In the early stages of this blog, I wrote a post about in vitro fertilization. I essentially wondered out loud why people would attempt IVF given the fact that there are babies “out there” in needs of homes. I basically asked, “Why don’t you just adopt?” In the years since I first asked the question, I’ve realized that the answer isn’t nearly as easy or obvious as I once thought. My friend Ellen Painter Dollar has helped to complicate the... Read more
Earlier today, I ran a guest post from Jennifer Grant. I also had the opportunity to interview Jennifer after reading her new book, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter. How did you and your husband decide you wanted to adopt? In Love You More, I wrote: “. . . the idea of adopting a child lingered in me like a song you cannot get out of your head. I felt like someone was missing. After the... Read more
As I explained yesterday, all the posts this week will center around the theme of adoption. Today we hear from Jennifer Grant, author of the new memoir, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter. (For those of you who are interested in reading Jenn’s book, leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free copy. Winners will be announced next Monday.) I think I was about nine or ten years... Read more
As I explained yesterday, all the posts this week will center around the theme of adoption. Today we hear from Jennifer Grant, author of the new memoir, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter. (For those of you who are interested in reading Jenn’s book, leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free copy. Winners will be announced next Monday.) I think I was about nine or ten years... Read more
Two pieces of exciting news. One, I’m on vacation this week with my family. Staycation, actually. We’re going to go to the local beach, eat at the snack bar, visit my grandparents (he’s 91 and went sailing last week!), and enjoy our home. But I’m not going to spend time at the computer. No email or writing essays or tweeting and the like. So if you post a comment this week, and I hope you will, please know it won’t... Read more
Dan Hurley’s article, “A Drug for Down Syndrome,” appeared in The New York Times’ Sunday Magazine yesterday. It describes the research efforts of Dr. Alberto Costa, father of a daughter with Down syndrome, who is seeking to improve cognition for individuals with Down syndrome. The article was fair and balanced for the most part, emphasizing the idea that doctors approach Down syndrome from two perspectives–prevention (i.e. abortion due to prenatal testing) or treatment (i.e. medical interventions akin to the one... Read more
I had this moment when we were on vacation in Virginia Beach. I was looking at Penny, and I wondered what other people thought when they saw her from a distance. I assume they saw a little girl playing in the sand with her family. And I assume if they got closer, they would see that her eyes look a little different. Maybe they would hear her say, “I’m five years old!” and wonder about how small she is. They... Read more
I have a new post on Motherlode (“Learning to Walk in Another’s Flip-Flops“), the parenting blog of the New York Times. It was prompted by reading a recent article in TIME (“Chore Wars“), in which Ruth Davis Konigsburg reported that men and women work more or less equal hours if you add together their time working at home and their time working in the office. What it didn’t address was the fact that women on the whole work much more... Read more
Peter left yesterday morning for some meetings in New York City. He returns this afternoon. I didn’t think too much of it ahead of time. My mom was around yesterday morning. We had plenty of activities–camp, swimming lessons, dinner with friends. And it was only a day and a half, for goodness sake. But by 7:30 last night, I really really missed him. Granted, I was nursing Marilee while Penny cried about how tired she felt and William peed on... Read more
One of my hopes as a writer is that I would be in conversation with people who don’t see the world the way I do. I’d like to offer my perspective as a Christian in a way that encourages dialogue and invites relationship with people of other faiths, people who don’t know what they believe, and people with no particular faith at all. So I’m excited to share this endorsement of A Good and Perfect Gift: A Good and Perfect... Read more
Thin Places-Faith, Family and Disability
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