Anyone have time to give me a brief run down of how adoption *really* works. I have been doing a lot of research. I'm more lost now and feel like I know less now than I did before all of the research.

We have been talking about adoption. We first talked about international adoption. But are open to international or domestic.

I'm sure there aren't easy answers to any of my questions, as it varies so much but just a general idea would be great!

How much does it cost? How long does it take? What are the requirements? Can anyone just share their stories with me?

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Mandy!

I wish there was a good answer to the question of how adoption really works. I think there are as many different ways to make it "work" as there are people that do it. I think the first step is to do the research that you have been doing and then from there decide what your ideal adoption scenario would look like. Sometimes life makes some of the choices for you (like age limitations, finances, etc.). But, it is really a good idea to decide what it is you really want. It will make it easier to work toward your goal if the end reward is what you really dearly want.

I am doing fost/adopt. This is not an easy way to adopt, but it has it's positive sides too. As with all forms of adoption there is a TON of paperwork involved with the process. We had a homestudy and background checks and fingerprinting and state inspections of our home... the list goes on. We underwent 30 hours of classes and a lot more classes for medically fragile infants. With fost/adopt you deal with the courts and birth parents/family, caseworkers, licensing agents, mental health professionals, nurses, etc. There are a ton of people in your home on a regular basis.

I know this doesn't sound very positive but in the end it really is. We have been able to love and nurture and do something that is really worth doing in the process of adopting our little girl. I think that we are going to be done adopting after we adopt Olivia but I'm not sure if I'll ever be done fostering.

So, there's a little bit of info on fost/adopt and I'm sure people here can give you more. Oh, I should also mention that adopting through your state's fost/adopt program is free. That was a big plus for us after paying for 11 IVF cycles.

I hope you can find some answers here Mandy. I'm glad you stopped by! We're not a very busy/big board but I've found some terrific and solid support here. I hope we can support you through your adoption process too.


~m

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First I want to everything Marian said.

I will also add and this is something someone told me along time ago and I didn't really understand it at the time but now I do. Adoption is not for the light hearted. It takes many turns along the way you have no control over any of it but if the end result you want it building a family you can make it work and in the end it will be worth every single second of it.

I am doing international adoption. I am working with Vietnam which will be closing down as of September 1st as the US and Vietnam work on a new agreement. For us we are on our third referral now don't be scared this is not the case for everyone. The first referral we turned down due to illness, the second baby passed away from a bacterial infection this was a total fluke and is not common at all. Now we have a referral for a little girl that we will hopefully bring home very soon.

With international adoption depending on the country it can cost anywhere from 14,000 all the way to 55,000 dollars. Most times you have to travel to bring the baby home and some countries require more then one trip.
To start you always want to interview more then one agency because you have to trust this agency, believe in them and be able to work with them. This is the most important advice I can give you. You will need a homestudy, finger printing, we needed fire inspection and a safety inspection. When you receive a referral for most countries you will get video, medical records and pictures of the baby you can then consult with a doctor who specializes in international adoption and who can help you determine any underlying issues with the baby. You and DH should also sit down and talk about cases you would want to take and things you wouldn't. Like are you open to downs, cleft palate, or do you just want a healthy baby. it is good to determine your limits ahead of time and stick to them.
Good Luck- I hope you stick around like Marian said we are a small board but we have people doing just about every form of adoption so I think you will find great support.

Kristine

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Welcome Mandy!

I totally agree with what everyone one above has said.

When we started we decided we wanted to do international because we wanted to know where we were in "line". It can be an open ended wait because international adoption can change at the drop of the hat, but with domestic, you are waiting to be picked out of a book of a bunch of other people. There really is no "line" per say.

Also cost is a big factor, what you can afford can also dictate what path you take.

Hope that helps and welcome!!

Nicole

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Nicole (36)
DH (33)
DS Chandler (13)
DD Bailey (12)
DS Ryan (1)

5 Angel Babies watching over our family!



http://buildingbruecks.blogspot.com/

Welcome Mandy! I really don't have much advice on international or domestic adoption because I'm doing foster/adopt like Marian but I wanted to take the time to say and you.

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Hi Mandy!

I've posted over here a few times after attending a couple of seminars for international adoption. I would recommend doing that as part of your information gathering. There's no obligation during the seminars, just getting information. The 2 I attended were led by adoptive parents themselves who were able to share their stories. There are a couple of agencies that do online webinars, so you might be able to sign up for one of those and do it from the comfort of your own home. The programs for international adoption vary a bit, so it's good to get info on the individually. You might feel pulled towards one country more than another.

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Me -29 DH - 33
Off BC 2/03
10/07 - 4/08, clomid,
IUI+INJ #1
IUI+INJ #2
IUI+INJ #3
IVF coming October/November!

Hi, Mandy . . . seems we run in the same circles! We were looking into adoption, and I was pretty confused. My nephew is adopted - they did private adoption, and found him through publicizing in a bunch of different papers, and the birth mother contacted them. One of my childhood friends recently adopted via domestic adoption through an agency. We started out by looking for agencies in our area, and found 2 in particular that we'd heard about. We went to a few seminars they each offered. Also, my RE office hosted an adoption seminar and posts information about the key agencies in their newsletter, so that helped, too.

I lurk a lot on this board picking up information. From what I gathered from the seminars, one thing about international adoption is that you usually get infants that are a few months old (because it takes time to process the paperwork, etc.) I got the impression it can easily take 3-6 months after a baby is matched with you after their birth before they come home. We were told that with domestic adoption, it is generally possible to bring the baby home directly from the hospital. We were also told in our area, you have a much better chance of being matched domestically if you are open to any racial/ethnic background.

We never got far enough to fully understand all of the costs - but it was only a few hundred dollars to file the initial application, and then the next cost for us would have been the home study, which I think was maybe $1500-$2000. We put everything on hold while we tried IVF, but planned to start the homestudy process if the first IVF failed because we thought it would take 1-2 years before we would be matched.

Hi. I'm also in the research stage, but, I live in Canada which makes things a bit different.

We've just started IVF #2 and we have hopes that it will be successful, thereby allowing the adoption questions more time to percolate before we make decisions.

I have a strong desire to have a biological child. I would really like to have a biological child of my own and a biological child of my DW's. But, this doesn't appear to be possible. We've done 5 IUI cycles with her, 6 with me and 1 IVF cycle with me so far. They haven't really come up with any reason why we haven't been successful and they said that my embryos looked good during IVF. My DW has a fibroid that is positioned such that IVF isn't really an option (would require major surgery and a year of recovery before starting IVF) with her.

I've started researching adoption. (Well, I started about a year ago, but, I've been a lot more serious about it recently.) My conclusion is that I'd still like to have a biological child (if possible) AND I would like to adopt.

I think that the two adoption options we are leaning towards the most are:

1. Older child sibling group through CAS. When I hear these stories I desperately want to provide a home. But, we haven't clearly delineated what we can handle. We have been able to identify some things that we can't handle and some things that we can handle but that others probably couldn't (for instance, I sign, so a Deaf child doesn't seem like a problem). We also haven't fully determined the age range of child(ren) we are prepared to accept. I think we've pretty much agreed on anything up to 4 or 5, but, we keep talking about whether we are ready to go older since it is heartbreaking to me to think that a child might be considered "too old" for adoption.

Some advantages to this option:
- Cheap ($35 for a police records check and everything else is covered)
- You will have a lot of information about the children that you are getting, who they are, what they like, etc. Plus, they can talk to you about these things themselves.
- Transitional support for us and the child(ren).
- If we get a sibling group, then they come together with the ability to support each other

Some disadvantages to this option:
- Most children who end up in the care of CAS have experienced abuse or trauma.
- Higher risk of attachment disorders

2. US Domestic adoption/International adoption. I have US citizenship, but, live in Canada and am married to a Canadian. Thus, I'm not really sure if it would qualify as international or domestic adoption for us to adopt from the US. I think I've found agencies who would treat me as a domestic adoption and others who would treat me as an international one. We would most likely work through a private agency and look at healthy infant adoption of any racial composition. (However, I have also found myself looking at older sibling groups from the US.)

Advantages:
- Might get to take a baby home from the hospital
- Might know more about the birth parents' dreams for her/your child
- Might be able to have greater openness between adoptive and birth families

Disadvantages:
- Costly (I think I've read everything from $10,000 to $30,000)
- Some concern about whether my DW can deal with a mixed-race adoption. She works with people who feel that they are losing their culture because their children are being "stolen" when they are adopted into families of a different racial composition. So, can she see past this concern? Can we commit to figuring out what the culture is that might be lost and find a way to teach it? (I'm tempted to think of it as American culture, which can be a challenge for Canadians to promote, but, there's also the ethnic component and the intricate mixture of ethnicity and patriotism.) Personally, I think that giving a child a loving home matters more than the racial match between parent and child. But, I don't want to adopt a child until we are both certain we can deal with this kind of criticism.

Those are my thoughts at this point. I would also love to hear more of other people's stories since my research continues.