Adoption
- Category: Family
- Posted On: 3/1/2006
- Views: 5,383
I thought I'd give you all an update that my wife Wendy and I met with a boy Andrew (age 11) that we are considering adopting yesterday afternoon for the first time. The meeting went very well and he unexpectedly requested some additional time (beyond the meeting with his adoption team) to get to know us better, so we ended up having him for a total of 2.5 hours yesterday before Wendy returned him to his group home. We decided it would be best to drive him up to Anthem to show him where we lived and explain what our community, neighborhood, and home have to offer his possible future with us. The trip was a lot of fun and now the difficulty of communicating this important decision in his life to him is upon everyone involved. Wendy and I explained to him that we all are just getting to know each other and that he needs to think about his school, friends, etc. before jumping into any decisions.
Questions & More Questions
The biggest and best question of the day? On the drive to Anthem, Andrew was asking us about how Wendy and I had arrived at this day (adoption process, etc.) and popped the question "So... why'd you guys pick me?" I think a few million things crammed into our brains in the seconds that followed before we told him honestly about how we initially were looking to adopt a girl his age, but, after hearing about him and seeing a short video interview, that we felt something in our hearts and wanted to get to know him better. So, there we were, all getting to know each other.
The hardest question of the day? "Can I finish junior high school where I'm at?" Um... "Probably not Andrew." That's one of the things we told him he needs to think about in terms of what he wants in his life.
*It's impossible to keep the pressure completely off of a kid in these situations. The whole thing was a constant internal balancing act of trying to be you, reducing anxiety and pressure, having fun, getting to know the real Andrew, etc.
We will be calling him on Wednesday to see if he would like to meet with us this Saturday to hang out. Hopefully this will give us an opportunity to center the meeting around a planned activity and free us all up from any sudden pressure. :-)
- Category: Family
- Posted On: 3/1/2006
- Views: 5,383