[LilyMoon]

Yes, it can be terrifying to read some of the books about adopting from Russia and all of the possibilites of problems one could have. However, we felt that if you come into it as prepared as possible and use professionals to help you in the process, you can minimize the risks considerably.

We chose to adopt at an older age. One of the reasons we did this was to have the ability to see certain milestones that the child reached, and be able to better assess our child. At age 4, which is the age we adopted our child, we could evaluate speech, content of speech, facial features, personality, etc. We had 2 IA doctors assess our daughter's referral. We could have also had a Dr. come to the orphanage to assess our child and many people do this. We felt pretty confident about the health of our child from our IA docs reports so we didn't do that. Then of course, you get to meet your child on the first trip and get an idea of how well the child is doing.

Our child was completely healthy. Not one health problem when we brought her home. She is now finishing first grade and has been above grade level academically. She did need to learn what living in a family was all about and how to attach. With strong attachment parenting, she is thriving in our family, is well attached to us and doing wonderfully. Adopting from Russia was one of the greatest things we ever did. I am so grateful to have this amazing child in my life and I feel very blessed.