National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. That means there will be a lot of adoption “speak” buzzing about. It will be common to hear things like: orphans, being called to adopt, Gotcha Day and the least of these.

We don’t use a lot of adoption “talk” at our house. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the lingo I mentioned above. But I think it can be overused, misused, and in our personal circumstances, not completely honoring of my children or their circumstances.

That being said, adoption does get talked about a lot in our house.

We talk about the children who wait, about our children’s lives before they came home to us. We pray for foster mothers, for nannies at the orphanage and for their birth families.

It’s a topic I hope that I’m completely comfortable with, that my children are completely comfortable with.

But I get that not everyone is comfortable talking about adoption or even asking questions about adoption. So I’m going to do it for you, ask the questions and give the answers. 

Let’s get started.

1. How long did you wait for your children? We waited 29 months for Luk Chaai - from the day we mailed our application until the day we met him. Ying was a waiting child, so the wait was a little different. We waited 18 months - from the date of application until the day we met her.

2. Do you receive any kind of state or federal assistance? No. That being said, Ying does get therapy through a state-funded agency. She started getting PT through our private insurance, but we subsequently switched. Private physical therapy was expensive and very limited. The insurance company only approved roughly 18 sessions initially. As you can imagine, we needed a lot more than 18 sessions! Ying was eligible for therapy through the state because of her adoption and the extent of her needs.

All the DME (wheelchair, ramp, etc…) has been purchased through our private insurance. We independently purchased the wheelchair-equipped van.

3. How long will Ying receive physical and occupational therapy? As long as she needs it. Initially, she was getting PT and OT, each, twice a week, for half an hour each. She is now receiving OT 1x a week and PT 2x a week.

4. Is adoption expensive? Yes. There are many, many articles and posts that deal with paying for adoption, grants, etc… For us, we found most helpful sites like: moneysavingmom.com and chieffamilyofficer.com.

5. What birth parent information did you receive? All the information that was provided to the agency was passed on to us. We are grateful for every shard of it. As is common in international adoption, the medical information was limited.

Here’s a related post on children of our own. 

Do you have more adoption-related questions? Stefanie from Ni Hao Ya’ll is also answering questions here (which inspired this post).