Considering international or Russian adoption? Our advice

I took a look at the stats for this blog, and I see a fair few people accessing it through a Google search. It strikes me that it may be useful, now that we've gone through the process, to articulate some of the things we whink are important for people considering international adoption in general, and Russian adoption in particular.  From the top:

1. Consider why you're interested in international adoption rather than domestic adoption.  I get asked this on a fairly regular basis by people who are genuinely curious.  For us, the uncertainties of domestic adoption were the deciding factor.  Although you don't owe anyone else an answer to this question, you should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of both domestic and international adoption and decide which route is right for you. 

2. Once you decide on international adoption, you realize there is a WHOLE WORLD of children who need homes.  We received advice early on that made sense to us--go to a country that you always had an interest in.  Doing the giant stack of adoption paperwork for a country that you already care about makes the process easier.  Sometimes its hard to believe there is actually a child at the other end of the many meetings, appointments, signatures and the waiting-so it helps to have an upfront interest in the country where all the paperwork is headed.  

In the short term, remember that whatever country you choose, you're going to have to actually go there.  It's great to be excited to go see the country AND adopt a child, then come home with great memories and pictures for your child... and maybe go back for a visit later too!  In the long term (and more importantly), your child's heritage will be from this foreign country.  The culture, the food, the art, the language.  It's part of his or her life experience, and that's something you ought to be able to be enthusiastic about, not something that's a chore.

3. Understand what the requirements are to adopt from the particular country.  Some countries bar people from internationally adopting children based on health or age or marital status--make sure you're not excluded before you even start.  Some countries are in general more expensive, take more time to finalize the adoption, or require a longer in-country time commitment.  If understanding the requirements and weighing the options seem confusing, don't panic: a good adoption agency (see point 6 below) will have no problem explaining pros, cons, and options with you.

4. Decide what you're looking for in a child.  What I mean is: what age range are you looking for? Would you consider more than one child? Would you consider a special needs child?  One with other health issues?  Is choosing a girl or boy important?  How much of the child's history do you want to know?  You may not care about some or all of these points, and that's fine.  How specific you are might affect how long the process is (as the more specific you are, the fewer children will meet your criteria).  This is also important to think about up front, as the answers to these questions might affect your decision on which country to adopt from, depending on the characteristics of the children available for adoption. (And see point 8 below.)

5. Practice traveling. If you're an accomplished world traveler, you probably know what to expect on a flight to Moscow and on a walk through a foreign city. If, like us, you had been no farther than Canada, you might consider taking a practice vacation. We took a couple trips to Peru, just before we'd settled on Russia as our final choice for international adoption. It really helped to be familiar with passports, international flights, navigating large airports quickly, dealing with language, packing light for travel, and the other things involved in an international trip. You might look at this as an expensive experiment, and in some sense it was, but a) hey! it's a vacation! and b) we wanted to experience all the unfamiliar travel problems for the first time without the added stress of being on an adoption trip --and it DID help us!

6. Work with a reputable and competent adoption agency.  The adoption process, at least for Russia, is long and complex.  The most critical part of the process happens in Russia, where the staff there has the personal contacts and professional experience to guide you through procedures and regulations.  Since many adoption agencies have programs in more than one country, it's important to choose one with experience in your country of interest. We worked with Adoption Associates, because their Russian program was well-recommended and because they were located here in Michigan.  I would not hesitate to recommend them.  (There were a few things I felt they could do better, but let's be realistic: international adoption is a complicated process spanning years, and I think expecting absolute perfection is unrealistic.  No matter what agency you choose, assume there will be a few bumps along the road.) Overall Adoption Associates did an excellent job and their staff in Russia had great relationships with orphanage staff and government officials.

7. There's a lot of paperwork involved in the adoption process.  Much of it is time-sensitive, meaning that you can't complete it ahead of time, and may have to redo the paperwork if the process lasts longer.  (We had to do pretty much everything two or three times.)  The paperwork has to be done completely and correctly, with a lot of fussy requirements.  This can be time-consuming and frustrating, so be prepared.

8. Decide beforehand what to look for in a referral.  In the process we went through, when a child is available, he or she is "referred" to prospective parents, who are sent a short dossier with information on a child.  The prospective parents then have the opportunity to decide whether the child is right for them.  To be honest, this was something of an overwhelming process, trying to decide if a particular child was a good match for our family.  Analytically, certain children are better matches for certain families, depending on their age, background, or health and the family's experience: your family might not be the best match for a particular child.  Realistically, however, when you have a cute picture in hand and read the child's information, it's hard to turn down a referral when it represents a real live child.  (As a side note: this referral process was absolutely my least favorite portion of the adoption process. I intellectually understand the necessity, but actually going through the process made me unhappy.)  It's really worth hashing over what to do during the referral process beforehand, when the prospect is an abstraction rather than a specific child. Remember that families have slightly different expectations and skills, so almost everyone--child and family alike--does matched up correctly after a few tries.

9. Use a knowlegable doctor to interpret medical information.  Referrals contain medical information about the child, but there are three levels of interpretation that must be done: from Russian to English, from medical terminology to layman terminology, and from the Russian cultural expectations to American cultural expectations.  (As an example of the latter, diagnoses of orphanage children may be exaggerated in order to make them officially available for foreign adoption.)  That takes a highly specialized pediatrician to do, and understanding a child's medical needs (if any) is really important.  We actually worked with two pediatricians: one based here in Michigan (recommended by other local parents), and a second in St. Petersburg (recommended by our adoption agency).  You probably don't need to work with two, but combining their opinions and seeing where they agreed and disagreed eased some of our anxiety.  In addition, we asked the St Petersburg pediatrician, Dr. Sophia, come with us to Kotlas to examine Elena in person.  Her fee was suprisingly reasonable, and although she didn't discover anything different from the written referral, having her along was well worth the peace of mind.

10. Get a camera and learn how to use it.  Then use it.  Not a cell phone camera, but a real one.  Trust me, you'll be glad you did.  Cameras are not all that expensive; even a decent SLR is pretty affordable.  You only get one chance to record a significant piece of your child's life to share with him or her later on, so do it.  That's why you see so many pictures on this blog, like these and these.  Those pictures aren't really for you blog readers, they're for Elena. 

Take a little extra time and take as many pictures as you can: of your child, where he or she lives, walk around the surrounding city--you can take pictures of the houses, schools, churches, people shopping etc.  Try to catch the flavor of a place and a time.  After you take your pictures, print them out later; maybe even make a little book from them.  Remember: digital pictures are free to take, and you don't get a second chance.  Don't end up wishing you'd taken more.

11. Don't be penny wise and dollar foolish.  Certainly, international adoption is expensive, and you don't want to keep adding on costs.  But if a little extra expense makes the experience more enjoyable, something that you can share with your child later, then it's worth it.  Stay a couple extra days to sightsee, or buy a few pieces of jewelry in Russia, or upgrade to the quiet hotel room.  Probably one of the best buys we made was upgrading to "economy plus" seating on the flight from Russia to the US.  It cost $100 per seat, which sounds like a lot, but it bought us five extra inches of legroom, which is significant  on an 11-hour with a squirmy child in hand.

12. Do things on your trip.  This is something of a subset of my point above, but the intent is a little different.  It's not just "don't be afraid to spend money," but also "don't be afraid to go places."  I don't mean tourist attractions, necessarily, although that's part of it.  Going to the Hermitage was great, but some of the most interesting things we did on our trips were going to the little local bookstore and toystore, going to parks, or just wandering around the supermarket. Also try some new foods and buy a local cookbook to learn how to cook things you (now that you tried them) and your child like.

13. Take a little time and learn some language.  The book Russian Phrases for Children was invaluable, particularly combined with a traveler's phrasebook. (We took along a phrasebook from Lonely Planet, as a matter of fact. It's 9 bucks, fits in your shirt pocket, and is arranged by situations: "restaurant," "hotel," and "transportation," for example. It's a nice resource when you need to communicate on the trip, even if its only two or three times.) We learned a little bit of Russian--maybe 100 words overall, and a few more we could find in the phrasebook as needed--and it was worth the time spent.  It doesn't take that much effort to learn 100 words (and maybe we should have learned more), but it's nice to be able to say hello, please, and thank you.  It's really handy to be able to say "I dont understand, I don't speak Russian" in Russian, or "What time will the plane leave?" or "Caviar please?"  Learning the Cyrillic alphabet was not that difficult.  We felt less helpless being able to read some of the street signs, store signs, food words, know where to find our luggage at the airport etc...  It also helps with the surprisingly large number of words that are phonetically similar in English and Russian. 

But that's not the main reason for learning the language.  With just a few phrases, we could immediately communicate with Elena.  We could tell her things, and more importantly, she could tell us things.  I honestly think that smoothed the transition for Elena, because she could tell us what she wanted and expect us to understand her, starting from Day 1.  We learned Russian words for the basics-like common foods, drinks, cleaning and potty, animals, toys, common household things, useful actions like sit please, come here please, and Good Job!  And that made it easier to teach her English, because we could work English words into our conversations, or say it twice- in Russian and then English.  We could transition slowly to a different language, and explain things to her, and I think that had a positive effect on Elena's acquisition of English (see this later blog post for some further thoughts). A hundred words gets you surprisingly far.  As a small example, a yablaka was the about the only thing on the 11 hour plane trip that  Elena wanted to eat.  She pointed in general at our tray of food, which had an apple on it and said something like..blaka.  So if we didnt know that "yablaka" is "apple," it wouldn't have have sounded like anything familiar, and she would have been hungry.  Also some words are fun in Russian--like pacheesti zoobie meaning, approximately, to clean teeth!

14. Be realistic and prepared for what to expect from an adopted child.  Internationally adopted children have different backgrounds than other children, and that can mean they act or react differently in some situations.  These situations need extra time and effort from parents.  Elena seems to be adjusting better and more quickly than I expected, but I think we're just lucky.  So far, at least: it's perfectly normal for internationally adopted children to have later language difficulties and the like.  Their problems aren't necessarily more severe than an average kid's (although they could be), but they are different, which means there's some responsibility for the parents to continue to think about adoption-related issues for a good long time.