Our Family
We adopted our son Jesse and our daughter Rena from Kazakhstan
late in 2003. We had previously adopted our son Ari from the same orphanage
in 2001.
The orphanage was sparse and though clean many things were in need of repair.
My three children are from the same group in the same orphanage and I noticed
that from Jan 2001 to Oct. 2003 few if any improvements were made to the buildings
or grounds in spite of the 50 adoptions that had subsequently taken place.
Our trip was awful and just about everything went wrong. The judge was rude and antagonistic and kept kicking us out for silly things, and then said she didn't say these things. The trip was twice as long as expected and not pleasant. The judge told us that she thought we were trying to break their laws, even though we were doing what she asked. For example, she told us that we could only adopt the children in my name alone and told us to re-do much of the paperwork which took days. But when we returned it, re-done in my name, she accused us of trying to break the law by pretending I wasn't married. I have a number of these stories.
Our interpreter, Roza, was wonderful and offered us a good counter balance to the hostility we encountered at all levels. When we first met the children we were scared and relieved. They were way too skinny for their ages and I wanted them to eat. I couldn't wait to get them home. They were happy but subdued. I think that none of us believed it was real, as there had been many delays and it was still uncertain as to whether it would actually happen
Our children are all healthy and relatively well behaved.
Because of the older age at which they were adopted they have many educational
special needs but are catching up nicely. But they have been doing beautifully.
We've had our rough spots, buts overall I'd say my children are shining older
adoption success stories. Overall things are going well with the children. Educational
issues take a lot of our time. Also, the kids have had to form totally new identities
and it doesn't happen overnight (new name, new family, new language, new religion,
new country, new school, new friends, new house, new extended family). Older
child adoption is not for the faint of heart, but for those souls undaunted
by huge rewarding challenges, I'd say go for it!
The Wilcox-Montgomery Family