Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Making an Impression

Well, I think our home study agent will definitely remember us.  Hopefully it's for more than just stressing her out, but right now I think we have left an impression in that area!  Lol.  First off, I am grateful because our home study agency has been wonderful from the start.  She has worked hard to get our draft done in a timely manner.  It was submitted to our adoption agency about two weeks ago and I finally heard something back today.  She wrote:  "this will definitely be our longest international home study EVER...".      I think I sense some frustration there (with the all-caps)!  Ha ha.    Thankfully she was gracious about it though, and I personally don't mind if it takes longer because I know Lina (from our adopt. agency)  is a pro when it comes to making it perfect.    It might take a while now, but hopefully that will mean a smoother process later on down the line. 

Friends/family have been asking when we will go to Poland for the first time.  All I can say is perhaps sometime between Christmas and Valentine' Day (?), but that is really just a guess.  I know everyone will understand if that changes, I just want to be able to throw a ballpark time frame out there.   Although, from reading other blogs I know it's just impossible to determine with much accuracy.   If I try, I will go crazy so I just have to trust God's timing is always perfect.   

As of late, I have been thinking about two things a lot.  One is, how many children we should adopt.  At first my husband felt called for us to adopt two.  However, we already have three boys and the more I think about it, the more I apprehensive I am.    I get scared thinking about everything from bonding to the cost, to being in Poland for 6 weeks with 5 children (not to mention the flight back) and then life as a family of 7.  I keep going back and forth.  I always wanted a large family, I am just afraid of the unknowns.    Still praying about it.  Also, we know our daughter's name and have started talking about her with our kids.  I just wonder if it's okay that we have named her before knowing her birth name?  I know some parents keep the child's given name and I don't know the etiquette on that yet.  Well, sorry for the long post. 
P.S. Thanks so much for your great comments.  Not only do I enjoy reading everyone else's blog and posting feedback, but I enjoy my own blog now because of the great advice you leave me too!:)  What a blessing.

9 comments:

  1. The home study is a big step, I'm sure you'll be relieved when it's finished. I think the name of your daughter is up to you, just as if you gave birth to her. Some parents tell the child's name before birth, others wait. Our son's Polish name was in the top 2 or 3 names we would have picked if we were his birth parents, it will all work perfectly!

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  2. You are right! Lina will make it perfect, but that is what you want! I don't think it will take her very long to review your dossier and send it in. She had ours reviewed and sent to Poland within 3 days after we turned it in! I was amazed (and very glad)! That's the great thing about working with a smaller agency! However, I suppose the turn around time will depend on how many other families she is working with.

    About the name, I think it's fine to pick out your own name. I've seen and heard about families going that route many times. We had a different named picked out for our son as well, but decided to change it to the English translation of his given name once we got his referral.

    Oh and God has your little girl(s) already picked out. Trusting is hard, but remember, He won't give you more than you can handle! Rest in His peace! Your in our prayers!

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  3. We have also picked a name for our future little girl. Our boys already call the room "Ella's room". Maybe we will be in Poland together! We are hoping for a Christmas child as well.

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  4. I was just talking with someone yesterday about 2 girls adopted from Russia. They let the girls choose their own names. How cool is that!?

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  5. Changing names really depends on the age of the kids and their personalities. We weren't sure that we could make a tremendous change in our eldest's name, so we just shortened it to be more americanized. When we met him we realised that if we changed it so soon he would have rejected us as parents and we would have lost any trust with him.

    The other two younger ones - we had no problem changing their names. We just kept their Polish names as middle names. It worked great and they switched to their new names within a month without having any trouble.

    My oldest was 6 at the time, the youngest were 4.5 and 3.

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  6. I believe the name issue is totally a personal choice and if it helps your boys connect to their little sis, then its fantastic! Can we ask what you chose? @W.Rose- I love Ella! So pretty! We are hoping for a boy so based on Polish spelling, we may very well have to modify it a bit but we'll see. :)

    We also have started the home study process with our previous social worker and are looking forward to completing it fairly quickly since she already knows us well and just needs some updated info for some things. She was amazed at the length too and she has been doing this for a long time! lol. Still, she said this was a great thing to be so thorough and Lina is awesome for that. Maybe if we get things going we'll also be there around the same time! Good luck with the rest of the home study!
    -L

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  7. I am hoping for the same time frame. Maybe we will all be in Poland at the same time. I totally understand how you feel about the name. When we adopted our daughter from Russia we gave her a first name we chose and kept her Russian birth name as her middle name. We will do the same this time as well. Like you we already know what we will name our son and our daughter loves referring to him by name. I think it helps her feel closer to him and the whole process. We will keep his Polish first name as his middle name. Unless of course his Polish name is the name we have chosen, that is a possibility, then we will keep his first name and choose a middle name for him.

    Lina is very thorough with the homestudies. I love that she takes so much time to make sure everything is exactly right. While it takes longer now it will help prevent delays down the line.

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  8. We were also unsure about how many kids to adopt. We either wanted 1 or 2. So our homestudy stated that we would like to adopt up to two convention adoptees. After our dossier was in Poland I called to let the agency know that we decided we wanted to wait for two children, even if it took longer. That same night we saw the first picture of our girls. (I hesitate to mention this because it is not the norm) for some reason the timing was perfect for us that day.
    As soon as I saw their names I knew we would keep them. They are not the names I would have picked...but they are beautiful and they are their names. So for us we decided from the very beginning to keep them. We do get to choose middle names which will be fun (haven't really even talked about them yet) We will probably figure that one out on the plane ride to Poland.
    It is so fun to think about who your child will be, what their name will be, what they will look like....enjoy dreaming.....it will soon be reality!

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  9. Choosing how many to adopt is definitely a personal choice. My husband and I disagreed on this one. I would have like to have adopted a sibling group, but my husband felt it was best to see how we did with one first (being that we were childless). He won that round. We adopted our beautiful son and couldnt' be happier. We did change his name, but kept his birth name as one if his two middle names. If interested, you can read here (http://dowdingsinpoland.blogspot.com/2008/06/reintroducing.html) to find out why we named our son what we did. If you find that you really like your daughter's given name, then keep it or the new name that you chose as a middle.

    I would love nothing more than to find that our son has a natural sibling to adopt (he has two older siblings that the birth parents kept). We are talking about returning regardless if he has a natural sibling or not.

    As you are slowly learning, there are no definite rules or specific guidelines (outside of the paperwork)in the world of adoption. Do what fits in with your family.

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