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We've been given three referrals so far. The first two were "automatic no's" based on various issues the birth mother and children had.
The third referral we just received was not an "automatic no", however, we also turned down. The document stated "Healthy Child" for both the children. But, we noticed some dubious 'facts' on the referrals.
The one child was examined by a neurologist and stated that they had delayed psycho-motor development. The next 'fact' on the sheet was MOTOR SKILLS: TYPICAL OF AGE! This is a direct conflict according to our pediatrician and other experts we had examine the referral.
Also, for both children, who are 1 1/2 years apart, it stated that the parents were 23 for both kids births.
The head circumference and pictures of the children, combined with the fact that the mother abused alcohol led us to the conclusion that both children had some touch of FAS, maybe not full blown FAS, but some of the effects.
We were later told that if there was even any suspicion of FAS in the children that it would be noted on the referral.
All of this conflicting information is very confusing, how do trust another referral? I know at some point we have to take a leap of faith.
Does anyone know the standard for how the Polish government stamps these kids as "Healthy Child"?
My definition of healthy child and theirs are completely different. We're slowly coming to terms with the fact that we may not be able to adopt a 'healthy child (my definition)', and deciding if we can handle this or not.
It would have been very helpful to know this information up front. I thought I did all the reading that I possibly could, but when the reality is there staring you in the face, and it isn't what you expected, it is heartbreaking.
These kids need homes, but we aren't equipped to necessarily handle FAS. Do all kids from Poland have risk of FAS, even if it doesn't state it on the form?
Also, are videotapes of these children available?? That would really help us during our evaluation of our next match.
Please reply with any thoughts you have on this matter. We need some encouragement, stories or anything to help us through this time.
Thank you
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The conflicting and confusing information is not all that unusual. Not sure for the cause of it, but I think it's something to do with the translation process and the dated material. If you can get photos of the children it would be simpler to determine how severe the FAS may be.
We accepted a referral for three kids 18 months apart with a history of alcohol in both their parents. The photos indicated healthy looking kids, and no FAS issues.
The kids are indeed healthy. Yes, there are some issues resulting from the alcohol consumption of their mother, but in comparison to biological children I've met in my lifetime - my children are angles and are far better behaved than any other kids I've known!
Probably the biggest issue I see from the alcohol - very poor memory of the older child, hyperactive behaviour for our middle child (the doctor did NOT diagnose ADHD claiming "normal behaviour"), and all three have in my opinion some form of auditory processing disorder (they can hear fine, but they don't process the words exactly the way the words were said).
All three are highly intelligent and very smart. The two older ones are winning awards in class for their achievements in math and art. The younger is exhibiting signs of being smarter than the average (he's in pre-K).
Delayed motor skills is probably very common in neglected children. My youngest definitely falls under this category. But that's not something that he won't outgrow. He's made tremendous leaps in his abilities since we adopted him.
Go with your intuition after you look at photos. Photos ARE worth a 1000 words. In our case, that's pretty much how we knew the personality of each child.
I know it's not easy to read the history of a child and figure out if you can handle it, that's why you just have to go with faith.
I really hated the idea of adopting any child with FAS and specifically asked all the questions related to it from the pediatrician who helped review the information and photos of our referral. But in the end, I went with my gut instinct. I searched for "signs" that these kids are mine, and the signs were right there in front of me (and I'm not a believer!).
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So hard. First, you have to remember that people in Poland do adopt so the "healthy" kids are adopted in Poland. Emotional issues are not considered "health" issues so a child with PTSD is considered healthy.
This was the part of the process that I hated because there was so little information out there to understand how our referrals compared to other referrals. We said no to one referral because of strangeness in the information and said yes to the second. The second yes was a hard yes for the mind but easy yes for our heart.
Here are some questions that we now know are good indicators. 1) Has this referral been presented to anyone before either in Poland or internationally? If turned down had any of them visited the child before turning down the referral? (If this answer to this is yes, then there is a problem with the information. If you are the first international and they did not present to someone in Poland then you know the child is behind a 'typical orphanage delays') 2) Can you send updated pictures, measurements, etc? (If they won't or they say it is too difficult then those that have the referral may not have the most up to date info.) 3) Do you see any FAS behaviors in the child? 4) I understand this child is delayed and we expect that due to their background, however, how do they compare to other kids that are the same age in the system-bottom third, middle third, top third?
I don't know what your referral looked like, but I looked everywhere to try to find a place where I could see different referrals summarized so that I knew how our referrals compared. Couldn't find anything - so I hope this info is helpful. ----For our second referral our IA doctor told us that the child was probably mentally retarded based on her head size and the blank stare in a picture that had been specifically requested to not have a smile in it. I took the same info to a pediatrician and he said he didn't see the microencephely (sp?) because she continued to grow along the same curve and had progressed so tremendously in a short period of time. The orphanage director was very adament that hte IA doctor was wrong and the child was just delayed. I was given a reference by someone else that had adopted from that orphanage to discuss how accurate the orphanage director was in understanding and diagnosing her kids. Someone also went out to visit the child and send us new up to date information. The information didn't all fit and there were data issues, and there was potential alcohol use by the mom but no physical signs of FAS AND the orphanage director specifically stated in the information we were given that they didn't see behavior signs of FAS. She was 3.5 yo at rougly a 1.5-2 yo skills level for most things. She didn't really speak Polish except for a few key words. So we took a big breath and decided to move forward. She also has a vision issue that can't be corrected with glasses or surgery and may impact driving, etc in the future.
Fast forward 1.5 years--she is 6months behind on some skills and on track or above for other skills. She has PTSD and is highly anxious. Vision is going to continue to be an issue, but she does well with it. Learning has been difficult for her, but we feel it is because she missed so much her first two years of life. To teach her you have to "redo" what a 1 or 2 yo would experience to learn something and once you follow the standard process someone would have gone through she learns very quickly. Hopefully we are getting many of those holes filled as we go along. She is part of our family and we love her completely. Any specialist that has reviewed her files can't believe how wonderfully she is doing. That said, it is still very stressful to be a parent to a child that has PTSD and is learning a language for the first time at 4.
Good luck and I hope the information isn't too much and is helpful. I once thought about offering to keep a spreadsheet of referral information just for Poland so that people could compare.
Menlo - your advice is great. We turned down our first referral that we asked questions on. We felt some of the medical info was too vague. They refused to give measurements, and said that was personal information we could only have if we accepted. Some of our direct questions about development were either left unanswered or the answers were vague.What we want to know is what info has to be kept private and what they can tell prospective adoptive parents. What we got did not even seem to be enough to bring to an adoption specialist. They also refused video.
I found that they tended to not give information if they felt like it shouldn't have an impact on deciding to take a referral. On our second referral we only got answers to questions that would have had an impact on a yes/no decision. We got no info on the "curious" questions. We also got no video, but we did insist on a personal visit by someone in our agency due to the comments by the IA doctor. In our case the orphanage was very open and had worked with our agency before. My guess is that all orphanages are not that helpful.
Medical information is very important in the decision making process and should be given. Refusing to give updated information or measurements at all is a warning flag. Interestingly, there is also a "hague compliance report" on the child that I was told was supposed to be given with the referral that gives you basic information on how the child is doing, their background, etc. If you didn't get that I would ask why.
When you can't get that info, but you want to move forward, I would ask the question about how many people have already been presented this referral. Not just US families but anyone. Of those that may have turned down the referral did anyone visit the child before turning it down (Europeans have been known to do this because it isn't as expensive for them I guess. Americans rarely do this.)
Hope that helps
Dear Agg,
I just want to let you know that my heart goes out to you and your family concerning the referrals. I am an adoptive mom to a child from Russia. Out of all of the hoops we had to jump thru to adopt I felt that receiving and turning down referrals was definitely the hardest.
My daughter was our fifth and final referral. I, like you, requested "reasonably healthy" with "minor correctable conditions" and specified on my agency sheet which issues we would/woudnt accept.
We also came down with referrals that were making us nervous. We had one with obvious FASD, other with Hep C antibodies, etc.
What we did was after getting referrals that made us uneasy we called our agency and told them that we were not going to accept certain referrals. I think they knew that we weren't messing around. The agency wanted to please us and to (probably get rid of us) and make a sale as it's a business.
Our fifth referral, our daughter, was absolutely clean. I had it run by an IA expert in the NW. Finally we got a referral that the DR. felt good about and so we boarded the plane. That referral was about as accurate as a one-two page referral could be. After spending a day or so visiting our dd in the orphanage we could tell that she was alert and healthy. We had no qualms about moving forwardwith the adoption.
I think it was being assertive that helped us to stay in the game and to ultimately get a referral of the parameters we wanted. Sadly it seems that some agencies look at some adoptive famlies as perhaps feeling "hard up" and so some may take advantage because they feel that people will think with their hearts and not their heads. It's hard.
Of course there are people who willingly accept referrals with serious medical issues, and I have to say kudos to them and I'm glad many of those children are given a chance to thrive in a home environment.
KIT and good luck
Amy K, NJ
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