Who has adopted in recent years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP wanting to clarify a few points-

1. Our motivation to adopt is that we want to add more children to our family. The “wanting a sibling for our child” thing is regarding timing, not our underlying motivation.

2. We realize all kids avaialable for adoption have already have suffered the trauma of the loss of their birth family. But from what I’ve seen through the numerous adoptions I’m familiar with firsthand (these were all 5-10+ years ago, which is why I want to hear more recent experiences), there is a huge spectrum of health and emotional concerns and I want to know where we can realistically draw the line but still have a good chance of a fairly reasonable timeline. Almost all of the adoptive families we know adopted healthy infants domestically or from China or Vietnam. Two adopted children who were classified as “special needs” (one had a large birthmark, one has scars from a fire) and are happy, healthy, and living “normal” lives now as teens. One family adopted supposedly healthy children from Russia who had severe attachment disorder and FASD. They children will never be able to live independently and they dealt with scary, violent behavior toward their biological children. I’m trying to be realistic about what our family can take on upfront.

3. Of course we know there are no guarantees with any child, biological or adopted.

International and domestic are different and it will really vary depending on the child's background. Understand many of those kids may have identity issues as teens or older. Everything may look good early on but it may not be later on.

If you want to be realistic you need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We adopted a "healthy" infant. She turned out to have a lot of SN and early on required a lot of therapies. She's doing great now but I had to quit my job to take her and thank goodness we had good insurance to help pay and my husband was able to increase his income to replace mine. I have no regrets and would do it again in a heartbeat but often you just don't know. There is no reason to believe my kid will not do well in life but it took a lot of work to get there and we were fortunate she is progressing as she has. It is similar to giving birth but you know your medical history so you have an idea of what runs in your family. Often birthparents don't know or to make themselves or their kids more desirable.

The main difference now vs. 10 years ago is the push for open adoption. It can be great or really bad. My daughter's birthmom and family are wonderful and they are family to us. Birthfather and family - hope never to see them again. If you do a closed adoption, with technology and genetic testing its easy to find someone. I'd rather know than not know. I think part of our success is the maternal relative support as there is never any question as to what happen, is she wanted and we just treat each other as family. I consider her parents equal grandparents and they are basically my in-laws. Are you prepared for that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. The "not knowing" part can also be true for bio kids.

Yes, but just the fact of being adopted puts a kid more at risk for all sorts of mental health issues.

Also, consider that someone putting their child for adoption may well have issues--certainly any parent whose child is taken by CPS.

On the whole, an adopted child is just more at risk--it doesn't mean don't adopt, but go in prepared to have therapy (and possibly more) at some point.

(I say this from extensive reading related to a parent's experience as an adoptee.)

Most kids via child welfare have mental health issues being removed from their home/parents whom they were bonded with and bounced around to different foster homes. If you get a direct from home foster placement and it works out to adoption, that is best. Most of the kids come in due to parental mental health or substance abuse. It has to be pretty serious to remove a child. Others come in for sexual and physical abuse but usually there is a mental health or substance abuse component or they'd just work with the parents to keep the kids at home. These kids will need therapy and support services.

[Anonymous]

OP again. I’m quite familiar with the identity issues- one of my best friends is an adult Korean adoptee so we’ve discussed it extensively. I’ve also been reading up on the pros and cons of open adoption and realize I would need to become ok with it if we choose domestic adoption, since closed adoptions are very rare now and seem to be considered generally worse for the child.

Do our personal characteristics as a family help or hurt our chances of being matched, or is it random how long we’d wait or if we’d ever even be chosen? We’re both 30, married, healthy (other than the mild past anxiety), are no longer in DC (Texas now), college educated, income around 200k, and I’m a SAHM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am profoundly fortunate. I still cannot believe it, almost 5 years later. As a single woman in my mid 40-s, I waited less than 2 year to adopt s healthy newborn girl. While my experience is not the norm, it can happen. Good luck!

Yes, you brag all the time about it. We have had plenty of friends who after years gave up. It took us 3 times that long. It can happen but usually if you are willing to wait or sped $60-80K.

PP, I am sorry that you interpreted my post as "bragging."
That was not my intention.

[Anonymous]

Op we adopted a healthy AA baby 6 years ago through domestic adoption. We used adoptions together in MD as our agency.
She is happy and healthy. We started the process in March 2011, finished all the paperwork, home studies etc in Nov 2011 and brought DD home in July 2012. So our total time was less than 2 years.

I would contact Adoptions Together. You can then attend an informal meeting for free to decide if its something you want to pursue.

[Anonymous]

My friend (not in DC but another major city) adopted domestically 3 years ago. They are a white family, and were open to adopting a newborn of any race. They waited about a year and then had a call that a just born black newborn in a nearby area was available and the mom had chosen their family. The baby was completely healthy at birth and still is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op we adopted a healthy AA baby 6 years ago through domestic adoption. We used adoptions together in MD as our agency.
She is happy and healthy. We started the process in March 2011, finished all the paperwork, home studies etc in Nov 2011 and brought DD home in July 2012. So our total time was less than 2 years.

I would contact Adoptions Together. You can then attend an informal meeting for free to decide if its something you want to pursue.

I'm a different poster than above, but had a very similar experience with the same agency. Also have acquaintances who have adopted healthy latino or african american infants even more quickly from states in the South; not sure if they used out of state agencies or attorneys.

Also, TBH, this is the worst place to ask questions about adoption. There are a lot of posters with anti-adoption/adoptee biases who tend to frequent this board. They assume that the only available children have serious health or emotional problems. There's a difference between adopting older children who have experienced sufficient trauma to end up in foster care, and adopting infants, but people on this site tend to conflate the two.

[Anonymous]

I adopted my son from Haiti 2 years ago. He turned 2 a week before I brought him home. The whole process took about 2 years and was pretty easy. No medical or developmental issues so far. People frequently comment that he is the happiest kid they’ve ever met. We are part of a great network of families who have adopted from Haiti, with some families having adopted others kids domestically or from African countries. Of the twenty or so kids I know, aged about 2 to 16, only 2 have any medical or developmental issues—and those are pretty mild. I’ll admit, only a few are in adolescence, which I know is a rough time for these kids. But the kids and their families are strong and will deal with what comes along.

As for having been medicated, I would just call an agency—doesn’t matter if it is the one you want to use—and ask. I would be stunned if it was a big issue.

I hope you look into Facebook groups and lots of other resources to learn about adoption. There is a very strong anti-adoption sentiment on this site. I heard tons of negative things about adoption before I did it, and I am glad I did the research and gave more attention to what I heard from people who actually had adopted rather than a bunch of random opinionated know-it-alls. My son is the light of my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I’m quite familiar with the identity issues- one of my best friends is an adult Korean adoptee so we’ve discussed it extensively. I’ve also been reading up on the pros and cons of open adoption and realize I would need to become ok with it if we choose domestic adoption, since closed adoptions are very rare now and seem to be considered generally worse for the child.

Do our personal characteristics as a family help or hurt our chances of being matched, or is it random how long we’d wait or if we’d ever even be chosen? We’re both 30, married, healthy (other than the mild past anxiety), are no longer in DC (Texas now), college educated, income around 200k, and I’m a SAHM.

Forget the anxiety, its not a big deal. You should be fine. TX has a couple of good adoption agencies and better placement rates than this area as its more conservative. I used to be friends with a birthmom who used a TX agency she and the adoptive parents really liked but I forget the name. They only worked with TX families. Go on some of the adoption specific boards and ask around on what agency is best.

[Anonymous]

Depending from where you adopt, you may need to provide a statement from your mental health provider, if you have one. I’m a Korean adoptee who also adopted from Korea. I agree that people tend to think the worst of adoptees on this site and to look elsewhere for information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am profoundly fortunate. I still cannot believe it, almost 5 years later. As a single woman in my mid 40-s, I waited less than 2 year to adopt s healthy newborn girl. While my experience is not the norm, it can happen. Good luck!

Yes, you brag all the time about it. We have had plenty of friends who after years gave up. It took us 3 times that long. It can happen but usually if you are willing to wait or sped $60-80K.

PP, I am sorry that you interpreted my post as "bragging."
That was not my intention.

NP here. PP wasn’t bragging and clearly your own experience has left you a bit sensitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depending from where you adopt, you may need to provide a statement from your mental health provider, if you have one. I’m a Korean adoptee who also adopted from Korea. I agree that people tend to think the worst of adoptees on this site and to look elsewhere for information.

Korea has the strictest standards when it comes to mental health and age. It also is one of the better international programs/countries to adopt from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am profoundly fortunate. I still cannot believe it, almost 5 years later. As a single woman in my mid 40-s, I waited less than 2 year to adopt s healthy newborn girl. While my experience is not the norm, it can happen. Good luck!

Yes, you brag all the time about it. We have had plenty of friends who after years gave up. It took us 3 times that long. It can happen but usually if you are willing to wait or sped $60-80K.

PP, I am sorry that you interpreted my post as "bragging."
That was not my intention.

NP here. PP wasn’t bragging and clearly your own experience has left you a bit sensitive.

Plus 1

[Anonymous]

I am in an Eastern European country where adopting is legal and not very difficult. I met with 4 US families who are in the process of adopting healthy babies. The entire process is about 2 years and costs less than 30.000 USD.

[Anonymous]

Prior to adopting I had a short period of antidepressants. My doctor omitted it from the adoption paperwork.