Challenges Involved with Adopting an Older Child from Overseas. Part 1

This is the second of the series that I decided to write about adoption.  The idea came to me since my own daughter is planning on writing a research paper for her college English class about adoption.  She wants to focus on older child adoption from overseas, since she is an expert on that topic, having been adopted into our family as a teenager from Thailand.

In the last blog entry, I answered the question about WHY anyone would want to consider older child adoption.  In this one I want to focus on  WHAT one of the challenges can be when considering older child adoption from another country.

The challenge that I am going to focus on in this blog entry is the extremely LONG WAIT TIME!  For us, it was almost two years to the day from the time when we first applied to adopt our daughter until the day we first met her.  In the picture, below, I'm hugging a snuggly jacket I bought for our daughter, wondering when I'd actually get to hug her wearing it.  I even wondered if it would actually fit her when she would finally arrive home.  To be honest, it's really almost the only piece of clothing I actually bought for her while we were waiting.  Because I couldn't know her size, exactly, and she went from being age 11 to age 13 while we waited, there was no telling if she'd fit into any clothes I might wish to buy for her during the wait.  So, instead, I only collected items that others passed on to us, and waited to buy clothes for her in Thailand, once we actually met her.

We were also able to send her a couple of care packages during the long wait.  This is the first one I ever sent her.

 

We also had a few fundraisers, like an Indian cooking class...

 

And I put together a cookbook with recipes from friends and family members as well as drawings by my preschool students, which I sold as a fundraiser.

 

We completed our home study and I got her room ready.

 

I also painted a picture of her resting in the hand of God with a rainbow in the background, because it helped, during that wait time, to know of His promise to watch over her, when I couldn't be there.

 

I knew it was very obvious that God was watching out for my girl.  Thanks to the internet, I started to be able to connect with several other adoptive families.  That was a huge encouragement, and continues to be so.  It's like having your own support community, even if they live all around the world.  One family even lived nearby my daughter's hometown and would sometimes visit her and let me know how she was doing, even though they weren't allowed to tell her about us.  That Christmas I sent a care package, which included little gifts for other girls in her orphanage, as well.

 

I also did what I could to try to connect with Thai people in our community.  It was fun to meet some of them at a cultural festival at the local university.

 

Christmases were very hard.  In fact, this one Christmas, I just displayed the flowers that my mom sent me and some Christmas cards.  I didn't have the heart to even put up the little Christmas tree, since I knew I wouldn't be able to put any gifts for our daughter under it.  In fact, even as I write these words, now, tears were welling up in my eyes.  It's funny how you already grow attached to your child, before they even come home to your arms! You don't imagine that you are going to grieve so much.  But, it was hard as I saw several other families from the preschool where I worked celebrating the holidays with their kids.  And they would often have two children while I was still waiting for my daughter to come home!

 

If you notice, in the background of this picture, one book that I have displayed is the Life Book that I started compiling for our daughter.

  

The above photo is not of hers, but another one that I created.  Creating Life Book's was a fun way to pass the time and record the story of my daughter's life.  Because the pre-made baby books don't work well for an adopted child, I decided to just create my own, using a binder and inserting pages.  That way, too, you can add more, whenever you want.

I also began to study Thai everyday during my lunch break times, as well as some weekends with this sweet Thai woman, Ratree.  After all, learning the language is a VERY helpful way to try to do your best to connect with and communicate with your older child.  They will sense your love and desire to understand them if you make a real effort to learn as much of their language and culture as possible.  The long wait time is useful for this, as Thai was a VERY difficult language to learn when I was almost 40 years old!

 

We also tried to enjoy life with other friends, like celebrating my birthday with one of my favorite preschool students and her family.  Hard to believe that she's now a teenager!

 

We also tried to celebrate other people's children and their birthdays and milestones, even though these were painful reminders that you were unable to be celebrating these special moments in your own child's life.

 

We tried to celebrate special holidays and occasions by inviting other friends over, especially internationals and those with children.  Again, although these days were painful, it helped fill the hole in our hearts, some, by celebrating it with others.  I tried to make it special for others, who perhaps were also missing family at those special times.

 

I started investigating school possibilities.  But, this, too, was hard, as there was no way for me to know exactly at what age she would be at when she came home.  Also, it was hard to know what grade level would best suit my child, as there is often the challenges of being behind both because of language barriers and possible developmental delays, due to being institutionalized for such a long time.

 

We even ended up switching from renting this duplex...

 

to buying this house.... 

 

 

We also decided to move from worshiping at a large church, to worshiping at a medium sized church, which had more of a family feel, rather than an overwhelming mega church feel.

We also tried to go out and celebrate our last days as being just a couple...

 

Then we moved into the house that we bought...

 

And we mailed more care packages... 

 

When it was our daughter's birthday, I bought flowers and a balloon and took a picture to remember how much we were thinking about her when she became a teenager.

 

I finally started to buy a few more items for her, but not clothing, as I had no idea which size would fit.  I started buying some school supplies for her.

 

We put together a photo book that we were told we could send to her so that the nannies could start to prep her for the transition to our family.

 

We kept mailing tons and tons of paperwork and documents, besides the fun care packages.  And we had to get fingerprinted multiple times and sometimes redo paperwork, which had dates that expired, during this long wait time.

 

I bought her a winter coat, because it looked most likely that she would be arriving from Thailand to Colorado in the winter time.

 

I started to get her bedroom ready in the new house.

 

 I even painted her new bedroom.

 

Then, we finally got the word that we had officially been matched and were allowed to travel in about a month to pick up our daughter.  My mom sent us flowers!

 

I wished that someone would think of giving us a shower.  But, since no one ever thinks of a "baby" shower for adopting a teen, I decided that even if no one else would think up such an idea, I would go ahead and create my own original kind of party.  Why not just invite others over anyway?

So, I had a Christmas tree decorating party to invite friends to.  A few had asked if we needed any items.  If they asked, I directed them to a wish list I had created on Amazon and said if they'd like, they could leave the gift under the Christmas tree when we decorated it.

 

Since I didn't have a lot of money for a tree, especially with all of the steep fees involved with international adoption, I found a tree for free on Craig's List.

And we had a potluck of various kinds of snacks, treats, fruit, etc. that friends had brought along.

 

I invited co-workers and friends, especially my international friends.  I wanted to always keep in touch with other Asians, as I knew my daughter would benefit from having others around her who looked similar to her and who understood her culture.

 

I also found that introducing my Asian friends to the idea of adoption was a helpful way for them to learn more about adoption, since it is rather rare and especially almost unheard of to adopt a teenager in most Asian countries.

 

After the shower, I was very touched to receive and display this beautiful, handmade quilt given by a dear friend and co-worker who asked her friend to sew this pretty quilt for Penny.

 

Then it was time to start packing her suitcase before we were scheduled to leave on Dec. 3rd.

 

However, we had some very unexpected challenges to face right before the time of our departure.  I'll wait and plan to write about that aspect of the challenges of international adoption for the next entry.