Mrs. HeyHomie and I will be attending a seminar this Sunday to learn about international adoption. We have NOT decided yay or nay on whether or not we’re going to actively pursue this; we’re just going to the seminar to see what they have to say.
The seminar is run by this outfit. The grammar and seentence structure they use on their website isn’t great, but that probably says more about their web designer than about the organization as a whole. But I digress.
Anyone have any experiences with international adoption that they’d like to share? It looks like the process is frustrating, time-consuming, full of arbitrary paperwork and expensive. Not much unlike going to college, but that’s another thread.
No first-hand information, but my neighbor adopted two girls from Russia or some Eastern-block nation. Both are healthy, happy, and apparently well-adjusted. They were infants when they got them.
These people are just regular Joes. I think she has a factory job and I’m not sure what he does. But I don’t think the red tape was too expensive. They got the kids at separate times, so I’m guessing the experience must have been pretty good or they wouldn’t have gone back for a second time.
I’ve known some foreign adopters and adoptees. One of the adopters was asking us about Asian children coping with non-Asian parents. Not really relevant to us, as my wife is Asian, but the woman’s daughter was having a tough time, possibly exacerbated by the couple’s bio-daughter who is in the same grade and extremely different (they don’t get along). Another person I know was born in Korea but adopted by Americans. She really had issues and went through a lot of counselling, but seems regular enough now.
My advice would be that it’s never easy to raise children. You really need to make a commitment to love them through thick or thin, and if you have biological children that it could be very noticeable who is adopted and who is not. In the Midwest the situation might be more difficult. Some people will ask stupid questions that will hurt your children. You’ll both have to have thick skin. So make sure that you are really ready for this. Then love, love, love, love them. Make sure you can find local resources/help for your child for adjusting to fit into his/her new culture.
Cartooniverse is just one of the international adoptive parents on this board. There’s another person who has a baby from Korea, whose name escapes me. Let’s hope they check in.
I know a handful of people who have adopted daughters from China. My friends are adopting from Russia, and they said the hardest part for them was finding an agency they felt good about. Interesting fact is that because they said they’d take a boy, it shot them to the top of the waiting list.
One of the children I worked with last (school) year was adopted from the Phillipines(sp?). Her parents come down on the long and frustrating side, as she was supposed to be with them five months sooner than she was. Apparently the orphanage tried hard to convince them to adopt a different child, since this one has developmental delays (gee, stick a kid in a crib and don’t talk to them from ages 1-3, and she ends up having trouble with speaking and motor skills? imagine that!) but they were able to convince the people in charge that they wanted that child, and that it wasn’t the same as if they were trying to adopt a sick puppy- one child isn’t the same as another after you’ve gotten to know them. Anyway, it ended up happily in the long run, and she’s growing well, and catching up, milestone-wise, to other 5-year-olds.
I have two Korean cousins and it couldn’t have gone better. One was found as an infant in a trash can, this past summer she passed the bar exam on her first try. The other one just graduated with a teaching degree. If the program is above board, I say go for it!
I see adoptees in Shanghai every once in a while. The parents are really over the moon and the kids seem pretty “dislocated” perhaps? I don’t know how to describe the kids, but they are usually 12-24 months old, have perhaps had a rough time, are now with brand new caregivers that don’t speak their language, and their routines are completely set aside. Of course the kids are adjusting to changes and never seem to really comprehend what is happening. I hope I am being clear that this isn’t a judgement call, just an observation.
You might want to try the US embassies and ask them opinions on agencies. The embassies in specific locations usually have websites (google), and you have to get paperwork done before taking an adopted child back to the US, so they should be able to provide some information.
Cartooniverse and I both have kids from Korea. His are older (he has two). I have a son from Korea who arrived four years ago last week.
I have friends with kids from Peru, Guatamaula and Khazikstan as well (the couple with the little girl from Khazikstan just got hom with her last week).
Korea is a wonderful program, in that it isn’t arbitrary and isn’t too expensive.
My recommendation would be to start by contacting several agencies in your area. Make a list of everything you are interested in. Our list looked like this:
Not over $30,000 for the whole process
Healthy
Under 1 year at arrival
Maternal alcohol consumption minimal
Minimal travel requirements (we couldn’t afford to spend six weeks in Columbia)
A fairly quick process
etc…
Race wasn’t an issue to us. But consider that question very very carefully. If you are looking to adopt a white baby because it will look like you and you can pass it off as bio, you aren’t ready to adopt. No adopted child will ever meet a NEED for a bio child, no matter how lucky you get on the baby looking like you. If you want to adopt a white baby because you understand the challenges of being part of a multiracial family and you aren’t up to handling them, you have a good reason to adopt a white baby.
Then compare the different country programs against your list. And yourself against their requirements. Some countries will have specific requirements about age or length of marriage (some Korea programs, including ours, have weight requirements – my husband needed to loose about 30 lbs!). Don’t bother to fight the weight thing.
Feel free to e-mail me. There are lots of yahoo groups and adoption boards out on the net as well.
(What we got from out list:
Not over $30,000 for the whole process - our adoption, completed in 1999 was under $17,000 total)
Healthy - our son was low birth weight, but healthy as a horse. He does wears glasses - but his vision isn’t horrible.
Under 1 year at arrival - 6 1/2 months at arrival
Maternal alcohol consumption minimal - unknown, but his birthmom lived in the provinces and Korean women in the provinces don’t tend to drink or smoke much.
Minimal travel requirements (we couldn’t afford to spend six weeks in Columbia) - we didn’t travel. Korea has a program to escort kids to your local airport. Although I’d encourage travel if you can swing it.
A fairly quick process - 6 months from application to arrival, which is unusual. At that time, the Korean economy was in the tank, China and Russia were very popular programs, and our agency (www.chsm.org) had more babies than families.
Minnesota, where we are, has more Korean adoptees than any other place in the world (including Korea). We have a very healthy Asian population in the Twin Cities as well.
But your points are good, just your generalizations are wrong. If you do an interracial adoption, you need to be ready to have an interracial family. That means being supportive of your child’s culture and history - and giving him the chance to be “majority” from time to time (at the age our son is, its picnics with other Korean adoptee families, and encouraging time spent with the Chinese family that lives next door). A good book on the topic is “Are Those Kids Yours” by Cheri Register.
I also have a surprise bio daughter who was born just six months after my son arrived home. My friends with the daughter from Peru have a bio son who is about five years older and my friends who just got home also have a son who is three years older than their new daughter. So far, so good for all parties - but alot hinges on family dynamics (which you have some, but not complete control over) and family temperments.
A study was done on Korean adult adoptees in Sweden, which did point to these people having more problems than their white non-adopteed peers (greater rates of mental illness, less likely to marry, etc). But the style of adoption was different back then - they really encouraged making your child “yours” and not worrying about differences (Ameican families were told "your kid is American now, don’t worry about it). And Sweden is much more racially homogenous than the US - even the Midwest.
A friend and his wife adopted a Russian infant four or five years ago; I’ll try to remember to call him tomorrow and find out who they went through. IIRC it was fairly expensive and a little time consuming, including having to fly to Moscow in February, but they were very satisfied with how things went.
I once knew an Asian girl who was adopted by a white American family. She told me of some of the difficulties she faced, being the only Asian in her small community. She was teased mercilessly for being adopted, until one day when she faced her tormenters and said: “My parents flew halfway around the world, and picked ME out of all of the babies there. YOUR parents were stuck with what they got!” They never bothered her again.
A friend of a friend adopted a boy and a girl, ostensibly brother and sister (although they looked nothing alike) from Russia, from a medium-sized city in Siberia; she was glad she’d done it, but said the process was sheer hell because of corruption at the orphanage the kids were from. Everyone wanted a bribe, and the agencies involved on the Russian side kept changing important details at the last minute and threatening to yank the kids if she didn’t jump through their hoops. (The perception in Russia - and I’ve been there for extended periods myself - is all too frequently that all Americans are filthy rich, and should share the wealth. Of course, by Russian standards we generally are, but of course that’s no excuse for extortion.)
Man, that was one tough woman, too. Other relevant details: under Russian law, I believe kids aren’t released for adoption unless it’s been documented that they’re orphans. So a teenage girl who gets pregnant and doesn’t want to keep the baby, but doesn’t know how to or want to contact the father, will not be able to release the kid for adoption. Good luck!
The Russian system can be very corrupt. They shut it down a couple of years ago to clean it up. My friend with the daughter from Guatemaula was on the verge of getting a referral from Russia when the program closed down - she switched to Guatemaula and, about the time she got the referral from Guatemaula, Russia opened back up. I do know people who have adopted successfully from Russia.
With Russia, you need to be very careful about what agency you use. Fees can vary dramatically, some agencies are notorious for bait and switch (send you a referral for one child, get you there and tell you that child is no longer available, but a different child is).
By UN treaty, kids need to be classed as “orphans” before being available for international adoption - so parental rights have to be signed over - at least by the birth mom. You also need to keep one eye on the state department - they shut down Cambodia for adoptions last year due to some baby selling allegations, and had their eye on Vietnam. Also, by UN treaty, kids cannot be taken out of anything classed as a “war zone” for several years due to the possiblity of reuniting them with bio family once stability is established.
HeyHomie, if you don’t like what you hear today, you may wish to check out a couple other agencies as well. Our first “orientation” was so discouraging we almost decided against it. Then we hooked up with the agency we used and were very happy.
I know of four babies who started out this way. Back in the U.S., they adjusted quickly and now are normal toddlers. The parents report that the babies seemed loved and well-cared-for prior to adoption, although the environment of an orphanage is not ideal. There was certainly an adjustment, and it’s not easy parenting in a hotel room. I got the same comment from my friends who adopted in Russia. Once they got home, things began to normalize.
We adopted our son as a newborn baby 12 years ago in Jamaica. We were in the Peace Corps there at the time, so were able to do a lot of the adoption/immigration work ourselves. Saved us a lot of money, but oh man, you start to understand why the windows in the US Embassy have bullet proof glass. It was very nice having him with us in his country of origin the first year of his life. We washed diapers by hand in cold water and hung them to dry, had no strollers, car seat (no car, either), or any modern convenience. He slept in a basket and we carried him everywhere. Got lots of colouful advice from Jamaican neighbours and friends. Transracial adoption really enriches your life, too.