My wife and I are strongly considering adoption; we currently have no children. I'm sure a few sixpackers have adopted; what was your experience? What were some things you didn't expect or consider on the front-end?
My sister and her husband adopted from Hungary back in 2017. As part of the process, she had to go to Hungary for a 6 week period. It just so happens that during that time, we were playing Alabama in football and were actually beating them to start the 4th quarter. She got Facebook alerts and used Whatsapp to message me from Hungary when it was about 2 to 4 in the morning there. Then, we all know Rob Skelton covered for Bama like the refs always do. The SEC at its best, I tell ya!
Anyway, I digress.
One of the reasons she adopted internationally was because of something that happened to one of the couples in my old Sunday School class. They have a daughter and had custody of her for a couple of years I would guess. One day when we were taking prayer requests, the wife started crying and told us and said she was scared that the birth mother would decide she wanted to get her back. From what I understand, it isn't quite that simple, but the courts will usually side with the birth parents if it gets that far. Just something to be aware of. My sister will never have that issue because she adopted internationally.
In Hungary, the kids have to be a certain age before they can be adopted. My sister chose Hungary because she had only been married about a year and it had one of the shortest time period requirements for that. When they got back, my brother in law said there was one little boy who was up for adoption that the father came by to see periodically. He said the agency told him to stop because he was ruining the kids chances of getting adopted because the clock kept getting reset for the boy every time he came. So he was getting older and people want to adopt younger kids generally.
When my sister got back that first Christmas, we were not allowed to hold my niece or really even make too much eye contact with her. The very most we were allowed to do was to give her a high 5. That was what the adoption agency suggested to my sister to help my niece realize who her parents were.
But it also comes with hardships. My niece wasn't held for the first 2+ years of her life. She looks at age 6 what most do at age 3 or 4 because she was malnourished. The adoption agency there would only feed them about 1 or 2 minutes each and if they stopped, they moved on to the next kid. My niece would store food in her cheeks so she could eat a little later. But she never had eaten solid food when my sister had gotten her and wouldn't take it very well. So a couple of years ago, they had to get her a feeding tube. She still has to feed her with some sort of liquid, I guess kind of like Ensure plus or something.
Also, because she was never held, she always looks for attention and will act out. And when I say always, I mean ALWAYS. If the phone rings, she expects you not to answer it or even look at it. One time, I was at my parents house and she was taking a nap, so I decided to also. She woke up, came into my room and got on my bed. When I told her I would be down in a little bit, she hit my on the head as hard as she could. She has thrown things at my mom. My daughter that has autism is scared of her and has hidden in her room because she is scared of getting hit by her. After my dad passed away last year, we went up to his happy place in Murphy North Carolina and my niece grabbed her hair and pulled her down.
All that being said, she is getting better, but it takes a world of patience. I went to my parents house this past weekend and my niece didn't hit anybody once. Over time, she will continue to get better with behavior because we spend a lot of time trying to teach what's acceptable and what isn't.
. Not kidding. But everything worked out great we adopted our son and just recently added 2 cats.
