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What is a major transformation you’ve been through?
Tell us about it…

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I guess I would have to say that adopting Stef was the biggest transformation I’ve ever gone through. Partly because it wasn’t something most people experience like losing or getting a new job, buying a home, losing someone to death, going back to school year after year, starting a family (the usual way…). It was totally unexpected and out of the blue.

<—– The day Kavitha arrived in Portland.

For one thing, we were told by the orphanage that Kavitha had been learning English. Of course at seven years old what would that even look like? Wrong! If she knew five words she knew very little. She had the cutest accent, btw. She called gasoline petrol in a beautiful British accent! 😀 But though his nibs and I couldn’t communicate with her much at all except through made up sign language, Bran had NO problems communicating with her (he was ten). That was our first clue that life was about to get way more complicated!

Suddenly we found ourselves following behind her and shutting off every light she’d turn on at all times of day. She was fascinated with electric. And we’d have to make sure to take the phone away from her because she’d just push buttons and make calls. Then the first day of school when we got back and I took my carload of neighbor kids to drop off, I looked around and realized she was no where to be seen. She had jumped out of the car and headed into the school in her pajamas!

When we finally did start her in kindergarten in an ESL program, it was at a different school quite a ways from us. I would take her in the morning, but she’d ride the bus home after school. Then one day she wasn’t on the bus! We searched all over for her. Finally we got a call saying she’d fallen asleep on the back seat of the bus and the driver didn’t notice till he was on his way to pick up a batch of high school kids. And there she was, hardly able to speak a word of English. Scared the bloomin’ tar out of us.

So we went from being your typical “American” family with the kid in sports, dad coaching, and and the only stay-at-home mom in the neighborhood herding a gaggle of elementary kids every where to a family that had to be very vigilant for quite a long time.

Funny thing is, we thought we were going to teach Stef so much. But in the end it was Stefanie Kavitha who taught us and transformed our life.

For a pretty realistic picture of how foreign adoptions work and turn out, rent the movie “Lion” and watch it. It was wonderful.

“““The day Stef got married. —–>“

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<—-   Starting a family.
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Today —–>  `
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