A sister’s view of adoption by Allie

There are many joys and many hardships in adopting. Adopting in Ukraine was difficult in many ways. One of them being the time spent in Ukraine and the other being the language barrier. For our first adoption, we spent a total of six weeks in Ukraine. Many of those days we were without all meals, staying in very old run down apartments with an inability to communicate with the locals when our translator was busy. For out second adoption, my parents were in Ukraine for nine weeks. They left on my birthday, were gone for Thanksgiving, and were home barely in time for Christmas. My sister didn’t get home until after Christmas, though. My mom flew back and forth twice, and my dad three times.  There are many stories I could share involving our stay in Ukraine, but there is much more to say about the post adoption adjustment.

When first arriving in Ukraine, our supervisor told us about this boy and girl that were in need of a family. My parents got permission to visit these kids, so we drove down to Tulchen, Ukraine to pay them a visit. When we got there we found out that the children had been hosted in Italy and were promised a home and many other things there. Sadly, though, because of Italian law, there were complications that caused the family to be unable to adopt these children. The children did not fully understand this, and they wanted to go to Italy, not home with us. This was very disappointing for our family, and we had to start our process in Ukraine all over again. When we finally got the chance to see pictures (this is how one finds the child they want to pursue in adoption) of more children, my parents felt led to a six year boy of the name Vladislav. When first meeting him, he was shy and looked terrified of us. So, my parents pulled out some toy cars and Andrew and Vladislav passed the car back and forth. Vladislav saw how I was sitting there just watching, so he passed the car to me as to include me. Vladislav seemed eager to have a family and he loved to hold mine and Andrew’s hands when going places. Upon first meeting him, I knew he was the right fit for our family.

After adopting Adam, as we named him to give him an English name, our family went crazy wanting to meet him, which is both good and bad. We had about two and a half weeks before school started that August, and we were trying to cram in family visits. Adam got loads of attention and gifts which was good for him, but put me and Andrew on the back burner. Andrew and I felt very left out during Adam’s first few months in America. One thing I never remember thinking, though, is “Why did we do this? Why can’t we just send him back?” Adam picked up on English fairly fast. We put him in kindergarten all day so that he would hear things twice, and hopefully pick up on them. He came with absolutely no English, so we had to start from the bottom up. The excitement of his adoption eventually died down, but there have still been many difficulties. Adam gets in trouble a lot at school mostly for behavioral issues. Adam likes to please people and doesn’t like to disappoint, so he is working hard at following instructions. He is also good at apologizing without being told, which is a respectable trait. Adam also has many difficulties with math, money in particular. He still struggles with English, but he has come a long way. Adam is nine years old now and is going into third grade. I am so proud of him because I know that he has had to work extremely hard, especially because he is in a private school. It is hard for me to be patient with him and be kind to him because he is six years younger than me and I am not used to that. My biological brother and I are a year and a half apart so we went through life stages together and experienced life together. Now, we have this nine year old, who is still discovering things about life and saying things that my brother and I are like, “no duh!” But I still love Adam to death and I am so glad that he is a part of our family!

Anastasiya’s adoption was different in many ways from Adam’s. Anastasiya came to America for a camp this last summer, so that is where we met her. The camp is called UOO (Ukraine Orphan Outreach) and this non- profit organization brings Ukraine orphans to America every summer to both meet families interested in adopting and to get to experience America. My family hangs out with these kids and helps plan some events, but not in the pursuit of adoption…or so my parents thought. One afternoon my parents told Andrew and I that they felt that God had called them to adopt an eleven year old girl by the name of Anastasiya from the UOO camp. We were ecstatic! I was so excited that I was finally going to have a little sister!

After my parents finally came home with Anastasiya, she didn’t get quite as much attention as Adam did, but our family and friends were still excited to get to meet her. She came with a basic foundation of English, which was nice, but she had to jump almost right into school. She was able to be in my mom’s fifth grade class, which was a blessing. She was very popular and has made many friends. She is so excited to have siblings, but especially a sister. I get frustrated with this excitement sometimes, though. She likes to help, which is good, but sometimes she gets over helpful. I like to do things on my own, I am perfectly capable, but she likes to jump right in and take over. She also talks a lot, but doesn’t have the full English, so her sentences aren’t complete and it takes a lot of charades to get a story across, and might I add, it is a story that should take two minutes to explain, but ends up taking about ten minutes and I’m still left confused about what or why she is saying this. I still love her, and I am glad she is here. There is just a lot of adjusting for me to have a sister, who is a lot like me. I do not get along well with certain personalities, and my personality is one of those, so I have to work on patience and understanding with Anastasiya. One thing that I see in her is gratefulness. Every time she prays, she thanks God for her family. She loves to just randomly run up and give me a kiss and tell me she loves me which always puts a smile on my face.

Although there are adjustments and compromise involved in adopting, I wouldn’t trade my little brother and sister for the world. They both adore me, which is so cute! They love to draw me pictures, and give me their toys. They also love to play games with me-hide and go seek is their favorite. Like I stated before, I have never wanted to send them back to Ukraine, I just need breaks. The idea of being a family of four, to five, then to six isn’t the hard part of the adoption for me. My family did foster care for about two years, so we are used to having new family members. The hard part of the adoption is the time it takes to get settled into the family of five then six. It takes time, but we will get there. I love having a big family and I want a big family of my own someday. Adoption has opened my eyes to so much and God has been there all along the way to guide us, we just have to look for Him. I feel blessed to have been a life changing part of these kid’s lives, and I can’t wait to see them continue to grow!