Bulgarian adoption story

#1 · July 9, 2003, 10:23 am

Quote from Forum Archives on July 9, 2003, 10:23 am
Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>

Dear Hope Chest readers,

I asked Laura Weiss to share with us all about her Bulgarian adoption, which is in process right now. She and Jonathan already have three children, and are also expecting their fourth child. I believe that they are looking for a reasonably priced van to fit their new family members!

We know of many foreign and special needs aoptions. Phil and Susan Kent are adopting Rose from Russia (http://cacsi.com/russia). The Kents adopted Ruth and Jacob from the Ukraine in 2000. The Fishers in Pennsylvania are trying to adopt a handicapped preschooler. My next door neighbor Donna brought home a new toddler daughter from China last year, and she is so precious! May God bless all who adopt!

Now, here's Laura!

~*~*~

Kostadinka Rose Weiss, our Bulgarian Daughter

A few years ago my husband and I felt the Lord calling us to adopt. Since he was unemployed at the time it didnt make a whole lot of sense, but we began the researching phase of the whole process at that time. After a lot of research we decided on an agency and also on the country of Bulgaria. A few months ago I was looking at the website for a wonderful family who has adopted eight special needs children and has three adoptions in process right now. They are truly amazing people. You can learn more about them on their web site at http://www.theshepherdscrook.org. They have pictures and article's about all their adopted children and a special medical project where they take doctors overseas to perform operations on orphan children who need them. Please pray for their ministry as well.

While at their web site, I noticed they have a photo listing of children they are sponsoring. I saw several pictures, one of a little girl that made my heart leap. I saw her age and assumed that my husband would not want to adopt her because she is several years older than what we had discussed. She was twelve and we had discussed adopting a five or six year old. So I didnt say anything to Jonathan but said a quick prayer that the Lord would find a family for her soon. I didnt know then, that family would be us.

At a later time, my husband was at another website looking at photo listings and saw the same picture of the same little girl. He said to me. I know she is older than we discussed but I want you to get more information about this little girl. When I saw the picture, I burst into tears and told him I had seen her picture also. So I contacted the agency we had decided on before, and we were told they were representing her exclusively and had a good relationship with her lawyer.

Though Jonathan's new job was only paying him $8 an hour, in faith we sent in the $200 registration fee. Within two days, he had a new job that paid him more than double that plus commission, and within two weeks 50% 60% of the fees we needed for the adoption came in from various resources. It will cost us approximately $22,000 including travel and court and government fees to adopt our daughter.

We traveled for our first trip to meet Kostadinka on May 22nd. We spent a week with her there in an apartment, and here is a small diary from that trip.
When we got into Sofia our lawyer met us at the airport with roses. We took our luggage to the apartment, then went to the orphanage to pick up Kostadinka. She came in the room and we were so scared. She looked happy, but she wouldn't look at us. She just smiled at her feet and would steal glances over at Jonathan and I every so often. I just kept smiling at her. I was so sorry I didnt know more Bulgarian at that time. I wanted to say something comforting. She smelled so bad, like a homeless person and cigarette smoke. She does not smoke but it seems to be the national past time of Bulgaria. It was stifling to be in the room with her. Apparently the children only get to bathe 2 times a month if that. I felt guilty for thinking that way.

We spoke to the director and the orphanage psychologist who was VERY strange and kept asking me what was on my heart and if the fact she was Roma (gypsy) was going to bother anyone. I didnt even know how to respond to that one, it was such a silly thing to say. I didnt really have my wits about me either. Her being gypsy seemed to be this dirty thing nobody wanted to talk about and everyone kept trying to diminish it by saying, "Shes just a little gypsy." Like we care. I think she is at least half by looking at her, but who knows or cares. Its a plus as far as we are concerned. It is hard for people there to understand why we would want a gypsy child over a Bulgarian child. There is a lot of racism.

We got in the car to go to the apartment and she just smiled and stared at her feet some more. Jonathan reached over and gave her a hug and a kiss on the face and she giggled. I did the same. At the apartment, she saw all the things we had bought her on the table and wanted to look at them all. She was very excited and kept organizing them and re-organizing them. Then she told the attorney, Antonia, that she wanted mommy to give her a bath. I have to say that surprised me because she is so big. There was no hot water in our part of the city so we had to use these huge metal sticks that plug into the wall to heat the water. It took about an hour to do and they were terrifying. I was so scared I would get shocked by them and by the end of the trip I did!

I went in with her for her bath. I washed her hair and her back for her. She smiled and giggled the whole time. I have never seen anybody bathe so quickly. In less than 2 minutes, she was scrubbed done and dressed. She still wasnt very clean and the smell lingered. Over the next few days she took several baths, but kept putting dirty clothes back on so it never really made a difference. The last night we were there she took a two hour bath and washed her hair four times and her body four times. She knew it would be awhile before she could bathe again.

We took her shopping and bought her some clothes. The translator we had the second day was awful and bonded more with her than we did, but seemed to have this superiority thing we didnt like, so we had her drive us back to the apartment early and said we were fine and to go home. Kosti was a different child when alone with us. She was much more animated and is very funny. She did the funniest things, like cheat at cards to make us laugh and sing her music we bought her really loud. It is terrible music and Im a little concerned I couldnt read the lyrics, but it made her so happy. I can monitor her choice in music at home easier. We could only judge by the jackets of the tapes.

She was so affectionate and loved to hug and kiss and share food -- which is why I got sick. She had a horrible cold and some kind of skin condition. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked like she had some nutritional deficiencies. The orphanage receives the equivalent of $.02 cents a day to feed the children and the non-gypsy children have priority. She connected with Jonathan and I on very different levels. She played with him more and wanted to do grown up girl things with me like hair and make up. I wore my hair down the whole trip because it made her happy to play with it. She liked to brush it and put ribbons in it.

When we went out she never asked for anything except a necklace from the church that had the three daughters of Saint Sofia on it, a cross, an anchor and a heart. They symbolize faith, hope and love. She enjoyed praying with us and a local foundation takes the children to church every week to the Eastern Orthodox church, (http://www.pokrov-foundation.org) which I found out is not catholic like I thought it was. They seem to be very steeped in tradition. I am learning more about them so I will understand what she has been taught before she comes home. I was happy to see there was one here in Riverside. [Virginia's note: the Weiss family lives in California.]

It was hard to find appropriate clothing to buy her, because she is out of the children's sizes, and all the women's clothing is very revealing or tight or both. Everyone dresses like that there. We bought her a long jean skirt, a pair of jeans, some tennis shoes, and three shirts. It was hard because they pretty much told us the other kids would beat her up and steal her stuff now that she has a family and there is nothing anyone else can do about it. There just arent enough adults to police the children outside of school hours, so the kids are pretty much on their own.

After we complained about our translator, we spent the rest of the time with the lawyer who is disabled and paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident. The city is very unfriendly to handicapped people. There are no elevators or lifts or ramps of any kind. She has a hired driver who carries her chair up and down all the stairs she needs to go on. She said the court building was especially tough because children's court is on the upper floors. She is wonderful and told us she can help us adopt in the future without an agency if we want.

We asked Kosti how long she had been in orphanages and it looks like most of her life. She was not very willing to talk about it. She has vague memories of an aunt and uncle she called mommy and daddy but they never see her. She had a couple of temper tantrums when we were there when Jonathan would say no to something. Not angry ones, but begging pleading ones. She wanted us to keep buying these cheese puffs that had toys in them but she never ate the food, so we said no and we would take her to the toy shop. She started crying and begging, we laughed because it was just so ridiculous. She laughed too. Then Jonathan video taped her and she stopped at that. He turned the screen so she could see herself. That works with our other kids too. She did not like to see herself crying. It was hard not to give in to everything, because we knew she had never had anything, but we felt it was important to establish boundaries from the beginning.

I expected it would take her time to warm up to us, but it was an instant connection. She was so happy to have parents and kept smiling at us and hugging and kissing us. When Jonathan told her he loved her the first time she just walked out of the room and cried. We found out later no one had ever said that to her before, but by the end of the trip she would say she loved us too. All in Bulgarian of course. Obitchem te is "I love you" and yaws too obitchem is "I love you too." Whenever we would say anything very emotional she would walk away, and blush and be shy. When we were packing to come home she took Jonathans cologne and asked him to put it on her teddy bear so it would smell like him for her till we came back.

She is very hurt by the lack of affection. The orphanage workers do not form bonds with the children as they feel only their adoptive parents should have those, so the children are completely deprived of affection. We told her we would always love her and were her Momma and Daddy forever and would come for her soon, when we were at the airport. None of us cried until we got on the plane. I spoke with Antonia, her lawyer, a day or two later and she said Kosti was shaking and frightened to go to the orphanage and thought we would not come back. We write her often hoping she will not worry too much, but I know the only thing that will convince her will be us picking her up. I miss her so much, my heart is there with her and I dont know how I will survive the time till I can go get her. It is strange to be adopting while I am pregnant. I feel like I'm pregnant with twins or something. I am planning and getting ready for two children of such different ages. I am so grateful to the Lord for bringing her into our lives and our family. I feel no differently towards her than the children I birthed.

The biggest export of Bulgaria is its roses. In fact, 85% of the worlds perfume is made from Bulgarian roses. When we arrived at the airport our lawyer brought us roses and told us how special they are to the Bulgarian people. Because of this, we decided to give Kostadinka the middle name of Rose. Bulgarians dont have middle names. We told her since roses were so important to Bulgaria and she was so important to us we would name her that. She smiled and seemed happy. We bought several bottles of rose oil to bring home, when I smell the rose it reminds me of my daughter who is so far away.

Now that we are home and have moved into a house large enough for our growing family, we are busy completing our home study with the social worker. After that is done, our completed dossier of paperwork will travel to Bulgaria. It will cost us approximately $500 to complete the paperwork here in the US including notary and apostille fees. Then in a few months, we will petition INS to make an orphan a US citizen, then six months from the time all the paperwork is in Bulgaria, we will be given a court date to travel there and complete the process and bring our new daughter home. We still need approximately $5,000 total to complete the adoption including travel so prayers and or donations are always welcome. Donations can be made directly to the Shepherd's Crook (www.theshepherdscrook.org) for Kostadinkas adoption. They are a non-profit organization.

Please pray that Kosti is kept safe until we go get her, and that she will acclimate to life in a family in America quickly and most of all that the Lord will continue to watch over us and guide us and provide for us in this very special journey He has led us on.

Laura Weiss
[email protected]

Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>

Dear Hope Chest readers,

I asked Laura Weiss to share with us all about her Bulgarian adoption, which is in process right now. She and Jonathan already have three children, and are also expecting their fourth child. I believe that they are looking for a reasonably priced van to fit their new family members!

We know of many foreign and special needs aoptions. Phil and Susan Kent are adopting Rose from Russia (http://cacsi.com/russia). The Kents adopted Ruth and Jacob from the Ukraine in 2000. The Fishers in Pennsylvania are trying to adopt a handicapped preschooler. My next door neighbor Donna brought home a new toddler daughter from China last year, and she is so precious! May God bless all who adopt!

Now, here's Laura!

~*~*~

Kostadinka Rose Weiss, our Bulgarian Daughter

A few years ago my husband and I felt the Lord calling us to adopt. Since he was unemployed at the time it didnt make a whole lot of sense, but we began the researching phase of the whole process at that time. After a lot of research we decided on an agency and also on the country of Bulgaria. A few months ago I was looking at the website for a wonderful family who has adopted eight special needs children and has three adoptions in process right now. They are truly amazing people. You can learn more about them on their web site at http://www.theshepherdscrook.org. They have pictures and article's about all their adopted children and a special medical project where they take doctors overseas to perform operations on orphan children who need them. Please pray for their ministry as well.

While at their web site, I noticed they have a photo listing of children they are sponsoring. I saw several pictures, one of a little girl that made my heart leap. I saw her age and assumed that my husband would not want to adopt her because she is several years older than what we had discussed. She was twelve and we had discussed adopting a five or six year old. So I didnt say anything to Jonathan but said a quick prayer that the Lord would find a family for her soon. I didnt know then, that family would be us.

At a later time, my husband was at another website looking at photo listings and saw the same picture of the same little girl. He said to me. I know she is older than we discussed but I want you to get more information about this little girl. When I saw the picture, I burst into tears and told him I had seen her picture also. So I contacted the agency we had decided on before, and we were told they were representing her exclusively and had a good relationship with her lawyer.

Though Jonathan's new job was only paying him $8 an hour, in faith we sent in the $200 registration fee. Within two days, he had a new job that paid him more than double that plus commission, and within two weeks 50% 60% of the fees we needed for the adoption came in from various resources. It will cost us approximately $22,000 including travel and court and government fees to adopt our daughter.

We traveled for our first trip to meet Kostadinka on May 22nd. We spent a week with her there in an apartment, and here is a small diary from that trip.
When we got into Sofia our lawyer met us at the airport with roses. We took our luggage to the apartment, then went to the orphanage to pick up Kostadinka. She came in the room and we were so scared. She looked happy, but she wouldn't look at us. She just smiled at her feet and would steal glances over at Jonathan and I every so often. I just kept smiling at her. I was so sorry I didnt know more Bulgarian at that time. I wanted to say something comforting. She smelled so bad, like a homeless person and cigarette smoke. She does not smoke but it seems to be the national past time of Bulgaria. It was stifling to be in the room with her. Apparently the children only get to bathe 2 times a month if that. I felt guilty for thinking that way.

We spoke to the director and the orphanage psychologist who was VERY strange and kept asking me what was on my heart and if the fact she was Roma (gypsy) was going to bother anyone. I didnt even know how to respond to that one, it was such a silly thing to say. I didnt really have my wits about me either. Her being gypsy seemed to be this dirty thing nobody wanted to talk about and everyone kept trying to diminish it by saying, "Shes just a little gypsy." Like we care. I think she is at least half by looking at her, but who knows or cares. Its a plus as far as we are concerned. It is hard for people there to understand why we would want a gypsy child over a Bulgarian child. There is a lot of racism.

We got in the car to go to the apartment and she just smiled and stared at her feet some more. Jonathan reached over and gave her a hug and a kiss on the face and she giggled. I did the same. At the apartment, she saw all the things we had bought her on the table and wanted to look at them all. She was very excited and kept organizing them and re-organizing them. Then she told the attorney, Antonia, that she wanted mommy to give her a bath. I have to say that surprised me because she is so big. There was no hot water in our part of the city so we had to use these huge metal sticks that plug into the wall to heat the water. It took about an hour to do and they were terrifying. I was so scared I would get shocked by them and by the end of the trip I did!

I went in with her for her bath. I washed her hair and her back for her. She smiled and giggled the whole time. I have never seen anybody bathe so quickly. In less than 2 minutes, she was scrubbed done and dressed. She still wasnt very clean and the smell lingered. Over the next few days she took several baths, but kept putting dirty clothes back on so it never really made a difference. The last night we were there she took a two hour bath and washed her hair four times and her body four times. She knew it would be awhile before she could bathe again.

We took her shopping and bought her some clothes. The translator we had the second day was awful and bonded more with her than we did, but seemed to have this superiority thing we didnt like, so we had her drive us back to the apartment early and said we were fine and to go home. Kosti was a different child when alone with us. She was much more animated and is very funny. She did the funniest things, like cheat at cards to make us laugh and sing her music we bought her really loud. It is terrible music and Im a little concerned I couldnt read the lyrics, but it made her so happy. I can monitor her choice in music at home easier. We could only judge by the jackets of the tapes.

She was so affectionate and loved to hug and kiss and share food -- which is why I got sick. She had a horrible cold and some kind of skin condition. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked like she had some nutritional deficiencies. The orphanage receives the equivalent of $.02 cents a day to feed the children and the non-gypsy children have priority. She connected with Jonathan and I on very different levels. She played with him more and wanted to do grown up girl things with me like hair and make up. I wore my hair down the whole trip because it made her happy to play with it. She liked to brush it and put ribbons in it.

When we went out she never asked for anything except a necklace from the church that had the three daughters of Saint Sofia on it, a cross, an anchor and a heart. They symbolize faith, hope and love. She enjoyed praying with us and a local foundation takes the children to church every week to the Eastern Orthodox church, (http://www.pokrov-foundation.org) which I found out is not catholic like I thought it was. They seem to be very steeped in tradition. I am learning more about them so I will understand what she has been taught before she comes home. I was happy to see there was one here in Riverside. [Virginia's note: the Weiss family lives in California.]

It was hard to find appropriate clothing to buy her, because she is out of the children's sizes, and all the women's clothing is very revealing or tight or both. Everyone dresses like that there. We bought her a long jean skirt, a pair of jeans, some tennis shoes, and three shirts. It was hard because they pretty much told us the other kids would beat her up and steal her stuff now that she has a family and there is nothing anyone else can do about it. There just arent enough adults to police the children outside of school hours, so the kids are pretty much on their own.

After we complained about our translator, we spent the rest of the time with the lawyer who is disabled and paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident. The city is very unfriendly to handicapped people. There are no elevators or lifts or ramps of any kind. She has a hired driver who carries her chair up and down all the stairs she needs to go on. She said the court building was especially tough because children's court is on the upper floors. She is wonderful and told us she can help us adopt in the future without an agency if we want.

We asked Kosti how long she had been in orphanages and it looks like most of her life. She was not very willing to talk about it. She has vague memories of an aunt and uncle she called mommy and daddy but they never see her. She had a couple of temper tantrums when we were there when Jonathan would say no to something. Not angry ones, but begging pleading ones. She wanted us to keep buying these cheese puffs that had toys in them but she never ate the food, so we said no and we would take her to the toy shop. She started crying and begging, we laughed because it was just so ridiculous. She laughed too. Then Jonathan video taped her and she stopped at that. He turned the screen so she could see herself. That works with our other kids too. She did not like to see herself crying. It was hard not to give in to everything, because we knew she had never had anything, but we felt it was important to establish boundaries from the beginning.

I expected it would take her time to warm up to us, but it was an instant connection. She was so happy to have parents and kept smiling at us and hugging and kissing us. When Jonathan told her he loved her the first time she just walked out of the room and cried. We found out later no one had ever said that to her before, but by the end of the trip she would say she loved us too. All in Bulgarian of course. Obitchem te is "I love you" and yaws too obitchem is "I love you too." Whenever we would say anything very emotional she would walk away, and blush and be shy. When we were packing to come home she took Jonathans cologne and asked him to put it on her teddy bear so it would smell like him for her till we came back.

She is very hurt by the lack of affection. The orphanage workers do not form bonds with the children as they feel only their adoptive parents should have those, so the children are completely deprived of affection. We told her we would always love her and were her Momma and Daddy forever and would come for her soon, when we were at the airport. None of us cried until we got on the plane. I spoke with Antonia, her lawyer, a day or two later and she said Kosti was shaking and frightened to go to the orphanage and thought we would not come back. We write her often hoping she will not worry too much, but I know the only thing that will convince her will be us picking her up. I miss her so much, my heart is there with her and I dont know how I will survive the time till I can go get her. It is strange to be adopting while I am pregnant. I feel like I'm pregnant with twins or something. I am planning and getting ready for two children of such different ages. I am so grateful to the Lord for bringing her into our lives and our family. I feel no differently towards her than the children I birthed.

The biggest export of Bulgaria is its roses. In fact, 85% of the worlds perfume is made from Bulgarian roses. When we arrived at the airport our lawyer brought us roses and told us how special they are to the Bulgarian people. Because of this, we decided to give Kostadinka the middle name of Rose. Bulgarians dont have middle names. We told her since roses were so important to Bulgaria and she was so important to us we would name her that. She smiled and seemed happy. We bought several bottles of rose oil to bring home, when I smell the rose it reminds me of my daughter who is so far away.

Now that we are home and have moved into a house large enough for our growing family, we are busy completing our home study with the social worker. After that is done, our completed dossier of paperwork will travel to Bulgaria. It will cost us approximately $500 to complete the paperwork here in the US including notary and apostille fees. Then in a few months, we will petition INS to make an orphan a US citizen, then six months from the time all the paperwork is in Bulgaria, we will be given a court date to travel there and complete the process and bring our new daughter home. We still need approximately $5,000 total to complete the adoption including travel so prayers and or donations are always welcome. Donations can be made directly to the Shepherd's Crook (http://www.theshepherdscrook.org) for Kostadinkas adoption. They are a non-profit organization.

Please pray that Kosti is kept safe until we go get her, and that she will acclimate to life in a family in America quickly and most of all that the Lord will continue to watch over us and guide us and provide for us in this very special journey He has led us on.

Laura Weiss
[email protected]