More support, pre- and post-adoption. Adoptive parents can join local and national online groups by children's age or down to specific orphanages. Snoqualmie mom Toddie Downs, who adopted her daughter last summer, joined a Yahoo newsgroup specifically for her agency travel mates, as well as a "dossier to China" group with other parents whose documents were sent that month.

Support remains important even for longtime adoptive families. "When children become teenagers, new issues come up," said Bill Mudd, a SeaTac dad of five adopted daughters. "To be able to confer with other people about how they handle it gives you a lot more tools."

Better-informed parents. Parents can research agencies, the type of adoption, costs, country requirements, health conditions and cultural resources.

"People are more inclined to know what the process is going to be like," said Cathryn Green, a family development specialist with Amara Parenting & Adoption Services in Seattle. "It's easier to explain things to them."

Agency accountability. "You're not just stuck with who you found in the phone book," said Ernie Jones, technology chair for Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption. "Parents aren't dependent on references the agencies gave them." Eastside parent Jean Seeley used a "horrible" agency in her first international adoption attempt in 1994-95. Now she could post an e-mail asking for input on a given agency from Yahoo! Groups' Adoptive Parents China, formed in 1996 and boasting nearly 17,000 members. "We wasted a bunch of time and money [then]," Seeley said. "One little e-mail could have saved us a lot of tears."

Parents need to be wary, watching out for agencies that promise healthy babies quickly or insist on money to reserve a specific child. "There's lots of misinformation," said Victor Groza, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, who studies adoption. "You don't always get the complete story."

Information exchange. While some information is too private, much contact between parents, agencies and caseworkers is by e-mail. Forms are posted online; documents are e-mailed back and forth. With some countries, it "could literally take weeks or months to get information back," said Kristine Leander, director of communication for WACAP. "Now we can e-mail a question to our partners and have a response by the next morning. It makes a huge difference."

A national net for special-needs and foster kids. "The Internet has broadened the pool of families," said Barbara Pearson, director of the Northwest Adoption Exchange. "Many placements we help make go to other states."

The NWAE also manages the national AdoptUsKids.org, a federally funded Web site listing children in the foster-care system across the country.

When descriptions and photos were limited to books, privacy concerns weren't as high, Pearson noted. Now parents — and waiting children and their peers — can view them online. Background descriptions must be truthful so caseworkers and parents aren't wasting time but also respectful of the children, she said.

The Internet can't replace advocacy for hard-to-place special-needs children, Groza said. "The neediest of the needy in our country are being left out," he said. "The Internet has not been the solution for these children."

Connected families and friends. When Andrea Sprague and her husband traveled to China to adopt their daughter last year, they updated a personal Web site with pictures and a journal entry every night. "This allowed our family to see our daughter without having to send large e-mails," noted the Oak Harbor mom. A laptop also avoids the expense of long-distance calls. They've continued updating the site weekly and are adopting a second child from China.

In open adoptions, some adoptive parents post pictures on sites that birth parents can access.

Connecting birth mothers. Parents looking for birth mothers used to place advertisements or send out packets to doctors and counselors, spending thousands of dollars, notes Caldwell. Now prospective parents post profiles and pictures online for birth mothers to search.

Stephanie Dunnewind