[LynMaria]

On another thread, someone mentioned that they announced their plans to adopt an older, special needs child by way of a letter to their family. I had planned on doing the same as our news will come as a huge surprise (we won't announce it until we are certain we will be bringing our 3y.o. home). Can anyone share any suggestions or examples of what or how you wrote your letters or announcements? I mean, this will really come as unexpected news, some will rejoice, others will have strong negative opinions. I want our letter to be as positive as it can be and to somehow kindly suggest that all negative opinions be kept to oneself. I have been thinking of this letter for several months now and still can't seem to find just the perfect announcement for our very joyous situation. Thanks to all.

[mckenna]

i am planning on sending out adoption announcements for my 2y/o, while it won't come as a surprise as i have been his foster mom since he was 3 months old, i might try something like this to let others know in a nice way that rude comments are not necissary:


we are very excited and pleased to announce a new addition to our family.

child's name
age (or dob)

you could add something like we know you will be as excited for us as we are once you meet our new son. if you are keeping a scrape book for your child, you might invite them to share their enthusiasum for your new addition so that you can save cards and letters for your child when he gets older. sorry this is so winded, but you walk a fine line when trying to wart off unwanted advice or comments. good luck to your new family. you might want to add a family picture to the letter or announcement.

[mamasoon]

We are also adopting and I have a similar question. Do we annouce when we bring the child home or do we wait until the adoption paperwork starts (In our state, there is a 6 month waiting period before that starts). We have been working on building our family for 6 years so a lot of people have been waiting for positive news from us. I am not sure what to do. We have just finished our homestudy requirements, waiting for approval.

Thank you in advance,
Kathy

[Peggy]

For myself, I let my family and closest friends know in person, when I was in the planning and thinking stages. I let my neighbors, and co-workers know when I had a placement, but she had not moved in yet. I had a party with invitations that doubled as announcements at finalization.

[kalynn]

LynMaria, for our first adoption we sent out her picture with a caption at the bottom - the photo stores make them up. For a special needs adoption, I'm not sure if I would directly address the issue in a letter. I might be tempted to send out a picture of your smiling, happy family with a positive caption, "We are proud to announce ..." Let people get to know him and his positives as well as the issues he has.

I sort of came to this conclusion recently myself, as I am also adopting a 3 year old. He has pretty severe speech problems and is delayed. At first I didn't know what to say to people, and posted here to get some feedback. Now I just show people his picture and ask if they want to see a picture of my wonderful new son. I have told several people about his needs, but always am careful to also describe his positives, of which there are many. A few people have been over to meet him, and before long have to ask, "What is wrong with his speech?" , but by then they have been so charmed by his loving and gentle personality that it isn't their prime perception of him.

Also - I sent my announcement at the time my daughter was placed in my home, not corresponding with the paperwork.

Good luck with your decisions, Kalynn.

[LynMaria]

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and ideas. I spoke to our little guy last night on the phone for the first time and already, I've fallen in love!! Maybe now is a good time to create an announcement while I am sitting on cloud 9 ! Then i will send it just before he arrives home. Kalynn, our little fellow is three also and very language delayed...mostly jibberish, though he completely understands both english and spanish. I might like to correspond with you privately for support. Once again, thank you all so much!

[sues250]

Congrats. I did my daughter's announcement with the actually court date for finalization. I was lucky it was Jan 8 so I did it in the form of a christmas card. I took some of the phrasing from adoption announcement cards that are sold i found online and changed the begining to announce that I have a long awaited gift for Christmas. Pretty sappy but did the trick and created quite a few tears. Then my 10 (at the time 8 year old) sealed the envelopes and put her hand print with finger paint on the backs of the envelopes so she was a part of it. We also inclosed a picture of the two of us in the card.

[hippiechick]

I work with kids in foster care, and when they are adopted, I love it when tehre is some kind of adoption announcement.

The one I liked the best was for a 10 year old boy who was autistic.

The front had a picture of him w/ his adoptive name. I think this is a good idea--people connect with other when they can see them.

On the inside, it read something like, "Oh, boy, oh boy! We are happy to announce our new family member--it's a 60 pound boy!! Then they wrote a little bit about how he came into the family. They said like, "From Oklahoma to Washington to foster care to us...we are glad he landed here."

Hippiechick,
bmom to twins born 11/14/01
mother to daughter born 6/6/03

[Teri from Iowa]

Although we really didn't need to send an announcement when we adopted our 4 year old daughter from India (since everyone close to us was involved in the process with us, and just as excited as we were) we still invited everyone to her adoption day.

I created a letter with two pictures of her, one from her 'gotcha day' and another one taken shortly before her adoption, and scanned these onto the letter. I then sent it to everyone involved in our adoption. That included the people that did references for us, all of our family members, people that babysat our bio-sons while we went to adoption classes and travelled to India, as well as those special friends that gave us moral support.

The letter talked about how important they were during the long adoption process and how it 'takes a village to adopt a child'. Most of them came to her adoption at the court house and then we had a brunch at our home following the adoption. The judge said it was the largest crowd he'd ever seen at an adoption! This day was special to everyone that helped us adopt our daughter and they were happy to celebrate her adoption with us.

Even though her adoption was a whole year after her 'gotcha day' (our SW messed up and didn't send in our CARA reports which delayed the adoption) everyone still came to the adoption. By then everyone was in love with her and it was a very emotional day.

Never underestimate how an adoption can affect and touch your friends and family. Two of my sisters have now adopted from India as well, and several of my friends and neighbors are considering adding children to their families through adoption. BTW, all of us have bio children, so none of the adoptions occurred because of infertility, rather, we wanted to grow our families by giving an orphan a home.

Good luck!
Teri