[Mindy82]

Hello,

I'm doing some research about failed adoptions, and have come across the "trend" seems to be that Domestic adoptions are the ones that failed.

Does anyone have a situation of an International Adoption failing?

[MamaS]

I know of several failed international adoptions. In one case the family had 3 bio boys and adopted a 5-year-old girl from El Salvador. She had been happy in her foster home and her foster parents in El Salvador wanted to adopt her. She was very disruptive (started fires, destroyed property, ran away, injured herself). After about a year with no bonding the adoptive family returned her to the agency and she was sent back to El Salvador. They were later matched with an infant boy.
In the second case the parents divorced and neither one wanted their 3-year-old Korean son. The mother's divorce lawyer ended up adopting him.
INS rules and agency regulations make "returning" an international child difficult, but I know of more than one case where the child has been informally "passed on" to another family (usually relatives). Sometimes the child is re-adopted by the other family and other times it is just an informal fostering.

[mimc]

When adopting internationally, once you bring your child home, you aren't likely going to be faced with the possibility of having to return him or her. Depending on the country and the situation, the birthparents may be unknown, they may have already signed away their rights to the child or had their rights terminated. Or they may be deceased.

What is more common though is losing a referral. Most countries give preference to citizens of that country, so you could have a referral for Child A, but before you travel to get him or her, someone from that country steps in and asks to adopt the child, or a relative comes forward to remove the child from the orphanage.

[kazmama25]

The previous posters are correct. When international adoptions "fail" it usually means that the child is removed from the home at the parents request for whatever reason. It's very sad. However, I have never heard of a situation where the child was reclaimed once they are adopted and in the U.S. We adopted our daughter from Kazakhstan and I never heard of this happening but I suppose it's possible. Unfortunately referrals can be lost, especially if your agency does not have good overseas coordinators. This is definitely a question worth asking agencies when researching them. There are plenty of reputable agencies who do not frequently lose referrals.
With Kazakshtan, we were required to bond with our daughter for 14 days before our court hearing. I complained about this at the time because it was a long trip far from home (our entire trip was about 6 weeks). But now that I look back on it, that time was so important. We were able to really get to know Emi and she was able to get to know us. We could interact with her and really get used to the idea of her being our daughter. Can't imagine life without her now.

I think that prospective parents need to really consider what their expectations are and research different kinds of adoption by attending classes and talking to other parents. International felt like the right way to go for us and we have never once regretted it. But we have several close friends who are adopting domestically (open) and it seems to work well for them. There are always risks with all kinds of adoption- it's just about finding what will work well for your family.

Good luck!!

[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

[ShannonK]

Mindy82 -
We had a failed international adoption last year. We are now in a lawsuit against that agency. It DOES happen within international adoptions too. Unfortunately, there is not just one central agency within the US for adoptive parents to contact to find out about all adoption agencies. Each state has it's own "rules" as to how to go about filing complaints.

[ShannonK]

Mindy82 ---
Our failed adoption had NOTHING to do with anything happening in the country from which we were planning to adopt. It had EVERYTHING to do with the adoption agency we had been working with.