[sincyrity]

Hi there, I only saw a couple old posts on this and was hoping people could help us out. We are a US couple and want to adopt; we are married 2 /12 years, and I was previously divorced. The China law (and agencies) informed me that we must wait 5 years before applying -- if there are no previous divorces, it would be 2 years. So we were really disappointed. So now, is there a list anywhere of other country requirements and wait times regarding previous divorce? What about the US, are the rules state-by-state? Please forgive me if these are obvious questions but we are only starting our research now (we live in China and were counting on the Chinese adoption). Thanks for any help!

[DianeS]

I can't answer for the international side, but in the US the rules do vary by state. Each state will have it's own length of marriage, and length of time since divorce, requirements before they could license you to adopt, or before they could place a child from that state with you.

Good luck in your search!

[sak9645]

Speaking only of foreign countries, I haven't seen too many countries with "length of time since divorce" restrictions; China is pretty strict these days. However, I have seen countries with "length of current marriage" requirements, to determine the stability of the current marriage, and also "number of divorces" limitations.

Sharon