Questions for Poland

Hi Shelly,We are in process of adopting from Poland using The Lutheran Service Society of NY. I'll try to answer your ques based on what I know.1. There are a few agencies I remember researching: St Marys, Lutheran S., Catholic Charities of Chicago, AdoptionsPlus; there may be more; these are what come to mind.2. As far as your ages , there are age restrictions you'll have to ask about. 3. Most children avail seem to be over a year old; some agencies I researched only place school age children.4. I don't believe FAS is a big problem in Poland. For the most part, the children are healthy with , of course, some developmental delays as a result of being in an orphanage.5. My husband also has great grandparents who immigrated from Poland. We were told any k ind of heritage you can prove would be a plus. We put together a "heritage letter" indicating our relatives names, places of birth in Poland, etc and submitted this with our dossier. Good luck on your decision!B Brach

I remember that spot 3 years ago. I couldn't find much information and all of the books you read tell you to look at how many children are adopted, what number you are in line, how many the agency has adopted, etc. Poland just fell way down on the list - but it kept nagging at me because we are eastern european heritage - not Polish as the lines are drawn now:) I also really like the agency I spoke with and felt it was a possibility. 1. I haven't seen or heard as much about FAS, but I've heard many parents say their kids had alcoholic parents. I think the difference may be that in Poland they recognize FAS as a diagnosis and will tell you if they see FAS. In Russia they do not recognize FAS as a diagnosis. Our referral came with a comment "no physical or personality traits of FAS" and this has been pretty accurate. Overall, you will never know the impact of the alcohol, but they provide you with information to make a decision on the referral. 2. Age - I've seen all over the board over the past year I've seen some blogs with 18 month single child referrals or with a sibling. I think it just depends. It can't be under a year because the child has to be available for 1 year to Polish adoptive parents. I do know they (the Polish side of things) take into account whether you already have a child, Polish background, age, etc when determining if they want to place a younger child. If you are older than 40 you may want to discuss whether you would consider a child older than 2. I would think the agency could guide you and ultimately you would have to make a decision you are comfortable with. We just said under 3.5 was our preference. 3. As far as your age - I'm not sure. You will have to ask each agency to find out. 4. I believe that some of the issues with Poland are the long time in country and cost of the program. We were in country 2.5 months for our second trip. 5 days for the first trip. It could be shorter, but you can't count on it. My prefernce would be one long trip vs. 3 or 4 trips like in Russia now - but each person has their own preferences. Good luck in making your decision. We had a very positive experience with the Polish program.