Older Child Adoption

Many people express surprise and indeed much concern over the issue of adopting "out of order," or, adopting kids older than the ones you already have. Conventional wisdom warns against doing this, as instant competition from an older child creates a threatening environment.

However, because Christian and Galyna are 8 years apart (and Anastasia 11), we feel this will be less of an issue, versus a situation where the children were much closer in years. In most cases, they won't be competing for the same things and their interests are much different.

Both girls were very attentive to Christian during their trips to Virginia, and for the most part, they got along well. But, by the end of last summer, Christian was walking around the house announcing, "I want those girls back to Ukraine!!!"

His heart has changed though, and now he's psyched about the trip and seeing "the girls" again.

The biggest adjustment will no doubt be for Mommy and Daddy! After we adopted Christian we knew we wanted to adopt more children. We travelled twice to Russia to get him nearly five years ago, and have had a heart for that part of the world ever since.

But why older kids? When most of us think of adoption, the first thing that comes to mind is a beautiful baby (interestingly, 80% of international adoptions are for girls), or perhaps a toddler.

But now that we're in our mid-forties, it would be perfectly natural for us to have teenage kids.
If we adopted another one year old, we would be close to 60 when they were starting high school.

Because we were late starting our family, it just makes sense for us to give older kids a chance. The sad fact is that kids over the age of 5 have only a 20% chance of being adopted. I don't know what the stats are for teenagers, but it's got to be much worse.

Most of us have heard some bad stories about families who've taken the risk to adopt an older child, and experienced great hardship. But, the good news is that many, many other families have gone before us, and excellent resources are available to those who are curious.
It is a risk, but there are many more positive outcomes than bad ones. And think about this. Even if they do have a tough time over here, what would their lives be like over there?

Stay tuned. We'll post more later on that and how you can help spread the word about older child adoption. The countdown is on. Christian has his Montessori school graduation Friday, and we head out Sunday morning!

Three Week Countdown

The reality that we will be leaving in less than three weeks to embark on a life altering trip is exciting and anxiety producing to say the least. Of course the purpose is to give two young ladies an opportunity to alter their lives for the better, and that helps put our worries in check.

We first heard about Galyna and year old Anastasia Abramovich shortly after moving to the Richmond area a year and a half ago. We had left our life in Northern Virginia behind because we wanted to adopt more children and reduce the stress of big city living.

Bringing Christian Peter into our lives four years ago has brought us more joy than we ever dreamed of. But we didn't want him to be an only child. The "girls" as we call them, first visited us in Christmas 2005, as part of the Frontier Horizon hosting program. It took us awhile to get to know each other, but we felt confident enough at the end of that visit to ask them if they wanted to be adopted.

In classic Ukrainian style, they shrugged and said, "Da" (yes). Our hopes of brining them back home in a few short months proved naive, and they returned last summer for a much longer "hosting" visit. Somehow, the folks at Frontier Horizon made arrangements for them to stay almost the entire summer.

We actually experienced what it is like to be a family of five. We got to know them and appreciate them as individuals, and got a glimpse of what our lives will be like when we all return this summer as a family.

Through numerous disappointing delays and heartbreaking false alarms for the girls, we have our long awaited appointment in Kyiv on May 30th, and will leave for Odessa shortly after.

This posting will be the first that many of you have heard about this. We are so grateful for all the love and support we've had ever since our journey began way back when. Your prayers are coveted as we prepare to head east!