Once again I'm late to remind folks, but November is National Adoption Month, and the 19th is National Adoption Day. If you have every considered adoption, or even if you haven't, it's a great time to look into it. I assume most folks know this, but my own family was grown via adoption. My wife and I adopted three kids from South Korea over the past decade. It's a process that is... quite involved. But it's doable. And the rewards are beyond description. I typically recommend folks check out Adoption.org as a starting point. You can also contact local adoption agencies for a meeting to discuss possibilities. I'm open to questions too - either here on the blog or privately via my contact form.
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Have you ever posted about the decisions you had to make leading up to your adoptions? I'd be interested in your answers to whichever of these questions you're willing to talk about. Every family is different; but I'd appreciate hearing about your reasons for choosing to adopt and reasons for going international. What challenges did you run into during that ...involved... process? What kinds of concerns did you have and how were they resolved? How did you know which organizations and people to trust with something so important to your family and life?
Well, we chose adoption in general because it looked to be the best way we could create our family. That is vague, I know. I can be more specific on other items.
1) Why International?
Mainly because when you adopt internationally, there is no chance of a biological mother changing her mind. That scared the HELL out of me.
2) Challenges
To be honest, it wasn't challenging per se. It's a process. It's involved. It's long. But it's also very formalized. It's a flow chart basically. While there are definitely some parts that can be a bit chaotic, random, etc, in general it is a step by step process. So if you prepare yourself for that, and try to take it step by step, then it makes it easier. Baby steps is the answer here.
3) Which organizations:
Well, we worked with Catholic Charities. They were local and they helped us make decisions on where to adopt. Once you decide on a country then the agency you pick next is pretty much set for you (if that makes sense).
Thanks Ray. :)
I was going through your site for Coldfusion Information and happened across your post on adoption.
We are currently in the process of adopting 2 children from Russia, we hope to have them home in March. As you said, it's an involved process, but we are excited about having our new family in the end. We mainly chose Russia because then seemed to have the least amount of wait time, even though Russia is expensive to adopt from.
Thanks for the blog. I am enjoying the Zeus tidbits.
Good luck Jim. If you want, post back when things are finalized and let us know how it went!
This is a bit late, but we did finally bring home the munchkins back in June. The kids are doing well, their vocabulary is increasing and the are learning to count. It was a very intense time for us, but everyone is doing well now. Now I know why people only adopt one child at a time. ;) Two two year olds are a handful. Tantrums for everyone!
I took a month off from work for the travel and bonding with the kids and since then it's been upgrading to CF 10 on all the machines and learning more about the new features and such. Fun stuff.
Congrats to you!