Interested in Adoption?

Shawn's Adoption - December 2005

 

Barry's adoption ceremony which was featured  on the Discovery Health Channel's "Adoption Stories" series

  For our domestic adoptions we have primarily been matched with children in the California Foster Care System both locally and in other counties.   On three occasions we have been matched with children living outside of California.   Having children from the foster care system matched and eventually placed with our family required that we maintained our Foster Care License from either Orange County Social Services or our homestudy agency, International Christian Adoptions.  Until the adoption is finalized our children had to be placed with us under our foster care license.   Every child matched with our family has had to live with us for at least six months before adoption finalization, however usually the time period before getting our court date was between 10-15 months, and on one occasion three years. 

 

A domestic adoption through our local Department of Social Services generally doesn't cost much, if anything.  Our initial evaluations, visits with social workers, and homestudy preparation was usually free.  Additionally we were able to participate in free adoption preparation presentations and parenting classes offered to us as both pre and post adoptive parents. There were some fees associated with the cost of Fingerprint and Child Abuse Clearance, a physical and health screening, and CPR and First Aid Training.  

 

When we used a private adoption agency to prepare our homestudy there were some fees attached.  Although our agency did waive most of the fees since we were interested in adopting a special needs child.  All of the adoption requirements are the same when using either a private adoption agency or your local County Department of Social Services to complete your homestudy.

 

Adopting through our local foster care system has its benefits.  Generally our experience has been that when our homestudy was completed by Orange County Department of Social Services, the children the social workers matched us with are only the children living in our county. The available waiting children were generally living within the county and as a potential adopting family we usually had access to the child's school staff, his counselor, and caregiver to learn more about the child prior to his placement with us.  Because the children are living close by, the transitions was designed to meet the child's needs.  Sometimes we had one or two visits and the child was placed in our home, on other occasions, the transition period took up to three months.  The one downfall we have experienced using our county to prepare our homestudy is that the wait to be matched was longer, especially since we were requesting a child without any possibility of returning to the biological family.   When we had our homestudy completed by a private agency we had to pay a fee for the service.  However, when the homestudy was complete we were eligible to be matched with almost any available child in the United States.  Obviously with access to most waiting the children, the matching process was much quicker.

Here are a few of the Web sites we used to find our domestically adopted kids:

California Kids Connection Children Waiting - California Adoption Photolisting   This site has a photo listing of some of the waiting children in California.  This is by no means a complete listing of available children in California.  We were matched with Anthony and Dylan after using this site to inquire about them.  The boys were living in counties other than ours.  The matching process and the subsequent adoptions went smoothly.  We used our domestic homestudy from International Christian Adoptions  International Christian Adoptions for both of these children.
 

David, Saul and Christine Devine from FOX11 news

Fox 11 Wednesday's Child  This site generally features waiting children who reside in Los Angeles county and are part of the foster care system.  We were matched with biological teenage brothers, Jimmy and William from their exposure on the Wednesday's Child program on the FOX 11 news.  Saul was also matched with our family after he was featured on this wonderful program.  All three boys had multiple placements before being matched with our family. For all three of these adoptions we used our domestic homestudy with International Christian Adoptions  International Christian Adoptions

 

Sierra Adoptions SIERRA ADOPTION SERVICES - SPECIAL NEEDS ADOPTION AGENCY is an agency that works along side the various county Department of Social Services to help with the recruitment of waiting children who have special needs.  Sierra Adoption Agency does a fabulous job finding moms and dads for children who have been waiting a long time for a "forever family."  With the help of Sierra Adoptions in Sacramento, California we when matched with our son Paul.  Prior to Sierra Adoption Agency's involvement Paul had lived in six foster homes in three years!  We used our domestic homestudy with International Christian Adoptions International Christian Adoptions to complete Paul's adoption.

 

Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) before he could transition into our family.  Although adopting a child from another state can add complications, our experience with the process was outstanding.  Our domestic homestudy agency, International Christian Adoptions International Christian Adoptions and the social workers from South Carolina Department of Social Services worked tirelessly to make the process virtually seamless.

 

INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS

International adoption is the adoption of a child or children, under the age of 16 years old, who are not living in the United States or are not United States citizens prior to their adoption.  Each country which allows international adoptions has their own rules and regulations on the type of children who are available and the type of families with whom they will work.  International adoptions require an international homestudy, from a licensed agency, which is similar to a domestic homestudy but usually written with more specific wording.  Again, each country has different requirements on how to write the homestudy so a homestudy written for a Russian adoption might not have the correct information or wording for an adoption from China.  Additionally many other official documents, such as birth certificates and marriage license or divorce decree, are required to complete an international dossier in order to adopt.   All most all documents must be notarized and appostilled before submission to the authorities in the country from which you wish to adopt.

Our experiences with international adoptions have varied but we would each adopt all over given the chance.  Generally we have found the most helpful bit of advice is to not try to understand the reason behind the process.   That is, each country has their own set of "hoops" that they require their adopting families jump through before a court date and an adoption finalization can happen.  Once we gave up trying to understand "why?" and just starting "jumping" the process seemed to move faster and smoother. 

One of the biggest barriers to international adoption is the cost.  There are fees from the agency providing the homestudy and there are fees for the agency placing the child.  There are fees to get your official documents, then more fees to get them notarized and appostilled.  There are fees to pay the foreign staff for translating, notarizing, transporting, and delivering your documents to the proper authorities.  Then there are court costs and interpreter fees.  Although not required, there are the suggestion fees for orphanage donations.  Finally there is airfare (sometimes for more than one trip) as well as food and lodging while in country.   UGHHH!!    Obviously international adoption can be costly, though there are a few programs I am aware of that provide adoption grants and loans.  (I will provide these links later).  

 Adopting post-institutionalized children from other countries has been a challenging endeavor for our family.  I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for the faint at heart!  First getting through the paper chase to adopt our children was a huge task in organization and tenacity.  Then the wait and wait and wait for the call letting us know the court date.  Then, usually within ten days, the next thing we knew we were traveling to a Russia (our children from Romania and Estonia were escorted home) where the language and the culture is so much different than we are used to in America.  Finally after the stress of being in court for an adoption where we were completely relying on others to translate every word all the while wondering if we are answering the questions correctly, we get to start parenting!  But the problem is we are parenting children who are complete strangers, these are not the perfect children we were dreaming about after seeing a picture or two from the internet.  These children, our children now, are independent and often stubborn little people with whom we did not share a common language or agenda.  Often our new children don’t even understand what it means to have a parent or a family.  In our experience, there are almost always many behavioral issues related to that lack of understanding.   As predicted there are always bumps in the road when we first get started bringing the new children into the family.  Frustration over communication breakdowns and lack of understanding often cause our children to have serious meltdowns during the first few weeks after joining our family.  Frequently we feel like tantruming too! In most cases though, once a routine has been established our new children start adjusting to this huge life change.  Our experience is that after two long, and often grueling, months our lives together are starting to mesh.  After four months our communication issues are improving and life is starting to feel like a family again. 

 While considering adopting internationally we recommend talking to people who have already completed international adoptions.  If you are considering adopting an older child, age 5 and older, consider hosting an orphan over summer vacation. Many international adoption agencies have summer hosting program.  Remember if you decide to adopt the child you host, you may only need to travel to the child’s county once.  Also join internet discussion groups so you can to learn the good, the bad and the ugly of the international adoption process.  Finally, read, read, and read everything you can get your hands on about international adoption.  This way you can enter this process with your eyes wide open.  We absolutely adore all of our children and these recommendations are not meant to discourage anyone but to enlighten newbies to not only the challenge but the hope and promise of raising an internationally adopted child.

Here are a list of agencies we used to facilitate our international adoptions:

Tree of Life Adoption Center.  Through this web site we were matched with our sons Alin and George. Alin and George were unrelated waiting children posted on Tree of Life's photolisting page.  Both were previously living in orphanages in Romania. Alin was adopted in 1999 and George in late 2002.  George was one the last children allowed to be adopted by the Romanian government before all international adoptions were stopped.  International adoptions from Romania continue to be shut down as of this writing; however Tree of Adoption Center works with other Eastern European and South American countries for international adoptions.   We used our International Homestudy with Adoptions Unlimited  Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. for Alin and George's adoptions 

Precious in HIS site International Adoption Photolisting by Precious in HIS Sight is a web site dedicated to providing a photolisting of many children represented by a number of adoption agencies.  Most of the children featured on this web site are children requiring international adoption although there are a few domestic children and children from adoption disruptions posted as well. This site is where we first saw Alin's picture.  After reading his profile on this site, we were directed to contact Tree of Life Adoption Center.  From there we moved forward with Alin's eventual adoption from Romania.

Adoption Pros Adoption Pros international adoption program.   We used Adoption Pros to host Nikolai and Phillip during the summer of 1999.   Nikolai and Phillip were our first experience parenting children coming from Eastern European orphanages.  It was both a challenging and a wonderful experience to be able to know and love these two children through a summer hosting program.  Once the children returned to Surgut, Russia after their six-week visit we began working on the paperwork to adopt them.  The adoption was completed in November 2001.  We used our International Homestudy with  Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. to complete these adoptions.

On the Adoption Patch Adoption site we spotted Viktor, a very attractive and shy looking 12-year-old. Viktor was one of many Estonian preteen and teenagers posted on the Adoption Patch photolisting.  The process from inquiring about Viktor, reviewing his video and paperwork, and proceeding through adoption process took about 15 months.  According to the staff at East West Adoptions  International Adoption Agency - East West Adoptions, who facilitated Viktor's adoption, Viktor , at age 13 1/2, was the oldest boy they had every placed with an internationally adopting family.  We used our International Homestudy with Adoptions Unlimited  Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. to complete Viktor's adoption.

International Christian Adoptions (ICA)  International Christian Adoptions  provided the international homestudy and facilitated the adoptions of Val, Ivan, Mathew during the summer of 2004 and Sergei and Alex Daniel during the spring of 2005.  These children were all living in various orphanages in Moscow, Russia and the surrounding region.  Despite adopting children not traditionally adopted internationally due to their disabilities and despite having a some what nontraditional size family these adoptions went extremely smoothly.  This agency definitely did their homework in preparing the Russian authorities a head of time about our family and our interest in parenting children with disabilities.  The American and the Russian staff from ICA were extremely patient, helpful and knowledgeable. We would definitely use this agency again.  We are currently hosting a little 8 year old boy through this agency's Summer Host Program and hope to help him find his own "forever family."  We will likely be unable to adopt this sweet boy as he lives in a region of Russia that does not traditionally work with large families.