[Scrapgirl3]

Hi, I'm recently over from the Korea board. My husband and I have been thinking about adoption for about 6 months now and want to gather more info before a decision is made. We want to do what is right for our family. To make a long story short, we have 3 bio children- 8 year old twin girls and a 5 year old son. I am unable to have any more children but have never felt we were done. The decision was medical and life-threatening and I didn't have a choice. Anyway, I was really looking into Korea because of the young age of the child, good health care, foster home, and less chance of RAD because of being in a foster home. Now, I happened to click on the Poland forum and tried to research it a little. It actually makes perfect sense. My husband is Polish, we celebrate Polish holidays already (Wiglia, Polish food at Easter, husband learning the language, etc...). I am having a hard time finding a lot of info on this program, I guess because it is not as common as others. My main questions for now are how to find an agency (we live in Maryland), how healthy are the children, how long is the wait for a boy or girl under 2, and do many people bring the whole family to Poland? We would LOVE for our other children to see Poland. Do they send videos of the possible referred children? Is it possible to adopt only one, or is it usually sibling groups? I know I have a ton of questions, but I am only in the beginning stages of this country search and I am overly enthusiastic. It sounds like a really good program. Thanks for any info/advice you can give me!

[momraine]

Welcome! First off your husband's polish roots would give you guys a slight edge in this program. You would be chosen over parents who have no Polish roots. There are pros and cons to Polish adoption. One thing that is both a pro and a con is the bonding period. You will be assigned by a judge a bonding period of at least two weeks. (three weeks seems common, though the judge can make it longer or shorter) What happens during this time, varies by the judge. You may visit the child daily, you may have coustody of the child during this time or some combination of the two. We had full coustody of our son for the three weeks. You will be observed during this time. There are two hearings, the first sets the bonding period. The second is to grant the adoption. After the second there is a waiting period of three weeks, though a judge can shorten it to two weeks. Some choose to go home during this time, others choose to wait, some are not given a choice by the judge or the orphanage. In our case our son could not return to the orphange, so I had to stay. This meant I was in Poland for a total of 6 weeks, plus we did an unrequired extra visit beforehand to meet our son. That visit was ten days. Some judges will allow or even require you to bring your other children, some will not allow it. We were told not to bring our other children. Truth be told they would have missed a lot of school and would have been bored and our new son needed the one on one time with us. Your husband must be there for the bonding time and the last hearing as must you. The children are in orphanages or foster homes. They seem healthier than in some other parts of EE. I have not seen a huge amount of FAS, though it is possible. Your agency does not have to be in your state. There are only a few that do Polish adoptions. I did things kind of backward and was a different situation so I don't know if you normally get videos or anything. I did not. Just a photo and some basic medical records that skipped over some very important issues. It is possible to adopt one, though there are more sibling groups and older children available. Younger children are available but the wait will be much longer as Polish citizens living in Poland get first pick and they will often adopt all healthy infants. I think a couple of people on here adopted children under two, but most adopted children over two.

[lastpaige]

We also had two bio daughters, I almost died after the last one, and years later we went to Poland to continue building our family. My husband is a native of Poznan, still has family connections in Poland, and is fluent. We’ve been home almost a year after adopting 7 year old twin boys. (You can see their photo in the current issue of Adoptive Families Magazine in the article, “Adoption Goes High Tech”.

There are few agencies that work with Poland, and you can also work independently with an attorney. A Google search of Polish Adoption should land you a few agencies at least. We emailed a list of 10 basic questions to each agency. Most did not respond to these basic questions and wanted phone calls, money, or some paperwork before they spoke with us – they didn’t make our cut!

Our boys were said to have a slew of minor issues requiring physical and speech therapies, ADHD management, etc. It turned out that they had none of those issues and simply needed to come home. They had relationship enough with the ladies in the orphanage that allowed them to come home with no RAD issues. We waited 13 months for a referral from the time our paperwork was approved and recorded in Poland. Our request was for siblings between 4 and 10 with minor correctable issues. We figured we’ve had babies and toddlers and wanted those children to go with parents that hadn’t experienced that before.

Our entire family went to Poland. It did take some serious logistic work, as the courts said that the girls couldn’t be there the first 2 weeks of bonding. Our girls went to Babcia and Dziadek’s house for 10 days, and then Babcia and Dziadek brought them to us in Poland.

The judge was quite pleased with what and how we were doing, so she waved the second court appearance. Once the boys were officially ours we travelled all over and saw a great deal. It was the best education we could have given our daughters – and our sons for that matter - there was no time for boredom. Of course the travels added to the expense of our trip, but it was well worth the investment.

We didn’t get videos, only one photo along with 5 pages of referral information. Later while waiting for our court date I requested and received an updated photo to hold us over until we travelled.

Keep researching; keep asking questions, these are the first steps to the new members of your family!

[PolishMom]

Hi -

Just a quick, general, comment on RAD. My son who was in an orphanage for the first 7 years of his life does not have it. My daughter who was with her bio family 5 years, 1.5 years in an orphanage, and then with a (very good) foster family for 1.5 years before coming to us does have a RAD. I've read stories where children in domestic birth adoption situations, with new parents in the birthing room, even end up with RAD.

I don't think the foster home environment is necessarily a reason to think there will be less chance of RAD.

Not wanting to start a fight, just my 2 cents worth.

Heather

Originally Posted by Scrapgirl3

Anyway, I was really looking into Korea because of the young age of the child, good health care, foster home, and less chance of RAD because of being in a foster home.

[PolishMom]

I'm picking and choosing questions to answer here


My main questions for now are how to find an agency (we live in Maryland)

Most agencies will work with you no matter where you live (within the US). You need to find one that you are comfortable with. Many of us here can give you references for our specific ones, via PM.

Do many people bring the whole family to Poland?

We did for our adoptions. In the regions we were located in, the judges required that we bring all of our children with us (our preference too!). I've heard that in other regions, the judges are just the opposite and prefer only Mom and Dad.

Do they send videos of the possible referred children?

Unless it is physically impossible, our agency will not let you accept a referral without having a video of the children. This also means that the in-country contact has met the child/children and is confirming all the other information given about them.

This is our agency's policy...I don't know about others.

Is it possible to adopt only one?

Ours were all adopted one at a time.

[Scrapgirl3]

These are all great answers, thank you all so much for your input. It is a lot to think about, but all of this gives us issues to start thinking about. I think my husband would be way more happy with Poland since he has ties there, although his sister in law is Korean, so we actually have ties to both places!! I've requested information from one agency so far and will work on some others today. Again, thanks, and I'm sure this won't be the last set of questions I have!!

[Scrapgirl3]

PolishMom, Can you PM me your agency? It sounds like a good one and that you were happy with them. Thanks!

[mschaefer]

Here are some quick comments:

how long is the wait for a boy or girl under 2?
Poland has a very high rate of domestic adoption of infants and toddlers, so the wait for younger, healthy children tends to be longer.

With that said we requested 1-2 children younger than our son who was 3.5 y.o. at the time. We received our referral 12 months after submission to Poland. Our twin girls were 21 months at the time of referral. They had been in the orphanage since birth. The had risk factors for furture developmental problems which may have caused them to not be adopted by other families domestically or internationally, but we were comfortable with the risks. Once back in the US many of the concerns were ruled out with more intensive testing.

and do many people bring the whole family to Poland?
We did bring our son (almost 5 at the time of travel) and my MIL to help care with our son. Our judge did not require or forbid him from coming and was very pleased he and my MIL travelled with us.

Do they send videos of the possible referred children?
We did not receive a video of our girls. Although we had very good written reports and our in-country lawyer had met the children and verified much of the information. We also received prompt answers to our questions from the director of the orphanage within 48 hours of our request.

Is it possible to adopt only one, or is it usually sibling groups?
We have met many families who only adopted one child.

Good luck with your search.

[PolishMom]

Done, sent you a PM a short time ago :-)