When I talked with people who have adopted, I remember them telling me that they had to get SO MUCH paperwork together for their dossier. I am now realizing what they were talking about!! It can get overwhelming looking at the list of what is still needed before we can schedule our home study.
We have to see a Psychologist and have an MMPI done for each of us - which we've heard is not much fun. We both have to see a doctor for a physical and get our medical history - for Dave this is going to be a bit of a chore. We both have to write an autobiography about ourselves as well. There are many other things to finish up as well, but I guess those are the ones that we are not really looking forward to doing.
For now I have had fun getting the other paperwork put together. Each night this week I have worked on a different piece of paperwork that we need. Karin (our adoption counselor) is a lady after my own heart - she made a checklist with very detailed instructions for each piece of paperwork we need to get together. I've had so much fun crossing these off of my list :)
We're thinking of trying to put a vacation to the Philippines together before we actually go over for the adoption (since that's still a couple of years away). We would love to be able to go and sightsee, and buy some souvenirs to decorate our house. Plus, it would be a great vacation!! We have some great friends who live over there, and my aunt and uncle may be going back over there this summer as well. It would be great to see all of them, as we won't have much time to do that during the adoption trip. The fares we have found so far have been super expensive, so it's all a matter of finding inexpensive tickets. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be!!
Rachel
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Our first training session
We had our first training session yesterday. We met with three other couples and our adoption counselor Karin. The other couples are adopting from Haiti, China, and Russia. Two of the couples were on their first session like us. It was a full eight hour day with lots of information, handouts, and conversation. We talked a lot about ways to relieve stress, planning our trip, racial and cultural issues and identity, bilingual and transcultural issues, language development, naming and renaming, specific country culture, and positive parenting.
One thing that we found really interesing is the difficulties adopted children may face in language development. Above average learners may take 8-10 repetitions to learn a word or action. An average learner may take 25-35 reps, and a naive learner (meaning a child that lacks the experience or exposure to language from birth) may take 1400+ repetitions!!!!! The use of sign language is strongly encouraged to help children communicate and is proven effective. Karin also cited studies encouraging "thinking" out loud to your child to help them "catch up" on the amount of words and language they've heard. That includes things like explaining everything while walking down the grocery aisle - "Now we're walking down the cereal aisle... look at all the red, green, and blue boxes... now I'm reaching up high to get the Cheerios box!" Just imagine Dave and I walking around the store explaining everything we are doing :)
We also met a very special family who came to talk about their adoption experience. Jill and Gary adopted Louis from the Philippines. They started the process in January of 2004, submitting their dossier in June of 2004. They were approved by the Filipino government in July of 2004 to adopt. They waited 19 months until they were matched with Louis!! Then had to wait 4 more months to travel to the Philippines to go meet their son and bring him home in June of 2006!! I'm sure you can imagine that we were shocked by the length of time it took for them to be united with their son. But we learned that it's a typical amount of time to wait. They told us that once they were together with Louis though all of the worry, frustration, and feeling of defeat went away immediately. The other cool thing we learned was that they adopted Louis from the Little Children's Home. We actually have good friends over there who are connected with this ophanage, so we were excited to hear the name of that orphanage!
One of the best parts about yesterday was when Jill, Gary and Louis were getting ready to leave after sharing their experience with us. Dave walked over to them to tell them thank you. All of a sudden Louis walked over to Dave and said, "Hug? Hug? Hug?" So Dave reached down and picked Louis up. Louis hugged Dave and started patting him on the back. Then Louis leaned back and puckered up, waiting for Dave to give him a kiss. He wouldn't get down until he had a kiss from Dave!! After Dave set him down, Louis came over to me and asked for a hug. I picked him up and he gave me a big hug, leaned back and puckered up again. I gave him a kiss and another hug and then he blew a kiss to the rest of the group. It was almost like Louis knew that we were going to be adopting from the Philippines, and that was exactly what we needed that day! It felt like the Lord was assuring us that we are following His will for our family, and that's a great feeling!!
One thing that we found really interesing is the difficulties adopted children may face in language development. Above average learners may take 8-10 repetitions to learn a word or action. An average learner may take 25-35 reps, and a naive learner (meaning a child that lacks the experience or exposure to language from birth) may take 1400+ repetitions!!!!! The use of sign language is strongly encouraged to help children communicate and is proven effective. Karin also cited studies encouraging "thinking" out loud to your child to help them "catch up" on the amount of words and language they've heard. That includes things like explaining everything while walking down the grocery aisle - "Now we're walking down the cereal aisle... look at all the red, green, and blue boxes... now I'm reaching up high to get the Cheerios box!" Just imagine Dave and I walking around the store explaining everything we are doing :)
We also met a very special family who came to talk about their adoption experience. Jill and Gary adopted Louis from the Philippines. They started the process in January of 2004, submitting their dossier in June of 2004. They were approved by the Filipino government in July of 2004 to adopt. They waited 19 months until they were matched with Louis!! Then had to wait 4 more months to travel to the Philippines to go meet their son and bring him home in June of 2006!! I'm sure you can imagine that we were shocked by the length of time it took for them to be united with their son. But we learned that it's a typical amount of time to wait. They told us that once they were together with Louis though all of the worry, frustration, and feeling of defeat went away immediately. The other cool thing we learned was that they adopted Louis from the Little Children's Home. We actually have good friends over there who are connected with this ophanage, so we were excited to hear the name of that orphanage!
One of the best parts about yesterday was when Jill, Gary and Louis were getting ready to leave after sharing their experience with us. Dave walked over to them to tell them thank you. All of a sudden Louis walked over to Dave and said, "Hug? Hug? Hug?" So Dave reached down and picked Louis up. Louis hugged Dave and started patting him on the back. Then Louis leaned back and puckered up, waiting for Dave to give him a kiss. He wouldn't get down until he had a kiss from Dave!! After Dave set him down, Louis came over to me and asked for a hug. I picked him up and he gave me a big hug, leaned back and puckered up again. I gave him a kiss and another hug and then he blew a kiss to the rest of the group. It was almost like Louis knew that we were going to be adopting from the Philippines, and that was exactly what we needed that day! It felt like the Lord was assuring us that we are following His will for our family, and that's a great feeling!!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The Adventure Begins
Well, it's official!! The Ribars have decided to adopt from the Philippines!!
It's going to be a long process, and we are going to try to journal each step of the way. We want to be able to remember all the fun and insanely difficult parts of this journey. We are working with the Hand in Hand International Adoption Agency. Karin is our adoption counselor, and she has been a great resource so far and we are so grateful for her experience and advice.
Back in September we attended an Orientation Night. There we learned about the different countries that Hand in Hand works with. The Philippines was the first country that they placed a child with a family, and Karin's aunt actually helped the Filipino government write out their adoption laws!!
We felt that the Philippines match up with who we are very closely. It is a predominantly Christian country, and require that families adopting from there be practicing Christians. They are also very family-oriented, and anyone who knows us well knows that our family is our passion! We are so excited to add a Filipino child or children to our family - That's right, we have said that we would be willing to adopt a sibling group of two children. We don't know if that will actually happen, but for right now we are open to it.
We are so excited about everything we have learned so far. We know it's going to be a very long process, and at times we will be very frustrated with things that are out of our control. But overall we know that this is in God's hands, and He has the perfect baby/babies already chosen for us. Thanks for supporting us through this, we appreciate all of the prayers sent up on our behalf!!
It's going to be a long process, and we are going to try to journal each step of the way. We want to be able to remember all the fun and insanely difficult parts of this journey. We are working with the Hand in Hand International Adoption Agency. Karin is our adoption counselor, and she has been a great resource so far and we are so grateful for her experience and advice.
Back in September we attended an Orientation Night. There we learned about the different countries that Hand in Hand works with. The Philippines was the first country that they placed a child with a family, and Karin's aunt actually helped the Filipino government write out their adoption laws!!
We felt that the Philippines match up with who we are very closely. It is a predominantly Christian country, and require that families adopting from there be practicing Christians. They are also very family-oriented, and anyone who knows us well knows that our family is our passion! We are so excited to add a Filipino child or children to our family - That's right, we have said that we would be willing to adopt a sibling group of two children. We don't know if that will actually happen, but for right now we are open to it.
We are so excited about everything we have learned so far. We know it's going to be a very long process, and at times we will be very frustrated with things that are out of our control. But overall we know that this is in God's hands, and He has the perfect baby/babies already chosen for us. Thanks for supporting us through this, we appreciate all of the prayers sent up on our behalf!!
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