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Originally Posted By Amy

I have a question- and please I'm not trying to start a flame war! I work for an international adoption agency, and I a constantly hear from the families I work with that they are "desperate to become parents" and "I am making their dream of becoming a mommy and daddy come true!" They also add that they "just want to provide a home for a child who needs one." They often make such comments throughout the long, expensive, and draining process of international adoption. My question is, and please note that I am just curious and interested in hearing responses: Why, if people are so "desperate" to become parents to a child who needs a home, don't they look locally to their state's foster care system? In my state alone, there are thousands of children who need parents and who need homes;why is it so difficult for them to find homes? I understand that the children come from difficult backgrounds, and may have certain other issues growing up, but they are in desperate need of a loving, nurturing home- just like the healthy newborns! Yes, every parent has a right to adopt the child "of their dreams," but rather than saying they would like to "provide a home for a child who needs a home" or "I just really want to parent a child," perhaps they should say "What I would really actually like to parent is a healthy, caucasian, asian (whatever race)baby that's as young as possible." I'm sorry if this post offended anybody- I really just want to here your comments and perhaps why you chose the path you did. Thanks for reading this...

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Originally Posted By from one who knows

Foster and state adoptions are difficult on everyone. Most of those children have been through so much grief by the time they enter foster care. Parents of those children can be difficult. You never know what to expect next. International adoptions are a different kind of difficult. Usually they are ready for adoption and the parents are not involved. Many of the parents have never evenbeen around.

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Not to mention many of the children waiting to be adopted through foster care aren't white or even white looking.

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Not to mention many of the children waiting to be adopted through foster care aren't white or even white looking.

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I'm referring to the younger ones

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I love your question and can't wait to see the responses if anyone dares to tell the truth. Just curious how often does you agency handle adoptions out of the Africa excluding S. Africa?

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Originally Posted By To Amy

Ask the social workers for the counties!

We talked to one in our county about 10 years ago. She made all the children sound like potential ax murderers who would hardly be able to complete a sentence, much less hold down a job some day. All the children were older and had been severely abused. They had been bounced around to 2 or more foster homes and occ. put back in the dysfunctional home multiple times. Potential adoptive parents are treated like something is wrong with them and their motives for adopting questioned repeatedly. There is a huge risk that the parents will sue to get their childen back, thus causing incredible heartache to the adoptive parents and their families who have loved these children. Potential families are treated like criminals. They are asked to take the states mistakes and try to solve them. When you do, you know that they will continue to scrutinize your life for years to come and continue to judge whether you are a fit parent when the children's problems were not of your making.

Foster care is worse. Chances are excellent that you will have the child a short time. Your home has to be inspected like you were running a restaurant or something. You are not able to make decisions about that child's care without the approval of the state.

With international adoptions, you don't have to worry about ending up in court or on the 6 o'clock news because the parents changed their minds. Getting a baby, you don't have the issues you would have with an older child.

Besides which ... what is wrong with wanting to experience the whole life of your child? We have loved watching our child grow and explore her world. It is such a miracle to hold her sleeping body at night as she drops off. The minute I knew she had been born, I felt such a desire to protect her and nurture her. I will never regret our decisions or feel the need to justify them.

Adoption is such an emotional thing. Instead of criticizing your clients choice of words, maybe you should look beyond the words to see and feel the pain and disappointments that led them to your office. Forgive them for not being more blunt, but after you have had to tell your life story to dozens of people and try to explain the deepest most painful emotions you could ever know to complete strangers, it can be difficult to voice your thoughts. They may be saying the words they assume you are looking for. Or maybe they sense your judgmental attitude and feel the need to say something they think you will find acceptable.

Just my thoughts!

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Originally Posted By Cynic

It sounds like those are the children that need help the most. It is too bad that people CHOOSE to look past them.
Those people can choose to shop for a baby, but they should not do it under the pretenses that they want to help a child. They should be honest and say that they want a baby that meets there needs and they don't care about the children that need homes.

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Originally Posted By Debbie

I did look to the state for a child not an infant. We would have taken siblings of two. We chose ages up to six with mild mental or physical problems. I was on the list eight years. We had a home study and training. Then came the waiting. Eight years of it. I found out from someone I worked with at the time that his brother had adopted a four year old with no known disiblilities. He had been it the system just a couple of years. I forgot to mention his salary exceeded a teachers salary by several thousand dollars. We finally adopted a beautiful baby girl almost 15 years ago through an open adoption. Although she is not perfect I wouldn't trade her for a million who are.

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Originally Posted By Disrupted Mom

That's what my husband and I thought - there are so many older children, who need parents. As we learned more, we decided that we wanted to give siblings a chance to stay together. We went enthusiastically through training, homestudy, background checks, prepared for the specal needs and problems of older children, or at least we thought we did. We got scared at times, but mostly, we were hopeful and happy, pursuing our family.

We were matched with three children, two boys and a girl aged six to nine years, who reportedly had very few problems. The social workers moved them in our house within four weeks, saying it was better for the children.

It was a disaster. From the first day in our house, the children bounced off the walls. They became more and more defiant and oppositional. The older ones were also pretty violent. They have been so hurt in their little lives already, they could not help acting like they did. It is by no means their fault, they good inside, just hurt and neglected.

We tried our best to built a family, balancing structure and boundaries witth some degree of harmony. Also, we tried to get help, counseling, wrap-around services. Almost everyone treated our children like hot potatoes, and those who did not were totally ineffective.

Eventually, we could not go on any more and had to let the children go. It was like cutting our arm off. Overwhelming grief. Like a death.

Later, we found out that 10 to 20%, by some counts even more, older child adoptions disrupt. That is the technical term for what happened to us - adoption disruption. It is so much of a taboo among adoption professionals, one could speak of a "D-word".

There is a happy ending for our children, thouh, They went back to their previous foster family, where they calmed down immediately, and who is adopting them now. (They had had the opportunity before the children were placed with us, but back then had declined.)

Maybe the children are angels who came and left. Angels don't stay.

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Originally Posted By Disrupted Mom

That's what my husband and I thought - there are so many older children, who need parents. As we learned more, we decided that we wanted to give siblings a chance to stay together. We went enthusiastically through training, homestudy, background checks, prepared for the specal needs and problems of older children, or at least we thought we did. We got scared at times, but mostly, we were hopeful and happy, pursuing our family.

We were matched with three children, two boys and a girl aged six to nine years, who reportedly had very few problems. The social workers moved them in our house within four weeks, saying it was better for the children.

It was a disaster. From the first day in our house, the children bounced off the walls. They became more and more defiant and oppositional. The older ones were also pretty violent. They have been so hurt in their little lives already, they could not help acting like they did. It is by no means their fault, they good inside, just hurt and neglected.

We tried our best to built a family, balancing structure and boundaries witth some degree of harmony. Also, we tried to get help, counseling, wrap-around services. Almost everyone treated our children like hot potatoes, and those who did not were totally ineffective.

Eventually, we could not go on any more and had to let the children go. It was like cutting our arm off. Overwhelming grief. Like a death.

Later, we found out that 10 to 20%, by some counts even more, older child adoptions disrupt. That is the technical term for what happened to us - adoption disruption. It is so much of a taboo among adoption professionals, one could speak of a "D-word".

There is a happy ending for our children, thouh, They went back to their previous foster family, where they calmed down immediately, and who is adopting them now. (They had had the opportunity before the children were placed with us, but back then had declined.)

Maybe the children are angels who came and left. Angels don't stay.

[babymeows]

I thank god every day that there are people out there more open hearted about adopting children other than just a baby they can play house with!
My bmother had 3 of us before (thank god) she tied her tubes.My sister was the first and the state took her away and her father got full costody of her when she was 1yr.
My brother was next 2 yrs later. Then me 2 yrs after that. We were in and out of foster homes and with our bmother. One of the times we were with our bmother my brother was 5yrs old and ended up in a body cast from one of her boyfriends.
The last time we saw our sister was her 8th birthday. Her father did not want her to have anything to do with any of us, so we were never alowed to see her again.
My brother and I were in 32 foster homes in one year. We saw many siblings seperated, because people only wanted the young ones and did not want the trouble of an older child. I think it is so sad that people could take the only thing stable out of a childs life like that! Not only do they not have pairents to love them but they no longer have the love to share with there sibling.
My brother and I were very luck to be placed in a great foster home that that later became our family.
We were 6 and 8yrs old when the people we now call mom and dad adopted us. It takes great people to take on children that have never had a real home. I know it was not easy for them, because we were very hurt kids that did not know how to love anyone but eachother, because we were the only things we had ever had that stayed the same. My brother and I are still closer to eachother than to anyone else in our lives.
I hope to someday be able to do for other children what our mom and dad did for us. They took us in and gave us alot of love that we had needed for a long time.
My sister found us about a mo. ago. She lives in Alaska now and has 3 kids. Her dad gave her up to the state when she was 11yrs old. She got maried to a man that beat on her and after they had kids he hurt them too.
The state took her kids about a year and a half ago. The foster family that has the older 2 wants to adopt them, but they have 4 kids of there own and dont want the youngest girl too.
The kids are ages 11, 10, and almost 7.
I am now trying to find away to adopt all 3 of them. Although I have never met any of them, I care that these kids need to be together.
The 7yr old has been in 8 different foster homes in the last 3mo. Never in the foster home that has her sister and her brother.
I hope I get the chance to do for these kids what my pairents did for me and my brother.
I also have 2 boys of my own. My oldest is 3 and my youngest is 1yr, but I will have no problem loveing these children as much as I do my own. I guess because I know part of what they have went threw.
People can have just as much problems with a child they have had from birth as from a child that they got at an older age, maybe not the same problems, but no life is perfect.
Sorry this is so long it just bugs me that people just want perfect babies! There is no such thing as a perfect child.

[kmalay]

Danie

First thank you for sharing your story. Secondly to me you brought up one of the biggest reasons people pursue international adoption over state adoption. You talk about how many foster homes you went through as wells as how long you were in the system. This is one of the biggest problems. Let me say I am pursuing a state adoption, but it is frustrating. To give you an example we were matched with a sibling group of two. They were in a different state(a bordering state). We have chosen to pursue out of state adoption because we feel a caucasian child would be best due to our area that we live in and there are very few under the age of 10 in our state. Anyway we were matched and the staffing and final approval were to be done a few weeks ago(we knew we to be approved ahead of time). The night before the staffing I received a call that everything had been canceled due to the foster parents changing their mind and deciding to adopt them. These children had been there a year and they said they did not want to adopt them. They also have another 6 foster children in there home of various ages. These children state throughout their report that they wanted to be the only children. Is this in the best interest of the children then. It was told to us initially that this was a major issue. Yet unfortunately we will not have the placement. If in the end this is in the childrens best interest that is fine, but I am not convinced of that yet.

Yes there are hundreds of thousands of children out there in need of a better home, but the system continues to put them back with their parents and then when they do finally decide their parents are not best years have passed and then they take additional years to finally decide to find an adoptive home for these children. It can be very frustrating for all involved. I realise some parents do change and become better parent, but this is not the majority. I can understand one or two chances be given, but to continuously for years give them a chance is crazy. The system has frustrated many so international adoption seems to be the better alternative to many.

[babymeows]

Kim

I am happy to hear you are wanting to adopt. It's great to know there will another child taken out of the states hands and in a loveing home.

Did you get to meet the children you are trying to adopt? Is there still a chance? I hope everything works out for you.

Good luck, and im sure you will get the child or children that are just right for you. Keep trying dont give up. There are many children out there that would love to have a mom and dad to share there lives with.

[kmalay]

Thank you Danie

We were suppose to meet the kids yesterday or next week(we were in the middle of making the plans when everything feel apart) so no we did not meet them fortunately. I would have hated to have done that to them. There is a slight chance things could change, but it is very slight. We basically have to move on. Today has been a bit emotional for me and I am not quite sure why except for just plain old grief. I know that our children are out there somewhere, but still the waiting is tough. One day at a time as they say.