A family just finished adopting their 13 year old son from Ukraine. They gave me permission to share some of their emails.

First blog on their adoption is here.

Second blog on their adoption is here.

3/23/06

Coming home tomorrow with [our son].

........those of you who have gone before know how it is to run from place... more

There are 3 basic reactions to encountering something new; push away, pull toward, or neutral. Adoption is about family and therefore there are rarely neutral reactions.

So as an adoptive-parent-to-be in 1999 my reaction to anti-adoption was very negative.

And to this day I find myself turned off by the arrogance of some anti-adoption writers. I witnessed a very ugly event on an anti-adoption chat board once. It wasn't a flame war. It was a mob attack. Five anti-adoption women... more

My daughter, Natasha, was 3.5 years when she came home and had major sleep issues for the first year she was home. She had some major (scared out of her mind) fears related to sleep.

She still actually has sleep issues. But now she doesn’t want to sleep because she is afraid she will miss something fun or interesting.

Natasha was home for 6 months before she started talking specifically about her fears. For example she was afraid her caretaker... more

Image: www.freeimages.co.uk

My daughter's last 3 years in school has taught me much. The most important lesson that I learned was to trust myself. If I believe something is wrong, then probably something is wrong.

I briefly wrote up my daughter's journey in part 1, part 2, part... more

So my darling daughter was 7.5 years old had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia... Now the adventure really began.

And Natasha wasn't actually diagnosed with dyslexia. She was too young according to the federal government's rules to have a learning disability. She was officially developmentally delayed.

Two weeks after my daughter's evaluation, I attended my daughter's IEP meeting. (This meeting must be held 30 days after parents are informed their child qualifies for special education.) Since I am single I took my mother with me as a witness.

The... more

Honesty time...... I didn’t want to medicate my baby with a controlled substance. So I didn’t push the doctor on the ADHD diagnosis, but after an unsuccessful kindergarten and first grade (unsuccessful because she still couldn't recognize 1/2 of the alphabet and she was struggling with focusing) I knew something was wrong.

But instead of listening to myself, I listened to others. Her first grade teachers suggested repeating first grade. I was told, "Sometimes children don't start reading until 8 years of age". I didn't have any better idea and the public school... more

Part 1 of this story is here. Just a quick note..... when Natasha's first kindergarten teacher told me that my daughter had ADHD, I discussed it with her pediatrician. An ADHD diagnosis (DSM-IV diagnostic criteria) wasn't quite met. And she had SID which sometimes looks like ADHD.

So my daughter spent her kindergarten year under stress and not learning very much..... other then she did not understand things that other children did.... more

My daughter’s kindergarten teacher diagnosed my daughter with ADHD and told me that I really should medicate her. My first reaction was explain Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID).

My sensory seeking daughter received SID diagnosis (and occupational therapy) about 6 months before she started kindergarten. The therapy had helped her but she still had a ways to go.

The teacher thought that I made... more

Part 1 is here.

Before my daughter's eye surgery to correct crossed eyes, I was told not to worry because the eyeballs wouldn't be removed from her eye sockets. I hadn't even thought about this. So now I was freaked. You aren't going to pull her eyeballs from the sockets.... WHAT EXACTLY are you going to be doing?

They moved the muscle attachment on both eyes.

After surgery here is what she looked like. She had bruises under her eyes from the clamps... more

I posted information from a family who is adopting a 13-year old boy from Ukraine. Here is a link to this older post.

Here is the update.

3/6/06

We are scheduled for court tomorrow. [Our translator] is confident that everything will go well despite the fact that this is the first international adoption they've done in this town.

I am slightly concerned because we ran into a woman in the park on Saturday who knows [our boy]. He was polite... more