[dyorzinski1]

Hi everyone,
I am still at newbie and in the research phase of adopting internationally. My silly question is why don't more people adopt from Korea? It seems like such a great program to me. I can't understand why people would prefer to wait 3+ years for China when Korea is a lot shorter (if your heart is set on an Asian country). The only thing I can think of is some families have their heart set on a girl.

Would love to hear your thoughts.
Debbie

[hopeful2adopt]

Hi Debbie,

I'm not sure this is a silly question. I don't have any theories myself, but I'd be interested in seeing some responses.

[Max'smom]

There are probably lots of reasons, in fact, initially, we were going to adopt from China. Why? First of all, China received a lot more publicity in the past regarding the "abandoned" girls and far more PAPs want daughters than sons. But also, Korea has been trying for years to reduce the international adoptions and until recently, it seemed to have created a lot more hurdles (e.g., in terms of how many children you could have in the home and other kinds of criteria, such a how many years you had to be married, what age you needed to be). Quite a few people until recently could not meet the Korea criteria. China criteria have changed and now have become more restrictive than the past, but I believe Korea is still more restrictive in various ways.

[bugfree]

I was wondering the same thing.

[sak9645]

Korea has changed dramatically since the 1950s, when adoptions of Korean children by Americans first started.

Korea has become one of the most prosperous countries from which Americans adopt. As a result, poverty is not generally a reason for relinquishing a child, as it is in most other countries.

The country has also become very much more Westernized and modern, with regard to social mores. Young women, nowadays, tend to know a lot more about sex, contraception, and abortion. There is also less shame about pregnancy outside of marriage, and some single mothers choose to parent their babies.

Moreover, Korea has begun to change in its attitudes about adoption. Korean people are increasingly adopting children who are not biologically related to them, and thinking that it's not at all "strange". In the past, the perceived importance of the "blood tie" limited people's willingness to adopt.

And the Korean government, a bit ashamed that it has had to resort to letting foreigners solve the problem of parentless children, has been encouraging domestic adoption. It has actually begun giving financial incentives, such as tax breaks, to encourage domestic adoption.

The bottom line is that there are relatively few healthy Korean infants available for adoption. There are even fewer healthy Korean infants who cannot find a home domestically and must be placed with families overseas.

Only about 1,000 Korean children came home to American families last year, and quite a few were considered special needs. That's about half the number of children who came home to American families just five years ago, and the numbers are likely to drop even further, when it comes to adoptions of healthy infants.

Worldwide, Korea placed 8,700 children in 1986, the peak year for Korean adoption. Since the U.S. has the highest rate of international adoptions in the world, it can be assumed that many of the children came to the U.S. that year.

As a result of the steep declines in available children, with further drops projected to occur, Korea is not accrediting any additional American agencies to place healthy babies. And it is basically telling the agencies to discourage adoptions by all but the most well-qualified couples, because it doesn't want years-long waiting lists like China has.

One way it has tried to discourage adoptions is by imposing strict requirements for adoptive parents. And agencies have also created requirements. As an example, since Americans overwhelmingly want to adopt girls, agencies want to make sure that boys don't languish in orphanages and foster homes, so most have now banned gender selection for first-time parents. Gender selection is sometimes allowed for parents who already have children. This has discouraged some couples.

In addition, agencies sometimes impose higher financial and health requirements than Korea does, simply as a way of "rationing" the available children.

The fact is that Americans DO want to adopt from Korea. It's a fantastic program -- ethical and very well organized. The children tend to get excellent medical care and the foster homes in which they are placed tend to be fairly well chosen and supervised. The agencies working with Korea tend to be among the best in the U.S.

But somewhere along the line, families learn that they have to be realistic. There just aren't going to be many healthy Korean babies to adopt. Unless they are willing to adopt children with special needs, and unless they are able to meet rather strict criteria, they probably need to look elsewhere.

Sharon

[CarmJoeMom]

I would talk to an agency about this before you disregard Korea based on what the previous poster wrote. I started my Korean adoption in october. It is now January and I have the referral of a six month baby girl, and just received my I600 approval. Different agencies say different things, but I know right now, my agency is working very quickly and referrals are being provided as soon as the homestudy is completed.


Oh yeah and my daughter is as healthy as healthy can be. As a matter of fact, we paid for an international adoption doctor to look at her referral, and she couldn't find ANYTHING on her. There are other boards that are busier than this one, and many will say the same thing.

Good luck!

[rtpmom2be]

We are adopting from Korea and have not encountered the difficulties mentioned in the earlier post. It is true that there are fewer children available for adoption, but this is true for almost all international programs. The qualifications are not excessively strict and are comparable with other countries.

One of the reasons we chose Korea was that children come home at a younger age than with many other programs (8-11 months) and the fact that the children receive good medical care early in life. They also are in foster care as opposed to orphanages. The wait time at my agency from homestudy completion has averaged 3-5 months over the last year.

Hope this is helpful.

[LockStock]

Perhaps cost is a factor? Adoption from China seems to be less expensive than adoption from Korea (low $20's compared to high $20's)?.

[CarmJoeMom]

i am paying 25k for korea

[dyorzinski1]

Jackie & "rtpmom2be" -

Thank you for your messages. We have since met with an agency and have decided to definitely go forward with Korea (and are super excited about it!). There are just so many pluses with the Korean program in our opinion. Jackie - I can't believe how quickly things are happening for you!!!! Since you already have children did you request a girl? We don't have any children so we aren't allowed to request a specific sex which is fine with us...I am just curious if you requested a girl or were randomly given a referral of a girl. My other questions is are either of you traveling to Korea or are you using an escort? On the one hand I think an escort makes life so much easier for us but then again I think the experience of traveling would be priceless.

Last question, do you have any books on Korean adoption that you would recommend?

Debbie

[rtpmom2be]

Originally Posted by dyorzinski1

Jackie & "rtpmom2be" -

Thank you for your messages. We have since met with an agency and have decided to definitely go forward with Korea (and are super excited about it!). There are just so many pluses with the Korean program in our opinion. Jackie - I can't believe how quickly things are happening for you!!!! Since you already have children did you request a girl? We don't have any children so we aren't allowed to request a specific sex which is fine with us...I am just curious if you requested a girl or were randomly given a referral of a girl. My other questions is are either of you traveling to Korea or are you using an escort? On the one hand I think an escort makes life so much easier for us but then again I think the experience of traveling would be priceless.

Last question, do you have any books on Korean adoption that you would recommend?

Debbie

Debbie,
Congratulations on your decision! To answer some questions:

Different agencies have different policies on escorting. My agency requires travel, which we like.

As far as timelines to adopt, this is also highly variable between and within agencies. We filed an initial application in July 08 and our homestudy packet just went over last week.

As far as books, we didn't find one specific to the Korean adoption process, probably because it is different between agencies and constantly changing. Is there a specific topic you're interested in?

Lisa

[CarmJoeMom]

I have a boy and a girl. My daughter has autism, and I made mention to the director of my angecy that I think a girl would benefit her for several reasons. However, I never really said I wanted a girl, and in my homestudy it read that while I thought a girl would benefit my daughter, we were open to either sex. We received the referral of a girl. So I am pretty sure my agency did that on purpose because of my situation. But I never requested a girl, because I didn't really have a major preference.

I have a ton of books to recommend, but none are specific to Korea adoption. I highly recommend the Holt forum boards though to understand the process more. They are extremely helpful!

Good luck! Enjoy the process!

[journeytolily]

Debbie, congrats on your decision to adopt from Korea! It's truly an excellent program. We adopted our son in 2003, and we would have adopted from there again, but we aged out soon afterward. Our two daughters are from Guatemala and Michigan.

If you can possibly travel, do it! South Korea is a wonderful country, and DH and I really enjoyed the week that we spent there. Some people go for only a few days, but we figured that we had traveled so far, we might as well spend a little time! We met our son the first day, afte arriving the evening before, then we went to the Holt Korea office again a couple days later to be there for his pre-flight check-up, and then 3 days later, we picked him up for the flight home.

In between, we went to wonderful restuarants, places of interest (I really liked the temples and palaces), and did some shopping. One of my favorite memories is of getting lost in a residential area, looking for a specific restaurant. The neighborhood was so interesting to me, and the people (who spoke little or no English) were very kind, and I never felt unsafe. We DID eventually find the restaurant, and it was worth the hunt! That was on Thanksgiving Day, and we enjoyed our meal of bulgoki and all the accompaniments.

I look forward to going back some day, with our son, and his sisters.

[KarynB]

Hey all,

Just wanted to chime in here - Korea has the goal of stopping all IA's by 2012, so if you have your heart set on this country you may want to move quickly. If you start now you still have lots of time, but I wouldn't wait much longer. PM if you want more info...

[Melissaliane]

What agency did you use CarmJoMom if you don't mind PMing me?