As you know if you’re already familiar with A Moose in Moscow or even just browsed the blog, you know that all 3 of our children are adopted. Reed and Lena were adopted from Ukraine in 2010 and Gus was adopted from Russia in 2012.  The original purpose of this blog was to share about our adoption journey– and continue advocating for adoption even after our children became part of our family.

Why Adopt?

Please read through this entire post. I LOVE adoption and would like to see more people adopt. But, I’d also like to share some resources about some of the more difficult issues adoptive families face.

So, why did we adopt? There are millions of orphans in the world. Orphans waiting in institutions, starving without the love of a family and possibly without their basic needs met. Knowing about this reality was the beginning.

We knew we wanted to have children and were interested in adoption, but we figured we’d follow the more traditional path of having biological children if possible and adopting when they were a bit older. We weren’t familiar with anyone who had chosen to adopt first. However, when we learned more about the orphan crisis and read Francis Chan’s Crazy Love and David Platt’s Radical, we questioned our reasons for waiting. It seemed like a simple equation to us: we knew we wanted children, children were waiting for families to care for them.

Before and After

Adoption makes a huge difference in the life on a child. Here are few photos showing how adoption has changed our children.

Photo we fell in love with. Shortly after we met. Home 9 months.
A few things he’s learned: Fluent English. How to read. How to write in sentences. How to ride a bike without training wheels.

One of the oldest photos we have. Shortly after we met. Home 10 months.
A few things she’s learned: Fluent English. How to speak clearly (with the help of a speech therapist). How to jump and run. How to write the alphabet.

The day we met. Gotcha trip. Home 7 months.
A few things he’s learned: Some basic signs. How to say 2 word phrases. How to go up and down the stairs. How much he loves dogs.