International Adoptions

troopersmom21

Hi Ladies, I post here every now and then b/c I am adopted so I share my experiences sometimes.

My cousin however would like to look into international adoption any helpful first hints and ideas.

thanks

ksmeg78

Firstly, what made her decide to pursue international. I ask because I think it's important to be familiar with all types before you decide for sure. There are a lot of misconceptions and half-truths floating around so a book like Adoption for Dummies is helpful in being sure that your cousin is choosing international for solid reasons and is sure she wouldn't want to do domestic.

Once she is certain about international, then she needs to choose a country. A good place to start is https://adoption.state.gov/countryinformation.html because it summarizes the requirements of many countries. Once she has a few countries in mind, then she would ask any questions and look at time frames, children available (for example if she wants a baby, not all countries do that), and cost and further narrow down to the country of interest. At that point, she would choose an agency to work with and they would guide her through the adoption process for the country she has chosen.

redhead1214

Has she decided on a country? For us, that was difficult. We broke it down to general areas (Europe, Asia) and from there looked at what individual requirements each country had regarding age, income, marriage length, travel time in country, availability of wait times, age of children available, etc. (those are just a few).

Some countries require long travel lengths in country (3 -4 weeks per trip), some countries you need to be marries a certain lengh of time (3 or 4 plus years), there are also age restrictions and there are some countries that only have children available for adoption over a certain age (i.e. 2 yrs), so if having an infant is important for her (remember, you will most likely not get a newborn from most countries, but not all. I think Ethiopia you can get a young baby?) some countries will automatically be out.

i recommend rainbowkids.com- that site has a list of all international countries that have adoption, as well as a quick list of some of the requirements and a form for each country that can be filled out and it will send her info to any agency they are affiliated with that works in that particular country.

Once she decides on a country or even countries she is interested in, I suggest joining a Yahoo group called, Adoption Agency Research. (she can just google search that and she can sign up to join them) She can ask what agency or agencies they recommend for whatever country she is looking at and give her advice on some to stay away from.

Good luck. 

redhead1214

Also, if she decides to go with Russia, you can PM me and I can give you my email address to give to her. While we just started the process, I can tell her a little about it and (at least) info regarding the agency we decided to go with.

 

Erin