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I have not comment on a desire to adopt children from all over the world. If that is your caling, go for it. I DO have a few things to say about international adoption being easier. Having adopted four times domestically with not alot of hassle and for the cost of a single Chinese adoption I wanted to address some of the realities of domestic newborn adoptions of AA children. While there is ALWAYS the risk of birth moms changing their minds and I have heard from both agenices and adopton Attorneys that AA birth moms change their minds more often because family often waits to offer support until after the baby is born, the shear numbers of AA babies that don't have homes waiting for them when they are born means that any of us who are willing an able to adopt an AA child will get one usually very quickly. I have never waited any longer than six months from the time I was approved to having a baby in the house with parental rights terminated. Most of our waits have been closer to three months with the six month wait was because we specified a girl. I get at least 5 emails a year from friends and adoption pros looking to place AA chidlren who have been legally freed for adoption but have no family waiting. If you really fear birth aprents you can only look for post birth matches. The sad truth is the because OUR chidlren are at the bottom of the adoption hierachy it puts adoptive parents in a much less risky position. Secondly while I very much like open adoption ther reality is that AA birth mothers rarely request fully open adoptions. Of all of my IRL friends and cyber friends I only know a handful with fully open adoptions with AA children. For the msot part they have closed or semi-open adoptions with only pictures and letters.
I think it is sad when people buy the hype about how difficult domestic adoptions are but in general it is no big deal to me but when it is people who would generally be the best resource for the population of children who are the most needy in THIS country it does bother me. While I did explore international adoption briefly in our search for kidlet #3 I quickly found that it was cheaper and faster to adopt an AA baby here. Yes foster/adopt is different but straight private adoption is sadly VERY easy because of the numbers of chidlren and the lack of families who want them.
lisa
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