The journey to Youhua and China has been a winding road. When I first went to Adoptions Horizons' Meet the Agency Night, Becky and Cindy asked me about what kind of adoption I was interested in pursuing. I originally said Fost Adopt. After learning about the different options John and I went round and round trying to figure out what was best for us. There are so many pros and cons to Fost Adopt versus Intercountry. Many of the children on California's waiting child list have moderate to severe special needs and are often older children. The children still have ties to their biological families and may still be going through reconciliation. I imagined that we could Fost Adopt a child where the courts have severed custody with the biological parent(s) but I didn't think we could foster a child with the intention of having a permanent relationship and then have the child taken away.
John and I, mainly with encouragement from Cindy chose Intercountry. Perhaps, if we weren't childless then Fost Adopt would be the way to go but we really need a younger, healthier child. I thought that I would get more guidance on Intercountry adoption but pretty much I had to do my own research. What I found was also pretty discouraging. Many countries are currently closed to international adoption due to the Hague convention (see previous post on Hague). Also, John and I didn't qualify for many countries because we haven't been married long enough etc. Some countries only allow parents of the same origin to adopt, for example, India. Some countries are prohibitively expensive, for example, Russia.
I went back to Cindy and asked for some help and she pointed me towards BAAS, Heartsent, and ILAN. I called BAAS and was told that Humboldt County was outside of their service area so I moved on. Heartsent sent me an information packet on their Taiwan program and on ILAN's Ethiopia program. Again, John and I weren't married long enough for Taiwan but Heartsent told me that an exception might be made for the older child program, children 2 and older. John and I discussed the possibility of adopting a black child and at first I was pushing for Ethiopia. Then, I read online about suspected child stealing and bribery in Ethiopia. I just couldn't adopt a child if there is a possibility that they were taken from their own family for money. Then I read that Ethiopia was requiring two trips and that just made the cost twice as much. Last March, the State Department issued an alert to be aware of possible fraud. This solidified my decision to not consider Ethiopia any longer.
In the meantime, Cindy told of us of a birth mother that she wanted us to meet. To be continued...
Very Interesting.
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