it this way, as more and more celebrities are jumping on that bandwagon).

But, are internationally adopted children all orphans?

According to the New York Times, many children in the international systems often have living family members, as do both of mine. The issue with having living family members and being eligible for adoption is that birth parents can be unable or unwilling to take care of the children, thus making the children look like orphans in the system. And, obviously, children like these have living parents and should never have been taken from them.

But is it right to take children from their natural country, even as adoptive parents?

I believe that adopting children for the sake of “saving” them is wrong. What parent would really truly love their child if the only reason for adopting them was to “save” them from the “hardships” of growing up in countries like Chad or Ethiopia? Does it actually mean that this child will be better off living in suburbia drinking Diet Coke and eating Cheetos?

But when it comes down to a child’s best interests is it about the country in which they live or is about having parents that love them and a family that comforts them?  Now, I know all too well that love does not make an adoption work because my son’s problems were real. We have struggled from the day we met him to build a family but I would bet my life that he would chose family over an institution life any day.

Was taking him from Russia in his best interest? Personally, I think yes. Do we try to take the Russia out of him? Never.

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Has Adoption Become “Child Trafficking?”