3 Year -4 Year Old

Jane: I looked at the SOS Children's Village site, and though they might be somehow related, the site does not mention any goal of adoption, be it within India or internationally. I know that the SOS Orphanage we are adopting through has the goal of finding permanent homes for all their children. They discuss with the children the goal of finding their mommy and daddy and of them leaving the orphanage. The children therefore are not traumatized when it happens, but rather excited and happy. When I watch the video of the other family picking up their little girl in January, it appears she has been prepared and appears to welcome her parents with open arms. She sits on mommy's lap and makes no effort at all to get down. When they left, there are no tears!!! We anticipate travelling to pick Ally up in August or September. We are in the mist of the worst time of year to get anything through CARA or the courts. We have been at this for what seems like an eternity. We made the decision to adopt from India in January 2003. It took until June 2003 to get all our paperwork assembled and our home study completed. We received Ally's referral in March 2004, and the dossier arrived at CARA on approximately April 9. We don't really expect our NOC to be issued until June. Hopefully the courts will granted us guardianship in July or August and we'll be off to get her in August or September. As described in some of the other posts, you can't really tell when CARA is going to throw up a red flag and for what, but more often than not, that process goes fairly smoothly. My only advice is to make your decision quickly and finish the paperwork and home study as quickly as possible. Nothing moves forward until your home study is completed. I can say that it seems like yesterday we made the decision and here we sit today with a picture to put with the name we chose so very long ago. And let me say emphatically that the wait has been worth it. When I look at Ally's picture and watch the video, I know that things worked out exactly as they were meant to. This little girl was always meant to be our daughter, and nothing could have happened any sooner or any later, it happened exactly the way it had to. I will be more than happy to share our experiences with you as they occur. I love to talk about our daughter. Melanie