The more I learn, The more I realize the less I know.
Awareness is empowering unless you get too much in too short of time. I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I’ve spent trying to learn all I can in preparation for this journey. Especially in the early stages of research, I would get discouraged thinking of all the things that could go wrong. All the costs, all the conditions that the children may have, all the paperwork that has to be nearly perfect to be accepted, all the closures and foreign laws that can effect the progress, all these and more tugging at a question, why? Then I read a story of a family that brought home their angel, pulled from the depths of institutional care, becoming a family in the end. Then I wonder why I asked why.
This turned out to be a rather long intro to some links from where you can find more information. There are so many more resources that I’m unaware of, but I hope these links will help the newcomer. Please don’t hesitate to let me know of others that would be helpful here.
I’m currently reading “Attaching in Adoption” by Deborah Gray. It’s so much more than just telling about the issues that many children have, but describes human nature and some ideas on how to deal with these issues. Our society loves to put labels on everything it seems. When I look back at my childhood and analyze it, I could probably put many labels on my behaviors that would scare the hell out of me if I was adopting myself (silly thought). My better half would say that I came out just fine. Ms. Gray does a good job at showing examples, what was done and the outcome. I’m enjoying the book immensely.
There are a couple of boards that I like to visit on a regular basis:
Frau (Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoptons) chat
Yahoo Group Adoption_from_Ukraine - Membersip
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adoption_from_Ukraine/
The web sites are just too numerous to put here, but here are some to get you started:
USCIS - http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis
US Embassy in
AdoptLove blog - http://www.adoptlove.com/blog/
US Dept of State - http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_369.html
A site listing more sites - http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/international-adoption-adopting-from-ukraine.html
Each site will lead you to other sites which lead to others ad nauseam.
One last resource that shouldn't be overlooked is a state/county run foster/special needs adoption program. We went through 36hrs of class for a local adoption in 2001. The sights we saw were very disturbing and others we reassuring and opened our eyes to many things that we hadn't considered. It's an invaluable resource for us, even after so many years.
I’ll have a blog list on this site once I get around to it.
Cheers and happy hunting J.
1 comment:
Thanks for the listing of sites. I have been to a few, but I'll have to check out some of the others. It's interesting how things move from just a spark of an idea of adoption to a real desire to go to Ukraine and spend time with as many kids as possible...as well as bring one or more home, of course. :-)
Post a Comment