What to we do if we want to adopt a child?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s a long story, but I have a condition that may prevent me from having children - I’ve had long talks with my doctor, and mr avabeth and I are planning for that happening. We’re going to start trying to get pregnant soon after we’re married in September, but the chance isn’t a big one. Basically, we just don’t know. And because the purpose is to be parents, not how we become parents, we want to start looking into adoption.

Since we know that the adoption process can take a LONG time, we figure we’d rather start sooner rather than later. My own personal preference would be to adopt from China, but I thought I’d read somewhere that you can’t adopt in China until both partners are 30, and mr. avabeth will not be 30 for another three years (unfortunately, I hit that milestone in another nine months). And we could find the means to pay for an international adoption if necessary - I have a fund through my dad that was started eight years ago specifically for a house or, as we discussed, adoption fees.

We have no problem adopting a non-caucasian child (as we both are), but it seems like the US state governments tend to have issues with children being adopted by parents not of the same race. We’re not opposed to adopting an older or special needs child. But it would need to be right for both us and the child.

The gist of it is that we just want to be parents. And we’re not trying to rush into it, we’re just trying to get ahead of the game that we know is a waiting game. We figure whether it’s by adoption or biologically, we won’t be parents for at least two years.

But we don’t know where to start. Period. I’m not ready to start contacting adoption agencies just yet - we want to do more research first and determine whether or not we’d be better suited for an international adoption or a domestic one. We’re aware that adoptions aren’t as easy as shows like “Friends” would make you believe - show up, adoptive mother says ‘Okay’, and bam, you’ve got a baby. I think we just want to try and prepare ourselves, both emotionally, and financially, as best as we can.

Any advice? Suggestions?

Ava

2

Contact some state or county agencies or non-profits such as Catholic Social Services to ask about adoption information (without having them put you on a list). Check out the various web sites where people are sharing their experiences.

I’m not sure where this comes from.
There was a long and tragic period where kids were removed from Indian reservations and “given” to white families to raise. That practice was finally halted by federal law. In reaction to the earlier practice, there have been a few black groups who have argued that white couples should not “steal” black kids, removing the children from the culture into which they will be forced back as adults. That argument has been enforced in various regional agencies (with other groups–both black and white–arguing against such a barrier as it prevents willing couples from adopting needful children).
However, I know of no state that bars inter-racial or inter-ethnic adoptions of foreign-born children. In fact, I suspect that it might be illegal.

Deb and I went down to our county Human Services department and picked up a sibling group for almost free. Of course, we have had to deal with the issues that come with kids who were removed from the birth home “for cause,” but it does provide a way to adopt with far fewer up front costs.

3

Sorry for the confusion - I was referring to the things that you mentioned, not adoption of foreign-born children.

Thanks for the info. I have to admit, the only reason I’m scared to adopt an older or special needs child, or siblings, is because this will be a first-time parenting experience for us. It’s going to be difficult enough as it is, as it is for any new parents, and adding extra issues in there is just a bit scary. But we also know that every kid deserves a parent, so it probably wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for us.

That’s great that you adopted siblings - did you adopt younger children or older children? I do have a friend attempting to become a foster parent to children in order to adopt, and she’d like to adopt siblings. I think it’s because she had cousins put into foster care and adoption when she was younger (too young to help them) and she’s seen it firsthand.

Ava

4

I’m a licensed social worker who worked at a foster care/adoption agency until recently (laid off). Our organization did transracial adoptions all the time. AFAIK, the county Children’s Services agencies that we worked with did so too, so hopefully this allays your fears about adopting different-race children. At least in Ohio, where I live, this is not generally a problem.

If you have enough money for a private adoption and that’s the route you want to take, IMHO it can be less complicated (not as much checking into your background etc.). But that’s not my area of knowledge. In my former job, I’ve seen people become foster parents, specify babies or young children only, and then adopt from there. In these cases, you would actually get paid to adopt children who are wards of the state. (In most cases, the parents receive a monthly subsidy until the child is 18.) The drawbacks include extensive inquiry into your background (although short of extremes like being an active drug user or have a prior violent felony, child abuse, or sex crime conviction, there is a pretty good chance of getting licensed) and, if you choose to take kids who are in the foster care system but are not legally ready to be adopted, risk of emotional upheaval.

Your local children’s service agency could at least offer an overview of how adoption from their agency works. They may push you to go for older children (and would be ecstatic to find out that you may want to adopt older kids!) because there are so many more of them available for adoption than little ones, but there are definitely also babies out there being taken from abusive parents who become available for adoption. Sometimes the foster parents get a newborn straight from the hospital (around here it’s standard practice to take newborn babies from parents whose other children are in the system and whose situations have not changed) and then it takes maybe a year of trying to give the bio parents a chance (which I can imagine is pretty heartwrenching if you really really want the little munchkin as your own) before the child becomes legally adoptable. In my experience alone (two years at a small private agency) I’ve seen around a dozen adoptions of children under two out of the foster care system.

…(Sorry about all the parentheses) That’s all I 've got. I hope everything works out.

5

ggurl, I’m actually in Ohio, too, so that alleviates a few of my fears. Neither of us has anything like that in our background, so that’s a relief. We’d have no problem with either a private adoption or an agency adoption - my only fear with an agency adoption is that it seems to take so long. I know it takes awhile with international adoptions, too, but I’ve heard of people being on waiting lists for years to adopt a child. I think that was typically with babies, though - is that what you’ve found?

With the foster care, how often do the children get taken back by their biological parents? I’d be terrified of that - to have a child and want to love it as my own, only to have it taken away later.

Thanks for the information. I definitely learned a few things I didn’t know.

Ava

6

Ava, one thing that’s good to know about the “bioparents getting the kids back” is that there is some choice by the foster/adoptive parent in the matter. If you take kids who are not in the permanent custody of Children’s Services, there is always the risk of the kids going back to their birth family, no matter how ridiculous of a prospect it might seem (I’ve seen some pretty f’d up situations that the kids were “reunified” back into, to everyone’s horror). However, at least at the agency I worked in, parents could and did let us social workers know that they were interested in adoption only, and would only take kids whose status was permanent custody. That means that the Children’s Services agency involved has obtained a court order terminating the parental rights of the birth family and now has a pressing concern to get them adopted. Of course, the foster parents have first dibs on adopting kids in this type of situation. Prior to the decision to take permanent custody, the counties’ legal obligation is (on the surface at least) to reunify them with their bioparents. You can probably avoid the possibility of children in your care going back to their original situation, if you let the agency placement worker know that you will only take kids in a permanent custody situation. Then, don’t let the placement worker talk you into anything else. :slight_smile: I know our agency placement worker tried sometimes when it was late and kids needed a place to stay!

7

We apopted a 5 1/2 year old girl and her 3 year old half-brother (same mom) 11 1/2 years ago. The special needs issue can be a curse and a blessing. We have to deal with all the attachment issues and other psych conditions that arose from the birth home situation, of course. On the other hand, we don’t have to “own” a lot of issues since prenatal care and genetics cannot be laid on us, (no guilt over those situations), we were not stunned to discover that our children had issues, (since that tends to come with the territory).

We don’t see ourselves as having done anything special. We wanted kids and our route was an affordable way to have kids. The only reason to have kids–however one acquires them–is to love them* and no decision to produce or acquire kids (provided the parents are competent) should ever be open to challenge or second guessing by anyone else. Private adoption, international adoption, special needs adoption, or any other form each provides a kid a home. The choice of which path to follow should always be based on the needs and abilities of the prospective parents, never subjected to second guessing by anyone else. (Kidnapping should be right out, of course.)

*(I confess that on the form that asked (in exhausting detail) who I was and why I wanted to adopt, I entered the statement “To warp a child in my image,” but the adoption case worker just laughed at me.)

In terms of the work necessary to adopt, state regulations (that vary considerably) generally require that one write an exhaustive amount of detail regarding one’s wants, needs, how one was raised, what one expects from the adoption, what one hopes for the child, how one views discipline, how one feels about “strangers” in one’s home, and a complete autobiography. In addition, one must provide statements demonstrating financial responsibility and permit a police background check. In our county, one must get the testimony of five non-family members to describe what they think of your (potential) parenting skills. (Our next door neighbor actually sabotaged us on that, although we got past it.) One’s house must be inspected for livability by the agency and the fire department (and our well and septic had to be checked). And the agency will interview the couple at least three times.

In our county, anyone who intends to adopt must attend a 12-week series of classes on parenting adoptees (that actually had a lot of good information).

When one goes through a purely private adoption, a lot of those requirements seem to get “covered” with fees to the lawyers or adoption agencies, but I have not gone through one to know how it is handled. International adoptions have requirements similar to what I have laid out–exacerbated by any special considerations the foreign country may impose either to protect their children or to increase their revenues.

In Ohio, generally they separate foster parents from adoptive parents. (Geauga made us all attend the same classes, but they did not give adopting parents fostered kids and say “see if you like them.” A child may not even be considered for adoption unless the birth family’s rights have been legally severed. (A technicality that has been known to be missed.) You are probably more at risk regarding a birth parent changing her mind in a private adoption, because the state is not actually severing the relationship. On the other hand, a well-established open adoption, enterd with care, might be the best possible situation for a child. (Like most of life, it depends on too many conditions to permit much accurate generalization.)

(In Ohio, I would definitely avoid Trumbull county unless the management has changed in the last couple of years. They used to break up families on the whim of the director and I knew one family who was trying to “coolect” and re-unite a set of disprsed kids who were threatened that if they did not stop trying so hard, the agency was going to split the kids further. The director was a real whack job.)

8

We had a thread on adoption a while back.

Link.

A few of us have adopted internationally. I recommend it. It sounds like you can afford it (a significant consideration) and have the right attitude about being a parent.

9

Great info, tomndebb and ggurl. That’s great - this is a nervewracking situation for us, but it’s good to get all of the details. I’m also glad to know you can request adoption-only - I honestly don’t think I could handle that.

Brainiac, thanks for the link - I’ll read that this evening or tomorrow. I would really like to do an international adoption (call me weird, but I have always felt for years that there’s a little girl waiting for me to be her mom in China - whether she’s been born yet or not - it’s one of those things I can’t explain, but I feel like it’s telling me something). However, mr. avabeth isn’t so sure on it - but then again, he’s also had a lot less time to deal with the fact that we may not have children biologically. I’ve had more years to understand my condition and know what it means. Lately, he’s been more open on the discussion of adopting our children.

And thanks - honestly, I’ve wanted to be a mom forever - when I was twelve, I wanted my mom to have another baby so we could have a small child in the house. I’ve just been looking forward to becoming a mommy - and to me, it doesn’t matter whether my children are born from me or from someone else. If we’re the ones raising them, they will be our children.

Ava

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Braniac, I just read the thread. Thanks so much for the link. It actually brought tears to my eyes - there were some beautiful posts in there. It also made me feel like our feelings about becoming adoptive parents and our fears are valid and justified - but it’s worth it.

For anyone who’s adopted from China, do both spouses need to be over thirty to adopt? Or is it all right if one is over thirty and one is under? And does Korea have any of those rules regarding adoptions?

I’d really like to hear more about the experiences of those who adopted. The good, the bad, and the ugly - all of it.

Ava

11

Advice is worth what you’ve paid for it ($4.95 in this case?) and unsolicited advice is not worth even that much, but I will throw this in:
It is good that you are not planning to jump into this, immediately. Many people do not see adoption as identical to giving birth and it is good to have any emotions arising from the differences resolved before you begin the process. Adoptions prompted by fertility issues also bring their own separate sets of feelings that should also be resolved. Time and talking are two good ways to reach resolution. (This is not a claim that anyone should–or needs to–be “talked into” it nor is it a suggestion that you are not prepared. It is just an observation that marriage brings on unexpected changes in emotions and perspectives and kids are disruptive in an order of magnitude greater than marriage, so care is warranted.)

12

You’re absolutely right on both issues - adoption and giving birth. We started discussing having children nearly as soon as we met. And we definitely don’t want to rush - mainly because we want the time to be right when we have a child. Plus, we both research things big time before doing anything:). And we want some time to be married together as well - we’re just trying to prepare ourselves to start the process to adopt when we’re ready, instead of saving the research and things for then - we want to be able to go right into it.

And no, I wouldn’t see it as identical to giving birth - obviously both are a serious emotional change, but they’ve got different issues and situations. And mr. avabeth doesn’t necessarily need to be talked into adoption, but he does want to know the pros, cons, and intricate points before we get involved - which I can’t blame him for.

Advice is always welcome and appreciated! Believe me, I know that getting into parenthood is a big step no matter how you do it - we want to be as prepared as possible.

Ava

13

One of the things that seems helpful in making the transition from “I’m going to have bio kids” to “I’m going to have kids - and how they get to be my kids isn’t important” is being around families of all different types. We went from being the first to adopt to being one of four in our circle of friends - and all three other families said “well, you guys opened the door and showed us it wasn’t such a big deal.”

China is 30 as a minimum age (which has dropped - it was 35 when we adopted). Korea has a minimum length of marriage of three years. Other programs will have other guidelines - everything from weight (some Korea programs) to number of divorces, to income). I’d start searching the web and deciding what is important to you. If your heart says China, its probably worth waiting - but there are programs out of India, Central and South America and Eastern Europe. Brainiac4 had an initial pull to Russia, but my initial pull was South Korea. When we looked at all the “stuff” (cost, restrictions, care of children, age at arrival, timelines, availability of healthy children or extent of special needs, etc.) Korea was for us the hands down winner.

14

We adopted two kids from South Korea. The second one arrived on April 16th, 1992 so some of what I will share may have changed.

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. It is a shift in mentality that you can’t force, when you feel you are ready to delve into the adoption world, you will find tons of people who are adoptive parents. Use them as resources !!

South Korea had a few rules that stuck with me.

  1. You must prove infertility with medical documentation.
  2. You may not be more than 40 years older than the age of the child you are going to adopt.
  3. You must not be obsese.
  4. You must not have any significant medical conditions that may preclude your surviving till your child is an adult.

There are others but I cannot recall them right now.

If you would like to talk about this more, or have more personal queries I will be glad to answer them, avabeth. Feel free to email me.

Cartooniverse

15

Cartooniverse and Dangerosa, thank you for your stories. For some reason, we never thought about South Korea - but we’ll definitely add that to our research.

That kind of surprises me that South Korea judges based on weight. I’m sure it’s for health reasons, but it is a bit surprising. It wouldn’t be an issue for us, but I can see some good parents being turned down because of weight.

Honestly, neither of us has any strong pull towards any adoption program - I think it’ll just depend on which ones seem to be right for us at the time. Honestly, I’m more interested in the China program, but I’m open to looking anywhere.

Cartooniverse, I may take you up on that - thanks so much for the offer. I have so many questions running through my head, and it’s so hard to pin them down and get it on paper. I’ll try to organize my thoughts, though.

Ava

16

*emphasis added

avabeth, my experience is as a reference for friends who adopted from Russia. They were not eligible by the standards of most agencies which facilitate domestic (to the US) adoptions because both had been previously divorced, the wife twice (but neither divorce was her fault), and I was the only close, local (i.e., in a position to observe what really happened) friend who had known her from before the breakup of the first marriage to the time when they were trying to adopt, so my ability to say “this is a good, stable person who will make a good mother” was important. Oh, and they had started trying to have a baby several years before starting the adoption process, including infertility treatments (which I gather may not be useful or appropriate in your case? OTOH, I think people who are not fixated on perpetuating their own genes are true heroes.), which produced two very short-lived pregnancies.

My friend was prepared to consider a child of ANY ethnic background or national orign, but by my own observation and knowledge of her husband for, by that time, at least 6 years, I judged that while he would undoubtedly try hard, he might not be able to totally accept a child of other ethnicity as really “his own”. We’re all different. So I strongly urged my friend to go with adoption from Russia. As it happened, the ~1 year old daughter they adopted was a blue-eyed blonde girl (who, quite by accident, strongly resembles his grown kids), with a congenital hip dislocation and a fairly large and very visible hematoma (a la Gorbachev)on the front of her head, extending to the scalp line, but not below. They all suffered through two hip surgeries; one about a year after they got her (IIRC), and another a couple of years later, but she’s been fine since the second one.

They still belong to an adoptive parents group with others who used the same agency, and get together at least once per year. And they plan to take their daughter back to visit the area from which she came when she’s a bit older (started middle school this year). Much to her surprise, several years after she brought her Russian daughter home, my friend discovered she was pregnant, so they now have two daughters together.

I also have an e-friend who has adopted three children from China. If you don’t already know anyone who has adopted from China, and would like more specific information, I’m sure he (and his wife) would be glad to be resources to you. The third time around, they got a boy(!) (with medical needs), and I think they now consider their family complete. Send me an email if you want to be put in touch.

And … kudos to you both for trying to think things through and plan in advance. I’m sure things will work out for you, and for some lucky kid who gets you as her(his) mom. :slight_smile:

17

Thanks for sharing your friends’ stories! I love to hear these.

Infertility is the main reason we’re thinking about adoption - I have endometriosis, a fairly severe case, and had a very, very early miscarriage last fall - I didn’t even realize that I was pregnant. Since then, I may have had another one. And so those two incidents have pretty much told us that we may have issues conceiving and carrying to term. That’s why we’re thinking about it so early - we’re not even married yet, but we know we’re going to have problems.

I will definitely drop you an email - I would love to be put in contact with the adoptive family. And thanks for the above. I hope we’ll be the lucky ones - we both just want to be parents, and we know there’s a kid out there for us to love. It’s hard to watch all of my friends getting pregnant and having babies (I had three friends have babies all on the same day a few weeks ago), and think that might not be in our future - but as long as the end result is the same, and we become parents, we’ll be overjoyed.

Ava