"Two? Are you Crazy?!?" How we Came to Decide to Host a Sibling Pair

WAY back, when Shad and I were first married, and I was having major baby cravings, I got Shad to agree to adopting a kitten. Believe me, this was no small feat! When Shad and I were dating, he told me he wasn't really a "pet person".  I never took that comment seriously. So, as with the comments he made about only wanting two kids maximum, I knew this was something I could manipulate down the road.  When he fell in love with me enough, he would want nothing more than my happiness. Of course, he would see that I needed a cat or three. (And a baby or six...)

So, one blissful, April, Saturday morning we went to the Broward County Humane Society in Florida. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting this particular Humane Society, it is one of the fanciest places I have ever been.  It's the Biltmore or Taj Mahal for unwanted cats and dogs.  The establishment is immaculately clean and doesn't even smell like animals. I wish I could say that the institution where two of my kids spent many of their childhood years was even half as well funded as this place, but I digress....

Back to the Broward County Humane Society, where we found the two cutest kittens alive.  How would I ever choose between the two of them?  They were two female kittens from the same litter and they were absolutely adorable. I knew that I was already on thin ice, so asking Shad to get BOTH of them, would have been absolutely out of the question. I wasn't going to press my luck.

Now, in order to adopt a pet from the Broward County Humane Society, you need to prove that you are worthy. There was paperwork to be filled out, a waiting period, and then an INTERVIEW before we could even hold the kitten we were interested in. I was certain they were going to see right through Shad and *know* that he was a self-proclaimed "not a pet person". It was a stressful, emotional day! (Go ahead and laugh...at the time, this was stressul stuff!)

Finally, *the* moment arrived when we could actually meet the kitten that we had inquired about.  I guess our references checked out and we passed the intensive interview session enough to give the appearance that we were capable of remembering to feed a cat and change its litter box.  We were invited into a special room, where we were going to get to meet our little bundle of joy! For reasons I still don't understand, they brought in BOTH kittens.  Shad held one, and I held the other. We were so excited to have reached this momentous occasion where we could be the official parents to one of these cute, fluffy creatures!

Now, if Shad was the one telling this story, this is where he would say, "Cue the Crazy Lady!"  To this day, Shad is absolutely convinced we were scammed. About 90 seconds into our big moment, a lady with puffy, red eyes asked if she could come in and hold one of the kittens. She claimed that she knew she sounded crazy, but these kittens looked exactly like a cat that she'd had for years that had just died.  Of course, we said, "Yes".  Without saying it out-loud, Shad and I were both thinking, "Perfect! This lady will take one of the kittens, and we will take her sister. What a fortunate moment!"  After a few lovely minutes of passing the kittens around and "oohing" and "awwing" over them, Shad finally asked Grieving Cat Mother, which one she wanted. He explained that we would take the other one. Now, this is the point where Shad became concerned this woman was a con-artist, and I became convinced she was an angel from Heaven.  Her response to his question was a horrified face and "OH NO!! You can't separate these two! It would be devasting for them!  These cats were born to the same mother and they need to be adopted TOGETHER!"  

The end of this story is that we adopted both kittens.

Now, before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I am in NO WAY suggesting that adopting cats is the same as adopting children. I actually wish that we didn't use the word "adoption" for choosing to raise a cat or dog that we didn't give birth to.  It's borderline offensive, but I don't make the dictionary or semantic rules, so it is what it is. For whatever reason, there are not two separate words in the English language to distinguish between raising animals and raising children that were birthed by another Mother.

Fast forward over a decade as we are trying to pick a child to host....  OMG! I cannot even begin to explain how hard this process is!  (This is another blog post altogether.)  In a strange twist of fate, it was my husband who kept looking at the picture of the brother-sister pair who now share our last name.  My response was, "TWO?  Are you CRAZY?!?"  We had raised one child for close to a decade and were finally reaching the stage where things were getting "easier". The thought of hosting one child from another country, who did not speak our language seemed insane enough. My husband was suggesting that we take the insanity just one step further. He actually thought we could handle a 13 year old girl and her 11 year old brother. Whoa!  I wasn't so sure. I was terrified, quite honestly. My husband, (God Bless him!), is an elementary school teacher. He has worked with 5th-8th graders for 17 years.  I am a firm believer that the secret to his success with this age group is that he is not that much more mature than they are. He seriously fits right in. (Bathroom humor? Right up his alley!) I couldn't believe that he was suggesting that we host two children. It went against everything I thought I knew about him.  This was the guy who didn't think we should adopt two KITTENS, and now he was suggesting that taking care of two KIDS was a good idea?  Clearly, he had lost his mind. Furthermore, anyone who has ever met my husband knows how incredibly tight he is with money. Parsimonious, is actually a much more accurate word. (For those who aren't currently studying for their SATs, this word basically means: as cheap as cheap can be.) So, if I was getting this all straight, not only were we going to be out-numbered by children, but we were going to pay the hosting fees for two children (double the money), then potentially we would adopt two children (double the money), and then raise three children (much more than double the money).  I went to bed that night thinking that this was just a phase, and that in the morning he would be the same tight-wad husband I was used to.

It wasn't a phase.

I suggested that perhaps we could ask Julia (our future adoption faciliator and the individual who had actually interviewed all these children) for her opinion.  Trying to bring my husband back to reality, I thought Julia would set his mind straight.  I instructed Shad, specifically, to make sure she was keeping in mind that we had a 9 year old only child.

 Here is where I need to say that God definitely has an incredible sense of humor.  Guess who Julia's first recommendation was!  (I know, this is a ridiculously easy question two years later.) In the event anyone is confused, she recommended Valeria and Vitalik, the same sister and brother pair that Shad had already set his heart upon. Within a few days we were were sending off our deposit check to Marina's Kids to make sure that we could host Valeria and Vitalik before anyone else had the chance to have them.

I am not always the most generous wife with giving my husband credit for anything. We are both pretty stubborn, know-everything, control freaks.  But, here, I am going to put it in writing, for the entire world wide web to see.....my husband made one of the best decisions of our lives. I am so honored and proud that these two children have now given us the title of Mommy and Daddy.

What you should know about Orphan Hosting (part one)

Until today, writing this blog has been very easy; I am simply re-telling our family's love story. This post, however, is not flowing out the way my past blogs have.  I want to tell everyone how magical and wonderful adopting teens can be, but there is just no way to skirt around the fact that there is some really sad stuff that happened before we all met. I have so many fears in writing about this. My biggest fear is that it will upset my adopted children (even though they are the ones who sent me to my room to write my next blog post after nine hours at my "real job"). My second biggest fear is that I will not do the subject justice.  I am not an orphan hosting expert.  I am not an adoption expert.  I am far from a parenting expert.  The problem with this subject is that there are not enough "experts"! Most parents who are in the middle of the experience do not have time to sit down and write about it. My favorite saying through this whole experience has been, "There are no books for this!"  Sure, there are some great adoption books out there about connection, trauma, attachment, cocooning, red flags, issues, and how to deal with rude comments from the public, but there are NO books that talk about just the everyday "stuff", and certainly not about hosting.

Of course, as with everything, every experience is unique, with some commonalities. Most people can relate to how incredibly exhausting bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital is.  Hosting orphans is kind of like that with some pretty major exceptions.   

Exception #1:  THERE ARE NO NAPS. 

There was no "sleep when the baby sleeps" about this experience. The kids we hosted were active. (Far more active than their American counterparts!)  From our experience, and what we have heard from others, there are a few reasons for this.  The first is just obvious....there is a seven hour time difference between here and Ukraine. The other reasons are a little less obvious to those of us who are not "in the know".  When you are being raised in an institutionalized setting, going to sleep is not always a safe idea.  Sleeping brings on nightmares about things from the past. Sleep also makes you vulnerable; you can't protect yourself when you are asleep.  A coping mechanism that many of these children learn is how to self-stimulate to keep themselves awake ALL NIGHT LONG.  One long-term effect of this habit is that these children do not have the opportunity to grow properly.  That's because growth hormone is normally released during sleep. If someone consistently gets too little sleep (known as "sleep deprivation"), growth hormone is suppressed. Ukrainian orphans are typically two sizes smaller than their American counterparts, and this is one of the major reasons. Vitalik, our now 12 year old son, looked about two years younger than our younger, biological son. Here is a picture to demonstrate:

On the left is my biological son Colby, age 9.  On the right is my adopted son, Vitalik, then 11. The first few nights you host an older child, you might find something like this at 3:00am:

These kids don't cry like newborns to let you know they need something. They won't even come into your room to tell you they had a bad dream or that they are awake.They will stay very quiet and fend for themselves.  They will tell you to go back to bed, and that you don't need to stay awake with them. You will be exhausted and want to go back to bed, but if you stay awake, something magical happens. They start to trust you and bond with you.  Some of my most favorite first memories with Vitalik took place when the rest of the continent was asleep.  Not very different than with the son I gave birth to!

Exception #2: THERE IS NO CUTE LAYETTE TO DRESS THEM IN

Chances are, even if you have the most supportive friends and family in the whole world, no one threw you a baby shower.  If you have friends that give you hand-me-downs their kids out-grew, and toys to play with, these are your BEST friends. They are the ones that "get it".  The children will arrive with exactly two outfits...the one they are wearing when they meet you and something to sleep in (I would not even venture to say "pajamas".)  The clothes they bring are not even their own clothes.  They are community clothes from the orphanage.  Someone has taken inventory, and these clothes BETTER make it back to Ukraine at the end of the trip, regardless of how worn out or inappropriate they may be.  (EVEN if they are underwear with a Play Boy Bunny logo and you want to burn them.) Additionally, even though you have been nesting with the best of the pregnant parents and having a blast, don't be shocked, hurt, or surprised if the kids don't like anything you bought them.  So, for fun times sake, here are some AMAZING outfits Shad and I picked out for Lera that she hated.

A newborn baby may vomit on or soil their cute new clothing, but your hosted teen child will most likely just tell you straight out, that it is not their "style" and/or make a face and say the one English word they know, "NO." If you are under the mistaken assumption that an orphan would love ANYTHING new, you need to take a trip to Ukraine and see how fashion conscious this culture is.  Cute little clothes from Justice were just not going to cut it. Colby's Gymboree hand-me-downs were not exactly Vitalik's style either. We were so ill-equipped for parenting tweens!  The truth is, we were so ill-equipped for parenting a newborn too. The biggest difference  here, is that the newborn couldn't tell you what a failure you were (and by God's grace, they forget all the stupid stuff you did!)

Exception #3: FEEDING IS MORE THAN FORMULA OR "BREAST IS BEST"
What on earth do you feed these kids?!?!?  One thing I know for absolute certain, is that you do NOT feed them McDonald's, or pizza, or hamburgers, or hot-dogs, or anything AMERICAN.  If the food is AMERICAN, it is going to make them fat.  The end.  The last thing on earth a child from Ukraine wants to be is FAT.  They are happy to tell you all about this in any words, translator app on your phone, or through charades.  "You" (they point) have BIG belly.  "Me" have six pack!"  This is a source of pride.  They know Americans are fat, and they are not going to go back to Ukraine in this condition.  Ice-cream, on the other hand was NOT American, and they could eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's and not lose any of their Ukrainian pride. Fortunately, our hosting agency, Marina's Kids had a very simple "cook book" so we had some idea those first few days. Over the three weeks that we had the kids, they did gain some much needed weight, and they also had a safe environment to sleep in. We had to keep them away from the bathroom scales, but while our kids were with us they had the proper combination of sleep and nutrition to grow. Even over a three week span of time, this was a huge gift!

Exception #4: THE KIDS DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH

Oh wait!! Our biological son didn't speak English either!  All he did was cry (we think it was in English, but he was born in Miami, so for all we knew, he was crying in Spanish).  To my husband and I, this is the most funny reason people give for not hosting.  The kids didn't speak English, but they could communicate FAR more than any newborn I have ever met.  We had a blast with this! The best part about hosting was NOT speaking a common language. It was a challenge!  We made our best effort to learn words from their language as we tried to teach them ours.  It was like a game. Vitalik laughed and laughed and laughed at some of my mis-pronunciations. Now, I say these same Russian phrases to him wrong "on purpose" because it makes for some funny memories.  He had some funny pronunciations that I will never forget too.  For example, the President of the United States was "Balack Oh Mama!" and the Christmas movie where the kid gets left behind for a Paris vacation is called, "Hone Aloma". 

Exception #5: YOU DON'T GET TO KEEP THEM

This is the most difficult part about the hosting experience. You fall in love with these kids, you think they may love you too, and then you have to send them back without knowing what the future has in store.  I have had many people say, "I could never do that! I would get too attached!" or "I don't think I could ever put my son (or daughter) through that!"  Well, friends, my best reply to this is, "There are no certainties in life." The only method that I am aware of for avoiding bad feelings is to never be born in the first place.  People leave, or let you down, get sick, or pass away every single day. I have not yet figured a way around this fact of life.  In fact, in my experience, the people who handle the uncertainties of this process the best ARE the people who have experienced major loss in their life. It takes a major loss to appreciate the time you have with these children, it takes a major loss to empathatize properly with a child who has been through a traumatic past, and it also takes an understanding that we don't *really* have control over anything.  I don't believe in living life recklessly, however, I do believe that God helps those that help themselves.  I believe that big risks equal big rewards. I believe in "Go Big or Go Home".  

I believe in Orphan Hosting.  

How Ukraine Chose Us

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, the idea of hosting a Ukrainian orphan just sounded nuts.  I truly had no interest in it.  Regardless, I had four separate people who didn't even know each other bring me information about hosting children.  I listened politely and responded with something like, "Thank you, but we are currently working with the Foster Care System. " Similar to how I was taught to respond to a Jehovah's Witness who came knocking on the door, "Thank you for stopping by, but I am Catholic."  This way, you aren't exactly saying, "No, you people are crazy." It's more like, "Gosh, I would really like to, but I was born into this Catholic religion.(insert small frown here)" Then follow the next four important steps... 1. Take pamphlet 2. Say, "God Bless you for being out there in the cold!", 3. smile and 4. gently shut the door.

My line about the Foster Care System was true.  We had been working with them, but I am not entirely sure they were working with us. We spent two years giving papers to Children's Home Society, an adoption agency that assists with adopting children from the Foster Care system. Two years, four case workers, 235,324 documents, and 454 background checks later we still had not been matched with one child. Not ONE.  OK, OK, admittedly some of those numbers may be a bit inaccurate, but the part about two years, 4 caseworkers and not one child to meet is absolutely 1000% true.

Our First Meeting with Marina's Kids
A very nice family, the Kaiser's, invited us to an informational meeing about Marina's Kids and hosting. I didn't want to go.  My husband felt we should go and just listen becasue Allison was a co-worker of his, and it was the polite thing to do.  So we went to this meeting to "be polite".

I wish I could say that I remember all the details of that meeting, but what I can remember for certain is that this meeting forever changed my life. When I learned about hosting and all the opportunities it brings these children, I was so choked up that I couldn't even speak to introduce myself.  I just knew that this was something I wanted to be involved in.  Marina's Kids is not about adoption. Marina's Kids works with children in orphanages, helps to improve the living conditions for these children, helps to buy them shoes and clothing, and Marina's Kids also has an orphan hosting program.  It was at this meeting that my feelings about adding to our family were completely transformed.  I realized that adoption or not, there were kids that needed love and help. We could be one of the families who helped these precious children!  When the meeting ended, I was scared to talk with Shad about my feelings.  I wasn't sure he would understand that I wanted to be involved in this ...even if it meant not being able to ever adopt. I wanted to work with this orphanage. I wanted to host one of the children, but beyond that, I wanted to do something for ALL of the children at that orphanage.  We didn't have to be their parents, but we could do SOMETHING to make life better for them all.

I would like to tell you all that we went home or to church and prayed together about it, and God said, "Go for it!". The truth of this story was that it was a Saturday night and our only child had a sleepover to attend.  So, like all good parents without children for a night do, we went to Tyler's Taproom and drank wine over it.  Amazingly, Shad and I had come to the same conclusion. We were willing to relinquish our well-earned Foster Care license to take a risk.  We both agreed that our hearts were led to do this. Perhaps we would never adopt, but we could touch the lives of multiple children through hosting.  I would also like to tell you that all of our friends and family were immediately on board ready to offer all the assistance and support they could, but let's just keep this real.  They thought we were crazy.  Some of them were nice enough to keep their comments to themselves, but it wasn't a popular decision.  Despite this, in a way that still amazes me to this day, we never waivered about this decision. Not once.  We had chosen a path and we were excited! Now to pick a child!

!

Let the nesting begin!  We didn't know who would be in these rooms or for how long, but the Foster Care System requires that you have a bedroom ready.  We were READY!  Now send us some pictures of a child!

So, why did you pick Ukraine?

One of these days when I am feeling brave (or have had too much wine) I am going to look the questioner straight in the  eyes and respond with, "Because we wanted WHITE children." I don't think I could ever bring myself to do this in real life, but in my imagination, it would be pretty hilarious. I honestly wonder if this is what some people think when they ask this question.

The most honest answer I can give to this question is this: Ukraine chose us.

Prior to Ukraine finding us, we had visited an adoption agency in Maine. The lady we talked to was painfully honest and told us that they hadn't placed a baby with a family in 8 years.  Her best advice was to get on social media and try to find a birth mom.  I wasn't even on Facebook yet, so I just couldn't imagine doing what she was suggesting. She had some other helpful advice that included marketing ourselves to high school guidance counselors.  If we did this, she said, we might be able to find a good teenage mother.  WHAT???  "Hi! We are the Roach Family. We really want a baby. Will you give us yours?"  I now know more about what she was advising us to do. There are plenty of people who are matched with their Forever Child in this way, but it sounded it bit crazy at the time......and (get this!).... it seemed like Too. Much. Work. Hahahahahahahaha.....we were so naive! Too much work!  I have no idea what I thought the adoption process was like, but we obviously had a bit more education in our future.

Our next thought was to research International Adoption.  We contacted multiple out of state adoption agencies and had them send us their information.  We may have over-done it, but I remember the next few weeks receiving all these beautiful, colorful books in the mail with pictures of happy families and babies. OH THE BABIES!  Beautiful, beautiful babies!  Stacks and stacks of "baby catalogs" to dream over.  I obsessed over these baby pictures and researched all I could about the requirements for adopting children in different countries. We had set our minds that our future family would most likely include a child of a different ethnicity than our own and we were ready to embrace this.  Something that was important to us, however, was that we wanted to raise our next child in an area that had more diversity than where we were currently living.  We wanted to be in an area where we might even be able to make friends with people from the same country/culture as this future child.

So we moved.  
Without selling our house.
Without jobs.
Without our friends and most of our family...
We left small-town Maine and landed in the Raleigh, NC area.

Some would say this was crazy, but I say it was just good preparation for what we were in for down the road! It was also where we were meant to be because no one in Maine had ever mentioned hosting an orphan from Ukraine before. But here, this was a "thing".  There were actually people who did this! 

And here is where I must end my writing for the day.  I haven't even come close to explaining how Ukraine chose us yet, but one of my beautifully, generous, Ukrainian children has shared a case of influenza with me.  We are currently cohabitating in the big bed coughing and passing the thermometer back and forth admiring each other's scores.  It took me a decade to get to the point where I could be sick in bed with more than one child, so now I need to put on my sick uniform and fully indulge myself in a day of Sponge Bob and Kleenex.  This is a big family milestone to be celebrated with shots of Nyquil!