table pho three

It didn’t take very long after we began our Russian adoption to realize that there seems to be a very big difference between the Vietnam adoption community and the Russian one. The views I am expressing in this post are mine, I hope I don’t offend anyone and I am in no way generalizing either one of these communities in this post. Please understand that I am just expressing what I have seen to be the majority.

When we began our Vietnam adoption, it was wonderful how many blogs were out there that we could read and learn from. I felt completely comfortable contacting APs and PAPs to ask questions and in general, everyone I reached out to for information were so helpful and welcoming. The Vietnam adoption community seemed so close knit and supportive of each other, it really made us feel welcome and made us feel like we were making the right choice in the country we had chosen to adopt from.

In general, everyone involved seemed to have done a lot of research about adopting from Vietnam. People often talked about attachment, parenting a child of a different race and seemed to realize the work and love it was going to take for their adopted child to become a part of their family. I say in general, because there was the odd person here and there that didn’t seem to have done any research about parenting an adopted child from Vietnam. But for the most part, people in this community seemed very eager to learn and do the best they could to transition their child and face the lifetime of parenting an adopted child.

We have loved being a part of this community and are very sad that it is most likely we won’t be able to adopt from Vietnam (still holding out until Sept. 1st, but unlikely anything will change). We fell in love with the country, the culture and the adoption community. So when it came time for us to decide on a new route to start our family, it has been very difficult for us to find the same things we fell in love with in Vietnam, in another country.

The Russian adoption community is so vastly different. We feel so sad at times that we don’t have the same sense of community as we did with Vietnam. It’s not that people adopting from Russia aren’t nice, of course they are. It’s just that many of them seem to view things differently than people in the Vietnam adoption community do.

For example, I have been surprised at how many don’t do research on attachment. There are so many that just seem to think they’ll bring the child home and treat them just like they would had they given birth to the child. They don’t seem to realize that there may be many issues their new child will face that are specifically adoption related. I guess they just assume any problems they have are just the normal problems of a child that age.

Also I’ve found there are a lot more people I encounter that believe they are “saving” a child. It seems they believe they are rescuing a child from a horrible life in Russia. It is sad, because my impression of the people that view it this way is that they will never treat that child as their own. They will always be the child they “saved” from a horrible fate and that the child should be grateful to them.

Please know I am not saying EVERYONE is like this. Of course they are not. It’s just things I’ve noticed that are different between the Vietnam and Russian adoption communities. I honestly just feel more comfortable in the Vietnam groups, where more thought seems to be given to the child and what they will be going through.

I miss all you Vietnam community readers! Please come visit my Russian blog, I need your support in these new uncharted waters. You’ve all been so supportive and wonderful during our Vietnam adoption. Thank you!

Posted By: Chandra on July 12th, 2008 | 11 Comments »
Filed under: Adoption

Thank you so much for all your comments! They really helped us make our decision regarding sign language with our child. We have decided to use ASL. After reading everyone’s comments and doing some more research online, I decided that most of the basic signs didn’t look too difficult for a toddler or they could be adapted slightly to make them easier.

I’ve ordered a DVD from Amazon that looks like it might be very useful. It shows adults and children doing the signs set to classical music. I haven’t received it yet, but once I do I will let you know what we thought of it. I also want to buy a book to learn more signs that are not covered in the DVD, but I haven’t decided which book looks best yet, still researching that one.

In response to some of the comments:

To foodymom: We always planned on learning some Russian. In fact we’ve already started. Our intention has always been to pair some basic Russian with the signs. But since she won’t be talking yet, we feel the signs will be helpful to help her communicate with us.

To Katherine: Thanks for that great idea! I think we will definately do that, perhaps we will even take photos of more familiar things in Russia while we are there to show her with the sign.

To Laura: Thanks for that link. I’ve visited the sight and was able to view the video of a number of signs. That helped us make our decision.

And thank you to everyone else that commented to. Your experience and input was very helpful.

Posted By: Cliff & Chandra on July 10th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Filed under: baby sign language

I need your advice. I’m trying to decide whether we should use American Sign Language signs or “Baby Signs” with our daughter. Since our daughter from Russia will be over a year old by the time we get her home, I think it’s important we try to use sign language with her since she will understand Russian but not English and won’t be able to speak either.

So has anyone out there used signing with their child, and if so did you use ASL or Baby Signs. I’ve heard that ASL signs can be difficult for children to do, is that true?

At the same time, no one else would understand Baby Signs except for us. Where as it’s possible she would end up interacting with people who knew ASL.

So what do you suggest? And if you know of any good books please let me know!

*By the way, I’m also posting this on our Russian blog so if you read both, don’t be surprised to see the same post twice!

Posted By: Chandra on July 3rd, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Filed under: baby sign language, Adoption, books

Did anyone else watch tonight’s episode of 20/20? It was about transgender children. I think it orginally showed last year and I caught a little of it. But tonight I watched the whole thing and I have to say it was fascinating.

That little girl Riley just broke my heart! I can not imagine how horrible it must be for her to hate her body so much and to truly believe that God made a mistake and gave her the wrong body. The poor little thing, how hard it must be for her to be teased at school and not accepted. This child believed she was supposed to be a girl since she was 2 years old.

It’s amazing to me that a child that young can have a clear sense that even though they have a boy’s body and are treated like a boy, they honestly believe they are a girl.

I hope little Riley find some sort of peace with herself. She is now 12 years of age and as if puberty isn’t hard enough without this on top of it! Thank goodness she has supportive parents to help her through it. The show said that transgender children whose parents do not support them, are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide and do drugs. And they are twice as likely to get AIDS. Just goes to show what a difference a supportive family can make to a child.

Posted By: Cliff & Chandra on June 27th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Filed under: Uncategorized

Wife: Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

Husband: What is it?

Wife: Well, I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and . . . well, we got an I-171H.

Husband: A what?!?! An U.S. Immigration I-171H adoption approval form?! As in, we’re going to have another baby?!?

Wife: It looks that way.

Husband: But how? We’ve been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600A forms. Didn’t you hide our home-study?

Wife: Of course I did. But don’t forget, there was that one night . . .

Husband: What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn’t print clearly. I didn’t even use black ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun. (giggles)

Wife: It was, wasn’t it? I’ll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints taken.

Husband: So now we’ve got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn’t always mean you’ll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn’t you see the agency or something, make sure everything’s okay?

Wife: I already did. I’m five documents along.

Husband: Five documents!

Wife: And they’re all notarized, certified, state sealed and authenticated! There was just one small scare when the agency couldn’t see the notary’s middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Husband: Thank goodness! And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

Wife: I’m feeling fine. As long as I know you’re happy about this.

Husband: Happy? I’m thrilled! It’s always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I’m happy.

Posted By: Cliff & Chandra on June 11th, 2008 | 12 Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized

“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through”
- David Bowie

Obviously a lot of changes going on in the world of Vietnam adoptions. Unfortunately not all of them good. We have notified our agency that we are open to a child with some special needs, apparently they may be able to match some special needs children before the September 1st deadline. However we are not very hopeful that this will happen.

Due to this we have made some changes, as of today, we have a Dossier registered in Russia through a different agency. Because we are open to a non-Caucasian child they feel that it should move quite quickly for us. We have started a new blog and would love it you all followed us on our new adoption. We will continue this blog until the Vietnam program officially ends. You can visit our new blog and adoption story at the link below. I started the blog a couple of months ago when we decided to start a second adoption, however I didn’t feel comfortable sharing the news with everyone right away. I wanted to wait until it was absolutely official before announcing it to the world, I didn’t want to jinx it by sharing too soon. So you may want to go back to the beginning and read from there, don’t worry it’s not too far back.

We are very excited and eager to start our family with a child from Russia, yet still hopeful one day we will be able to complete our adoption from Vietnam.

Our Little Russian

Posted By: Cliff & Chandra on May 29th, 2008 | 8 Comments »
Filed under: Adoption