Making Inquiries

So no new news, but we have been making inquiries. This part of the process is quite a bit different than the international process. Basically we search photolistings and make inquiries based on the information there. Then if requested we send our information.

On the one hand I like being able to express interest whenever we want instead of waiting for the phone call. On the other hand you have to inquire on a lot more kids and not get responses some of the time. It's just the way it works. Also instead of being the only one expressing interest at a time there could be a lot of families doing the same. A couple of the children we inquired on I was told they had received over 100 inquiries!

On the plus side we have had a couple of longer conversations with case workers, and while those were not the right match for us, it felt good to be talking about things. There were no quick decisions yes or no, just conversations about whether it was a good match.  Eventually it will happen. I have to keep reminding myself that we have only been doing this for a short time. It feels long because we were two years in the international process.

Another Concert!

A lot of you know we have done a summer concert the past two years. This year we are doing it again. This time we are not raising money for our adoption - we have decided we would like to put our efforts toward raising money for a charity. This year we are raising money for Gilda's Club Seattle. This concert is in honor of my mom who passed away two years ago.My mom loved Gilda's Club and the organization meant a lot to her while she was battling her illness.

We have an excellent line up performing:

Sanjaya Malakar of American Idol Season 6
RedDog - who performed at our show last year
Kristin Allen-Zito 

We are also having a silent auction with some really great items. If you want to check it out the list of auction items is here.

If you are in the Seattle area or know someone who would like to go - the ticket info is here.

I would love to see you there! There is also a Facebook page for the event if you would like more info.

Interesting Information on Matching

I found this very informative document - Finding a Fit - on how a match is made between a child (or children) and adoptive families. It also made me wonder about the differences and similarities to how adoption workers find a match in international adoptions. Obviously every country is different.

Finding a Fit provides some historical information on how adoptive homes were found for kids, which I found very interesting.

In 1919 the manual for social workers said -

The laws of most states properly require that so far as is practicable, placements of children can be made in families of the same religious faith as that held by the children or their parents. It is also worthwhile to avoid mixing too diverse types of nationalities, as for instance, the very swarthy with the decidedly blond. There need be no question of superiority or inferiority raised in a rule to limit placements generally to similar personal, racial, or national types, or to approximations of them in their American descendants. No good can come from, and much harm may be done by, willful violation of customs and comity in the placement of children, even when the child welfare worker in doing so violates neither state laws nor his own conscience.  -- 

The guide also states that until the 1970's adoptions were primarily for infants going to married couples. People were encouraged to keep the adoption secret from their adopted children. Matches were based on placing children with parents with similar physical characteristics and of the same race. 


This excerpt about adoption practices in the 1930s is a little bizarre --

When infants were abandoned and no information on birth parents was available, some interesting practices evolved, based largely on the social mores of the time. In New York City, for example,“in the 1930s, the Catholics were given all the foundlings discovered from noon to midnight, the Protestants were given all those found from midnight to noon.”2 Although Jews made up a third of the city’s population, children of unknown background were not referred to Jewish agencies because of fears that a Christian child might mistakenly be raised as Jewish. This practice changed in the 1950s, however, when abandoned children were divided among Catholic, Protestant and Jewish agencies, a practice that continued until the 1960s.-- From Slingerland,W.H. (1919). Child-Placing in Families: A Manual for Students and Social Workers.

I found adoption history to be quite interesting, though a bit heartbreaking at times. It's good to see that ideas have changed and more and more kids will find their forever families. 

Switching Gears

I know it has been a very long time since I posted. That is because right around the Christmas holidays we decided to switch gears and pursue adoption form the U.S. foster care system. This was a tough decision after all we had invested emotionally into adopting from Poland. We had felt strong in our decision in choosing Poland when we first started this process so it was not easy to let it go.

However, we are excited about this change and we know this was the right decision for us. I'm happy to say we finished all of new paperwork and now have a brand new home study.

The change basically involved doing some updates - which we would have had to have done anyway considering our original home study is nearly two years old, and taking some additional classes.

So now we are all set to begin again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope everyone has a happy and relaxing day with their loved ones!

Congratulations to everyone celebrating with their new little one or little ones!

Not Much Going On

I haven't had much to post lately. I guess after a while things just settle in and waiting becomes normal. For the first year the adoption was everything. There was so much to do and so much to learn. Now waiting has just become a fact of life.

So I just wanted to check in and say things are status quo for us.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Polish Language Website

Our agency sent us this link and I think it looks like a good site. It's from the University of Pittsburgh and you can do the first year language lessons online for free! They also have some good Polish links and a Polish-English dictionary.

University of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website