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I've read a lot of messages on these boards regarding the process at the NAC and selection / match of a child with prospective parents. I'd really like to know what the selection is like once you are given the binders (and apparently one hour). My wife and I are not looking for the absolute perfect child (150 IQ / amazing athlete / muscial phenom / etc.. LOL), but we do have preferences. Health does not have to be perfect as we wouldn't expect it to be, but we are looking for a child with no special needs. We'd like a boy 2-4 years old. Hair and eye color selection would be great, but that kind of stuff is relatively unimportant. Are these expectations realistic?
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I think your expectations are realistic, I have heard of several people that have successfully adopted children (especially boys) in this age range and healthy in the past year or so. I know there are plans to make the data bank more efficient before too long, so hopefully that will help all of us be able to identify children. I think your experience at NAC is going to depend on several criteria, I have my own opinion on what these are and don't want to post them here. You can pm me if you are interested.
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I think the experience at the NAC depends on what is available at that day and time. I think that they do try to show you pictures in the age/sex range that you are looking for. Good luck. We ended up adopting a girl a little older than we had requested and only one child when we had asked for two. Trust your instincts and God.
We just returned from Ukraine on July 8th with a 4.5 year old son that was found in a binder at the NAC.The front page of his entry indicated a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, with a note on the back page that one family had gone to visit him (he was placed in the orphanage at birth) and rejected him because they wanted a daughter; however, they did indicate that he was running and that the diagnosis was wrong.Our facilitator assumes that no one had looked on the back of the page to see if there was a change in his initial diagnosis.You can read about our trip at: Newbrother.blog-city.com
I just got back from the Ukraine last week with a wonderful little 2 year old boy. So yes, it is definitely possible
Once you get to the NAC, you go into a room, where there are 3 other couples(families, single parents, etc), you are then given a binder to go through based on your earlier criteria (age group). The one hour is not strictly enforced, I made a selection pretty quickly but there was a couple that had been there for a couple of hours already. As long as you show interest, they are very laxed on that one hour time frame. There was one woman that went from table to table to help assist in your selection. Showing you available children that they think you may be interested in - but it's still your decision. They will also help in explaining the medical issues if the child has any. I was told that my son was severally underweight and in his picture he looked a little purple. But that was basically due to his lack of nutrients/diet. Since he has been home, his color has returned to a normal color and he's like any other healthy little boy. He's happy, loving and I'm just so blessed to be able to call him my son.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Best of Luck -Eric
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Thanks Charlotte16 - I appreciate the congrats!
I only went through one book of children aged 2 - 4. Cole happened to be the first referral I looked at, so I can't give you a definite answer. But in the book I looked at, there were probably 40 referrals in it and out of the 40 I would say 20 had minor issues (some delays) but generally that's to be expected with any child being adopted. I was told my son had some psychological / mental delays but since bringing him home - he is flourishing. With some love and patience any of these children will thrive. Best of luck to you.
Charlotte: During our June 2005 we found the workers very accomodating. We were able to locate our son's referral within a half an hour - and actually, it was located for us from one of the social workers at another table. Try not to worry, it will all work out. We adopted our son after our first referral, and he is a wonderful little boy. Newbrother.blog-city.com