Oh, I forgot to mention... the other kids are coming to Uganda too.
/
As in, the kids we already have.
Uganda’s courts move at their own pace. Court dates get scheduled, travel booked, plane taken… and then court dates might be postponed or rescheduled. We’ll have an estimate of how long our in-country trip will be, but it may change.
In fact, some families opt to buy a one-way ticket to get to Uganda and wait until everything is final to buy their one-way tickets back.
Leaving Jocelyn, Robbie, and Zoe for an indefinite amount of time? That would be hard on us, hard on them, and hard on the friends or family who would care for them while we’re gone.
Because of that, we’re all going.
(Side note: We're footing the bill for the current kids' travel, because we don't feel comfortable including that in our fundraising... a.k.a. asking others to pay for that optional portion of our expenses.)
After all, it's not just me and Lee adopting our Ugandan three. The entire family will be affected.
So the entire family will go.
In addition to the logistics of care for our current three if they stay here, we have other reasons for wanting to bring them. For starters, Jocelyn and Robbie will be able to understand their siblings better after seeing the context they've come from. Right now, they think their Ugandan siblings are living in a house just like ours in another part of the world. In order to wrap their minds around the challenges their new siblings are facing as they adjust to life in the US, Jocelyn and Robbie need to experience life in Africa.
Generally speaking, kids tend to connect with other kids more readily than they bond with adults, so Patience and Jocelyn might become fast friends before Patience trusts me or Lee. (We’re okay with that.) They also might not get along so well, with any of the new three bonding to us first. (We’re okay with that too.) Finally, we’ll get time to live as a family in Uganda before we all move back to our home in the US together.
We do have a friend who will be traveling with us, so we’ll have three adults to our six children, at least for part of the trip.
It'll be hard, like so many other aspects of adoption.
It will also be worth it, like so many other aspects of adoption.
Uganda’s courts move at their own pace. Court dates get scheduled, travel booked, plane taken… and then court dates might be postponed or rescheduled. We’ll have an estimate of how long our in-country trip will be, but it may change.
In fact, some families opt to buy a one-way ticket to get to Uganda and wait until everything is final to buy their one-way tickets back.
Leaving Jocelyn, Robbie, and Zoe for an indefinite amount of time? That would be hard on us, hard on them, and hard on the friends or family who would care for them while we’re gone.
Because of that, we’re all going.
(Side note: We're footing the bill for the current kids' travel, because we don't feel comfortable including that in our fundraising... a.k.a. asking others to pay for that optional portion of our expenses.)
After all, it's not just me and Lee adopting our Ugandan three. The entire family will be affected.
So the entire family will go.
In addition to the logistics of care for our current three if they stay here, we have other reasons for wanting to bring them. For starters, Jocelyn and Robbie will be able to understand their siblings better after seeing the context they've come from. Right now, they think their Ugandan siblings are living in a house just like ours in another part of the world. In order to wrap their minds around the challenges their new siblings are facing as they adjust to life in the US, Jocelyn and Robbie need to experience life in Africa.
Generally speaking, kids tend to connect with other kids more readily than they bond with adults, so Patience and Jocelyn might become fast friends before Patience trusts me or Lee. (We’re okay with that.) They also might not get along so well, with any of the new three bonding to us first. (We’re okay with that too.) Finally, we’ll get time to live as a family in Uganda before we all move back to our home in the US together.
We do have a friend who will be traveling with us, so we’ll have three adults to our six children, at least for part of the trip.
It'll be hard, like so many other aspects of adoption.
It will also be worth it, like so many other aspects of adoption.