Adoption

[Aliceacc]

Slight hijack:

My favorite adoption story is, of all things, The Tigger Movie.

Tigger searches for his family tree. He's assuming, of course that it will contain other Tiggers who look and think and act exactly as he does.

Imagine his surprise to realize that family is about people who love you!

It's the perfect adoption gift for any new family!

 

[mommy4]

Hi! We have 3 bio. sons (1 bio. girl on the way) and we adopted internationally from Ethiopia almost 4 years ago. At the time, Ethiopia was quick, inexpensive, and smooth sailing. Things have changed there as it has become a more popular place to adopt from. People have discovered that Ethiopia takes wonderful care of their children and you can adopt very young children.

Our agency was wonderful and we were provided with as much information as they could give us about the health and status or our little girl. She came to us at 9 months and aside from some slight developmental physical delays (she was held constantly by the caregivers at the orphanage) and a stomach issue, she was wonderful. She adjusted well and is now a normal 4 year old girl.

Adoption is a beautiful thing, but you have to look around carefully for an agency that is trustworthy and dependable.

Good luck!

 

[kappyfinn]

Oh my gosh. Thank you all for the information and thoughts. Just as a background, I am 34 and DH is about to be 33. We have been married 5 years.

My DH and I will not be adopting out of birth order. We have both read some adoptive parent's experiences and I'm not willing to take those chances. We want and are able to provide a stable, loving home to another child but I will not do anything that could possibly harm my children. With that said, I know we will be looking at adopting a younger child. However, we are just now starting to gather our information. I don't see us getting started with the official paperwork for at least 6 months or so. My DS would probably be around 2.

We are really weighing all of our options: domestic, international and also foster. My fear through the foster adoptions is that we would take in a child only to have him/her sent back to his/her family. I just don't know if my heart could take that.

We are also open to a child of any race, gender or with minor medical issues. My DD wants another brother. She wants to name him Prince. What can I say? She's into the princess thing right now.

We have two wonderful, healthy children. Certainly, we are blessed. We have room in our hearts and home for one, possibly two more children. We do not want any more bio children. We both feel there is a higher power calling us to provide a home to a child(ren) that might not otherwise have someone to call mom and dad.

We have looked at Holt's website and their Waiting Child program. My heart breaks for these children.

Please keep the information coming. I want to know as much as possible.

 

[MomtoAlexnWilliam]

Oh my gosh. Thank you all for the information and thoughts. Just as a background, I am 34 and DH is about to be 33. We have been married 5 years.

We are really weighing all of our options: domestic, international and also foster. My fear through the foster adoptions is that we would take in a child only to have him/her sent back to his/her family. I just don't know if my heart could take that.

Please keep the information coming. I want to know as much as possible.

Sounds like you are handling this GREAT!!!!

I wanted to let you know that you don't have to foster children to adopt a foster child. You can be very specific and and only accept a child who has already had parental rights terminated and ready to adopt.

 

[ndfi78]

kappyfinn's hubby here, thank you all for providing this wonderful information. We appreciate it very much!

 

[DopeyDame]

My DS was adopted from Korea almost a year and a half ago and we are in the middle of the homestudy process for #2 from Korea right now. I can't begin to say enough wonderful things about the Korea program FOR US. Every agency and program is different - if you do your research you will find the perfect program FOR YOU!

I know this stage in the process can be incredibly overwhelming. The absolute best thing to do right now is to get real, hard, cold facts about the options in your area. There is SO much misinformation (and sometimes hurtful info) out there, so make sure you're working with facts and not myths.

In my mind, the single most important decision we made was choosing our (fabulous, fantastic, amazing!) adoption agency. (In case you're in the DC area, we used The Barker Foundation.) Working with an agency (or county Department of Social Services) that you trust makes the process so much more smooth. There are a lot of fabulous agencies out there, but unfortunately there are some snake-oil-salesmen as well, so make sure you are dealing with an agency that is trustworthy, ethical, and respectful of all three sides of the adoption triade (kids, birthparents, and adoptive parents).

Talk to your county's foster care office (Department of Social Services, or whatever it's called where you are.) In our county, there is no "foster-adopt" program, so you have to be willing to be a foster parent. A lot of counties do place for adoption through the foster care system, though - you just need to get the info from your own locality or find an agency willing to do out of county placements. Assuming you aren't working through the foster system, get a list of the approved agencies in your state - a quick internet search should find your licensed agencies in your state. Some are national and some are local. Read about them online, call or email them for their info packets, go in person to their info sessions (we didn't use one very respectable, perfectly legit and ethical agency because we just didn't feel comfortable at their info session - talking to the people in person is HUGE!)

Many agencies have multiple programs. In our case, we initially had chosen domestic adoption, but chose to switch to Korea after a few months. Fortunately, our agency has both programs, so it wasn't a big deal. Just another thing to consider when choosing agencies.

With your ages, assuming you have no major health issues, you should be able to choose pretty much any program, so just do your research and follow your instincts. With our agency, your youngest child has to be 18 months when you start the process, so you're definitely in the right timeframe.

If you have any questions about the Korea program (or anything else) please feel free to PM me or just post it here.

Good luck!

 

[J'aime Paris]

Our neighbors were a foster family for years, and ended up adopting 3 of the children they fostered. All 3 kids are healthy and well adjusted.

On the flip side, we know 2 families where the adoption journey did not turn out as planned.

One family adopted a boy from Russia. He's four years old now and suffers from EXTREME anger an violence. The therapists have told the parents that it's as if he's suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome. Very difficult to deal with. They hope that with patience and love, he'll bond better with the family.

The other family adopted an infant from Central America. They were told she was a bit weak (due to being in a crib so much), and possibly had vision issues since she wasn't tracking well. Fast forwar 2 years, and this child is very disabled. She will never walk or talk. She has some sort of issue with processing protein. It crystalizes in her brain, causing permanent damage.
The family is devastated. They already had 3 healthy boys, and just wanted a little girl to complete the family.

I'm not trying to scare anyone away from adopting. The things I mentioned above could occur even with biological children.
Good luck with your decisions!

 

[kappyfinn]

Our neighbors were a foster family for years, and ended up adopting 3 of the children they fostered. All 3 kids are healthy and well adjusted.

On the flip side, we know 2 families where the adoption journey did not turn out as planned.

One family adopted a boy from Russia. He's four years old now and suffers from EXTREME anger an violence. The therapists have told the parents that it's as if he's suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome. Very difficult to deal with. They hope that with patience and love, he'll bond better with the family.

The other family adopted an infant from Central America. They were told she was a bit weak (due to being in a crib so much), and possibly had vision issues since she wasn't tracking well. Fast forwar 2 years, and this child is very disabled. She will never walk or talk. She has some sort of issue with processing protein. It crystalizes in her brain, causing permanent damage.
The family is devastated. They already had 3 healthy boys, and just wanted a little girl to complete the family.

I'm not trying to scare anyone away from adopting. The things I mentioned above could occur even with biological children.
Good luck with your decisions!

Thanks for this too. We know there may be issues. But I want to go into this with my eyes open and knowing the good and bad possiblities. Life isn't always rainbows and unicorns. And yes, your own bio children can also have issues. You never know how things will turn out.

But we are in this for the long haul. The good and bad. That's what parents are for IMO.

 

[DopeyDame]

Thanks for this too. We know there may be issues. But I want to go into this with my eyes open and knowing the good and bad possiblities. Life isn't always rainbows and unicorns. And yes, your own bio children can also have issues. You never know how things will turn out.

But we are in this for the long haul. The good and bad. That's what parents are for IMO.

Sounds to me like you guys have the perfect attitude for raising all your kids - however they enter your family.

 

[Britgirlus]

If you were to consider a child with special needs - www.reecesrainbow.com advocate for children living abroad - they mainly have Down Syndrome, but there are also other special needs, from various countries.

 

[crisi]

Our son (from Korea) is almost 13 already. And it does change quickly. I'm not up on what is current, but I know that almost all international adoptions have gotten harder (we hit a sweet spot for adoption from Korea when we did it). We have friends who put $30k and two years into adoption from Nepal - and the program closed before they got a baby.

Make a list of what is important and not important to you. Some of it may have to do with the child (minimal special needs are fine, race open), some of it might have to do with process (we want to minimize reclaiming by birthparents, we want a process that takes less than two years, we want to spend no more than $50k) The list will look different for everyone, but it will allow you to start matching programs to your list - and discarding programs that aren't a good fit.

For instance, things that were important to us - a quick process, certainty, age at placement less than a year, a healthy child (or one whose needs were minor).

Things that weren't important to us - race, gender.

The list was longer than that, but we were able to discard certain options (this one will take too long, this one has children at placement who are two or three years old, this option means that the birthmother can change her mind) and left us with a much more manageable group of options to look at.

Also consider that some options may have restrictions on YOU. Those you can also discard. Door close - particularly internationally - on age, on marital status (including if you've ever been divorced, on health (including weight), on income. So check the other side as well to start narrowing options.

 

[kappyfinn]

If you were to consider a child with special needs - www.reecesrainbow.com advocate for children living abroad - they mainly have Down Syndrome, but there are also other special needs, from various countries.

I have been to that site before and recently. The Kirill situation is heartbreaking. I do not know the family, but they are friends of friends of friends kindof thing. (We are in Alabama) I have read there are a couple more adoptions coming up in his region of Russia that may not be finalized by this judge either. So sad to think a child is “not socially adaptable” and better off in an institution than with a loving family. You can read more about his story here http://www.oureyesopened.blogspot.com/.

 

[Momof4DisneyLuvrs]

I wanted to mention that we used Children's Home Society and Family Services in MN. They can place children with special needs in any state. They have a rather large WIC program and we had a great experience with them. Holt is a wonderful agency too. I also wanted to suggest looking at http://rainbowkids.com It is a photolisting of children from all over the world listed with many different agencies.

 

[holden]

Wanted to give a shout out for adopting through foster care! We adopted both DDs through foster care - one through Philadelphia and one through Montgomery County. Both turned out great! DD8 came to us at 2y 6 days old and DD3 came to us at 8mos. Very positive experiences.

Both adoptions were completely free - no cost to us for anything. The girls also get their stipends until they are 18yo. We are saving that for them. I highly recommend considering foster to adopt.

 

[Mommy to Prince Noah]

We brought our son home from Ethiopia almost 2 years ago ( April 20th is the 2 year anniversary of our "gotcha" day). Our agency was amazing and we are very blessed to be parents. Our little guy came home at 10 months old. If you do international adoption you don't have to use an agency located in the state you live in just one that is licensed to operate in the country you choose. Our agency is in oregon and we live in maryland we just had to have a local homestudy agency. If you decide to go international I would suggest joining a yahoo group and researching agencies for the country you choose. There have been alot of corrupt agencies reported lately.

 

[mfduddy]

We went through adoption nearly 16 years ago, we worked with our in state agency as well as an agency from Texas(turned out to be an very expensive bad choice) we were on a break trying to decide to if we could afford both $ wise and emotionally when our instate agency called with "the call" we were matched with a birth mother that was amazing. In a matter of 2 months we became a family. Good luck with your choice.

 

[jorose01]

We adopted our oldest ds from Russia in 2007. The process was a breeze FOR US. But please do your research. Each adoptions is different, just like every pregnancy is different! He is the best little guy ever, completely heathly. He shows markers for ADHD but so does bio son! We used European Adoption Consultants out of Ohio. We live in Texas now and at the time of adoption and the out of state agency was not a problem!

Adoption is a wonderful way to make/add to a family. I truly believe my heart would not be complete without him!

 

[thegreggersmom]

Wanted to give a shout out for adopting through foster care! We adopted both DDs through foster care - one through Philadelphia and one through Montgomery County. Both turned out great! DD8 came to us at 2y 6 days old and DD3 came to us at 8mos. Very positive experiences.

Both adoptions were completely free - no cost to us for anything. The girls also get their stipends until they are 18yo. We are saving that for them. I highly recommend considering foster to adopt.

Ditto to all of the above. My son came to me through foster care when he was two weeks old and we finalized the adoption precisely nine months later. In our state (Missouri) absolutely everything was free, he also gets a monthly stipend (which goes into his college account, and daycare/after school care is paid for through his 12th year. He also gets Medicaid so insurance is covered. to foster care...and to you for considering adoption. Adopting my son was the single best decision I've ever made.

 

[wintershawl]

I second adoption through foster care. We had great experiences with this and highly recommend. If you are interested in special needs kids there are many under 3 who are legally free for adoption. Often times Foster adoption is free for the most part and usually comes with a subsidy and medical care. It is a wonderful inexpensive way to help a child who needs a family.

My husband and I are in this process right now. We are looking for a slightly older child (4 - 9), but there are children of all ages that need homes. We did like the appeal of the price... or lack of price (but that truly had no impact on the decision). We also want to make the difference in the life of a child. There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to adoption.

We had actually started in the infant adoption program, and we just didn't feel we were a good fit for that. But, we are now both very excited about the foster to adopt program.

Our social worker is coming this week to finalize paperwork to send to the state for approval. Nervous and happy all at once!!

Adoption is a big choice no matter which direction you choose. Research is the best way to go!

 

[MomtoAlexnWilliam]

Keep in mind that not all states extend monthly stipends to adopted children. In my state, it is generally reserved for children who have special needs, non-white children 2 and over, white children 9 and over and children who are part of a large sibling group.

It is basically used as an incentive to get families to adopt children who would be hard to place due to age, race, special needs or family size. It serves to offset the additional expenses the adoptive family would have due to the child(ren) becoming a part of the family. The same applies to kids who can remain on Medicaid -- there is a formula that involves Title IV-E and also our state's guidelines which include an income based formula. You would need to check with your state to see what the policy is.