My wife and I are considering adoption. She's always wanted to adopt, and it had never been a thought of mine until I met her. Now that we've been married three years, I'm getting to the point of being more open to it.
So, has anyone here adopted? What was your experiences, good and bad?
We adopted a 5-1/2 month old girl from Seoul, Korea.
First step is starting with an adoption agency. Then decide domestic or worldwide. Our place had a 2 hour intro presentation to give couples an idea of what to expect.
http://www.lifelinkadoption.org/
BTW, I'm not only interested in experiences of the adoption process, but also raising an adopted child.
I can speak on this- sort of. I was an adopted child. My dad was killed in a motorcycle accident when I was 11, and my mom had been dead for some years prior due to a house fire. All I can say is- if you have children of your own and intend on bringing an adoptee into the house, make sure they're all on equal footing. I spent the better part of my youth living as a second class citizen. I was never afforded the same opportunities that the bio kids were, wasn't allowed to explore what I found interesting ( It was a very sports oriented household, and I have little to no desire to ever play organized sports.) I literally got my drivers license and moved out within 3 days of each other. I was WOEFULLY unprepared for the real world, as I was never really given any good life lessons. It was all "Do it or ima kick your ass" type learning... which I then learned I would generally get my ass kicked no matter WHAT I did.... So I just did what I wanted and called it a wash. So- moral of the story- treat them exactly as you would any of your other bio children. I had the advantage (disadvantage) of knowing exactly what my story was due to my age, so I can't really comment on the "Where did I come from" front.
There is some exceptional information in this thread.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/learn-me-adoption/27758/page1/
In reply to jrw1621:
Lol-you posted that as I was searching for it.
I must have missed that thread...
Anyway, my 350Z got totaled a few weeks ago (it was a 3rd car and paid off), and I think we're probably going to use part of the insurance money for some adoption expenses.
I have adopted.
Daughter from china, we traveled in October/November 2006. she was 10 Months old then, she is 6 years old now and in kindergarten.
the process is just kind of long and a lot of paperwork, and temporary you get through all that, then you are rearing your child.
that's when the fun begins, My daughter would not sleep for more than 50 minutes at a time for the first 8 months. We found out about melamine exposure in china so we had here kidneys scanned, found hidronefrosis, so when she was three she had major surgery to repair the tubes running from her kidneys to her bladder. We still make trips twice a year to the Children's hospital in Peoria to make sure everything is OK, so far so good.
My advice is to get in contact with other local people who have adopted. We have a pretty good group here in town, and the Taiwanese Student group on the college campus here hosts the adopted children (and your birth children) twice a year while the parents go to workshops.
I could write a lot more, but I am at work..... so I will probably write more throughout the day :-)
Input... need input!
scardeal wrote: BTW, I'm not only interested in experiences of the adoption process, but also raising an adopted child.
I adopted my daughter after parental rights were terminated for the other guy...
Married to mom.
It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. We have other kids... But ya see... I didn't get to pick those kids they just came out however they were going to...... I saw my oldest daughter and chose her.
Are you thinking of international or domestic adoption?
Is race important to you? I have several friends who adopted children outside their own races and it creates some interesting dynamics.. but nothing good people can't handle.
Our thought is for the first time it'll work best with a domestic infant adoption.
In terms of race, we're personally pretty open. There's a fairly good possibility that we may move back to the south (where my family is from), and that may introduce/intensify a number of race-related tensions if we adopted a black child.
A lot of kids at my daughter's school (3rd grade) give her a hard time and call her Chinese girl and ask her what's wrong with her eyes.
She is a tough kid and blows it off. We have talked to her from day one that she is an adoptee and from Korea and has a birth mom and birth dad.
Since she came at a young age she is like most kids. She also fights with her 21 year old brother.
I would suggest starting with your local county's department of family/child services. We are in the process of adopting a 15 yo right now through a neighboring county's system and it will cost us $0 out of pocket and that's not accounting for the tax benefits we'll get next year. The county has a list of lawyers who will take care of everything for whatever the state reimbursement limit is so it costs you nothing out of pocket - this could just be a local or Ohio thing though so YMMV.
Infants and young kids are usually available although you may wait a bit depending on how picky you are. We started out looking at 0-4 y.o.'s only and after our first foster placement of a 1 and 2 y.o. didn't turn into an adoptable situation we came to realize that with a 16 and 10 y.o. of our own already, we didn't really want to start over with an infant(s).
I just wanted to drop an update.
We decided on an adoption agency and met with them for the initial consultation. Now, we've got paperwork, fees and a home study to start dealing with!
Now, it'd be nice to figure out a good way to relieve the $$ burden pre-taxes... Once we finish the home study, if we can find the baby ourselves, it'll save us a nice chunk of cash...
Today is my daughters "gotcha" day. She came into our lives 9 years ago today. I wish you the best!
My advice for raising an adopted child is to forget they are adopted. You raise your kids as your kids, regardless of where or how they started life, and you overcome challenges with love and determination because they are your kids.
Pete240Z wrote: Today is my daughters "gotcha" day. She came into our lives 9 years ago today. I wish you the best!
A buddy of mine who is adopted calls it his "A" day. Thanks for the well wishes!
All I can say is you folks have more heart and patience than I ever will. Good show.
scardeal wrote:Pete240Z wrote: Today is my daughters "gotcha" day. She came into our lives 9 years ago today. I wish you the best!A buddy of mine who is adopted calls it his "A" day. Thanks for the well wishes!
We call it "Dori Day" (he name is Dorisa, but we shortened it to Dori). October 30th.
You'll need to log in to post.
