Question about adoption outside of U.S.

[agotta]

Can someone please explain to me why so many people adopt outside the U.S. I can't belive there aren't any children right in our own country who need homes. I don't want to start a debate, I really have just always wondered this but never new anyone that I could ask about it. Thanks!!

 

[Laurajean1014]

Bumping you, 'cause it's a good topic.

 

[Daxx]

Daxx's Wife here and adoptive mother to DS9, who was adopted locally.

I think a lot of people opt for overseas adoptions b/c there is no "waiting period" for adoption finalizations as there are in the US. That means that, once you've signed your paperwork in a foreign country, the birthparents cannot come back to claim their child in 2 months, 6 months, a year or whatever time your state would mandate w/a local adoption. Not many people want to bond w/a child only to have them taken away 5 months down the road b/c a birthparent had a change of heart. I can understand that. Daxx and I went through an adoption that fell through after the child was born and it was similar to experiencing a death of a loved one.

 

[chrissyk]

I can only speak for myself/DH. We don't want the possibility of the birthmother showing back up on our doorstep, having changed her mind. I know that it's unlikely in a domestic adoption, but it's still possible IMHO. You all but obliterate that possibility when you adopt internationally.

 

[lynetteSC]

Hi! I can only answer from our personal story ... we had all intentions of adopting internationally for two reasons: - first being, we had a distant relative who lived in China. She volunteered at an orphange over there. The stories she sent home were incredible! secondly, we were terrified to hear of all teh negative horror stories you hear about birthparents coming back to take the adopted child.

We went to a seminar with some friends who were in the process of adopting domestically. After learning of the laws in our state and talking with other people who had adopted domestically, we chose domestic for our ds who is 17months.

Saying all that, we still have a strong desire to adopt from China just because of some of the personal stories we have heard.

I know there are adoptive parents needed both domestically and internationally.

Not sure if that answers your question, but it tells you our perspective!

 

[Beauty]

As a parent 75% through with adopting our gorgeous Ariel-Jadeyn from China I can tell you our experience.

Although I had my heart set on China first I did ask our Social Service Agency about all options. Here in the state of Mississippi the waiting period for a young child is five years. We are almost 34 which would make us 40 before the baby arrived. I don't want to be that old.

Also the same circumstances with the birth mother/father coming back and into the childs life.

In China little girls don't have much of a chance. They are allowed ONE child and if they want to keep a second child the cost is outrageous. Honestly they can't afford it so baby girls (Because they want boys to carry on the name, care for the family) are abandoned and put in orphanages. They have no chance of a normal life. The stories and documentarys break my heard.

Also I don't know if you are religious and if you are not you won't understand but God told me to go to China. China was laid on my heart from day one.

I can't wait to get my China Doll!

We got our Passports TODAY!

 

[septbride2002]

I have always wanted to adopt internationally however I would also be open to domestic adoption. Here are my reasons:

1) I do not like the idea of open adoption. I do not want to have the birth mother be a part of our lives with visitation rights. Nor do I like the frequency in which birth mothers come back to claim their children.

2) I do not feel that I would be equiped to handle a child with social needs. If a child has been in the foster care system for awhile there are certain social issues that come up that a parent needs to be ready for. I do not feel that I would be prepared to take on those type so of challenges.

3) Wait time - for you to wait for a mother to choose you to adopt their child could be years at a time. A friend of mine has been waiting for 2 years to be chosen - if they do not have a birth mother by December they are switching to international adoption.

4) Cost. It is EXPENSIVE to adopt within the U.S. I've heard of cost being as high as $60,000. The most cost effective way is through the foster care system which I have already covered. Avg cost for international adoption:
Chine $15,000
Russia, $20,000
Guatemala $22,000
Korea - $13,000

~Amanda

 

[Micheme]

Can't comment on adopting in the US but here is my comment.

As you can see from my siggie this is my beautiful adopted daugter from China. The question you ask has no simple answer. Every person has different reasons, concerns and fears etc when it comes to their own adoption experience. What is right for one is not for another.

I chose not to adopt domestically for a few reasons
- did not want an open adoption
- wait for a baby is over 7 years
-after 5 years of deal with infertility treatment we could NOT go thru the agony of possibly losing the child (either from not being picked or having the birth mother change her mind or any other situation)

So as you can see the answer has so many layers and is deeply personal to each person. This road is not an easy one.

 

[Beauty]

She is sooo beautiful! I just can't wait to hold my baby girl!

 

[delilah]

Our son is adopted from Korea. My husband's cousin also has adopted children, who are domestic adoptions. His cousin and his wife have two adopted children, through a private adoption. They paid all the birth mother's expenses for pregnancy, etc. There was a third, failed adoption, between the two successful ones In this case, they also paid all the expenses, and ended up with no child. This was several years before we decided to adopt, and played a role in our decision to adopt from Korea. We also have other friends who adopted domestically, and the birth mother and father separately and on more than one occasion took them to court to reverse their adoption decision. There are many older children to adopt, but many of their parents abused drugs or mistreated the children being adopted. We live in a rural area, which is probably still one of the most unaccepting areas for biracial children. As a matter of fact, a third friend we have adopted a biracial boy, who was placed for adoption for the simple fact that he was biracial, and the community would not have stood for it.

Our son is healthy, happy, smart and we love him. We would have loved any child we would have been able to adopt, but, he was the right one for us.

 

[Daxx]

Just a few sidebar notes ... not to hijack this thread or anything ...

1) I do not like the idea of open adoption. I do not want to have the birth mother be a part of our lives with visitation rights. Nor do I like the frequency in which birth mothers come back to claim their children.

Not all US adoptions are open. Ours is private/closed. While we met w/the birthmother prior to the birth, she only knew our first names. B/c I got to know her, I was there for DS's labor and delivery. Bmother asked us to send photos for the first year, which we did through our attorney, but have had no contact w/her since that year was over. We have never had visitations, etc. Your adoption policy is entirely up to you. Some birthparents don't want open adoption, others do. Your adoption attorney will only give your resume to a birthmother who feels the same you do about the type of adoption you want. Re. the frequency of bmother's coming back to claim their children ... in NY State we are "lucky". The birthmother goes to court the Wednesday after she gives birth. Once she puts pen to paper, she cannot change her mind. There are no waiting periods longer than that wait until Wednesday. Sure, she can change her mind up until that Wednesday -- but she can't come back 3, 6, 9, 12+ months demanding her child back. Anyone is welcome to come live in NY State and adopt a child and have that law apply to them. However, if I were to adopt from California and living in NY State, I'd have to abide by California's adoption laws. So, come down and adopt from NY State!

2) I do not feel that I would be equiped to handle a child with social needs. If a child has been in the foster care system for awhile there are certain social issues that come up that a parent needs to be ready for. I do not feel that I would be prepared to take on those type so of challenges.

When you meet w/your adoption attorney, she will ask you if you want a child from foster care or if you want a special needs child. Your attorney will ask for your criteria re. a child ... what will you accept? IE: healthy or born w/addiction?, Biracial or Caucasian?, Special needs?, From Foster Care?, etc. You do not have to adopt a special needs or foster child if you do not wish to. No adoption attorney is going to force you to adopt a child you are not prepared to adopt. Likewise, many overseas agency is going to give you "right of refusal" if the child they match you with is not suitable. I know w/Colombia, my bro. and his wife could say "no" to any children they were presented with.

3) Wait time - for you to wait for a mother to choose you to adopt their child could be years at a time. A friend of mine has been waiting for 2 years to be chosen - if they do not have a birth mother by December they are switching to international adoption.

You know, this isn't always true. Our adoption took 5 months from start to finish. We worked our tails off in locating birthmother. We placed ads, contacted everyone we knew and then some people in order to spread word that we were looking to adopt. We didn't rest on our laurels waiting for our adoption attorny to find someone. It ended up that an ad in the paper led us to our birthmother. Meanwhile, our friends started their China adoption months before we did and they finished a full year after we finished our adoption. Three other couples that we met while in our process of adoption also adopted local children before the China couple received their child. While this isn't always true, it does occur!! A co-worker received a call from a local adoption agency that she adopted her child through and they asked if she was interested in adopting another child as they had a baby that was "hard to place" b/c of her ethnicity. Uh, what!?!?

4) Cost. It is EXPENSIVE to adopt within the U.S. I've heard of cost being as high as $60,000. The most cost effective way is through the foster care system which I have already covered. Avg cost for international adoption:
Chine $15,000
Russia, $20,000
Guatemala $22,000
Korea - $13,000

I suppose this all depends where you live. Including birthmother stipend, private hospital room, toll free phone number, our attorney fees, the birthmother's attorney fees, home study, advertising costs, etc., our adoption was under $10K. Do your above costs include travel and hotel expenses? Not that you can put a price on a child, but my bro. and his wife adopted from Colombia 1 yr. ago and they paid $50K and our friends who adopted from China paid $40K for their adoptions - not including travel expenses. Far more than the price you listed. Both couples had to pay additional fees to get paperwork done while in those countries as well and needed to bring gifts and make donations to the orphanages they adopted from.

Please, don't anyone think that I am against overseas adoptions -- I am all for people adopting children regardless of where they come from.

 

[happybratpack]

As you can see from my siggie this is my beautiful adopted daugter from China.

Oh my gosh, your daughter is an absolute doll!!

 

[eeyore kelly]

My Sister adopted out of country because she had some health issues from having my niece that would have made it hard for her to adopt in the US. It doesn't stop her from being a good and active parent, but it would have made her and BIL less likely to be chosen

 

[russtwinsmom]

Because our focus was always on what we thought was best for the child, we wanted:

1. A very final adoption from the moment we had custody of our children.
2. A closed adoption
3. To adopt siblings
4. Either a boy or a girl, or both
5. To be given our children without "choosing" them

We also liked the idea of traveling to a remote location with some adventure built in.

So we adopted blindly (did not get our referrals until we were in country) from Russia. We adopted twins!

 

[HappyMommy2]

Good question! You have received some insightful answers. I think most adoptive parents (domestic and international) will tell you that one of the wonderful things about adoption is that there are many avenues for bringing a child into a loving home, and that no one route--domestic private, foster-to-adopt, international, etc.--is right or wrong for every family; it's about finding the best "fit" for one's own family.

We looked into domestic adoption quite extensively before deciding on international adoption. We were not interested in from-birth adoption because we didn't want to be in a vast competitive pool of parents vying for a very small number of infants; plus we already have two children and are a little "older" and felt that we might not be too attractive to potential birthmothers anyway. We looked into foster-to-adopt but learned that in our state, in order to be granted a foster situation that would probably result in the adoption of a young child (under 5 or so) we would most likely need to foster several other children first. We are not emotionally prepared to foster children we will not be able to "keep" forever at this point in our lives, and we do not want to adopt a child out of birth order (our youngest is 3) so that pretty much ruled out domestic foster-to-adopt for us--though we will consider it again in the future when our kids are older and we could receive an older child without going out of birth order.

We face the question of "why not a U.S. kid?" a lot. There is a Children's Home near where we live and people tell us, "There are so many kids there...why don't you adopt one of them?" Unfortunately the vast majority of those children are not available for adoption due to their parents maintaining parental rights even though the kids have been out of their parents' care for quite some time. There ARE many U.S. kids who need homes but possibly not as many are available for adoption as most people think there are.

Ultimately I do believe that every child, regardless of nationality, is equally deserving of a loving family, so I'm glad that there are many wonderful and different ways of bringing a child home through adoption.

 

[ChrisnSteph]

Not all US adoptions are open. Ours is private/closed. While we met w/the birthmother prior to the birth, she only knew our first names. B/c I got to know her, I was there for DS's labor and delivery. Bmother asked us to send photos for the first year, which we did through our attorney, but have had no contact w/her since that year was over. We have never had visitations, etc. Your adoption policy is entirely up to you. Some birthparents don't want open adoption, others do. Your adoption attorney will only give your resume to a birthmother who feels the same you do about the type of adoption you want. Re. the frequency of bmother's coming back to claim their children ... in NY State we are "lucky". The birthmother goes to court the Wednesday after she gives birth. Once she puts pen to paper, she cannot change her mind. There are no waiting periods longer than that wait until Wednesday. Sure, she can change her mind up until that Wednesday -- but she can't come back 3, 6, 9, 12+ months demanding her child back. Anyone is welcome to come live in NY State and adopt a child and have that law apply to them. However, if I were to adopt from California and living in NY State, I'd have to abide by California's adoption laws. So, come down and adopt from NY State!


When you meet w/your adoption attorney, she will ask you if you want a child from foster care or if you want a special needs child. Your attorney will ask for your criteria re. a child ... what will you accept? IE: healthy or born w/addiction?, Biracial or Caucasian?, Special needs?, From Foster Care?, etc. You do not have to adopt a special needs or foster child if you do not wish to. No adoption attorney is going to force you to adopt a child you are not prepared to adopt. Likewise, many overseas agency is going to give you "right of refusal" if the child they match you with is not suitable. I know w/Colombia, my bro. and his wife could say "no" to any children they were presented with.


You know, this isn't always true. Our adoption took 5 months from start to finish. We worked our tails off in locating birthmother. We placed ads, contacted everyone we knew and then some people in order to spread word that we were looking to adopt. We didn't rest on our laurels waiting for our adoption attorny to find someone. It ended up that an ad in the paper led us to our birthmother. Meanwhile, our friends started their China adoption months before we did and they finished a full year after we finished our adoption. Three other couples that we met while in our process of adoption also adopted local children before the China couple received their child. While this isn't always true, it does occur!! A co-worker received a call from a local adoption agency that she adopted her child through and they asked if she was interested in adopting another child as they had a baby that was "hard to place" b/c of her ethnicity. Uh, what!?!?

Please, don't anyone think that I am against overseas adoptions -- I am all for people adopting children regardless of where they come from.

Just want to say that I agree with you 100%! I am also not against overseas adoptions, but when I hear what some of the main reasons are for doing so, it bugs me a little. The #1 reason the birth parent coming back. Now I can only speak from experience on adopting a child from social services, but parental rights must be terminated before an adoption becomes final, and once that's done, there is zero chance for a birth parent to reclaim that child.

Our wait for a child: 3 months - we were open to taking a child up to age 3, and prenatally alcohol/drug exposed. Matt was 2 when he was placed with us.
Our cost: Not a single dime came out of our pockets. In fact we get a subsidy every month for adopting a "harder to place" child.
Length of time for finalization: We got Matt March 17, 2004. Parental rights were termnated in June 2004. Adoption was finalized on May 13, 2005.

Matt is healthy, and will turn 4 next month. Does he have a few developmental problems? Yes, some speech and a few developmental delays, but we think a large portion of it stems from the chemo he's had to treat his leukemia.

For the record, I have to say that a friend of mine also adopted through the foster system. Her wait - 4 months. Age of baby when placed - 2 months old. Drug exposed? Yes. She's now a very bright 2 year old with absolutely no health or developmental problems.

I just think it's sad that there are so many children in our local foster care systems, and many of these kids will never find permanent families. But I understand that it's a personal choice, and a child who needs a home is a child who needs a home, regardless of where they come from.

 

[phillybeth]

Not everyone has a 'pretty' domestic adoption story. One of my coworkers and his wife waited for over 3 years to be chosen by a birthmother- the wait in my area for a healthy caucasian newborn is so long that many agencies are not even ACCEPTING apps. Most girls are not choosing adoption. And most children in the foster system are either not free for adoption or have serious physical, emotional or psychological problems that the average family does not have the skills to deal with.
If I adopt, it will be internationally. Too long of a wait and too many risks to adopt domestically for me.

 

[agotta]

Thank you everyone for your insightful answers. My mom was adopted when she was a baby and I have always thought about it. I think about adopting when DH and I are ready to have kids, but I really look forward to being pregnant and for Dh and to have a child that is a little bit of each of us At the same time I think about all the children that need homes, and who am I to bring another one into the world. I also think my mom would be very hurt if I adopted. She has always wondered about her birth mother and I guess maybe she doesn't want me to have a child that would go through some of the feelings and emotions she did. Obiously this is something we still have to think about, but I really appreacite all your thoughtful comments and stories.

 

[ZachnElli]

There are so many myths on this thread I can't stay quiet any longer. It does NOT take years and years to get an infant in the US! Last year at this time we were in the middle of our home study, right now I'm waiting for my 7 month old adopted son to wake up! Why do you have to have a perfectly healthy caucasian infant from the US? Why can't it be another race or biracial? If you are going overseas, you will not get a caucasian infant and you don't know their health, not all of it. We waited 5 months. We did have one birthmom change her mind, right after giving birth, that one would have made us a multicultural family. 12 days later we got the call about our Noah. His mom had tested positive for cocaine 3 weeks before his birth, so someone else passed on him. He IS perfectly healthy! At his 6 month check up the doctor said he was doing things that 8 month olds do! You don't know what the birthmother overseas did or did not do during pregnancy in most cases, but if you stay in the US you do. They aren't healthier overseas.

 

[septbride2002]

Hi Daxx,
Just wanted to explain that yes I realize there are exceptions to every rule When we looked extensively into adopting domestically we considered all our options, birthmothers, open adoptions, closed adoption, foster care system and found that none of those really fit us.

Yes my numbers include travel cost and agency fees. Those are averages in the state of MO.

~Amanda