Experiences of adoption from overseas

[LunaMoona]

A brand new category - can I be the first to post ?

I wondered what experiences people have (if any) of adopting children from overseas. It looks mighty difficult but wondered what positive/negative experiences you have had ?

sorry beemail I can't remember if you've said on anotehr post which country you adopted from - I was intreagued by the helping in the nursery comment - obviously not China! Thailand or Cambodia?

My guess is an EE country ( all female carers and thin nappies are my clues, though could well be SE Asia as well)!!!!

No - India! Yes I consider it a real priviledge to have been able to do so I learnt a lot about a lot of things from the women there. having strong links with the orphanage ( we have kept in touch over the years) meant it was easy to take the children back there last year, an amazing experience - but probably the makings of another thread! I don't know about Kaz but if you are able spend some time there just getting to know their routines, way they are fed,food etc Take photos of the carers and the other children they have been with as well as the buildings and the surrounding area. We also recorded the songs that were sung to them.All seems to have been important ot our children over the years. I'm so envious of the stage you are at now - all before you and so exciting - yes I know apprehension too guess it's a bit like childbirth I have to think hard to remember the bad bits!

I will be spending a minimum of two weeks at the orphange (probably three), its the law in Kaz, you have to visit the cchild daily for two weeks before you can apply to adopt. I will probably be in the country around 6 weeks in total as I plan to stay the whole time and not come back during the waiting period (after the inital two week bonding period). It think its one of the reasons why the children from Kaz seem to adjust better than those form other countries intially.

harder on teh parents but easier on the children!

How great to be able to take the children back to visit!!!! How old were they when they came home? Did they remember much? Have they been able to make sense of it all since then? You know, integrate the different parts of their lives?

sorry sue didnt mean to cut across you

no problem - just act like I'm not here [huffy emoticon]

are you sulking now, sue?

Sounds a good system, rather like India - plenty of time to get to know your child before travelling back which is I think a definite advantage, our 9 hr flights home were very easy BTW!
Also plenty of time to get to know what your child has been used to in the institution. Also info about any medical treatment etc We were able to bring our childrens medical records home with us. I also think it's good for you - some time to adjust to your new role time with just the 2 of you before coming home to admiring hoards!

Whoops sorry hadn't seen other postings. yes it was great to take them back - they were 9 and 11 a good time I think. We were advised to do it before adolescence set in and I think that was good advice. Because of all the photos and videotape we had it was a familiar setting for them. They were able to meet some of the people who had cared for them and who amazingly def remembered things about them which I think they found reassuring. They spent time there with us and on their own and seemed very at ease with it all. They were told that this was their home and family in Inidia and they should always remember this and feel they couldd go back there anytime. Our children liked this. They went off to school one day with the orphanage children and had the most fantatstic day. They were not unsettled before they went but after coming back I think there was def an air of calmness and feeling at ease with their history. Our older daughter said she doesn't think she'll ever know who her birth parents are but knowing where she lived when she was a baby is great.

Yes KristinaB - still sulking

(actually had gone to bed!)

well stop all that sleeping nonsense, sue, you need to get used to sleep deprivation for september

thnaks for writing about your trip bee. i found it very moving. Its so hard isnt it, to give your kids a sense of their past (befroe they came home) when they knwo nothing of their bio family

No - no sleep deprivation for me, I'm getting a child that sleeps through the night. (please don;t remind me I said that when I'm on MN at 3am in 6 months time)

Have we scared Riab off, d'you think?

You're a scary woman KB

not half as scary as a child with attachmnent disorder

sue - if it's any help, when my brother adopted his ds, aged 13 months, they had a week of broken nights and then he slept like an angel. Fortunately this happened before my ds was born, otherwise I might have gone round and killed my bro for suggesting that one week of night waking was "terrible"

I will say, though, that he and my SIL adopted two lovely kids within the UK - they were white (and indeed still are!) - only relevant in the light of your earlier remark obviously, not in a 'thank goodness for that' type of way.

In terms of trauma, these two little ones have been through a fairly rough time although nothing like what you might expect abroad. My bro and SIL do have a tendency to assume that whatever toddler trauma they are having that week is caused by adoption, whereas knowing other toddlers better in our family and through friends, I tend to think it's just them being typically monsterish children sent to try us Having said that, both have come on massively and are far, far happier children than they were before adoption, I genuinely shudder to think what their lives would be like if they had not been adopted.

Re: bonding instantly, I certainly didn't with my ds (birth child) but the feelings grow over time and one thing I can say for certain that labour is not the hard part of being a parent, it's all the years that follow.

Best of luck to all!

"they were white (and indeed still are!) - only relevant in the light of your earlier remark obviously, not in a 'thank goodness for that' type of way. " - you'll have to remind me which remark that was - I make so many!

re the assumption that all issues are adoption related. Yes I think thats fairly common from what I hear, of course the truth is that you'll never know how much of that childs behaviour is related the the adoption, or the life before adoption or if they're just having normal childhood problems.

suejonez - I think I read your comment about authorities not allowing a white woman to adopt a child of a different ethnic group as meaning it would thus be impossible for you adopt due a lack of white children 'on the local market' (so to speak).

Oh I see. Yes there are white children available but relatively fewer so they (understandably) place them with married couples. Those who are not white tend to wait, when there are adopters available just not those of the "correct" ethnicity.

The issue is that I'm not only white but single too

tripbot - I think sue means that she would be wiling to adopt a child of any ethnic background here in the Uk but the authorities wont let her. She can't adopt a "white" child here because there is too much demand ( so they go to couples) and she cant adopt a "black" child coz she is "white".

I dont think she is adopting overseas to get a "white" child!

Sorry to speak for you Sue - apologies if I have it wrong...

It is very frustrating for waiting familes to see all the waiting children and SW wont put them together because they are waiting for this perfect ethnic match. There are lots of sibling groups waiting where the children have different fathers. So SS want a family who are eg Pakistani AND Egyptian who will bring the children up Greek Orthodox

No, it's okay KristinaM, I'd realised that sue wasn't saying she woudln't adopt a non-white child but rather that she couldn't.

Have you ever thought about doing an Ali G, sue, and pretending to be black? You could have your own TV show as well.

Bonkers isn't it, I know that its not ideal having a child on one ethnicity brought up by a parent of another but surely its better than foster care? Most of the studies which say you shouldn;t do this are based on adoption practices of the 50's, 60's and 70's where black children were adopted into white families in very white areas, with no black role models and they probably never knew another black person. Current adoption thinking is much more appropriate and if your adopting from overseas, its drummed into you how you must provide your child with positive role models and a link to the country of birth and its heritage.

My child is most likely to be mixed race, although could be Russian ethnic or Kazakh, I won't know until I travel.

Frankly sue, based on what I've seen of foster care (with no offence to anyone on MN who does foster caring) anything would be better. Obviously if you have a child with someone of another race no-one says "you can't raise your child, cos you are white and it is mixed-race", it's mad.

There was an article in Red magazine a while ago about a family who adopted a baby from China, and the whole family, including their other kids, were all learning Cantonese and stuff, and forming links with other families with Chinese kids in the area, to make sure the little girl had a link to her heritage.