.A friend tells British newspaper the Evening Standard, "Brad and Angelina know all about the adoption and have been helping Madonna and Guy in every way they can. "They know how important it is to them and how difficult the process can be." Madonna recently had to defend herself against reports she and her director husband had broken African adoption law to become the legal parents of a one-year-old Malawian boy - and she insists she has "gone about the adoption procedure according to the law, like anyone else who adopts a child."

Gossip paper, Pagesix.com now reports that , Madonna may have leveraged her U.S. citizenship to fast-track her adoption. While the singer lives in a Mayfair, England, mansion, she still has homes in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, giving her access to less-strict American adoption laws, adoption advocates say. "We are generally more amenable to adoption, internationally and domestically. We are the adoption nation," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. "Madonna can afford the best lawyers, so my guess is that she's well advised and did it the quickest way possible."

Meanwhile, Madonna has decided to give her adopted son husband Guy Ritchie's surname.
Malawian baby David will keep his full surname Banda Mwale as his middle
names, and will also take his new mother's maiden name Ciccone as a third
middle name.
Madonna, 48, made the decision out of respect for David's family heritage,
but also to welcome into her own family.

David's father Yohane returned to his work spraying
potato crops, for which he earns 54 pence a day last week.
Speaking from crop fields in blistering temperatures, Yohane said: "I'm not
really missing David because we have agreed with Madonna that he will visit
us here in three or four years time.
"I am not asking for anything from Madonna, but when David grows up and is
brought here and sees our poverty, he will certainly ask his mum to help."
David's father took the 13-month-old baby to an orphanage after his mother
died and he could no longer afford to look after him properly.
While Madonna attended the gym recently she sent an assistant to buy
clothes and toys for David and demanded video footage be sent to her mobile phone so
she could approve the outfits.

Madonna splashed out £15,000 on toys for her adopted son.
The 'Hung Up' singer treated 13-month-old David Banda to a child-sized
electric car, a £5,000 rocking horse, giant cuddly toys and designer
clothes.
She has also decorated his nursery with giant murals of tigers and lions and
installed a surround-sound system.
A source told Britain's Daily Mail newspaper: "Madonna had great fun
choosing baby David's toys and accessories, getting him all the latest,
coolest gear. As well as a designer wardrobe, Madonna and Guy have laid his
bed with cotton and cashmere sheets and a music system will pipe out
classical music.
"Madonna's only stipulation was that there was no television in his room. As
with her other two children, she doesn't want David growing up watching
mundane rubbish."
News of Madonna's shopping spree shocked residents in the Malawian village
where David was born. That amount of money could have paid for 10,000
chickens and 500 goats, or 10 mud huts.

Madonna and her director husband Guy already have a son together,
six-year-old Rocco, and Madonna has a ten-year-old daughter Lourdes from her
relationship with personal trainer Carlos Leon.