10 Questions with Angela and Scott
1. Tell us a little bit about your family and how you came to adopt from Ethiopia.
We are Angela and Scott, we’ve been married 10 years. We adopted our daughter Ella from China in 2004, the process was long and difficult for us because of several roadblocks, while we prepped paperwork we kept saying “Ella will be an only child”. But after arriving in China and completely falling in love, when we boarded the plane to leave China, I leaned over and said to Scott, “I think I could do this one more time.” He laughed. Two years later, we started talking about how we would begin our next adoption. We decided early on we would adopt a special needs child, specifically a visually impaired child. We started researching programs, we’d already heard that changes in the China program would not allow us to adopt again from that country. One night in November of 2006 I had a dream we adopted a dark haired, dark eyed baby boy, in my dream the baby boy snuggled right into me when I met him. The dream stuck with me and wouldn’t leave me. A few weeks later while visiting my cousin who is an adoptive mom of two daughters from China, she revealed to me she’d recently dreamed that we adopted a dark haired, dark eyed little boy and he wasn’t Chinese. She said, “Angela I think he’s African.” I was stunned, and that moment stuck with me too. Two month later Scott and I sent our application into our adoption agency to adopt from Ethiopia, and 5 months later the day I mailed our dossier, I called the agency to tell them we were interested in adopting a visually impaired toddler. She told me they had a 12 month old boy, I saw his picture that night, and we knew we were looking at our dark haired, dark eyed boy.
2. Describe what it’s like to prepare a dossier for people who have never done it.
Here’s the thing- the paperwork for Ethiopia was really a breeze compared to our paperwork for China. It literally took us weeks to prepare our paperwork for Ethiopia and it took us 12 months to prepare for China. Again, we hit roadblock after roadblock. We used a dossier prep person to help us with our China dossier, but our paperwork for Ethiopia we did ourselves and it went really quickly. I would say come up with a system and organize everything you need and just put one foot in front of the other and plunge ahead!!
3. Did you have concerns about what your family and friends would think about an interracial family? If so, tell us how you handled them?
This was fascinating to me, no one thought a thing about our adoption from China, but everyone seemed concerned about our adoption from Ethiopia. It was truly interesting the conversations and questions we encountered. A co-worker asked me one day “How do you think you’ll relate to a child from Africa, since you won’t share the same ethnicity?” I said, “The same way I do with Ella who is Chinese, I’m her mom and I won’t pretend I understand what it means to live in her skin.” My co-worker admitted, “I never think of Ella as Chinese!”
My family was supportive right away, the in-laws had some reservations, but when they realized we were moving ahead with or without their blessing, they decided to lend their support, and they are proud and love Jack to pieces.
4. What did you do to help fund your adoption?
We had a yard sale and savings. A friend lead a fundraiser via email and he raised $1000 for us. We applied for a grant through our agency and we received it- I think it was $3000. We put the rest on a low interest credit card and paid it off with our adoption tax credit.
5. What did you do to pass the time while you waited for court and travel?
I read books about raising visually impaired children and reread our attachment books. I looked for toys that would engage a visually impaired toddler.
6. What did it feel like when court day came? Did you get through on the first time?
I was really anxious about the court process, I had heard so much about family members being no shows so I was worried, I dreamed the night before that Jack’s family placed him in our arms, and I cried and cried. I learned the next day we passed. I learned when we met him a month later,that he was abandoned, and no one had to be there for our court date. I was stunned because it was the first time I’d learned that piece of his story.
7. Tell us how you met your child and what it was like.
We met Jack on Christmas Day 2007, we arrived at 4 am, and about 10 am an orphanage worker came and picked us up. We walked to his orphanage from our guest house, and when we walked in I saw him, I sat down on the floor, and he climbed right up in my lap, and he snuggled in, just like that dream I had the year before.
8. What was the biggest surprise about meeting your child?
I was surprised by how small he was, I thought he was going to be bigger, he was tiny. And I was surprised by how willing he was to explore, so many blind infants, will be really still and not explore, Jack was ALL over the place and we realized he had some vision.
9. What made you decide to adopt a visually impaired child? What special things did you do to prepare?
My husband is visually impaired and this just felt like the right thing to do.
We read a lot about raising a visually impaired child, we joined support groups online and locally. We worked on creating a space for him that was texture friendly, we loaded up on toys that would make noisy. We prepped his care package, by sleeping with a little softy, and we made a tape and sent a tape player. On the tape we read stories, Ella sang songs to Jack and my husband played the piano. We sent a photo album for the orphanage staff so they’d know us and we sent sensory toys for him.
I would encourage families who are considering a special needs adoption to prepare for anything, we were told Jack was healthy and only blind. And that’s what we prepared for. We’ve since learned he has cerebral palsy, and he will most likely have fairly severe cognitive delays and he also has epilepsy. We learned those things 14 months after arriving home So realize early on that children with special needs often have more than one and sometimes those don’t appear early on.
10. What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting the process or considering an adoption from Ethiopia?
I would say be flexible, and be prepared for anything.
