Who here has adopted or is adopting?

[hipporina]

I was just reading mrsgus06's thread about finalizing their adoption and I noticed there are a lot of adoptive parents here. I love adoption stories, so tell us about yours. How many kids? How old were they when you got them? Did you name them, change their names, or keep the names their birth parents gave?

Here's mine:

We have 4 kids total. Luke (8), Kathryn (6), Daniel (4), Joshua (4) All of our kids came through the foster care system into our family.

Luke & Joshua came first. They are biological brothers and they have been adopted 1 year and with us 1 1/2 years. They were 7 & 2 1/2 when we got them.

Kathryn & Daniel have been with us 1 month. We will finalize the adoption in Feb 05 if everything goes as planned. They are half biological siblings.

We changed all of our kids names. The little guys didn't think much about it, and the older 2 were so excited to have new names to go with their new families and new lives.

We don't think our family is done, so we will probably adopt again at some point. We are open to whatever children God sends our way.

 

[septbride2002]

We are considering adoption for at least one of our children. We would like to have one biological child and then an adopted child. We are considering Russia or Guatemala for our adoptions because we already know people that are experienced in those countries.

~Amanda

 

[Micheme]

My adoption story

How many kids? Just one perfect princess so far,we will be adopting again in 2008

How old were they when you got them? She was just over 12 months

Did you name them, change their names, or keep the names their birth parents gave? Orphanage gave her the name Kai, we kept it as her middle name and now her name is Hannah Kai

We adopted internationally from China in May after a 2 year process. We waited 8 years for our little one and she is everything we could have hoped for.

 

[AZKathy]

Our adoption story.

We have three wonderful children that we have adopted. Matt, our oldest is now 14 years old. Back then, the adoption process was semi-closed and we chose not to know any thing about being chose as adoptive parents until his birthmom signed the papers. Anyway, we got the phone call when he was a week old, and he came into our home when he was 9 days old. It was incredible! Letters to Tiffany (his birthmom) was sent via the adoption agency for years, but since then we have opened it up and we have even met Tiffany and her family. Oh, Matt's birth name was Damon Randolph. We changed it to Matthew Ryan.

Our middle child is Megan and she is now 10 years old. In the four short years between Matt and Megan, the agency made all their adoptions open adoptions, so we met Megan's birthmom (Bridget) before Megan was born. We got to know each other for around a month prior to her birth. We were not there during the delivery, but saw her when she was 10 hours old at the hospital. We took her home from the hospital when she was 24 hours old. We still have a full open relationship with Bridget and her family. We try to get together around once a year. Bridget knew the names we had chosen, so Megan did not get a name change other than her last name. Her name is Megan Rae.

Our youngest child is Mandy. She was our surprise. See, Bridget got pregnant again with another father. Bridget felt me out when she was early on in the pregnancy if we were going to adopt another child, and me not knowing she was pregnant, said that we felt blessed with two, and we wanted to not be piggy with the babies out there and let another couple become a family. Fast forward to 5 months later, we get a phone call from the adoption agency telling me to sit down. The director told me that Bridget just had a baby girl 24 hours ago and Bridget tried to find another couple for this baby to place, but she just was not happy with any of the couples presented to her. The agency wanted to give us the first opportunity to keep the sisters together, and if not, would we be willing to make a relationship with this baby's adoptive family to keep the sisters together that way. Well, let me tell you....we just got rid of all our baby stuff one month prior and DH said no because he felt he was too old (40). That "NO" lasted a whole three hours and he said that if the agency and Bridget feels that it is important to keep the sisters together and they waive the $10,000 adoption fees, we can open our hearts and home to another baby. Basically, he melted like I did five minutes after the phone call, he took longer! So, anyway, the agency waived all fees and we brought Mandy home when she was 9 days old. Her birth name was Hope Marie, but we changed it to Mandy Renee and she is going to be 7 years old next month.

We had a little bit of turmoil with Mandy's birthfather making threats to stop the adoption, but the waiting time was over on Christmas Eve. My father asked that evening "Is she ours?" and we said "YES!!!"...the next morning my father went into the hospital on Christmas Morning with bilateral pneumonia and passed away on January 8th. He waited to find out that Mandy was ours, and God gave us this precious little one while He took my father Home with Him.

Okay, that is our story. Sorry it was long.

 

[CEDmom]

What a great topic for a thread. We have several families that we're friends with who have also adopted and it's always nice to meet more.

Anyway, we adopted our DD from China in June 2000. She was 9 months old. The entire process took about 18 months. She turned 5 last week and is everything we hoped and dreams of and more. We didn't keep her Chinese name. We had a name picked out for a son and/or daughter since I had gotten pregnant several times so we gave our daughter that name. When we first got married we had hoped for 2 children but we thank God everyday for the one beautiful one we have.

septbride2002 - We had several families in our travel group that had biological children and were adding to their families through adoption.

 

[4greatboys]

I love adoption stories. We have not adopted but we were really looking into it when we got pg with our last ds.
AZKathy--I have to you I have a ds named Matthew Ryan as well and he is also 14

 

[hipporina]

Great stories! I just love how many different ways there are to adopt and all the crazy situations around them.

 

[zagafi]

My Zane was adopted at birth. We only waited 5 months--and this for a domestic newborn caucasian adoption! We had no idea we were being considered, but when his b-mom went into preterm labor (he was born at 33 weeks), she chose us. I'll forever be grateful she did. I can't imagine my life without my silly, smart, sweet wonderful child. He'll be six next Friday, and the twins will be 6 months Saturday.

All three boys came to us in other than "traditional" ways--the twins are the happy result of IVF--and I wouldn't have it any other way. We went the extra mile in our journey to parenthood and the rewards are worth all the tears.

 

[AZKathy]

Originally posted by 4greatboys
I love adoption stories. We have not adopted but we were really looking into it when we got pg with our last ds.
AZKathy--I have to you I have a ds named Matthew Ryan as well and he is also 14

Deena, Matthew Ryan is a wonderful name, huh? We chose Matthew because of the meaning: Gift from God. With all of our infertility problems and miscarriage of triplets...he certainly was our Gift from God!!!

 

[mrsgus06]

I guess since I was the inspiration for this thread, I will tell the whole long story. This is the second marriage for both me and hubby. I had two from my first husband. Denny is 18 and Katherine is 9. Hubby had one from first wife, Taylor is 8. He had two from the ex-girlfriend, Kelsey is 7 and Hailey is 5. (Yes, I had to put up with an exwife and an exgirlfriend!) Anyway, Logan was his ex-girlfriend's third child. Her biological father walked away when he found out Brandy was pregnant. Brandy passed away basically 3 hours after giving birth but was kept on life support for 2 days before being pronounced "brain dead". This was due to neglect from the hospital. I had talked to Brandy before the baby was born and she was going to name her Kyra Olivia but I changed it to Logan Dianne. The name Dianne came from Brandy's mothers middle name. We brought her home when she was 4 days old. We were not looking to adopt, but we were going to raise her with her sisters. Logan will be 3 next month, my house is a madhouse, but I would not have it any other way.

 

[miche61]

Love this thread!

We have three adopted children.
Here's our story. (Not going into all the fertility stuff)
We met DD's b-mom a month before DD was born, on a blizzardy Friday the 13th in January. We were chosen to be her parents. Her b-mom didn't want to chose a name, she thought it would make the difficult situation even harder, so she asked what we would name the child- boy or girl. We chose Nicholas or Hannah Rose. So, one cold morning in February, we got a call. "Michelle, you have a daughter." I had prayed so hard to not be disappointed if it was a boy- and we have been so blessed with out beautiful Hannah. No other birth mom had ever asked for the adoptive parents to name the baby before in our agency.

Fast forward to Hannah age 6. I now had a computer with which to browse the internet. Hmmm.... how about a sister for DD? Let's check into Russian adoptions..... hmmm... DD and I agree, a sister should join our family. Let's tell Dad. (to this point, dad has been very sure that one was plenty!!) Dad says, well, let's look into it. OH MY GOSH! Did he not tell me no? In my book, that means GREEN LIGHT!!! To make a long story a little bit shorter, we found an agency, five minutes from home. We chose a sister from Russia for Hannah (back when you could see a video of children available for adoption) but the thing was- this sister came with a little brother! BONUS!!!! A little convincing Dad that a boy would be great and nine months after the journey started, we had a family of two girls and a boy. Nicole Grace (Nina Sergeievna) was 4 yrs. 10 months old, and Adam Taylor (Artyem Sergeievich) was 3 yrs. 11 months and 3 weeks old when they came home.

I love adoption stories. I know these are the simple versions of the journeys, but keep them coming!!!!

 

[ZachnElli]

Dh and I have talked many times about adopting. How did you all get started? Did you just call an agency? I would really like to, but am so scared to at the same time! We do have 2 biological children and I've been afraid they would tell us no, only those without kids could adopt or be picked by birth moms. Any advice?

 

[Jennifer S]

My story is about my sister. She was adopted at 4 days old after my parents tried for 8 years to get pregnant.. I am the oldest (was a mistake- parents got married because of me) and so my parents adopted my sister when I was 8 then when I was ten my parents got pregnant - how funny is that. I guess they tried too hard. Me & my biological sister were both accidents. We tell the adopted one she is loved most because she was chosen. lol

 

[julia & nicks mom]

my husband is adopted and I love to tell his story -

His birth mother was 30 when he was born and we believe he was the product of an affair with her boss so at birth she placed him for adoption.

He had a lot of birth defects (all cosmetic) and many families passed over him for this reason.

One family moved him to Arizona from Cincinnati with them and then decided that they could not adopt them b/c they had another child facing health problems and put him on a plane with a social worker back to Cincinnati - after several failed placements and being bounced from foster home to foster home - he was placed in an orphanage and was not supposed to be considered for adoption.

The summer he turned 8 - my in-laws were buying a new house and decided not to spend the summer taking classes (they were teachers) but my MIL saw that the orphanage needed two volunteer teachers for the summer (one was in art - my FIL's field) and so they spent the summer there. They never had any intention of having children but according to my FIl when my DH walked in the room he knew he was his son!!!

They began spending time together and he soon moved in with them - as time came to sign the papers - my husband started to act horribly and they spoke with a counselor about this who told them that he was protecting himself in case they changed their minds - my DH could justify that they didn't b/c he was being so rotten and not becasue they didn't love him -

so one day when he was acting really bad - my FIL took him by the shoulders and said to him "You are my son and I love you and you are going to live with us forever" He said my DH then fell into his arms sobbing and after that there were no problems.

My husband skipped 7th & 8th grade and graduated from law school at 21. He has a very successful career and (in my opinion) two beautiful children and a loving wife.

We know this is all b/c 3 people made the loving choice to give him a chance (his birth mother and his parents)

He has never met his birth mother and has no desire to - but I know he thinks about her fondly. He could so easily choose to be angry about the first 8 years of his life but instead he says that God saved him for a purpose and lives his life trying to be the kind of man his birth mtoher wanted him to be.

I am sorry this is so long but I really believe in adoption awareness so that people know that they truly can change the life of a child!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Adoptive family here, it's been so long, almost 27 years with Vince, almost 24 with Natalie. A long time ago, but such a nice trip along the way.

 

[huey duey & luey]

I come from a family with adoption. My sisters are twins 5 years older than myself. My parents had a difficult time conceiving and 5 years into their marriage they adopted my sisiter who were about 9 months (thier bio mom a teenager tried to keep them at first) 4 years later my mom became pregnant with me. Noone could tell that they are adopted we really look alot alike. It's funny too because people often ask me if multiples run in my family (I have triplets) and I tell tehm yes meanwhile I had IVF and my sisters are adopted.
Tara

 

[LIDisneyFan]

2 beautiful children -DD 12 and DS 9. It seems like only yesterday...

 

[TooBoyz4us]

We are also an adoption family

We adopted our boys, biological brothers 4 years ago when they were ages 6&7, thru the foster care system.

It amazes me every day when I think about how 4 years has past by already.It seems as though our boys have always been with us, and I cannot imagine life without them!!

 

[HappyMommy2]

All right, you guys, you have all made me bawl! What wonderful stories--there isn't much in the world that is more beautiful than what you have written here.

DH and I have two fabulous biological children and we are currently looking into adding a third child to our family through adoption. Thank you for sharing your lovely stories.

Janet

 

[twinmomplus2new]

I myself have not adopted, but my family has many times over.
Collectively we have a spunky little girl from China she joined us at 9 mts, who is now 2 and a half.

A wonderful six year old girl from Korea, who joined us at 6mts..
The 6 year olds brother , a domestic adoption he is now 16! he joined us at 3 weeks.

We also have a little 3 year old boy from Guatemala, He was a harder adoption. My cousin was adopting abroad and after 9/11 the country she choice was closed for adoptions. Till further notice. She was required to stay 10 days. And at the time the agency was advising against jews traveling to a muslim country. So while it was closed... They saw this beautiful little one on an adoption website.... Started looking into it... he was 6 mts and had been passed over because the family he was slated for, didn't want him as he had a hernia. And required a small surgery.
Meanwhile the other country tentatively opened up. And she was uncertain what to do. She could not get his face out of her mind. So went ahead. it took 13 mts to get him home at almost 18 mts. He is here, he is wonderful. And awaits the referral of his sister from korea any day now.

we aslo have 2 adult members that joined us through adoption as infants over 35 and 38 years ago.