Adopting Three Year Olds + Thanksgiving Pictures

November is, or I guess I should say was, National Adoption Month—a month set aside each year to raise awareness about adoption. On November 1st I started thinking about what I would want people to know about adoption. What haven’t I already said by sharing our story on this blog? The answer came easily and it is only because this has been a busy month that I’ve waited until the last day of the month to write about it.

To tell this story I must go back two and a half years, to the time when we started to get serious about adopting. This is the time when adoptive parents mull through a myriad of big decisions, for unlike growing a family through the birth of a biological child, in adoption you must choose things like age, race, nationality, gender, and openness to special needs. Making such decisions felt unnatural and uncomfortable to me. Perhaps it is my Catholic upbringing that instilled a belief that these are God’s decisions, not mine, so choosing things like gender and special needs was tough for me.

At first I thought age was going to be the easy decision. I had never been a mother and wanted the experience of mothering a baby, and it seemed sensible to begin parenting with a child who was not yet walking or talking. I was also afraid of the risks of long term emotional, physical or bonding challenges more commonly associated with older child adoption. The availability of healthy infants was one of the things that first drew us to Ethiopia.

As I continued researching and learning about adoption, I found myself experiencing deep emotion whenever I came across a story of an older toddler adoption. I used to watch this show on the Discovery Health Channel called Adoption Stories and I would find myself dry eyed during stories about infants but sobbing through episodes about three year olds. There weren’t many blogs back then, or at least I didn’t know of many, of families who had adopted children that age from Ethiopia (there are lots of them now), but I came across this one early on and it instantly became a favorite. Actually, I will confess, I never really read their blog. I just watched that video montage of them meeting their children over and over again. It kills me every time!

I started to realize that I was drawn to adopting an older child, and Mark was too, but I was scared. What did I know about parenting a three year old from a hard background? What if we had trouble bonding? What if the child had RAD? The first chapter alone in the book Toddler Adoption: The Weaver’s Craft was enough to keep me up at night. Still, I couldn’t ignore my feelings, so we had our home study approve us to adopt two children ages 0-5 years old, and went on the wait list with our agency to adopt siblings ages 0-14 and 0-36 months old. "Let God decide if I'm ready for this," I thought...

As I wrote in my last post (and last year if you were reading that long ago! Thanks for still reading if that’s you!) ultimately our agency asked us if we wanted to increase our age range in order to adopt our boys. Having our home study written to approve us for a wide age range allowed them to do this. Initially we thought the children were 14 months old, but it turned out they were 28 months at referral and just two months shy of three by the time we were able to bring them home. Obviously we said yes, and I thank God every day for finding me worthy.

Allowing myself to be open to adopting three year olds was the most complicated, difficult and BEST decision I ever made. There are unique challenges to adopting older children, but there are also joys that I do not have the words to describe. All of it, the hard and the wonderful, have enriched my life beyond expectation. That is the awareness I want to shout from the rooftops. Adopting an infant is not the only path to a happy ending and if you feel an inkling in your heart to adopt an older child, I encourage you to listen to it.

OK, enough of that. I know most of you come here for the cute pictures so here are a few more from our VERY thankful Thanksgiving!


FOOTBAAAAAL!



Not so sure about this Santa guy...

Christmas Angel

No words needed...



The Difference a Year Makes

November 2009 was a very challenging time for our family. We had been on the wait list eleven months, a record with our agency as far as we could tell, and we received a series of phone calls from our case worker that presented us with a unique and unexpected set of challenges.

First our case worker called to ask us if we would be interested in increasing our age preference to pursue a sibling pair that was about to become available. She could not tell us anything about these children other than their ages, but as I listened to her talk on the other end of the phone, all I could think was, “That’s not them”. I asked her a few questions, most of which she couldn’t answer, but mostly I just kept asking, “Are you SURE we haven’t been matched yet??” I just couldn’t shake the feeling that the children she was talking about weren’t the ones meant for our family. She said she wasn't sure. There was the possiblity that the in country staff had matched us and she didn't know about it yet. After talking it over with Mark, who had the same gut reaction, we called her back to tell her that we wanted to keep our age preference unchanged.

The days that followed were some of the most difficult of my life. I had many moments of doubt and was deeply saddened by our decision to turn this sibling group away, even though I was certain that another family would accept the referral and that they were not the children meant for our family. I was distraught at the prospect of waiting another several months. We had been pretty sure that we would have our children home for the holidays and now it seemed that we wouldn’t even have a referral to celebrate by then. I was a mess.

Six days later, I was standing in a train station when I received another call from our case worker. Again she was asking if we wanted to increase our age preference in order to pursue a sibling pair that was about to become available. She still couldn’t tell me much about them, couldn’t share pictures, but this time she was able to tell me age and gender.

“Fourteen month old twin boys” she said.

“THAT’S THEM!” screamed the voice in my head. In July, Mark and a good friend and I had written our predictions on a blackboard in our kitchen. I had written "14 month old twin boys".

Turned out they were 26 months old, but that's another story...

It was extremely tough waiting another couple months for our referral. People would tell me, "At least the holidays will keep you distracted", but at that point nothing could distract me and the holidays just made me sad that we had no children to celebrate with.

With one hundred percent certainty, I can say that these are the children that were meant for our family, and every minute of that extra wait...I would do it again and again and again to get to my boys.

Early December 2009
Photo taken one month pre-referral thanks to the Britt Family

November 2010

If you are still waiting, maybe trying to forget that you thought you would already have your children home for the holidays, hang in there. You will be writing a post like this one too next year, and saying a prayer of thanks that you followed your heart to the child or children at your Thanksgiving table.

Worth the wait

Happy Friday

Re-adoption Day

I had visions of a family photo on the steps of our historic City Hall, complete with lovely foliage and crisp fall air...

Instead we got this.

Eating raindrops



Even with the rain, it was a beautiful, wonderful day.

The Judge gave the boys twin bunny rabbits, which they named Peanut Butter and Good Boy.



Peanut Butter posing for the camera

The whole thing took no more than five minutes, yet it was more emotional and ceremonious than I expected. It certainly was a happier occasion than our embassy appointment in Ethiopia.

This time we felt like a family and there were only tears of joy.

To celebrate we went out for blueberry and banana pancakes and coffee-milk (really just warm milk, but they call it coffee-milk because the cup looks like Daddy's coffee). Then we stopped at Barnes and Nobel to pick out some new books (thanks to everyone who gave us recommendations last month!!)

The boys got to pick out a toy, too. Here's what they chose...





 No, we weren't surprised that he chose a pink princess phone.

One of many accessorized moments

It was a very good day.

The obligatory group shot

On the way out, the Judge said he wanted to see us back next year with the baby sister.

HA....no comment!

What's In an Age?

If you are the parent or perspective parent of an internationally adopted child, you probably know that the ages of children available for adoption are often a little, or a lot, fuzzy. Even in relinquishment cases, in a country like Ethiopia where they do not celebrate birthdays like we do in the US, and have a completely different calendar system, a birth date is often an estimate. If a child is abandoned in infancy, obviously the exact birth date is unknown, but there is a smaller window for error with a young infant. With older children the effects of malnutrition can make it more difficult to determine an accurate age until the child has been home in the US for a period of time.

Age has been a question mark for us from the beginning. First the orphanage that our boys spent a week at made their estimate. Then our agency’s doctor increased that estimate when they first came into care, and then again after they had been in care for a couple months and started walking and talking. Finally the birth family was interviewed and they gave an even older age. This is the age that is on their Ethiopian birth certificates.

When we were in Ethiopia, one of the boys spent some time in the hospital. The attending pediatrician thought that they were younger. Our pediatrician at home, and a pediatrician at the Yale International Adoption Clinic, also thought they were younger by about six months when they were evaluated in June. I was delighted to have six more months of their life back but we decided to wait a few months before making any decisions.

In August we returned to the Yale International Adoption Clinic to have a developmental evaluation done. The boys’ comprehension of English was improving rapidly but they were nowhere near where they are today. Still, they tested on target for the age on their birth certificates. The evaluation only tested their cognitive development, and physically they seemed much younger than their peers, so we wanted to move their birth date by at least a few months.

Then a month ago we started the re-adoption process and, low and behold, it turns out that it is not so easy to move a birth date. The judge wanted two letters from different doctors stating medical reasons for the change. They did a bone age test, and this too came back on target for the age on their Ethiopian birth certificates. So, no medical proof, no change of birth date.

Tomorrow we will complete the re-adoption of our sons. Their names will legally be changed to the names we have chosen for them and they will receive US Birth Certificates with the birth date specified by their first family in Ethiopia. Emotionally it hasn’t been exactly easy to give up those six months I thought I had regained, and physically they still seem delayed for their age (we are taking them to a pediatric physical therapist next), but after coming all the way round the mulberry bush on this one, I feel good about it.

My babies are three years and three months old, and they don't come any sweeter, smarter or more beautiful at any age!

Happiest Halloween

Last year on Halloween we had been waiting almost 11 months to see our children's faces. You can click on the Halloween label below to read my post from two years ago, and see how long we thought we would be waiting to become parents!

On most days I was still feeling fairly strong but all the Spidermen and fairy princesses got the better of me that day. Mark sat alone and uncomplaining on our front steps passing out candy, while I changed into my pj's and sulked off to bed to live vicariously through other people's blogs. This post in particular stood out, and inspired both hope and tears (although now that I look at the date on Julie's post, I can see that it was written a few days after Halloween, so I must have been in a multi-day, pj-wearing, sulk!)



This year Halloween started with two excited, smiling boys in skeleton jammies.

Before 9 AM, the adventures of Shark and Giraffe began!

Shark had a face to face encounter with his archnemesis, Clover the Cow...

...and he carefully chose his favorite food for dinner.

Giraffe helped pick out the fruits...

...and veggies, as Giraffes are inclined to do.

Then they went on a hayride and posed for the gratuitous pumpkin shot, but smiles were hard to come by due to a man in a cow costume that was causing some distress.

Scary cow-man was soon forgotten with the push of a ghost button!

After nap we attended a costume party with the neighbors, where there was a lot of running around and general excitement! Hard to get pictures of them in motion and we left before the group shot due to another grown-up in a scary monster costume. I felt no need to push them out of their newly achieved sense of security by forcing them to confront their fears, so we left when tears became the dominant theme.

Finally it was time for the long awaited trick-or-treating. Pictures do not accurately depict the abundant cuteness that ensued!

Finally it was time to survey the loot and choose the one allowed piece of candy. My boys are no dummies and choose the largest, stickiest piece of ooey-gooey goodness! We never give them candy so it was interesting to see the sugar take affect. It really DOES make them bounce off the walls!

What a difference a year makes!

I hope you had a happy Halloween too. If not, keep the faith. Dreams do come true, and I hope yours comes true very, very soon.