Adoption

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mattyp

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My wife and I are both 30 and have been trying to “get blessed” with a child for about 8 years now…no luck.

Recently we’ve looked into adoption from the Phillipines - mainly because my wife has a Filipino background.

Has anyone here:
  1. Adopted?
  2. Adopted overseas?
  3. Have any good advice on starting out the process or have any advice on what to look out for?
In any case, I’m at least hoping some of you will be kind enough to say a little prayer for us that God will allow us to adopt a child and raise he/she to be a saint (like me 😃 ).
 
Hello, I am in the process of adopting a boy (almost 3) from El Salvador. We first got pictures of him when he was just 1, so it has been a long journey. We knew the process in El Salvador was long and unpredictable, but we felt it was meant to be. I still think it is, but we had no idea the toll this could take on us as we waited and waited.

I say that not to discourage you, but to encourage you to research a lot of countries. Yes, the Phillipines has one pro - your cultural tie - but what is the wait like, the travel time, what ages of children are typically available? Those are questions you want to get answered. Once you lay out the different scenarios from different countries, you can rule out some and then really focus on deciding between the best ones for you. For instance, we ruled out places that required a long in-country stay because we have three kids at home and didn’t want to be gone that long.

I have a lot of friends who are adopting or have adopted recently. The majority are adopting from Guatemala because one, the kids are in foster care vs. an orphanage (most of them) and two, the process is fairly predictable and short. Many of the babies are home by 6 mos. I also know people who have adopted from Ukraine, Russia, China, Tibet and Khazekstan (sp?). Overall the experiences were very positive and the families truly believe they have the children that were meant for them.

My advice would be to start gathering info. Research different countries online. If a few appeal to you, see if there is an internet ‘list’ for those adopting from that country. (Check yahoogroups) Those lists are great for learning about the country, the process and getting agency recommendations. Talk to people you know who have adopted and get their advice/story. The more you learn, the clearer it will be one, if this is meant for you, and two, where you should go for your baby.

That said, buckle down, it’s a wild ride. And my last piece of advice, pray, pray, pray.

God Bless You,
Nicole
 
We have friends who adopted a little girl from China. She is my godchild. The daddy is a member of this forum and I will let him know that you have posted seeking information and advice concerning adopting a child.

We will remember you in our prayers.

God Bless.
 
My wife and I have been praying about adoption as well. If we were to adopt our first choice would be Peru, as that is where my wife is from.

I know the other week Dr. Ray on his show mentioned a book that lists adoption agencies and what counties they work with. does anyone remember the name of this book?

In His love.
 
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mrconrail:
My wife and I have been praying about adoption as well. If we were to adopt our first choice would be Peru, as that is where my wife is from.

I know the other week Dr. Ray on his show mentioned a book that lists adoption agencies and what counties they work with. does anyone remember the name of this book?

In His love.
Dr. Ray has a website with an eMail link: drray.com/
God be with you…
 
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mattyp:
My wife and I are both 30 and have been trying to “get blessed” with a child for about 8 years now…no luck.

Recently we’ve looked into adoption from the Phillipines - mainly because my wife has a Filipino background.

Has anyone here:
  1. Adopted?
  2. Adopted overseas?
  3. Have any good advice on starting out the process or have any advice on what to look out for?
In any case, I’m at least hoping some of you will be kind enough to say a little prayer for us that God will allow us to adopt a child and raise he/she to be a saint (like me 😃 ).
Two couples who are friends of ours adopted children (three in all) from the former USSR (Russia and Ukraine). They used a private adoption agency in St. Louis, MO operated by two physicians from Russia. They learned about the agency through word of mouth. One of the couples tried almost everything short of IVF to conceive on their own. Both couples couldn’t be happier and their children are great. The agency they used is Small World Adoption Foundation: swaf.com/ . They apparently handle adoptions for couples from all over the country. Hope this helps and God Bless…
 
I would like to put in a plug for adopting from home. Overseas adoptions have their benefits, true, especially for the adoptive family, but you also are feeding money into a system that is corrupt. There is a reasons you are told to carry bribe money when adopting foreign children. It’s because someone somewhere is making a profit, usually illegally, while children languish in overseas orphanges. I am not trying to be controversial or make judgements. It’s just something factual that you need to be aware of.

Right here in the USA there are hundreds of thousands of children languishing in foster care. I know. I’m a foster parent. Call your local CPS office and ask for info on adoptions. Not all the kids in foster care are teenagers with a history of drug abuse or sexual activity. MANY of them are infants who have simply been neglected. Many more are young toddlers, often biracial, whose **only ** problem is that they need love and supervision.

That said, I also recognize that every single child adopted and brought back from a foreign country, or adopted from CPS or similar agencies, to live in a loving home is a triumph.

Let me also encourage everyone reading this to take one m,inute to say a prayer for the thousands of foster children and foster homes in this country, and to consider the possibility of opening your own home as a foster family. 👍
 
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Makerteacher:
I would like to put in a plug for adopting from home. Overseas adoptions have their benefits, true, especially for the adoptive family, but you also are feeding money into a system that is corrupt. There is a reasons you are told to carry bribe money when adopting foreign children. It’s because someone somewhere is making a profit, usually illegally, while children languish in overseas orphanges. I am not trying to be controversial or make judgements. It’s just something factual that you need to be aware of.

Right here in the USA there are hundreds of thousands of children languishing in foster care. I know. I’m a foster parent. Call your local CPS office and ask for info on adoptions. Not all the kids in foster care are teenagers with a history of drug abuse or sexual activity. MANY of them are infants who have simply been neglected. Many more are young toddlers, often biracial, whose **only **problem is that they need love and supervision…
You are correct. Foreign adoptions are not without their issues. Domestic adoptions are also risky in one particular way, that is the courts can and have reversed themselves and couples lose their adoptive children after a significant number of years together. There have been several high profile cases over the years that illustrate this tragic point. Sadly I can’t name any of them, but foreign adoption completely eliminates this risk.

If we adopt in the future it will be a domestic adoption. There are far too many deserving children here to be ignored. We would opt for a sibling pair ~5 year old.
 
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cnelms:
You are correct. Foreign adoptions are not without their issues. Domestic adoptions are also risky in one particular way, that is the courts can and have reversed themselves and couples lose their adoptive children after a significant number of years together. There have been several high profile cases over the years that illustrate this tragic point. Sadly I can’t name any of them, but foreign adoption completely eliminates this risk.

If we adopt in the future it will be a domestic adoption. There are far too many deserving children here to be ignored. We would opt for a sibling pair ~5 year old.
MattyP - foster/adopting in this country is an excellent way to go…my husband and I have built our family this way and our sons - three of them, are such a blessing to us.

Please be aware that although there are many detractors of domestic adoption that the cases that have been high profile of “reversed” adoptions were in fact, not adoptions at all. In no case have I ever read that the final adoption had taken place. Yes, the children had been in the care of the adoptive family, but the final adoption had not taken place and they prolonged the inevitable by keeping the child in their home in the hopes that they could eventually adopt them.

I will pray for you and your wife - God Bless
 
Mrs. Quin and I are in the middle of doing an overseas adoption from Mongolia. We’re already matched, and we’re waiting on paperwork. We started the process last September, and we’re hoping to be able to go and bring our son home early this fall.

I will give you three pieces of advice.
  1. Do not get discouraged. The process is obnoxious beyond belief.
  2. Find a reputable agency. Many Catholic Charities agencies do foreign adoptions, and those that don’t can refer you to other, reputable agencies. We are working with Lutheran Social Services, which has a very strong presence in our area. They also sponsor the orphanage in Ulan Bataar where our son is.
  3. Once you settle on a country, find a Yahoo group for people adopting from that country and start chatting.
I also want to respond to MakerTeacher’s apparent assertion that all foreign adoption processes are corrupt. This is rank nonsense. Some processes are corrupt and creepy (see the film “Casa de los Babys,” for example), and there have been substantiated allegations of kidnapping, baby-selling, and all sorts of nasty stuff in some countries.

However, reputable adoption agencies and responsible nations have safeguards. Mrs. Quin and I are very frustrated with the Mongolians because they are moving so slowly. The reason they are moving so slowly is because they are trying to make sure that every child they send to America is going to a home where he or she will be raised by loving, responsible parents.

Nobody has ever asked us for a bribe. Nobody that we know who has adopted from Mongolia (and, thanks to Yahoo, we know a lot of them) has ever been asked for a bribe.

Good work!
 
God Bless you for looking into adoption! My husband and I have been infertile for over 10 years now. We adopted two beautiful girls from China (now 5 and almost 2). We had to travel there both times, a really wonderful experience. We took custody of both of them when they were 9 to 9 1/2 months old.

We were starting to consider adoption around the time of baby Jessica & baby Richard, so we were put off of domestic adoption right from the start. We have friends that are waiting for a child right now. It can be anytime, but already it has been a longer wait than our adoptions.

We used Holt International Children’s Services for our processing. They adopt children from all over Asia and are truely there to benefit the children. You can go to their website, they have info on specific countries, wait time, arrangements, costs etc.

Adopting our girls has been the best thing we’ve ever done. I can’t imagine life without them. Wherever you do go know that God is guiding you to the child He wants you to be with, the child that needs you.
 
We have also adopted domestically, and started with each child being our foster son. We’ve only been doing foster care about 4 years, and so far no children have left our home…we kept them permanently. Our boys came to us at ages 7, 8, and 10, and they were adopted at ages 9, 10, and 12. We had 4 bio children already, but these kids have been such a blessing to us. One of them had a terrible Attachment Disorder, but after much work and permanency, he is doing great. We also have a 16 year old foster son, but he still has visits with his dad and doesn’t want to be adopted.

My best suggestion is to really educate yourselves. Many adoptions turn out wonderful, but you should be ready for the worse and hope for the best. Even some infants from foreign orphanages can have attachment problems, but healing can take place if you know what to do.

I love Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky’s books, “Adopting the Hurt Child” and “Parenting the Hurt Child.” These doctors have changed our son’s lives, and helped me to understand many of the kid’s behaviors, why they act as they do, and how to help them heal. Read all you can on adoption.

Another thing I don’t think was mentioned: If you adopt a special needs child (this can be a handicapped child, a bi-racial child, an older child, a sibling group, etc) the adoption will be paid for by the federal government. It did not cost us one cent to adopt our sons (other than presents!) Also, if you are the child’s foster parent, you will retain a monthly allowance for the child even after they are adopted…this is a wonderful thing that has given countless foster children a permenant home and has allowed parents who aren’t independantly wealthy the chance to keep their foster children forever.

Nancy B.
 
I also want to thank you for your generous spirit and encourage you to consider home adoption. I live in Illinois, the infamous “Baby Richard” adoption reversal state, and there is very little chance of that kind of reversal happening again. Foreign adoption is final, but you run the risk of being lied to and adopting a child with concealed health issues, plus spending tens of thousands of dollars. I am a volunteer guardian ad litem for the juvenile justice system, and I can tell you that most foster kids awaiting adoption are healthy, normal, and eager to love you!
 
My brother and sister-in-law are currently in-process to adopt a baby girl from China.

The reason they chose to adopt a Chinese girl is the almost certainty that they are saving that girl from being killed.

Yes, there are children that need adoptions in this country. But if they are not adopted, they aren’t going to be murdered. Live baby girls from China and India are murdered by the thousands every day. And I am not talking about killing unborn children, I am talking about already-born children.
 
My sister is putting her child up for adoption. She’s due in October. I know there are so many people out there who want to adopt. She feels she has found a really nice couple. Please pray that all goes well for her and this process.
 
Auberon Quin:
I also want to respond to MakerTeacher’s apparent assertion that all foreign adoption processes are corrupt. This is rank nonsense. Some processes are corrupt and creepy (see the film “Casa de los Babys,” for example), and there have been substantiated allegations of kidnapping, baby-selling, and all sorts of nasty stuff in some countries.
Nobody has ever asked us for a bribe. Nobody that we know who has adopted from Mongolia (and, thanks to Yahoo, we know a lot of them) has ever been asked for a bribe.
Mr. Quin, congratulations on your upcoming adoption, I wish you the best.

Please note that you are falsely accusing me of stating that “ALL foreign adoption processes are corrupt.” I recommend you re-read my original post, perhaps with a little charity in your heart. Many of them are indeed corrupt, as you mentioned also. I never claimed they ALL were.

That said, literally *every single person * I know sho has adopted from overseas (and I currently know 34 such couples and have met many many more) HAS been told to take bribe money, and HAS handed it over at some point in the proceedings, “to speed things along.” The countries involved include China, Russia, Brazil, Romania, and Mexico, plus a few others. I do not know anyone who has adopted from Mongolia. I grant you this is anecdotal evidence, but it is pretty strong. That money is NOT being used to improve the lives of the orphans left behind.

There are benefits and downsides for the adoptive parents to both foreign and domestic adoptions, just as there are benefits and downsides to closed and open adoptions. IMHO, it does not matter to the child adopted how they are adopted, just that they are loved. I have worked in adoptions for nearly 20 years now in various capacities, from counseling birth mothers in a residential home for unwed mothers to being a foster Mom. What every form of adoption works for you is what you should do, and you should allow others to do what works for them, so long as a child ends up in a better place I am all for it.

I am just encouraging people to look locally as well, especially if they find the cost of overseas adoptions prohibitive. Adopting from the state usually costs under $1000, total.
 
Please know that you are in our prayers. My husband and myself have adopted 2 children in the U.S. While they are not without problems, they are the joy of our life! I ask you to pray for direction. I was so sure I had to have babies. God sent us to older children and I can not imagine life without them. Both are now 13, Evette was 10 when we adopted her and Houston was 11. There are thousands of children in the US who need loving, permanent homes. OK, I’ll get off my soap box now, again I just ask you to consider an older child form home.:yup:
 
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