[mrbkr]

Greetings All,

We adopted an older child from Russia 1 1/2 years ago. She has brought more love, joy, and happiness to our home and family than we could have ever imagined. We have been blessed 1,000 times greater than the blessing we had originally set out to provide to just one less fortunate child in this world.

I don’t need to tell anyone on this forum the painstaking ordeal the whole process of adopting from Russia was. I am not a patient person by any stretch of the imagination and things got quite ugly a few times. Thank God my wife has quite a surplus in the patience department (not to mention her extraordinary organizational skills) or we would have never made it through the entire ordeal. I must tell you though, thinking back and putting things in proper prospective, knowing the way things turned out, we would go through it all again and more without hesitation.

We are an older couple in our early (very early) fifties. We have other grown children of our own with families of their own that have provided us with beautiful grandchildren that we love with all our hearts and soul (I’ve always said that I like grandkids a whole lot better than regular kids.) Bottom line, we need another kid like we need a whole in the head.

So what do we do? We set our sights on Kazakhstan now were we just put the wheels in motion to adopt another older child. Are we crazy or what? We must be crazy. Some folks think so but our hearts have been tugging at us for quite some time now.

We’re luckier this time around because all our paperwork is pretty much in order from the last adoption and our homestudy just needs a few minor adjustments.

We would be interested in hearing from any other parents who have adopted an older child (pre to mid teens) from Kazakhstan and learning about their experiences.

[bgashler]

You can read about the whole experience at Short Pause in Kaz

By the way, this was our second international adoption. We adopted from Ukraine in 2001. I was in Kazakhstan for 7 weeks. Luckily, it was only one trip.

Our new daughter is doing well. She is in third grade and is reading at second grade level. This is pretty good when you consider that only a few months ago, she couldn't even recognize English letters.

[ddahl]

We are considering the move to KAZ as well. My heart is in IA but I am not to sure about Russia as we to had long delays. Best of luck with the process. We should be right behind you.... we will start the paperwork in October. Take care! Dixie

[DET62]

I adopted my daughter from Russia in 2004, when she was 13 years old. It was an ordeal. I actually wrote a book about it.

She is an awesome teen now, though, and I feel very blessed. I am dismayed by the situation in Russia right now, and how hard they are making it on parents.

I just returned from Kaz with my adorable 10 year old son. He is a joy. His orphanage was MUCH better run, cleaner, the kids more healthy, the caretakers more caring. I didn't like the trips [4 weeks, home, then 10 days] but it was worth it to get my son home.

My journey to my son also involves a book, which is a children's book I wrote to help him cope. PM me for more details. My blog site is below.

Good luck!
Dee