Adopting from Peru
Hi!
My husband and I are the proud parents of a 5 mo DS (bio). I'm also a birthmom to a DS who's 5 yo, and my husband was a good friend during the time that I placed him. Naturally, adoption is very close to our hearts. We are looking to adopt our next child and we'd love to adopt from Peru.
The big thing for us is cost. DH works for a nonprofit (at a nonprofit salary, wink wink), and I work ten hours a week at the same NFP. So, we don't have a lot of spare money (of course, for American standards). It seems like the cost of adopting on the Peruvian side is $5-$7k. Is this accurate?
Also, what would you expect for the American fees to be? I've seen about $1k in gov't fees, but I have no idea what else this entails. Also, if there are any NFPs that could help, I'd love to hear about that!
Also, I just thought of this: do you think it will be a big snag that I've placed a child for adoption? I just thought of that. Eek.
Since we have a LO, we're not in a terrible rush, but I don't want to keep hoping and planning and praying if it's just not going to be a reality for us because of the costs. It's so sad to me that having a biological child is so much cheaper.
Application approved Dec '11
Mar '12: Homestudy interrupted by change in Uganda requirements - where do we go from here?
After searching and searching, back with Uganda but with our homestudy agency's program.
Homestudy complete July 19
USCIS I-600A submitted July 20. Biometrics appointments arrived Aug 17; fingerprinted Aug 21; 171H received Sept 25th. On the wait list Oct 1st: #18. By Jan 25th, we're #13!
Come home, baby A!
Re: Adopting from Peru
Welcome!
There is a woman in this group who has adopted from Peru... I'm certain she will chime in.
Hi, and welcome! There aren't many adoptions from Peru to the US, maybe about 30 a year, so the program's really small.
My first question is, what state do you live in? In order to adopt from Peru, you have to use an agency, and if you live in a state that has an agency licensed to process adoptions from Peru, you have to use that specific agency. Since I live in NJ where there are no agencies licensed to work with Peru, I used Carolina Adoption Services out of North Carolina. They were awesome, but a bit slow, and my first adoption took 2.5 years with them. This second one is going much faster, but that's mostly because they already know us and we've figured out some time-saving techniques.
If cost is your main concern, I have to warn you that in total, including travel, our fist adoption cost us about $40,000. I can't break it down for you as to what's a country cost versus an agency cost or US governmental fee, but I can tell you we didn't always chose the cheapest option. I think you could probably pull it off for somewhere around the neighborhood of $30,000, but I think it would be difficult to get the costs much cheaper than that. One of our biggest costs was having the psychological report prepared that they require as part of your dossier. It's things like that which make it nearly impossible to estimate what adopting from Peru will cost.
Peru has pretty strict standards for adoptive parents, and you have to jump through a lot of hoops that can seem pretty invasive. To be honest, I'm not sure what they will think of your choice to make an adoption plan for your youngest. My husband and I adopted without first trying to conceive, and they made us get an addendum to our psychological report explaining what our "phobias" were concerning biological children that we hoped to avoid by adopting. It seemed inconceivable to them that we'd want to adopt without infertility. To be honest, though, I think this was just a stalling tactic, because they typically request additional information from families, and we had provided everything so thoroughly, that they didn't know what else to ask for. I truly believe it's just another hoop they make families jump through to test their determination. That being said, it's clear they feel very strongly about biological bonds.
All the above being said, I truly believe that the Peruvian system is designed to really look out for the best interests of the children, and that's why it's so difficult. The orphanages are well run and safe, and the children we've seen (at three different orphanages) are always well looked after.
Peru only processes about 350 adoptions a year, and many of those are to Italian families, and increasingly Peruvian families or families with at least one Peruvian parent. The way the program works, a child is matched with a family in the first month or two after becoming eligible for adoption (a process which takes almost a year in most cases, so the youngest children available for adoption are generally close to a year or older). Peru will not place a child into a family out of birth order, and requires at least one year to pass before any addition to the family. If a family cannot be found for the child, he is placed on the "waiting angles" list. That list is available to approved families, who may request the files of any child on the list. The files are stunningly complete, and include all information available, but are in Spanish, so you'll need to have them translated or get a doctor who can read them in Spanish to review them. If you find a child on the list you'd like to adopt, you can submit a request to do son, and then hope to be matched with that child (which will generally happen if they believe you can adequately care for the child and there is no one else requesting the same child at the time).
It's a long, hard, process, but so worth it! I have so much more to add, but don't know where to begin. Do you have any specific questions?
That's AMAZINGLY helpful! It seems like Peru may not be for us then, if the orphanages are run well and they're so picky.
What made y'all choose Peru? BTW, we live in Texas, equidistant from Dallas, Austin, and Houston, so we're set pretty well for Hague-approved adoption agencies.
Application approved Dec '11
Mar '12: Homestudy interrupted by change in Uganda requirements - where do we go from here?
After searching and searching, back with Uganda but with our homestudy agency's program.
Homestudy complete July 19
USCIS I-600A submitted July 20. Biometrics appointments arrived Aug 17; fingerprinted Aug 21; 171H received Sept 25th. On the wait list Oct 1st: #18. By Jan 25th, we're #13!
Come home, baby A!
I don't, actually! I know Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach, but they are domestic. We're looking at an agency in Waco: https://generationsadoption.org but they only place with Christian families who've been married 3 years.
We're just at the scouting point as well. We'd love to adopt from a Spanish-speaking country, but we don't always get what we want.
I hope it goes well for you!
Application approved Dec '11
Mar '12: Homestudy interrupted by change in Uganda requirements - where do we go from here?
After searching and searching, back with Uganda but with our homestudy agency's program.
Homestudy complete July 19
USCIS I-600A submitted July 20. Biometrics appointments arrived Aug 17; fingerprinted Aug 21; 171H received Sept 25th. On the wait list Oct 1st: #18. By Jan 25th, we're #13!
Come home, baby A!
Well, I would argue that they are only "picky" because they truly have the best interests of the children in mind. They want to make sure that someone isn't adopting out of a motivation of saving a child. I also think that they make prospective adoptive parents jump through a lot of extra hoops to make sure they are committed and test their ability to deal with uncertainty and bumps in the road. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't deny a family simply because they hadn't tried to conceive first, and I doubt placing a child at a younger age, before being prepared to parent, would disqualify a family. I'm fairly confident that what they are interested in is how you handled it and how your situation has changed in a way that makes you prepared at the time of application.
Lots of reasons, actually. We chose Peru because we loved the idea of adopting from South America. At that point, we hadn't yet been to Peru, but we had been to Argentina and Chile, and fell in love. Neither of those countries really have international adoption programs to speak of, so we started investigating other South American countries that do.
What we found was that Peru is a very poor nation in which many families simply cannot support their children. There are many older children for adoption there, many of whom have lived with their families for some time, because their parents cannot take care of them any longer. It's heartbreaking; often the children are relinquished after one parent dies and the surviving parent can no longer manage to support the entire family alone. There are also many "street children" in Peru who do their best to work and scavenge to get by on their own.
Further research showed us (and our experience proved) that Peru is very serious about ensuring the welfare of these children. They are a Hague country, and their process is long and rigorous, but it's because they want to make sure that:
1) the children are definitely free for adoption; and
2) the families that adopt them are capable of providing homes in which they will flourish.
The orphanages in Peru are very child-developmentally centered. We vacationed in Peru in November 2008, and actually got the chance to visit one ourselves. What we saw then and when we adopted M supported all the claims, and we are very comforted to know that the children live in a safe, clean, warm environments while in care there. They provide age-and ability-appropriate education for the children, and do the best to help them overcome delays and unacceptable behaviors.
The process is a long one. After the typical homestudy and CIS approval, our dossier was sent to Peru, translated, and submitted to the agency in charge of adoptions. When we applied the first time, it was taking 6-9 months for our application to be approved. In most cases applicants are asked to provide more information, which, of course, extends the process. Only AFTER the application is approved, do families begin waiting for a referral. My understanding is that Peru tries hard not to refer a child to a family outside of what the family has stated it believes it can handle, so we aren't really worried about being referred a child beyond our capabilities.
As an alternative to waiting for a referral, families may also select a child from the Waiting Angels list (this is what we did both times). You may request a child at the same time as applying to adopt, and that will speed up the time it takes to issue a determination on your application (approve/ask for more information (most common the first time)/deny) significantly. The list is broken down into several sections: children over 8 years of age; sibling groups in which at least one child is over 8 years of age; children awaiting medical diagnosis; children with medical issues; and children with mental illnesses or delays. Peru is trying to get as many children on the Waiting Angels list as possible, to expedite their adoptions. As a result, children on the list could range from having something fairly mild/correctable to severe disabilities and/or illnesses.
Once a family accepts a referral, they travel to Peru. After a week or two of spending time with our child, they are granted custody. Within another week or more, the Peruvian authorities process the adoption. After that point, the adoption is internationally legal, and one parent (of two parent families) is free to return home. They other (or both) must stay with the child in Peru until we are granted a visa from the US Embassy and can return home together. The total time in country is about 6 weeks, give or take.
You can't just use any Hague-approved adoption agency for a Peruvian adoption. You can only use an agency that's been approved by the Peruvian government. To date, there are only 10 of them in the country, and some of them are only approved to process adoptions of children on the Waiting Angels list.
I believe that if one of the approved agencies is located in your state, you must use that particular agency, but I'm not sure if that restriction still applies if they only do adoptions of waiting children. In Texas, there are currently two agencies which are approved by Peru:
A Helping Hand Agency; and
Great Wall of China Adoption, DBA Children of All Nations.
Haha, I agree. In retrospect, I have no idea why I used that word. Def poor word choice!
Man, adopting an older child makes me so nervous! I def feel more comfortable with the idea of adopting a child with special needs. Mostly because we only have a 5mo. I don't know what it would be like to parent a 5 yo! And we're 26, so it kind of feels like we may not be mature enough to handle a child's needs versus a baby's.
But if you had a child by birth, you wouldn't get to pick if they had extra or different needs from other kids - we're learning this already (DS has never liked strangers, and it's only getting worse. We're working through it, but it's just one of those things that makes E who he is).
If I'm being honest, I don't know if Peru is meant for us. We're hoping to adopt our last child as well (do kind of a bio, adopt, bio, adopt melange), so maybe we could adopt from Peru when we're a bit older.
Does that make sense? Am I just not being open, or am I being realistic as to what we could handle? This stuff is hard!
Application approved Dec '11
Mar '12: Homestudy interrupted by change in Uganda requirements - where do we go from here?
After searching and searching, back with Uganda but with our homestudy agency's program.
Homestudy complete July 19
USCIS I-600A submitted July 20. Biometrics appointments arrived Aug 17; fingerprinted Aug 21; 171H received Sept 25th. On the wait list Oct 1st: #18. By Jan 25th, we're #13!
Come home, baby A!