A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Adoption Basics: the 3 main paths


You guys know I love adoption.  I'd like to explain adoption to those who may not be familiar with it.  Maybe once they have a greater understanding of how it works, they will consider adopting, too.  Feel free to share!

There are 3 main paths to adoption:  Domestic Newborn, International, and Foster Adoption.  There's also a fourth, less common, adoption route, and that is private adoption of an older child.  This can be due to a the disruption of a previously adopted child who is not doing well in their current family (sometimes called "rehoming"), or can be due to changed circumstances in a birth family.  Regardless of the reason, it is handled legally in the same way that domestic newborn adoption is handled.

Domestic Newborn
This is one way parents can bring a baby home from the hospital (or in some states, babies are discharged to a "holding" family that cares for them until the birth parents can no longer change their mind and reclaim their child.  This is a brief period of time).  Domestic newborn adoption involves a home study, creating a "profile" to show to pregnant women, and then advertising and waiting.  An adoption consultant can help shop your profile around to multiple agencies, for more exposure.  Some families' wait is very short, and some families never get a match.  Most families wait several months, at least.  Gone are the days when families "took a number" and got matched with the next available kid when their turn came up.  Now, birth mothers and birth fathers look at several profiles and decide which family they want to raise their child.

If you go this route, you'll need to make decisions about what race, gender, risk factors, and special needs you are open to parenting.  You'll also learn about the ICPC, which has to do with adopting across state lines.  You'll pay homestudy fees, agency fees, attorney fees, travel fees, and possibly consultant fees.  In some states, you may be asked to pay the birth mother's living expenses during her pregnancy.

You'll need to determine what degree of openness you wish to have with the birth family.  Some adoptions are fully open, where both parties have contact information, and there's a regular exchange of photos or even get togethers as the child grows.  Some adoptions are partially open, and contact is filtered through the agency, or parents choose to email photos at birthdays and holidays, but don't feel comfortable with the birth family having their physical address.  Other families are not comfortable with continued contact, and do not wish to commit to a relationship after the birth.


International
International adoptions peaked in 2004 & 2005, and have been steadily declining ever since.  Part of this reason, of course, is financial.  During economic hard times, it's more difficult to come up with the thousands of dollars that the international adoption process costs.

Sending countries open and close their doors without warning, so some people are scared off by the idea that international adoption is too risky, meaning they may invest a lot of money and ultimately never get to adopt a child.  This was the sad reality for parents caught up in the Vietnam and Russia closures.  Guatemala and India used to be popular sending countries, but their programs have experienced shutdowns.  Kyrgyzstan has recently reopened, Kazakhstan is closed.  The list goes on and on.  Many parents choose China because it's been a very stable sending country, with a clearly defined process, for many years.  Other parents decide to try new programs (such as the ones popping up in Africa) in the hopes of getting a healthy baby without the wait of an established program.

International adoption involves a homestudy, immigration approval, submitting a dossier to the sending country, and walking through the steps required by that country.

My experience is with China, so other countries may vary a bit.  China allows PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) to choose their child from a photolisting OR they can be matched by their agency.  Although China had a surplus of healthy baby girls at one time, it's adoption program is now special needs only.  However, special needs mean different things to different people.  China classifies any health or physical issue as "special needs."  Many parents find that a surgically correctable need is easily manageable.  As you know, our Chinese girls have limb differences, and this has been a very easy "special need" for us, particularly because we live close to a Shriners Hospital, where they receive excellent care at no cost to us.

Often parents are surprised to learn that a condition they or one of their biological children has would have classified them as "special needs" in China, and they realize that they are already equipped to deal with that need, so they adopt a child with the same issue (thalessemia, dwarfism, etc.).  Other times, parents work with certain types of special needs, and are completely comfortable handling those in their family (hearing loss, developmental delay, etc.).

Parents adopting internationally can usually choose the gender and age of their child.  You generally cannot adopt a baby younger than about 9 months old, due to the amount of time the process takes, and the Hague Convention requirement than a home be sought for the child in country first.  Countries with more than one ethnic group usually do not allow families to state an ethnic preference.  Most countries give you a "referral" for a specific child prior to travel.  A few countries expect you to travel "blind" and find an acceptable child once you get there.  As you can imagine, "shopping" at an orphanage is a heart wrenching experience.

Families adopting internationally will pay homestudy fees, placement agency fees, immigration fees,  fees for translation of their documents, and various fees required by their sending country.  The largest chunk of cash, however, comes in the form of travel expenses.  With more and more countries requiring either 2 (and sometimes 3!) trips or a 4 week "bonding period," travel fees add up fast.  Airline tickets run over a thousand dollars per person for many international destinations.


Foster Adoption
When we originally went through foster licensing in 2008-2009, I thought of foster adoption as "the cheap route" to the kids I wanted.  However, I've since come to see it as a ministry, and I would love to be in a position to foster sometime in the future.

If you adopt using this route, you need to be prepared to love and let go.  Foster care's first goal is reunification.  However, many times this is not possible.  The next option is relative placement.  Sometimes relatives don't step forward to care for a child or sibling group until it's obvious that the case is going to adoption.  This can be heartbreaking for PAPs who have gotten attached to the child/children in their care.  Families hoping to adopt from foster care will be asked what level of "risk" they are willing to take in this regard, but there are no guarantees.  Generally, families who want babies will have to accept some risk, and families who want no risk will have to be willing to adopt a slightly older child, as it takes time to terminate parental rights.

Children are available from newborn on up, and you will be asked about your age, gender, and race preferences.  You will be asked what special needs and risk factors you are willing to consider.  Sometimes there's a known history of drug and/or alcohol exposure in the womb, sometimes the child is removed from a parent that is mentally incapable of parenting.  It's easy to say yes to a cute little baby, but you need to understand the long term ramifications of these issues.

One huge advantage to foster adoption is that it's the least expensive option.  Your homestudy services will be provided without significant cost to you (you may have to pay fingerprint fees and such).  You will have to pay to furnish the child's room and make your home safety compliant (we had to buy a locking cabinet for the garage, and another fire extinguisher).  You do not usually have any attorney fees or court costs.  Most families receive a stipend while fostering, and in special needs adoptions, they continue to receive a stipend after the adoption is complete.  There are also college scholarships specifically for kids who spent time in the foster care system.

In many areas, there is a shortage of foster parents, and willing homes are always full of children.  However, this is not the case in all areas at all times.  We found this out the hard way, being licensed for an entire year without a single placement.  We were licensed for 1-2 children, 0-4 years old, so it wasn't a matter of us being "too picky," either.  Generally, families willing to take in teens or difficult to place children (medically fragile, or behavioral issues) are always in need.


Summary
Choosing your adoption path is the first of many decisions you will make along the journey.  Once you get the ball rolling, you may even find, (as we did) that you need to change paths.  Remember that adoption is a process, and you will experience personal growth along the way as you make choices and learn new things.


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17 comments:

  1. I did foster care too for 2 years and strangely was called within hours for a baby and every few weeks or months, they were calling us for more babies ...and some other kids too under 5. We were inundated, but the thing is in our situation almost every call was a baby and we said We'd only take kids over 2, as we are seriously active and felt a baby would tie us down and yet our No's never stopped them from still calling! LOL. We only wanted to adopt, but relented and took a 6 yr old boy who also had a 2 yr old sister in another foster home. Though we fell in love with our foster son, we only lasted weeks with him, as the "system" of SW's and other foster parent, and birth parents was awful. This poor boy was put through the ringer, and while he did exceptionally well with us, we just couldn't stomach what he had to endure from the rest of the people! We pulled out of fostering, only to have our agency get angry and not want to deal with us, because really they had no use for adoptive parents, truly when they saw a family with a brand new home and enough bed rooms/beds to sleep 7-10 kids! Which though each bedroom had enough beds to sleep up to 3-4 kids each, that was never our intention. We knew we had been used, and disguarded once our plan, that we told them from the beginning was not changed to suit what they REALLY wanted. We now know, their goal was to sign families up, who wanted to adopt only, swindle them and get them to instead foster, their motives while dishonest and wrong happened only because they had a serious need for foster parents. But the system here in our state is one of the worse run in the country. :-0 I feel we eventually would have adopted, but not before they got their time to foster out of us. They had an attitude, as ig they owned us because they "trained" and it was truly sickening. I do not feel its that way in every state, but families going in need to be aware of the cons of foster to adopt programs. It really made us truly sad to see the state of our country handle kids the way they did here and strangely, we actually had a great agency and still just one bad apple, one lady at the top caused all this stress for us and our foster son. Our SW and many above him were amazing, but had to answer to the one lady and her agenda was not to allow us to adopt, until SHE was ready. So for us, we weren't allowed to look out of state. Period. And even if we inquired about a child who met our criteria, we were directed down a path to NOT look at the child. Fortunately, we did adopt a child from China! Thankfully!

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    1. It's frustrating that some social workers are so desperate for a place to put kids that they try to talk families into something other than what they feel comfortable with.

      The foster system is hard to navigate, but I have friends who've done it successfully.

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    2. I didn't feel it was really hard to navigate at all! We had a very good experience, the training was excellent, but when it came to the placement of kids, in our state, we are known to have a bad system in place. Our family was told this by many other states, where we inquired about a child who resided out of our state. I think our state is more the exception though and I'd highly advice people going down this road to get a homestudy done through an agency who WILL work to allow an interested family to look at ALL children in EVERY state. Many of the SW we contacted for kids we found, told us that our state was impossible to work with and told us to work with Adopt America who allows adoptive families access to all states. In our situation, that would mean severing ties with our agency, starting the whole process over or hoping we could buy our homestudy from them as to limit the process redo. That's when things became disheartening. If we just wanted to foster though, which still is a wonderful thing to do too, our agency would have been a wonderful choice to work with, because we got an exceptional amount of calls. But with younger children in the home we only felt like we could handle kids ages 2-7 years old and in our state there are an abundance of babies and kids over 10 but very very little that age. At the time we didn't want a baby and our children were over 8 and under 12 so we wanted to keep birth order and felt the kids could not handle a temporary foster situation at that time. I know in our state, our story is the norm, but in other states, it would be more typical to actually be able to adopt and I have many friends who have, but unless we along with most in our state moved, it doesn't happen easily which is truly sad and while we chose International. We wanted to first try in the USA first and would try again if we ever moved to another state. The kids are worth it, and I hope your readers know it is possible!!!

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    3. Now you've got me very curious about which state you're in! :)

      I guess it all works out in the end. If our county had had babies available when we were licensed, we never would have adopted Hannah.

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  2. I think the most important thing is to remember that adoption is about finding a home for a child who needs one, not about finding a child for parents who want one! Sometimes children are offered up for adoption when they have a parent or relative capable of raising them, and then when the adoption doesn't happen the potential adoptive parents feel cheated, when they should be rejoicing for the child they claim to care about.

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  3. I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. That's what makes fostering such a challenging ministry. However, I also think that PAPs need to really want a child, and not just take one on to feel like they're meeting a need for a poor orphan. Lots of complex feelings in adoption, from all sides, to be sure.

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  5. Thanks you so much for sharing this vital information!! Especially Thanks for sharing especially in the Pintastic Pinteresting Party

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    1. I hope more families will at least seriously consider adoption. :)

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  6. Two of our adoptions were via the foster care system. We have fostered many more over the years, but the two we have as forever sons are the ones that God chose for us before the world began; the others were just in need of our love and shelter for a season. :-) It's a hard system to see The Lord in, at times, but remembering that ALL things are subject to Him keeps your perspective eternal as you walk this path. Just adding this here to encourage those who might be praying over which approach to take. :-) Our experience with the supposedly "easier" route of international adoption has actually been much, much harder. Go figure!

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    1. I think that's one of the reasons I like reading adoption stories. They're all so different. :) Each family's path is unique.

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  7. Wonderful and informative post Shecki!

    I have always wanted to do foster care but I have struggled with the element of the fact that it is so temporary. However, it is a form of ministry and I'm certain that God would give me the strength if and when I need it.

    Thanks for sharing (and for linking up to the SHINE Blog Hop).

    Wishing you a lovely day.
    xoxo

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    1. You might check and see if there's a Safe Families program in your area. We've hosted 7 kids through them, and when you go into it *knowing* that you're just keeping them until X situation is worked out for the parent, it's easier to let go. I still miss my littlest guys sometimes, but their mama sends me cell phone pics from time to time.

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  8. Thank you for this… our family would love to adopt in the future and it is good to hear your experience! :)

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    1. Best wishes to your family! It's an amazing journey. :)

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  9. Thanks for the no-nonsense synopsis of all these different ways to adopt! Being a birth mother myself nearly 15 years ago, I have a heart for that side of the adoption triad, but I love to champion for adoption on all fronts. Blessings to you and yours and thanks for linking up at M2M this week!

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    1. I wish I could let my girls' birthmoms know that they're okay, they're flourishing, and we respect them. It's a part of the equation I totally didn't get until our first adopted child was home.

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