Resources

Places we go, people we see… this page is devoted to some of our favorite or most useful links, which are grouped by topic.

Adoption

• AA Domestic Adoption: Facebook group to discuss African-American and bi-racial domestic adoption (foster to adopt or private adoption).
• ABC Adoptions: A clearinghouse of information, including forums and situations.
• Adopting.com: An immense amount of information. Don’t try reading it all at once.
• Adoptive Families Circles: An active forum for information about adoption and adoption support.
• Adoptive Families Magazine: The magazine for all adoptive parents, from thinking about adoption to the teenage years.
• The Agency Feedback List at the Adoption.com Forums: Each member of the forums can post a message including the name of their agency, attorney, or facilitator. Prospective adoptive parents can send these people private messages, asking for their opinion and experience.
• Forums at Adoption.com: An amazing collection of information. A must for any adoptive, expectant, or birth parent.
• Many Hearts, One Beat: A site featuring unique gifts for members of the adoption triad, including beautiful jewelry.
• The Myth of the Forever Family: Brain, Child, Dawn Friedman, 2010.
• Open Adoption, Broken Heart: Salon, Dawn Friedman, March 8, 2006.
• PACT: An organization that facilitates and supports adoptions of children of color.
• PEAR: People for Ethical Adoption Reform.
• Reaching Out: This site is by the author of the best book that tells prospective adoptive parents how to write the “Dear Birthmother Letter.”
• US Immigration: A How to for International Adoptions: A simple overview of international adoption, immigration, and citizenship issues.

Being Green

• Bringing Back the Natives: An annual tour of gardens that use plants native to California.
• Care2: An environmental and socially conscious super site.
• Earth 911: A great resource for recycling items.
• Freecycle: Offer your usable but unwanted items. Ask for stuff you need. Give stuff to others. All for free!
• gDiapers: An excellent alternative to disposables and cloth.
• LocalHarvest: Find farms and farmers’ markets near you.
• Moms Rising: A site to harness the power of mothers who want to make this world better for their children.
• My Footprint: Calculate how much you personally mess up the environment.
• Vegetarian Shoes: Lovely shoes for those of us who don’t wear animals.

Favorites

• The Academy Awards: Robyn’s favorite television event of the year, even if she hasn’t seen the movies.
• Alton Brown: Jackson used to call him “the funny food guy.” He’s really quite amazing!
• Disney Parks: Some of our favorite places on Earth.
• FireFly and Serenity Database: Firefly is a favorite of both Robyn and Max. Robyn wants another movie!
• Muggle Net: An authoritative fan site devoted to Harry Potter.
• The Tufts Beelzebubs: An amazing all-male college a cappella group.

Parent and Child

• Baby Cheapskate: A blog that keeps track of sales and discounts on children’s stuff.
• Fearless Formula Feeder: A blog whose author stands up for formula feeders “without being a boob about it.”
• Fluoride Action Network: Site that explains why fluoride isn’t necessarily as good as we’ve been led to believe.
• Healthy Child, Healthy World: This site offers information and advice for living an environmentally-friendly home life.
• Holistic Pediatric Association: Information about alternatives to conventional medicine.
• Mandy’s Moon: Excellent personalized stationery, including address labels, and gifts for adoptive or multicultural families.
• SafeMama: A blog that is a child safety, product recall, health and well-being resource for parents.
• Signing Time!: Teaching infants to sign means that they learn to communicate earlier, reducing frustration for all parties.

Vaccination

• WAVE, World Association for Vaccine Education: Probably the best site I’ve come across. A comprehensive, professional site that includes a well-written blog, excellent listing and explanations of vaccines and their ingredients , and a wealth of related information.
• National Vaccine Information Center: The NVIC was crucial in starting the vaccination debate. This site is dated, but there is good information hiding in it. Some pages worth reading include In the Wake of Vaccines and Vaccine Myths and Facts. Otherwise, each link takes you to a list of articles and other links related to specific vaccines and diseases.
• A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule  and An Update on This Vaccination Schedule: Dr. Donald W. Miller, Jr., the articles that solidified our resolve to delay vaccinating (and ultimately not to vaccinate at all).
• Are Vaccines a Waste of Time?: London Evening Standard, excerpt from the book The Truth About Vaccines, by Richard Halvorsen
• Australian Vaccination Network: Because there are always two sides.
• Chalkboard Campaign: Vaccine awareness.
• Do Vaccines Disable the Immune System?: Article by Dr. Randall Neustaedter
• Healthful Living, Vaccinations: Article discusses vaccines and their possible relationship to autism and other neurological disorders.
• I.C.P.A, International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, Childhood Articles: A list of articles about various pediatric health issues, including Vaccinations: The Choice of a Lifetime: (Dr. Larry Palvesky, May/June 2003), Challenging the Theory of Artificial Immunity (Keith Wassung), and Chicken Pox Vaccine (Jim Davis, January/February 2003).
• Informed Choice, Vaccine Ingredients: Lists the ingredients in common vaccines. One of my most-cited sites.
• The Informed Parent: A UK-based group that supports making informed decisions.
• K.N.O.W. Vaccines: Overview of the current vaccination schedule, ingredients, common reactions, and more.
• MotheringDotCommune Vaccinations Forum: Mothering Magazine’s web forum for learning more about vaccinations, not vaccinating, or vaccinating according to a selective or delayed schedule. The Vaccinations forum is heavily anti-vax, while cooler heads tend to prevail on the Selective and Delayed Vaccinations forum.
• New Yorkers for Vaccination Information and Choice: Excellent site with clear articles and information about the downsides of the vaccines. Great information about the chicken pox vaccination and shingles.
• Package Inserts at the Institute for Vaccine Safety: Each vaccine comes with a package insert, a “manual” about what is in the vaccine, what it does, what the common reactions are, and so on. These are extremely enlightening! Find out what’s in the vaccines your child is supposed to have. This page covers US-licensed vaccines only.
• Put Children First: Site devoted to the link between vaccines and autism. Includes interviews and articles. This site is related to Generation Rescue.
• quaintpassion, Vaccination: August 25, 2005, Personal blog entry about one family’s decision to delay vaccinations. Includes hundreds of links to all sorts of vaccine-related information. Only go here if you  have a lot of time on your hands! You will not find a more comprehensive list of links.
• Raising a Vaccine-Free Child: Excerpts from the book by Wendy Lydall.
• Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute: Heavily anti-vax, and heavy on the conspiracy theories. Does contain some good Q&A’s and information about homeopathic alternatives to vaccines.
• “Vaccine Toxicity and Safety of Vaccinations: A Parent’s Right to Choose” (Jane Sheppard, July 18, 2004)
• Vaccination Information and Choice Network: Lots of links to articles, studies, historical information – practically everything. Each disease and/or vaccine has its own section, as do some of the reactions. The owner of this site is a nurse who also offers classes on vaccine dangers and how to prevent and treat disease holistically. Heavily anti-vax!
• Vaccination Liberation: Lots and lots of links! Note: This site is very difficult to navigate.
• Vaccinations, Parents Informed Choice: (The Weston A. Price Foundation, Lynne Borne, November 7, 2005) A great, though dated, basic article that argues for informed decisions regarding vaccination. Many of the reasons this writer cites are the reasons why we do not vaccinate Jackson.
• Vaccinations Healthy Choices for Our Childrens’ Futures: This site is devoted to alternative medicine, so it is no surprise that the articles here are against current vaccination practices. The articles are dated, but some are very informative nonetheless: About Vaccine Choices (Excerpts from The Vaccine Guide: Making an Informed Choice, by Randall Neustaedter), Unvaccinated Children (Richard Moskowitz, MD), Vaccination and Social Violence (Harris L. Coulter PhD, 1996), SIDS and Seizures (Harris L. Coulter PhD, 1996).
• Vaccine Refusal and Medical Intimidation: A personal account of one family’s visit to their pediatrician, this article includes excellent advice about what to do if your pediatrician wants you to sign a “refusal to vaccinate form” and offers alternatives. Summary: Don’t sign the form! This account also links to a basic article about vaccine choice, Dispelling Vaccination Myths (Alan Phillips, May 2001).
• Vaccine Rights: Vaccination injury attorney site, that includes an extensive legal FAQ. Another brief article also addresses the forms, Refusal to Vaccinate Forms Raise Ethical Questions (Alan Phillips, December 2007, PDF). Vaccine Exemption Alliance is another vaccination-rights law firm.
• Vaccination Risk Awareness Network: A collection of links, articles, and information about vaccines, disease, and vaccine reactions.
• Vaccination.co.uk: A site a British chiropractor and father. There is quite a bit of medical information here about the immune system and how it works.
• Vegan Family Anti-Vaccine Information: A brief collection of interesting articles and a recommended reading list.
• Vaccination Dilemma: A basic site that introduces the concept of refusing vaccines.
• WIC and Vaccines: A discussion about the Women, Infants, Children program, as it pertains to vaccinations. In summary, you can choose not to vax, or to vax selectively, and remain on WIC.