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Richard P gave his story of adopting a 3 year old - now I will give mine which in ways parallels his, but other ways is completely different.
Our daughter was also a few days old and was at the orphanage for most of the time. She went into foster care about 8 months before we got her. Her orphanages ideal of foster care is different than most. She went home with a caretaker at night and was at the orphanage during the day. This made for an easy transition to daycare. - which she started 6 weeks after coming home.
* She refused to come to us at first until the nanny pulled out the photo album we sent and showed her that we were the "Mama & Baba" in the picture.
* She did not cry until the nanny left the room and it took at least 20 minutes to calm her. Then she was fine.
* She did not talk to us for 3 days, but was smiling and laughing. Once she started talking, she hasn't stopped. This comes from her being extremely shy and will not talk to strangers. A year later, she will only talk to a few select people that she knows very well.
* Our daughter was potty-trained but regressed. It took 8 months after coming home before she was completely potty-trained again.
* Ashlei only cried when we were stuck in the hotel room. She loved being out and about.
* She slept through the night from the first night with her. But she will not take naps.
* Ashlei constantly wanted to be carried and only by me. She refused daddy - but would play with him. She was very affectionate from the start. She was easily consoled.
* Language barrier was hard for all of us. She picked up on understanding English by the time we left China. But it took a few weeks before she could express herself to us in English.
* She was afraid of our 3 - 100lb German Shepherds for about 2 minutes. It took her 2 days to stop being afraid of the 10 lb cat.
* She adapted to US time within 3 days
* She also does not like the word "no" and still will cry if you tell her no.
* She refused to be seatbelted on the plane. She through a major fit when the flight attendant made me wake her up to put the seatbelt on her (In-China flight). On the flight home, she slept for 9 of the 13 hrs.
* She loves TV and videos. It said in her paperwork that she loved to watch TV.
* It took her a while to bond to daddy. We had to force them to spend at least an hour alone together every night so that she would bond with him also. She bonded to me very quickly.
* We took her to the doctor a week after coming home. She did perfectly fine there. She actually smiled and laughed while they took 6 vials of blood (and mommy almost passed out watching).
* The only developmental delays she had was in language but only because she was learning a new one. She caught up with that very quickly.
We have now have had Ashlei for almost 14 months. She is a happy, wonderful little girl. Like Richard said, every older toddler adoption is different. Just go in expecting the worst and hoping for the best. And patience is a must. It is such a wonderful age and I'm glad to see people adopting children this age.
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