Friday, December 25, 2009

An unexpected gift on this Shabbat

The lady who did our paperwork for the upcoming adoption Kevin is involved in gave us a call last night. She told us of a family needing some respite (and most likely a rehoming of an adopted child) for their 8-year-old son, who was adopted 8 months ago. From Hungary. (Since then we found out the child was adopted 14 months ago by the American family and the family has been in Israel for 8 months.) Apparently the child has regressed a lot since his adoption, he is not willing to talk to his family, would not say a word in Hebrew and is aggressive towards the mother. He had a hard time bonding with his 12 siblings and attachment towards the parents. He came from a group home with 9 children, and it appears his need for individual attention could be met even less with the larger child:adult ratio than in the home. I guess it does happen.

We agreed to three weeks of respite and will take it from there. Dissolution of an adoption is more complicated legally here. Anyway, the parents and the social services lady came buy today to drop the child off. The mother had only one remark, "I didn't realize these people were Jewish!" From there things went a little easier. P. has settled in with my boys, and he is talking up a storm with them in a mix of Hungarian, English and Hebrew. Turns out he prefers to be called P rather than H, the name his adoptive family gave him. So we call him that.

He currently attends school at the town where his family reside, so we will have to tweak our schedules to fit in the 40-minute drives each way for now.

9 comments:

  1. Wow, and you said nothing special had happened?!

    Dunno what to say, maybe mazel tov ? Hope everything will go smoothly with the kids!

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  2. Wow. How lovely that you could take him in! It looks like he is emerging already?? You are a good person.

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  3. The most ideal thing would be for all of them that after the respite he could go home once everyone is a tad more stable.

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  4. Does he fully understand that it is temporary? What if we wants to stay with you?

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  5. He fully understands that this 3-week respite could result in going home, staying with us or going to a third place. We are trying to untangle the legal mess this all involves (American family adopting, and now a possible disruption by the Americans in Israel) as well as trying to find out what can happen afterwards.

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  6. Blessings on you and your family for helping out in this difficult situation. You are all special peope!

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  7. Oh Hevel! What a mess! Having adopted from a disruption, and nearly adopting again (didn't work out) my heart goes out to him and to you! It is HARD!
    I am always amazed at the "control' that emerges when a disruption occurs. From your other posts, it sounds like P is doing well with you. I will never forget the "unknown" when we brought Sarah home.
    It took several weeks before papers were finally signed. I remember the family called her on the phone and after she hung up the phone she collapsed in a pile of tears and wet herself for fear that she would have to go back. So sad. :(
    4 years later, I am SOOOOO glad she is with us forever. :)
    I do not understand disruption, and can only say, it is so much better for a child to find a loving home, than to remain in a problem home.

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  8. Yeah, the control... ugh. Had a very unpleasant manifestation this morning that was just enough to give the whole morning a bad taste. And this is the Shabbat, the most joyful day...

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  9. Roll it off like a duck rolls water off its back. :)

    Don't let it for one minute control how you feel.
    Just think, how this little guy has been feeling! :( for a long time...:(

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