[marjo]

If Russia would have been strict about obesity my husband and I would have never been able to adopt. I gained even more weight during our adoption from eating from stress! Every time we would have a glitch in our adoption it was pizza night at our house.

[ddlucy]

Why does China always get a free pass, and thought of as a purer cleaner country to adopt from?

For me, this empahasizes the point - there are no "perferct adoption systems" anywhere in the World. Don't let anyone tell you that the country they chose is pure and simple - none of them are. Every country has its own set of rules and regulations and you have to work within them.

I don't buy the garbage that Chinese children are healthier than any other child. Hello- wake up - that country is an environmental disaster! They wear masks their because they are afraid breathing in the pollutants their factories are pumping out. The Bird flu & SARS killed thousands of people there and put temporary haults to their adoption business.

Sitting back, nearly a year back from Russia with our Dima, things wer not all that bad!

[Vicki H]

I guess I just don't understand some of the new criteria.
What does facial deformities and being overweight have to do with being good parents?

I think these rules are just wrong.

[calikismet]

Originally Posted by ddlucy

Why does China always get a free pass, and thought of as a purer cleaner country to adopt from?

For me, this empahasizes the point - there are no "perferct adoption systems" anywhere in the World. Don't let anyone tell you that the country they chose is pure and simple - none of them are. Every country has its own set of rules and regulations and you have to work within them.

I don't buy the garbage that Chinese children are healthier than any other child. Hello- wake up - that country is an environmental disaster! They wear masks their because they are afraid breathing in the pollutants their factories are pumping out. The Bird flu & SARS killed thousands of people there and put temporary haults to their adoption business.

Sitting back, nearly a year back from Russia with our Dima, things wer not all that bad!

This can become a pretty contentious debate if this were mentioned in the China forum. I had a pretty heated debate about a year ago with a woman whose children are from China, and when she was aksed why she adopted from China, all of the reasons seemed to point against Russia and EE countries, versus toward China. I was pretty offended by it, and we had some words. In my experience, some are drawn to China b/c of the near guarentee for an infant girl, and some just love the Chinese culture and its citizens. But if you poll many who have adopted from China, they will say it was b/c -- in their views and opinions -- the following (this is what I have seen):

* low incidence of drug and alcohol use among the citizens, hence a low risk of FAS and drug exposure

* children come from bio parents in all ranges of the socioeconomic spectrum -- povery is not always the reason for abandonment - it is often/ most of the time the 1-child rule

* as a result of #2, many of the bioparents are highly educated, thus, I assume, meaning that the kiddos have a higher chance of higher IQs, etc (I have heard that one before).

* stability and predictability of the referral and adoption process, which is free from corruption and pay-offs.

Like I said, this is only what I have heard from China parents and China agencies (some agencies have the "Why China" sections on their websites). I do not necessarily agree or disagree with these... What I am not always wild about is the inference that one system is better than another, or that the kids coming from one system are better than another. I truly believe that with SO many avenues for adoption, there is no one-size-fits-all approach or answer... Rather, it allows PAPs to choose the path that is most appropriate for their families, without judging another path. I am never a fan of any of the talk that one way is better -- in the end, every family gets the perfect child for them, regardless of origin.

[tbristow]

My only comment on the "stability" of the program is that a friend applied when they still were stating 6-8 months for a referral. She just passed the 1-year anniversary of their log-in date this week with no referral in site. She's already been through so much in her struggle to have kids that I really hate to see this.

[JLW99]

As someone who adopted from Russia in 2005, and just sent our dossier off to adopt from China, I agree the wait is daunting. However, it is reassuring that no matter how long our wait, we know that the process itself will be smooth, and there will be no last minute "surprises".
I haven't heard of too many people switching to Russia; on the China parents forums, many stated they looked at Russia first but decided against it for one reason or another.
Hopefully, no matter what our individual paths are, we will all meet our children in the end
Jen

[Synesthesia]

I hope the rules will be a bit less strict when I am ready to adopt.
Which won't be for a long time, but I am still researching other options and trying to control the urge to try to adopt NOW. It's not viable. I do not have a house or a two bedroom apartment, and my place is a mess and I don't have money yet.
But, I do know someone who adopted a delightful boy from Russia on another forum, so perhaps it's something I'd consider. I think I might end up adopting quite a few children from quite a few places... Which means I'll have a rather... colourful family which will be AWESOME.

[mdaisyq]

One item that has not been mentioned in the press coverage at all and is little discussed on China adoption boards, is the new regulations regarding when and under what conditions, an adoptive family will be allowed to reject their child once they meet them in China to adopt them. There have been a number of situations where a family has met their child in China and for various reasons, not all of them medically validated, determined that the child was not "healthy" and refused to adopt the child; the family would then ask to be allowed to adopt another child. I have heard that the number of disruptions may be as as high as one per week.

I personally know of one situation where the disruption was medically validated by Chinese medical authorities, much to the heartbreak of the adoptive family, but this is a rarity. Many families turn to "Western" doctors in China who give broad diagnoses that there might be a problem, etc.

I think that these disruptions play into the view of many pre-Chinese adoptive parents that Chinese children are healthier, which sadly, some adoption agencies have done little to dispel.

Do disruptions like this occur in the Russian program? Do many parents decline to adopt their referred children and not go back for a 2nd trip?

Note: we lost our first son-to-be from Russia, two weeks before we were to travel, in 1995, when a Russian family came through his orphanage and decided to adopt him. I have to say, that we fled to the Korean program and then the Chinese program, because we could not face having that happen to us again, by staying with adopting from Russia.

[pequele]

Originally Posted by tbristow

My only comment on the "stability" of the program is that a friend applied when they still were stating 6-8 months for a referral. She just passed the 1-year anniversary of their log-in date this week with no referral in site. She's already been through so much in her struggle to have kids that I really hate to see this.

The program IS stable, it is just LONG and that is what these new regualtions are supposed to curtail. Unfortunately by the time we see a decrease in the time it takes for referal, your friend will probably have had her child home for awhile!

[amyfk]

HI,

I would tend to agree with Jen and Calikismet's statements.

I would think that (until the recent past) folks would be more willing to switch from the Russia program to the China program, than the other way around. Now that China is most likely going to be placing tough restrictions, my guess is a few more dossiers may trickle into Russia, however I do think that many folks were willing to wait it out in China for a very smooth, predictable process. One other thing that I can think of is that folks adopting from China do not have to(to my best knowledge anyway) go to court to finalize the adoption. That is another stressful thing to undergo, well it was for me anyway.

Best of luck to everyone.
Amy K, NJ

[JLW99]

Amy, you're right, no court It was scary for me, too, knowing that a random judge could arbitrarily decide which hoops we'd have to jump through (and jump we did) in order to bring home our son.

I have to agree with the poster above regarding disruptions. While I have not read of many, when they do happen in China, it's a major incident. Seems that with Chinese adoption, way fewer people turn down referrals before traveling than with Russian adoptions. It is not uncommon for people to be traveling to meet a second or third referral with Russia, while this almost never happens with China. However, I have found that PAP's in the Russia program are much more educated about attachment, and what to expect, and the health of children in general.

I feel that many in the China program feel that they will get a completely healthy referral who will have no attachment issues. It's incredible that agencies don't provide more info to parents adopting from any country.

In any case, the new rules seem strange and discriminatory to us, but they did need a way to decrease the amount of dossiers being submitted. They had implemented a quota a few years ago, then stopped it once they caught up. This time they rejected the idea of a quantitative quota, preferring to focus on qualitative data as a way of decreasing the quantity of dossiers being submitted.
Jenny