Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Adopting Out of Birth Order

When adopting from Ethiopia, it is not uncommon to have only "guesstimates" with regard to a child's age. The further away from the baby stage a child gets, the harder it is to determine their age. Since children are not relinquished with birth records in hand, the folks in Ethiopia do the best they can to assign a child a birth date. Such was the case with K'Tyo.

When we first inquired about him, a birth date had not yet been assigned, but the general consensus was that he was a young 3. From the looks of the first pictures we received, we thought that to be fairly accurate judging by his appearance. So, in essence, we would be practically twinning he & Kaya.

Right before our court date, we were finally given a birth date for K'Tyo. Surprise!! According to this new information, he is almost 2 years older than Kaya, so instead of artificially twinning we were adopting out of birth order.

We were never really concerned about any of this because we knew God meant for this little boy to be in our family. Since that time, I have done lots of reading about the pros & cons of artificial twinning & adopting out of birth order...I am not trying to be controversial at all, but it's interesting b/c many "experts" say there are more cons than pros. However, there are lots of adoptive parents that think it's been a wonderful thing.

For us & our family? Hands down, it's been a wonderful thing.

Seriously, I have posted several times over the last year about how K'Tyo has not missed a beat with his place in the family. And he & Kaya? I did not pose them for this picture. I happened to have a camera close by when they came around the corner all giggles.

Now, don't think they don't have their sister/brother moments. Dude...Kaya is completely full of her 3-ness, which as far as I'm concerned, is way more challenging than 2! But K'Tyo is definitely one of the most patient & easygoing kids with his sister's shenanigans, & before you know it, she's over her twist & they are back to playing.

These two never cease to melt hearts with the way they stick together. When we are walking someplace, K'Tyo always takes Kaya's hand. When they want to play outside, you can find K'Tyo tying Kaya's shoes for her.

Much has changed over the past year (mostly the size clothes & shoes K'Tyo needs!), but I am so thankful that this sweet relationship between this brother & sister is one thing that has remained beautifully the same.

4 comments:

NANCY said...

Beautifully said!

Sophie said...

Such a beautiful boy with a heartwarming smile, God bless him. And little sister looks like an adorable little pistol.

Laurel said...

We "twinned" two pair of kids (bio. boys were 6 & 8 at time of adoption and adopted girls were 6 & 9), and don't regret it at all.

The challenges that we have faced in the adoption are not due to twinning or adopting out of birth order, but more due to the fact that we adopted traumatized older children.

In our family, we actually believe it was definitely BEST to leave our youngest as the "baby of the family". He was the youngest of 10 bio. kids. He had been the youngest for 6 years. He did not lose his place as the youngest, as he would have if we had adopted several younger children.

Glad things are going so well for these two!

:) :) :)

Shonni said...

PRECIOUS!! Thank you for sharing this!!