About Us
We are Jon and Summer Parkinson. We are creating this blog so that those who know us can visit and see the progress of our adoption. We also hope we can help other prospective adoptive parents see how the process has worked for us. We have done much research and learned a lot of useful information by checking out other parents websites and blogs. This is also a way for us to communicate with our families and friends when we are in Ukraine.
Jon and I (Summer) have been together nearly half of our lives! We started dating in high school and married on April 22, 1995. We are both from Oregon, but now live in Snoqualmie, Washington. We have two beautiful daughters, Kailyn who turned 5 in April and Hadley who will be 1 in June. Jon is a Firefighter/EMT with Eastside Fire and Rescue in Issaquah, WA and I am a stay-at-home mom. All of our family lives in Oregon but we visit as often as possible around school and activity schedules. Most often they travel up here to visit us. We are very lucky to live in a community and neighborhood of many supportive families.
For some people this may come as a surprise that Jon and I are wanting to adopt. We already have two wonderful biological daughters and feel very lucky at that. But those of you who have known us longer are probably aware that this is something Jon and I have always talked about. Even before we had our own children! It seems my path has crossed with many people who are adopted or that have adopted and I am beginning to think that it is not by coincidence.
It is our hope to adopt a healthy boy between the ages of 2-6. (Our research has shown that there are more boys available for adoption than girls, which works in our favor.) We would also like to keep the natural birth order with Kailyn as the oldest and Hadley as the youngest. We looked at many different adoption options but have chosen an international adoption from Ukraine. When you adopt from most other countries, they choose the child you adopt and then you travel there to take them home. In Ukraine, we have more involvement in choosing our own child. This was very important to us. To adopt from Ukraine we must travel there and get a referral from the "NAC", (National Adoption Center) for a child that most closely matches our criteria. We are trying to be open minded, knowing we may come home with a child that could be slightly older, have minor health problems, or we could even come home with another girl! We will hopefully get to see a picture and read a description of the child at the National Adoption Center. We will then travel to the orphanage and meet the child face to face to see if this is the child we want. We do have the right to say no and try for another referral from the NAC. (Although this is frowned upon if the child meets your criteria. I would also find it heartbreaking to meet a child and get their hopes up only to turn them down for the chance of a family.) We will have to hire a facilitator which is someone that does the adoption paper work and arranges accomodations such as; a translator, transportation and motel or apartments throughout our stay. We are unsure how long we will be in Ukraine. There is a lot of paperwork and courtdates to legalize everything. The average time is 3-5 weeks, sometimes longer. It depends on whether or not a judge will waive a 30 day waiting period. If we aren't able to get the waiting period waived I will sign over power of attorney to Jon and he will wait in Ukraine with our child and I will have to return home. It makes me ill to think about being away from Kailyn and Hadley for so long! I know they will be in good hands with the grandparents though! We will just hope that all goes well and it will be a speedy process! (Keep your fingers crossed and pray for us!)
Through our research we have learned that most people in Ukraine speak Russian even though Ukrainian has become the official language. I have been taking Russian lessons since the beginning of December now and it is not an easy language to learn, especially when you have two little ones to take care of! I find it very important to learn the language for many reasons though. First and foremost, I want our child to be able to retain this tie to his/her native home and culture. I think it will also help me to communicate better with him/her so that I can better teach them English. I also feel out of respect to the culture and the people that I should learn their language and be able to speak it as well as I can while in their country. Lastly, I'm hoping that it will help us to better know and understand what is happening throughout the adoption process while in Ukraine. With that said, unfortunately there is no guarantee that is the language our child will speak and the lessons are very expensive! But I have researched both languages and they seem very similar. Hopefully the hard work will not be in vain!
SP