I've been promising this post for a while now ... and things are now official ...


"Lena" is a foreign exchange student with this agency from Volgograd. I learned about the program in April through a local adoption support group. Lena's profile seemed to fit perfectly with our family because she is loves journalism, poetry & music, nature, has a dog at home that is a key part of the family, and plays the piano. We are hosting her for the full academic year.

We have always wanted to host a student but the timing wasn't right until now. We didn't want to have a student during the process because of the extra complexity of the paperwork and the uncertainly of our travel dates. We are not planning to adopt again next year ... but don't know about future years. We have even thought about hosting students indefinitely instead of adopting.

Before deciding to do this for this academic year, we thoroughly weighed the positives and negatives as we see them:

Positives
1. Lena can teach Rita about Russian life and culture - the biggest reason for doing this now
2. Everything that Lena will gain from living in America for a year. We live in a great school district in a house with an extra room ... why not?
3. Lena can act as a role model / "big sister" - we have noticed that Rita responds very well to older kids
4. Rita will have someone to pal around with - she definitely likes companionship and being around other kids
5. Lena can teach Rita the piano - something we would like Rita to learn but we are too busy with everyday life to schedule another activity outside of the home
6. Occasional, in-house babysitter - all exchange students are expected to have jobs around the house and this is something we could really use help with 2-3 times a month

Negatives
1. We don't see any due to Rita's adjustment to us and her life so far in our home. Of course we considered bonding, attachment, boundries, issues of loss (after the year is over) but we feel like the positives outweigh the negatives. Rita has the right attitude, and has set proper boundries with all of the adults she has in her life, including my sister who is over at our house all of the time.

We have talked to Rita about Lena and she seems excited to have another person in the house. At times she is confused about what the new living arrangement will be. I think she is confused that there are children in Russia who have parents ... not everyone is adopted or comes to America to be adopted! ;-)

We will never be sure that this won't screw things up but we continue to make all decisions with lots of thought, and try to balance making decisions we would make if we had a biological child versus decisions we need to make due to Rita's background and current/future needs.

Lena gets here August 6th!