[sak9645]

There are two types of adoption failures. Technically, they are called disruption and dissolution, although most people use the term, disruption, to cover both. Both can occur in international, as well as domestic, adoption.

Disruption technically refers to the ending of a match prior to finalization. There are several ways that disruption can occur in international adoption.

First off, in countries where the child is not already formally relinquished prior to referral, such as Guatemala, the birthmother can decide to parent. With Guatemala, for example, the birthmother has to sign papers on four different occasions, agreeing to the relinquishment. Sometimes, she chooses not to do so, and reclaims the child from the attorney or foster care provider, prior to completion of the adoption.

Second, in countries such as Russia, domestic adoption has priority over international adoption, and a domestic family can decide to adopt an already referred child any time up until the judge finalizes the international adoption. Thus, the American family loses the opportunity to adopt the child.

Third, in most countries, a child may become unavailable for adoption after referral, due to severe illness. As an example, a Chinese child in an orphanage may pass away or be deemed too ill to travel. In such a case, a new referral is usually made immediately, but some parents may be grieving too much to accept it right away.

Fourth, prospective parents who initially accepted a referral may turn down a child if new information shows that he/she had a previously unknown special need, before travel. For example, updated information could reveal a condition such as cerebral palsy, Hep. B chronic carrier status, or fetal alcohol syndrome.

Fifth, prospective parents who initially accepted a referral may turn down a child upon meeting him/her at the orphanage or foster home. The child may appear to have needs that the parents cannot meet. The parents may go home without a child, or may be referred another child while in country, depending on whether the country and the agency agree that the parents' concern is valid.

And, finally, prospective parents may decline an initially accepted referral if something changes in their personal situation. As an example, some married couples have decided to divorce while in the adoption process. In most cases, the ex-spouses decide that neither of them wants to do a single parent adoption. And even if a divorced spouse might want to do one, the couple might have been adopting from a country that does not allow single parent adoption, such as Korea. Or their agency may have a policy that requires a newly divorced person to wait a certain period of time before adopting.

Dissolution refers to the ending of an adoption after finalization. This generally occurs in two ways.

First, once a family completes an adoption from overseas, he/she proceeds to the U.S. Embassy in the country to obtain a visa for the child to enter the U.S. The U.S. Embassy may decline to issue the visa if the child does not qualify for immigration because of the "orphan definition" in the Immigration and Nationality Act, or because of suspected corruption in the adoption process. If a child cannot get an adoption visa, the only way that a family can bring him/her home is to live overseas with him/her for at least two years and then get a regular visa for him/her. While some parents have appealed Embassy decisions successfully, or chosen to live overseas with their children, others have dissolved their adoptions.

Second, the parents may find that they are unable to provide for the needs of their adopted child and dissolve the adoption.

Dissolution can occur for many reasons. In some cases, a person came into the adoption inadequately prepared for the challenge of parenting. Dissolution of an adoption for such a reason is uncommon, but it does happen.

As an example, I know of a woman who dissolved a China adoption because she had a mental image of a quiet newborn lying in her arms and cooing, even though the agency -- known for thorough homestudies and such -- had made it clear that she might be assigned a child anywhere from 6 months to 24 months of age.

When she met her young toddler, she felt that something was wrong with the child because she was active and on the go. Even while still in China, she kept saying that the child had ADHD and other problems and that the agency wasn't supposed to have given her a child with special needs.

She visited many therapists with the child, but all said the same thing. She had received a delightfully healthy, bright, and active toddler that was amazingly free of orphanage acquired problems. Still, she would not accept the verdict, disrupted the adoption, and felt that the agency had misled her. The child was subsequently adopted by another family, who continues to enjoy the totally normal child.

In some cases, a person came into the adoption prepared for a healthy child, but not for one with typical orphanage-related issues. As an example, he/she may find it hard to deal with correctable physical and mental delays, feeding problems, mild attachment issues such as inability to make eye contact, etc.

More commonly, a person dissolves an adoption because a child has such severe problems that the parent cannot meet his/her needs without damaging his/her marriage, relationships with other children in the home, etc. These problems may have been unknown to the agency, or the agency may have misled the parents about their severity.

A person may also dissolve an adoption because a child's problems cause him/her to pose a threat to the parents or other children in the home. For example, a child who has been the victim of sexual and physical abuse may attempt to molest the other children, or to do other violence to them. And a child with severe reactive attachment disorder may make repeated efforts to attack the parents with knives or to burn down the house.

Even where parents may not want to dissolve the adoption of such a child, preferring to put him/her into a therapeutic setting that can keep him/her and others safe while providing mental health services, they sometimes find that they must dissolve the adoption for financial reasons.

Long term care for the child with severe emotional and behavioral problems is expensive, and insurance rarely covers it. And the parents' home state may not pick up the costs unless the child is in the foster care system. So some parents, very reluctantly, relinquish the child, simply so that he/she can get the help he/she needs.

I hope this helps.

Sharon