A post with many different questions on Polish adoption:

Good luck and congratulations on your decision, stop back often and give us updates!

[FONT=Arial]1 - What are your experiences regarding kids learning English?[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]My twin sons came home 6 months ago. My husband speaks fluent Polish and my two daughters and I speak English and also use ASL. 2 months ago my husband and I were considering him ceasing to speak Polish, as the boys didnt need to make much of an effort to learn English. Then, practically over night, their language took off.

2 - Any experience regarding Polish kids and RAD and other high emotional issues? Are they honest on referral when talking about issues?[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]The boys had good attachments with their foster mother, and had ok relationships with the ladies in the orphanage where they were for 1 ҽ years. There was nothing about RAD in their referral, and we had no surprise problems with it. They are fully attached to us and had no problems with this. We did work purposefully to get here, but it was never a struggle or an issue. The information we received was honest and conservative. Most of the 'issues' they said the boys had, they didn't really have.

3 - Are we allowed to refuse referral or ask more questions before accepting a referral (we know there are countries that only offer 1 referral.[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]After your referral send a list of questions for the attorney to get answered for you. We sent over 100 questions about our boys. Not all were answered, but enough were answered for us to be confident in accepting the referral.[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]4 - Do anyone know anything of this agency: Huminska's Anioly? Their price seems to be reasonable among other agencies...[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]Yes, we used H.A. If you want information about our experience, please pm me and Ill get that to you.

5 - My husband is 100% Polish but do not speak the language (his mom never taught him). Do anyone recommend going independent vs agency? any experience on that? (we are trying to do it without going bankrupt)[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]If I had it to do again, IҒd go independently. You pay big bucks for a middle man to tell you what to do!

6 - and most complicated question.... I am originally from Brazil and we go to Brazil 2 x a year (2 months a year). Also, my parents or other relatives come over at least 1 or 2 times a year.... We talk to all of them on (webcam + mic daily). I wondered how crazy and mean would be to as soon as the kids arrived, start talking to them in Portuguese (maybe having a portuguese nanny?)..... Like.... Me and the nanny only speaking portuguese, and dad, his family and the whole country only speak English....[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]A few things to consider depending on the ages of the children, they could be linguistic sponges, ripe for learning several languages. The more languages they have going on at once, the longer it will take them to be fluent in any of them. BUT ֖ they will eventually even out and be fluent in whatever languages they hear and use. If I had it to do over again, I would have used ASL along with English right from the start. My husband being fluent in Polish helps ensure the boys wont loose that language at the expense of English.[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]If you are home educating, none of this should be a huge problem, and will in the future offer the great benefit of your children being multi-lingual. However, if your children are going into a school system of some sort, you may want to consider getting their English up and running before bombarding them with Portuguese.

I dont mind that they take longer to learn English (as I know it will happen for sure at some moment). But dont want to cause any emotional trauma on the kids, or hurt them in anyway.... any ideas (PS: my relatives speak NO ENGLISH at all)?[/FONT][FONT=Arial] [/FONT][FONT=Arial]I wouldnҒt worry about emotional trauma because of the collection of languages. Do be ready, however, to teach your children that all men are created equal and that skin tone does not dictate rankђ of any type. My boys made a really rude (not to mention loud) comment about a man on the same train as us, which is how we learned that they were rather bigoted. They had a wake up call when I announced that I was half Mexican. They were over it once I started cooking fajitas, enchiladas and tacos![/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT] [FONT=Arial]Get moving and get praying - your children are waiting![/FONT]

1 and 6. Learning English and another language. All three of our kids (adopted at 10, 4 (girls), and almost 3 (boy); now 11, 5, 4) quickly caught on to English. Our oldest two still get ESL help; our youngest isn't in school yet. My husband is German and we put our youngest two in German kindergarten six weeks after they came home. Our son picked that up quickly, and our daughter does okay. My husband didn't start speaking German with them for about 3 months and still doesn't speak that much with our oldest daughter so she doesn't know much German. Although it depends on each child, I would not be that worried about introducing two new languages. There is a OPOL view: One Person One Language. That means just as you said you were going to do - you only speak Portuguese and your husband only speaks English. Being schooled in English, your kids may opt to answer you in English. We have many students at my school who answer their Spanish or German speaking moms only in English, though they understand the language being spoken to them. I would suggest speaking to an ESL teacher at a local school for their "professional" opinion. 2. RAD and More. Absolutely no major emotional issues with any of our three. Our son used to cry when facing something new, such as riding in a car or playing on a new playground, but that isn't an issue any more. He still cries easily when reprimanded, but I do not consider that to be an issue. We found the info we received to be true. 3. Referrals and Questions. We refused one referral and also turned down a couple of "would you consider...". We asked additional questions when we received the referral for our kids, though based on the initial referral info, we were 99.9% sure we would say yes. I felt the answers were honest and sufficient. Apparently, various people were given our questions so the answers came from the social worker/psychologist/orphanage worker/foster parent who could best answer that particular question. 4. Huminska's Anioly. That is who we used. If you have any specific questions, please PM me.

1 - What are your experiences regarding kids learning English?We've been home almost nine months. Our kids are 6,8, and 9. We came home Dec 13 and visited school a week later for holiday festivities. The kids seemed to avoid learning/trying English until they returned to school on Jan 2 and realized that everyone speaks English. I used a lot of basic words and we drew pictures, too. Our nine yr old was the most frustrated because she's a very social, intelligent and verbal girl. But being the oldest it was also probably toughest pysiologically. But at the fabled three month mark, the kids had an English explosion. I was in awe and so were the teachers. Our 6 yr old, was the last to switch over, but his understanding seemed to be the best. Our 8 yr old is very bright, and is a myna bird, repeating many things from TV. I've used TV more than if we'd had bio kids - I think. But it has brought a lot of teaching moments - like explaining commercials and how some products aren't as good as they are advertised to be. Now, we're 2/3rds throught the summer and the kids rarely speak a Polish word to each other. I have current DVDs movies in Polish that I've used to help them keep fresh. We also have friends in the area from Poland to keep their fluency up.2 - Any experience regarding Polish kids and RAD and other high emotional issues? Are they honest on referral when talking about issues?There was very little in our referral information, especially about emotional issues. I think you just assume, not being a professional here, that there will be RAD at some degree, especially because of the frequency of availability of sibling groups and grade school aged kids. I was honest with myself about we were taking on and trusted my instincts about being able to handle it. I think we are fortunate in that somehow our kids could connect with us and we had some milestone miracles just when one of the kids was ready to make the next step in growth. I don't mean to be all sunshiny, but we had super teachers and I used many things from the emotional trials in my life to support the kids - parents divorce, parent death at age 11, family alcoholism, recovery, and family mental health (which is an even more taboo subject abroad.)3 - Are we allowed to refuse referral or ask more questions before accepting a referral (we know there are countries that only offer 1 referral.Check with your agency. They'll know the specifics, but I understood that we could refuse a referral. We did, in fact refuse one. Our reissued home study wasn't complete and we our home study allowed us to have up to three children. We were offered four.4 - Do anyone know anything of this agency: Huminska's Anioly? Their price seems to be reasonable among other agencies...We used Huminska's. I would say our experience was fairly good. During our trip to return home with the children, there weren't any noteworthy problems or hold ups with the paperwork flow. I didn't check into any other agencies, so I have no comparison. I'm newer to the forum, so I'm assuming PM means private messages. You may do so with me if you are interested.5 - My husband is 100% Polish but do not speak the language (his mom never taught him). Do anyone recommend going independent vs agency? any experience on that? (we are trying to do it without going bankrupt )I would not go independent unless you are a lawyer. Also, I thought our costs were very reasonable among the costs for international adoption. The moderator said Poland requires you to work through an agency and that sounds familiar. As I've said in a another post, with the weak dollar now, our travel costs were more than our agency and legal fees. If your husband spoke fluent Polish, was a lawyer and you were a lawyer, I still think I would go agency.6 - and most complicated question....I am originally from Brazil I don't think having three languages would be a detriment, but did I read that you would travel soon after returning home? I think three languages would be ok, again, not professional advice, but not right away. There are plenty of emotional issues for everyone, that I think it best to keep it as simple as possible for the first six months. Exposure to Portuguese on a daily basis wouldn't be bad and bring on more exposure later. I also would not do any major traveling for the first six months either. It is just too much to absorb for everyone.

We adopted 3 boys, 3, 5, 6 and we came home August 24...so almost one year in America. They are now 4, 6 and 7 and awesome!1. Our kids did not really try to speak English until we got back to the US. They quit speaking Polish within 6 weeks. We took them to our Polish friend and they REFUSED to acknowledge her when she spoke Polish and acted like they did not understand her. They didn't speak it when they were alone even after about 2 months...I thought that was surprising!Both my school aged kids are in ESL and my Kindergartner could have tested out after K, but we decided to keep them both in the same program. Our baby will start as a regular student in Kinder, 2009-2010.2. To my happy surprise we have no emotional issues at all. Sometimes they want to tell me about "bad mommy." This is conversation is totally driven by them. I listen and reassure them that we will not let them go hungry or leave them alone.3. We refused two referrals for different reasons and we did ask questions both times. We made a decision with 24 hours though.4. We used St. Mary's and we aren't allowed to discuss it on the message boards, but I could answer questions privately! We had a great overall experience.5. My personal opinion is to not go independently...I am sure the opinions vary, so it is a personal decision.6. I have no idea, but I am sure you will be a good mom, despite language issues...I just wouldn't tell the judge that!