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In our third adoption we looked at the international adoption of an older child. Our kids at the time were 9 and 7 and we thought that an older child would fit better than a baby. We focused on countries with children of Afican heritage, Ethiopia, Libria, Sierra Leone, Columbia, Brazil etc. What we found scary was that after adopting twice from fostercare we were used to the level of service you get. The fees were high and the histories of the kids sketchy. I was afraid that if we had problems we would be on our own with them. On the other hand if we went with the adoption of a school aged child domestically that child/ren would come with a very detailed history AND a subsidy AND a list of services. We would have back up if we needed it.
Ironically some people who became good friends of ours adopted at the same time a sibling set from Russia who were the same ages as our kids (they ended up in the same classes). They specifically went abraod because they were convinced that children from orphanages had fewer issues that chidlren in fostercare. In their case this was not true. Not only did these kids come with much of the same baggage (abuse neglect) but they had a language barrier and some serious educational deficits. It has been six years since they came home and they are both thriving but it has been a long and expensive haul for their parents. The services that they wuoild have come with as foster kids had to be paid for out of pocket by this family. Because they were older they did not qualify for the early intervention program which would have followed them into school so the physical, occupational and speech therapy that could have been free these folks had to pay for and issues that could have been caught and treated more effectively earlier were not picked up untill they were 8 and 10 years old.
I guess if we didn't have other kids and money were not such an issue I would think more about the plight of kids in orphanages but I was scared to make that commitment with little or no help. lastly did you know that 25% of the homeless under 25 are former foster kids who "aged-out" of the system? Their plight is pretty dire as well.
lisa
ps while exploring we found a birth mother sitaution and adopted a newborn. That is not what we thought we wanted but two infants later our lives are very differnt from what we planned.
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