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Adoption
poll: if you adopted internationally...
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Re: poll: if you adopted internationally...
We are not adopting internationally, but we were very close to adopting from Korea. Korea was our country of choice because:
Thank you for all of the detail. I appreciate it.
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LOL...like I said, we were very close. It was extremely hard for us to make a decision. We were almost to the point of flipping a coin. Of course, we would not really have flipped a coin on such an important decision, but you get the idea. We ended up going the domestic route though.
The agency that works in our state places quicker than average for some reason. When I spoke with them two weeks ago, they said that the timeframe from application to placement would be less than a year for a healthy boy and about 18 months for a healthy girl. However, I know that is not the norm.
There are several other ladies on this board who have adopted ,or are in the process of adopting, internationally. I hope that they jump in with information on their countries too. There are many good programs out there. Korea just seemed like the best fit for us. Good luck!
We are adopting from Colombia. We chose it because:
1) it has a stable history and they have a system we feel prevents widespread abuse/fraud
2) although they do have orphanages, most kids are in foster care
3) DH has a background in Spanish and the proximity of the country makes going back easier and, although we live in the midwest and it's not exactly super diverse, there is a Colombia community here.
4) We want to do a sibling group and they have a very strong sibling program
We chose Peru because we love 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 that Peru has, in recent years, been 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, by all accounts, very child-developmentally centered (We vacationed in Peru last November, and actually got the chance to visit one ourselves. What we saw supported all the claims, and we were very comforted to know that our child(ren) would be living in a safe, clean, warm environment until we could bring him/her/them home.). 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. It takes 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 we begin waiting for a referral. Right now, referrals are estimated to take at most 2-3 years (it was 8-12 months when we applied) for healthy infants. 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, we might also select a child from the Waiting Angels list. 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. I have been told that 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 we accept our referral, my husband and I will both travel to Peru. After a week or so of spending time with our child, we will be granted custody. Then the Peruvian courts will process our adoption. After that point, one of us (my husband, in our case) is free to return home. I will stay with our child in Peru until we are granted a visa from the US Embassy and can return home together. My time in country is estimated to be 6-8 weeks.
I'm sorry this is so long, but I wanted to give you an idea of the country, the state of adoptions there, and what the process is like.