A Revised Plan

Last night after supper in our apt (more delicious roast chicken, carrots with butter and honey, corn from a can that actually was as corn-y and good as corn on the cob in August, and macaroni and cheese made with extremely good Swiss, white wine, cream and butter) we continued the discussion about a plan of action for our 3rd appt… whenever that comes.

When we did our homestudy, our social worker asked us what age group did we wish to adopt from and we said up to 4 years old, but we were really crossing our fingers for a child between the ages of 2-3. We also knew that everyone who wants to adopt wishes to have a child as young as possible and that there are no infants in the Ukrainian system for international adoption. (To read why, please go back to one of the earliest posts- I can’t remember what I titled it but it was answering a bunch of questions.)

I think it’s important to point out here that people in general assume all sorts of negative stuff when it comes to older kids and adoption. (And when I say older I mean children who are over 5-6+ years old.) In pop culture, we are all familiar with garbage like horror films with an orphan child who is evil and ends up killing family pets and a sibling and burns the house down. People also assume that just because a child is older in the system, they will automatically have much more serious problems with coping, attachment and psychological issues. It’s “bad kid” syndrome- like the parents finally couldn’t handle their wayward child a day longer, so they were dumped off to the orphanage once and for all to become somebody else’s problem. All of this is such utter nonsense, it’s actually offensive. Even well-meaning, educated people are prone to believe these things, because they seem to follow a leap of logic: if being in an orphanage is “bad”, then the assumption is the child who is older who is in an orphanage must have been there for a much longer time, therefore they must automatically be more damaged and unwanted, right? It just isn’t so.

Every situation is unique, as is every child. Ask yourself, who would be a better candidate to join a new family: a child who is 3, who has never bonded with any caretakers in the orphanage, who has serious developmental delays due to neglect and abuse and who has been passed around to half a dozen family members before landing in care, OR a 5 year old child who has been in an orphanage for a year, who has lovingly bonded with his caretaker, who receives attention and affection, who has lived only with his grandmother since infancy after Mom disappeared?

You simply can not make assumptions about children in care no matter what their age may be, because the backgrounds and individual characteristics are completely unique to the child and situation. And nowhere was this more obvious than when we went to visit the little girl we chose from a file outside of Odessa a couple of weeks ago, and then subsequently also met the disabled girl who we could not adopt even though we wanted to do exactly that. She was younger in years than the little girl we had travelled to meet, yet she was much more relaxed, social, and obviously very bright. It was a real lesson. Had we had seen her file in the Dept office, we would have not even considered her- she was “too old” and being told about her disability would have seemed too daunting. However meeting that little girl in person was another story all together; she was perfection.

Since then, we have talked a lot about our age expectation. Mostly, Ois & I are in agreement: we thought 4 years old would be our ceiling, but if we happen to meet another child who is 4 years and 11 months and there is a connection- are we really going to walk away because of those 11 months? Similarly, that little girl was slightly older than 5. If we changed our age category to 0-5, and a child is 5 years and 6 weeks old, we would be categorically denied even for those few extra weeks. So we have been talking and talking about this. Finally last night we called our social worker in Montreal, and said before we dialed that whatever her professional opinion was, we were going to stick with it. And we want to have all our ducks in a row so to speak before walking in to our last appt so what happened to one of the other couples here does not happen to us: they found a child that was slightly out of their age range, and while they were rushing to change their paperwork, the child was adopted by somebody else and they were both blindsighted and broken hearted.

When we filled her in on our situation over here, to say she was dumbstruck would be an understatement. She couldn’t believe that there were virtually no children under age of 4 available for adoption by a “young” couple. (When you are 35 or less, you are considered to be a young couple and typically- although not always- you are favoured into being given the opportunity to adopt an infant or a toddler as a first-time parent in many countries.) She also couldn’t believe we were still in Kiev waiting for appointments. And she was so sad for us and shocked by our experience of seeing binder after binder of incurably sick kids so far. I have to say that getting some sympathy felt pretty good. It was also a nice reality check from someone in a professional position who is on our side but also removed from the deranged little world we’re currently living in. You get so used to the craziness over here where it’s Adoptionland 24/7 and all the armchair analysis of “what does a 3rd appt mean when it’s a rainy Tuesday and the moon is in Scorpio, and the lady looked at us like that coming up the stairs at the Dept and why are they whispering in Ukrainian, now?” Just to hear another person who is a voice of reason in the abyss saying, “WTF you guys! That’s crazy! How can this be happening to you?” was a nice reminder that we’re not nuts for having some baseline expectations and that we are ALLOWED to ask for some basic stuff after what we’ve been through just to get here in the first place: Yes, we want a little girl and we shouldn’t have to feel like we should be made to apologise for that fact, and yes, we would kind of like a child who is not on death’s door.

She was also a bit concerned about the fact that they try to pushpushpush your limits here, with respect to age groups and even the possibility of siblings. We know this. But we told her that in fact it was us who asked at the Dept if we could please see the binder of 4-6 year olds for the heck of it and that they didn’t even want to show us. I think that made the difference to her in easing her mind on our behalf. In any case, we asked to have our age category raised to 6 years old. She said she would call our agency immediately and get the paperwork rolling that afternoon for us, which was great. Then I fired off an email to Nadia to alert her to this revision in plans, however we also indicated that we have zero intentions of adopting a child even a minute after 5 years old, to cover our butts. In reality, if the circumstances were extremely special we’d consider up to 5.5, but there would have to be heavens parting and angels singing. I just want more time home with Mena before she would have to start school to ensure she’s got a good understanding of English, and that she’s secure enough in our family and routines so she can fully focus on just being a little girl who can do well at school and can make friends easily.

So that is where we are today, exactly one month after we arrived. Now let’s just get to our third appt, and move on with things.