Also known as adoption. A definition: basically, taking someone else's biological kid and raising them as your own. But, contrary to popular belief, its not as simple as that. We adopted my little brother from Kazakhstan when he was almost a year old, and it was a long process. Exciting, scary, and tedious, but mostly long. I'm sure that now, 5 years later, my feelings would be different. But i guess my feelings are stuck in time, because this is what i remember:
It started with paperwork. well, that's not entirely true. First my parents had to decide where they wanted to adopt from, what gender they wanted the child to be, and how old. Then came the paperwork. Tons of it. Basically, the agency that we adopted through had to conduct a huge investigation of my parents. Their jobs, their criminal records, everything.They look for anything that might incline that they would be inadequate parents. They went to court a few times, to further the inspection, and then, finally, all the work paid off.
They went to Kazakhstan and met my new little brother, Sasha. They were gone for three weeks, and i couldn't go because i had school. (of course, but it was still disappointing) They visited him in the "Baby House" (that's what they call them in Kazakhstan, i guess) almost everyday. Then they came back. They had the option of staying there for 5 weeks straight, or coming back for a week, then leaving again. They chose the latter because, when they left the second time, i got to go with them!!! We stayed for one week, and the first day we were there, we went to the baby house and took Sasha with us. It took him a while to adjust to his new environment, but Sasha is now a completely Americanized boy (yaaaay!). As the silly 10 year old that i was, I had sort of hoped that he would still know Russian after he grew up, but he couldn't talk yet when we adopted him, so that idea was shot to the ground. so that's my story! i think the next subject will be why i think adoption is the thing to do. See you then!
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Thanks for this one...it's pretty helpful to read about this process, since my little family has thought about going this route, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteI'm also glad you ended up getting to visit Kazakhstan. Are you guys planning to go back there someday?
Lastly: this really seems like an entirely different topic from the personal family story you're telling here...but do you have any thoughts on the recent "trend" of celebrity adoptions? (Madonna, ANGELINA, and others)...I feel very conflicted about all the media attention these adopted kids are getting, I question WHY they were adopted, etc...If you have any thoughts on this issue, I'd be curious to hear them.