Hello

We are Christopher, Patricia and Devon. Chris is a Sergeant in the USARMY, I’m a stay at home mommy with a home business and Devon is our 5 year-old son. We desided as a family we wanted to adopt. I think Chris and I knew even before we were married we wanted to adopt so, when the time was right it was really a matter of getting Devon on board with the whole idea. He wasn’t hard to convince. He wants a brother or a sister. Mostly a brother.
I think we have looked at every possible adoption program available. Every time a new one opens we are right there researching. We finally desided to adopt from Ukraine because of the type of a adoption progam they have.
Instead of having a child preselected for you, you travel to Ukraine view information on several children at a central office in Kiev , pick the child or children you wish to meet and travel to see them. Your able to spend several days with them and see how you feel about them and how they feel about you.
We like that we can sekect a child from the information provided and see them in a short time and that the adoption can be done in one trip. However, this is not a simple process it can take months or years to complete an adoption from Ukraine. There are some problems with adopting from Ukraine that perspective parents might not face with other programs. You could get there and there not be any children meeting your criteria. Also, the adoption program in Ukraine is always changing. You have to be very flexable and adaptable.
Adoption can be a very difficult process. There are many ups and downs weather adopting domesticly or internationally. Neither is better and neither is easy. All involve a profound leval of commitment and emotional involvement.
We think we have made the right choice for us and at the end of this long road is a child. Hopefully two.
Our hope is to bring home a boy and a girl! Yes two kids. We are looking for kids between the ages of 3 and 7 most likely a sibling group. Currently Ukraine does not allow the adoption of two unrelated children at the same time (there are some exceptions). I know many reading this are thinking were insane.
Truth is we may be insane but, thats a whole other ball game. We’ve thought about this over and over again and we keep coming up with the same answers. First we are both very OK with not doing the baby thing again. And, Devon really wants someone he can play with! (Which is all he would say on the matter) We know there are lots of potential problems with adopting older kids (vs. babies) but, reality is you are going to face problems with biological kids, infants, toddlers, pre-teens and teens, domestic as well as international adoptions. We chose the age group we did because in the end it was very important to us (the adults with the final vote) that the kids be in the same age range so they could better relate to each other. They will still have plenty of time together to develop all those wonderful sibling quirks!
All those problems we might have, adjustment issues, bonding issues, health issues they are just issues. One by one we will work through what ever comes up.
What matters is that we a lot of room in our family for more and there are kids out there of all ages who need and want to be part of a family.