Anyone out there adopted a child?

My wife and I adopted a little boy from another state (not a country like you are doing). The process is full of challenges. How far along are you in the process?

First of all CONGRATULATIONS!!! That is so awesome! Boy or girl? How old? Have a photo yet??

OK now for me.

I am adopted and I adopted two of my four boys. Long story but I have an incompetant cervix and so did my Mom (adopted mom. If I mean birth mom I write birthmom or BM).

My parents adopted me when I was about 7 months old in 1964. I was born in 63. Way different then, no open adoptions and I don't know much about my BM.

My two oldest are hispanic and from the US. They were both infants. I have posted before that Steven was born addicted. Because of that we have a closed adoption with him. I cannot expose him to his BM unless and until she is clean and sober. I love him too much for that and she agrees.

G2 (Gene-Gene) has an open adoption but right now BM is going through some stuff so they do not see eachother. Her choice. To be honest I get nervous about the open adoption sometimes. I know it's silly but I do. I think all adotpive parents do. Having another mom out there is a little threatening on some levels. Especially since G2's birthmom is a very good basketball player and was an alternate for the WNBA. There is a coolness factor there I cannot touch.

I don't know anything about my birthparents and have not looked. There have been times in my life when I really wanted to but I didn't and the desire comes and goes. I would welcome them into my life if they showed up tomorrow I just am not looking now.

What is different about an adopted child? Not much. I love them all the equally. Not the same. I don't share the same interests with all of my kids and therefor have different relationships with each of them. G2 and I are into sports you can play. Rollerblading together is a particular favorite. Steven is a cook in training and we cook together. He also loves football so we watch U of M football together. G2 is sensative and Steven less so but has other needs. Herne, toddler and my birthchild is.. well he is me in looks and love of music. JJ is too little to share intersts with. I hug G2 more than the others but he needs it more.

I used to ask my mom if she would love me more if I was her "real" child. Her response was always the same. "what makes you think you are not real? Of course" but I always wondered. The first time G2 was placed in my arms I knew she was telling the truth.

You will know you are doing a good job as a parent if your teenage adotped child yells: "I hate you, I wish you had never adopted me". It always happens after you lower the boom on something stupid they were planning. For me it was a co-ed camping trip at 13. If I had not been adopted it would have been: "I hate you I wish I was adopted".

Recently G2 told me about wishing he lived with his birth family too. It was not a dig against me or Gene at all but more akin to a child wishing they lived in a castle. In his mind they were rich and had tons of toys for him to play with. (Not that they don't have a room so full you cannot walk in it). I was honored that he trusted me enough to share that fantasy with me. I would not have been able to say that to my mom without hurting her. Because I am adopted too I think I "get it" more.

We have seriously thought about adopting again. An older girl in a few years.

Edited by nliedel 2005-08-03 1:48 PM

I went on a mission trip to India back in May and fell in love with the kids over there.  I would like to adopt once I get married!

We had a referral (little boy) from Belarus (Eastern Europe), but Belarus had a temp. shut down in October of last year, and for lack of better terms officially stopped adoptions this spring.
Eastern Europe in general is going through a lot of adoption turmoil right now, so after a lot of soul searchng and praying we decided upon Guatemala. We are pretty much paper ready, but have to collect a couple more things since we did an agency switch. We plan on adopting a boy!


:) :) nliedel, you never cease to amaze me :) :)

Edited by shadowfax 2005-08-03 3:14 PM

I am going to stick a photo of the kids in the album in a minute so you all can see the boys (my avatar is myself and my Steven but it is a couple years old). You can tell with ours cause we are so many different races. I had a lady go up to Gene (husband) in the mall once and tell him "You know that is not your child right?". This was when G2 was a baby. She told him I must have had an affair.

He thanked her because he says you cannot educate the world and did not tell me about it till later cause I would have let her have it.

OK I added a photo of the boys. Now this was last Christmas so JJ is A LOT bigger (and he does too look like Stewie).

Left to right:

JJ, Gene-Gene, Hernie-Roo (his name is Herne but he is THE Hernie-Roo. King of the Marauding Toddlers) and Stevie-Z

Edited by nliedel 2005-08-03 3:39 PM






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Ohhh, marmadaddy and nliedel what beautiful families!

Beautiful boys.
Disclaimer: I'm kind of fooling with you, the adoption was in-family. Our girls are biologically cousins. All of their cousins look alike. It's a family of clones.

We have friends who are different races. His parents are from India, hers are WASP. Their oldest son is a miniature version of their dad, very dark skin. She was sitting in the park with her son and our oldest daughter when a woman came up and said with a big smile and in a sing-song voice "I bet I know which one is yours!". Our friend looked at her, smiled and sang back "I bet you don't!". The woman was horrified.

Well that woman should have been. What a STUPID thing to say.

We are just starting to look into adoption as the babymaking seems unlikely for us, or, we are tired of trying.

Guatemala, Kazahkstan and Vietnam are the countries we're thinking about.
Congratualtions to ALL families and all parents for working so hard to love the heck out of all kids... Hopefully I'll be a parent soon too. Somehow.

No, but two of my cousins have - a girl from China, and a boy and a girl from Latvia

I didn't adopt Abe Lincoln but the little one is (obviously) adopted.





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I have an adopted daughter from Guatemala.  The process was long and arduous but oh, so worth it!  Good luck with your Guatemalan adoption!

Yeah I like em! I think I have the most beautiful boys in the world. They don't listen for crap but they look good : )

I was actually going to ask you about adoption when you said what you did on the other thread but I felt... well some people are touchy about it and I didn't want to say something stupid. Don't know why that would bug me at this juncture since I am normally happy to stick my foot in it.

Honestly Possum it's worth the wait. I know how hard the waiting is too.

I'm not touchy about anything, really. yeah. I have wanted children for a very long time, and it doesn't matter to me one way or the other how we get them. Adoption is MUCH more expensive, and right now we are still paying off grad school debt. And I want to be pregnant if at all possible, I just want to feel what it feels like and use all my cool womanly parts for what they were made for. Of my close friends, 1/2 of whom are gay and 1/2 of whom are not, 1/2 of them have adopted children, and it is exactly even -- This is a very family friendly city, and there are really a lot of kinds of families and here, anyway, it's all very easy, or so it seems.

I spew about my kid obsession a lot on BT, but that's how I got into tris in the first place. I was so mad at my body, so allienated from it, and it was causing huge marital problems, (not to mention that it just plain sucked for me personally) so I decided to do something to get me back in touch with it, something I could control and be proud of instead of focusing on my body's failures... so that's why I tri... and that's why I take other people's children to the movies, the zoo, to my house for cookie baking and scrapbooking... Ya, I'm everyone's Auntie Hollis

I know how bad you want to do it like a "normal" person and when you can't it seems like there are pregnant women everywhere. I get that I was there too.

I know how you feel tho because I really wanted the experience too and was happy I had it but if I never did that would have been OK too.

You scrapbook too?? Hmm I am obsessive about it. I actually have a page going into Paperkuts in October!

Anyway.. as usual I digress, I got into this for the same reasons in the end. Not the weight. It was the whole "I can't have a baby unless it is a preemie" thing. I got so sick of being some weird test tube experiment and someone every med student wanted to visit in the hospital cause I was going into labor every night after 24 weeks. I just wanted some control and to know I was normal in some way. I was sick of the drugs they pumped into me to stop the labor and just wanted to be like a normal person who complained about going past due date.

If you want to borrow kids.... I have four, take your pick. Today was a hard Mom day. Even after adopting these wonderful beings you wanted so much you sometimes get so mad at them. Which is the number one clue that there is no difference for most people.

Edited by nliedel 2005-08-03 8:28 PM

As an adopted son, I just wanted to say Thank You to all of you who have opened your hearts and homes to children who need love and a family and to all of you who are considering the same. Even though I have never met my biological mother, I love her for having the heart and the bravery to having carried me to birth but knowing that it was a better circumstance to give me up for adoption. I have had a great life and the love of two mothers. I am indeed a lucky person, as are the children that you have all brought into your lives. Bless each of you and your families.

I have never known braver women then my boys birth mothers.

My wife and I have an adopted son. We adopted through the State when he was a couple of years old. He came with a lot of baggage, but we Love him very much. Later, we started having our own children, a 3 year old and another on the way.

I would love to talk more about him, but its not a good idea on a public forum.

Its can be challenging but very rewarding.

Randy

not yet....want to find a decent man first, but that is on my goal list!

We have 2 birth girls, but are on the path to adopting the rest of our kids.  This has always been a goal for us, but we just discovered that both our girls have an extremely rare birth defect.  We don't want to gamble a third time.  We are hoping for a sibling group, from the state. Already foster care certified...just need to take the final plunge.  Everyone, you have BEAUTIFUL children!