Missed the edit window but the sympathies were for ThingFish and, I guess, anyone else who has dealt with fertility and/or adoption struggles.
FWIW, I have two kids, both adopted from South Korea (hi, Dangerosa!). I did a search for some of the threads we did on the topic, but can’t locate them for some reason. All my information is from about twenty years ago.
[ul][li]How it works - You fill out a lot of paper work, followed by waiting. We went thru Children’s Home Society of Minnesota. They do, or did, most of the foreign adoptions in our area. My cousin and her husband live in Wisconsin, and adopted two daughters thru Lutheran Social Services. [/li]
They do a credit check and a criminal history check along with the other forms. You also meet several times with a social worker, who also does home visits. They spent a lot of time talking about “grieving infertility” and race issues, since we are white and our kids would be Asian. I can’t say either of those were issues for us - YMMV. The paperwork was slightly more intrusive than applying for a mortgage, but we expected that. We made it our goal to return all the paperwork within forty eight hours of receiving it. We had to give references and pictures. As Dangerosa mentions, there are some odd restrictions, including that neither parent can be more than forty years older than the child. You also go to meetings with other prospective parents.
An aside - after we adopted our son, we did the panel where we were the parents talking about our experiences to prospective parents. I think my son was responsible for an uptick in numbers of adoptions - he was working the crowd like a politician, charming all and sundry. We were up front talking; he was wandering around smiling, stealing from peoples’ purses, and generally reducing every woman in the room to puddles of maternal goo. 
[li]How long does it take - it was about a year and a half from application to arrival for my son; about two years for our daughter. We said we didn’t care which gender the first time, and requested a girl the second. We were officially foster parents for six months after they arrive. Then there is another series of home visits, and we officially adopted. Then we applied for naturalization and then re-applied for a girl. We had to go thru almost all the whole process again. My son was six months old on arrival; my daughter about three months.[]Financial issues - it cost around $10-12K apiece. The agency charges on a sliding scale, but it slid up for us. It is now (I believe) tax-deductible, and many companies offer benefits for adoption similar to birth. Check with HR.[]Foreign vs. domestic - We attended a seminar after our daughter was about three years old on “open adoption”, which is what we would probably have to go with if we wanted to adopt a white infant. “Open adoption” is where the birth mother maintains contact with the child even after it is placed with its parents. [/li]
There was a birth mother there talking about her expectations for the process, and I had quite a negative reaction to what she had to say. That is my only experience with domestic adoption, apart from horror stories in the press about birth parents trying to get their parental rights back after the child is adopted. One of the advantages of foreign adoption is that this is not likely to happen.
We decided not to have a third child anyway. [li]The statistic I remember off the top of my head is that 11-14% of adoptive parents go on to give birth. I would not recommend that you expect adoption to increase your chances of conception.[/ul]Anything else you want to ask? [/li]
If you adopt from a different racial/ethnic group, you will probably get questions about it. Most people don’t mean anything nasty about it, although some do. We got used to it after a while.
We are fortunate. Korean adoption is common enough in our area to be interesting, but not threatening. And several of my inlaws/cousins/etc. are adopted in various ways, so it is sort of taken for granted in our family.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, I’ll start off with my old thread about how the cosmos decided to mess with me, which gives more background on my crazy-ass story.
Anyway, my wife and I are currently in the waiting queue to adopt from China. Our log-in date is October 2006, which puts us at around the 18-month mark. This October we will have been waiting for two years. The people who are going to China right now waited 24-28 months for their matches, and as the wait keeps getting longer, I’m wagering that it’ll be February or March of 2009 before we get our match. Still, that’s okay; the time has gone pretty quickly, due to those happenings in my older thread.
Before we settled on China, we looked into the foster/adopt program run locally through DFCS. We went to the many hours of evening classes, heard how marvelous it was, and ultimately decided it wasn’t for us, mainly because they encourage open adoptions, wherein the children know who their birth parents are and may still even visit with them. We didn’t care for that idea one bit, so we went overseas, where there’ll be no strings attached. By the way, the thing I remember most from the classes was the blanket proscription against trampolines. “NO trampolines!” they will tell you in harsh tones. I guess they figure if you own a trampoline, it’s easy to blame all kinds of crazy injuries on it, when in fact you’re beating the kid. When I told my dad about that, the first thing he said was, “How do they feel about pogo sticks?” Always a card, my dad. (Incidentally, when I saw that “trampolines” was the first thing on this list in The Onion, I cracked up.)
Anyway, China was the right thing for us, but you need to be aware that the Chinese government is becoming more and more concerned about Chinese girls leaving the country and is trying to encourage domestic adoptions. As a result, foreign adoptions have slowed way down. People who enter the system today may be waiting three years or longer. Don’t lose hope, though; I’ve been told many times that there’s no faster way to get pregnant than to start the adoption process.
So, on to the solid advice: classes to foster/adopt locally are free, so what the heck, go. It’s the best way to find out if the program is right for you, and all it’ll cost you is time. If you decide to adopt from another country, think about what’s important to you in deciding what country to go with. I think a lot of people go with Russia because they want a child that “looks like me”, and that’s fine, but it comes with some drawbacks. The Russian adoption process is pretty corrupt, to the point where bribes are practically built into the system at different levels. My wife knows a woman who has actually traveled to Russia twice to adopt a baby, and both times she was told that the baby had already been given to someone else. I can’t imagine taking an emotional blow like that twice.
We decided on China because they’ve been doing foreign adoptions for a long time, so the system is robust and well-scrutinized. Most babies available for adoption are girls, so if you want a boy, you’ll either face a longer wait or you’ll have to be prepared to accept a child with special needs. There’s also the language barrier when traveling, but the agencies help with that a lot. You might also be concerned with the “she’ll know from day one that she’s adopted” factor, but that doesn’t bother us that much. “You weren’t born under my heart, but in it,” as they say.
Anyway, research your agency. These days they’ll send loads of information and even DVDs on request that will help you make your decision. We went with CCAI, although Great Wall seems to be the Goliath of Chinese adoption. Whatever you decide, good luck, and never fear: your wait will be shorter than you think.
Three years ago my wife and I adopted two children from Russia (ages 3 and 1).
The agency we worked with was International Childrens Alliance, but the home study was done by Glenkirk (in Glenview, Illinois).
The total process took about 2 years.
I was worried that the physical and mental status of the kids would be much worse than we were told. In reality, they were better.
Do your research to find agencies in the Chicago area. They will have “open houses” where novices like you can come to hear their presentation and get their literature.
We were asked to do that, but when they asked I had started to be visibly pregnant (I am the (my OB’s numbers) 8-11% that conceive after adoption - its actually really rare, and once you get close to referral, I’d really recommend birth control - had we found out we were pregnant WEEKS earlier, they’d have stopped the adoption.) I figured a bunch of people dealing with infertility didn’t need to see the pregnant lady, so we didn’t get our turn.
The program has gotten more expensive - if Shodan paid about $12k 20 years ago, we paid $16k about 8 years ago. But Korea, at least, is not one of those six figure adoption programs.
Our wait was remarkably short - we had a six month wait from application to baby - most of it waiting for travel with a picture in our hand and a baby in Korea. That was very unusual and had to do with the Korean economy at that moment in time.
I continue to be awed and grateful for all the kind words and helpful advice of the SDMB. Still kind of trying to process it all… my wife and I are both in our early forties, so it sounds like that will be a problem in at least some scenarios?
Be careful. Check everything your agency or lawyer says with another very reliable source. Get personal referrals. Find out who the governing body is that licenses the agency that you’re looking at and call them. Ask pointed questions. Lots of people are in the adoption industry because they care about children and families. Some of the people in the industry are unscrupulous so-and-sos. You need to ferret out which kind you’re dealing with.
You may have divined that my husband and I had a wretched experience. (I can give you the name of one agency that you shouldn’t use, and you don’t have to take my word for it. The state is trying to shut them down.) I won’t post details here, but you can message me if you want more info.
That said, we’re trying again with a different agency. We had a son for a short time, and it was the best time in my life. Adoption can be really hard, and very discouraging. It’s also completely worth it.
I wish you luck; I wish you joy. 
Not necessarily. As I recall, for a Chinese adoption, you have to be between 30 and 45 to qualify for a child under 1 year old (the very youngest children available are 6 months, because the Chinese government requires 6 months before a child may be declared an orphan). However, if you or your spouse are over 45, you should still qualify for a child between 1 and 2 years old. Things may have changed, though, so you’d need to ask your agency for specifics.
Yes, it can be. Friends, well, really, fellow church members who provided a fairly detailed description of their experiences almost gave up when they found out that they hadn’t been married long enough for some groups, didn’t have enough money saved for some groups, and by the time they would be married long enough and could save enough money, he’d be too old for some options. They felt very frustrated.
And so, they ended up adopting through the county foster child program. There was a special name, but I’m not clear on what it was. Still, the requirements–especially financial–were lower. Then they waited an eternity for the first child (not sure how long, probably less than 6 months, the uncertainty made it seem like an eternity). First child was 14 months? maybe younger, but definitely not a baby, really. Got the call for a second child a few months later, newborn, but drug addicted. OK, family complete. And then they found out that birthmom of the first child was pregnant again, and really wanted this baby to go to the same people who had the older brother. Crisis! Do we want 3 children? Or do we give up this child we’ve come to love? They decided to accept the third child. And thus got a healthy, happy newborn.
A few minor bumps later, they were allowed to adopt all three children. And now that the kids are 6-7-8 or thereabouts, all is well, except for any struggles that one can expect to come from having three children closer in age than 3 biological siblings would be likely to be (twins excepted). And any struggles relating to the “how big a deal should we make about the hispanic background of two of the three kids” issues.
Yes, it will be - some of your options will be shut down due to age. However, other programs will be open to you - China and India actually prefer “older” parents - or used to.
One of the sad things about fertility is that many of us postpone having kids until our 30s, our fertility drops, we try for years to conceive, and by the time we are ready to shut the door on bio kids, doors have begun to shut in the adoption arena as well.
I really hate to see, and I’ve seen it several times here, posts that say “I’m only 28, I have plenty of time to find a life partner, and conceive, and if that doesn’t work out, I can always adopt.” I really wish there was more education on a) your fertility drops as you age and b) as you age, your adoption options drop as well. Its probably fairly important that you start the process very soon.
When we went through the foster classes there were people of all ages and some of the ones in their 40’s and 50’s were doing it to adopt. My daughter’s older biological siblings were all adopted by older people; two were adopted by a single woman who was in her 40’s at the time and already had 2 other adopted kids, the other two siblings were adopted by a couple in their 50’s.
If you are willing to and are strong enough (emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually) to handle it, DCFS gives “preferential” status to people willing to take on “special needs” children: kids with disabilities, behavioral issues, older kids or siblings. The state provides extra resources and funding for medical care, therapists, counselors , etc. My wife and I have talked about maybe doing it when our daughter is older.
One thing I forgot to mention before: Check out INCIID. They are a great resource for information about infertility, pregnancy loss as well as Foster care and adoption. Their message board was very helpful and informative when we had questions about tests and procedures when we were trying to get pregnant and also when we began looking into adoption.
Good luck to you. I hope you find the path to completing your family. When our daughter came to us, a friend gave us a framed copy of this poem. We have it hanging on her bedroom wall right by the door.