Foreign Adoption Option Different Countries Expect Different Things From Parents by Kurt Samson Sarah Wilson is a new mom. Last year she adopted a child from a provincial orphanage in Vietnam. Today heís 10 months old and teething. Sarah isnít her real name, but her story is similar to many other parents who decide to forego domestic adoption in lieu of taking a foreign child into their lives. However, unlike many of these parents, Sarah is a single mother, and sheís learned a thing or two about foreign adoption agencies in the Washington metropolitan areaósome good, some bad. ìThere are big agencies and small agencies, but most are pretty generic,î said Sarah. ìI started out with one D.C. agency, but that experience was disappointing to say the least. ìHalfway through the process I learned that the INS office in Ho Chi Minh City was investigating allegations of corruption against adoption ëfacilitatorsí in Vietnam. These are usually older women who find infants that need to be adopted and work out the details. Some of them are even famous. But then there were charges that money was changing hands where it shouldnít, and things started getting a little crazy. As of A pril 1, Vietnam is temporarily halting all new adoptions while it standardizes its regulations. Anyone in the pipeline just has to wait.î With all of this going on in Vietnam, Sarahís first agent accepted a transfer to its Russian bureau, leaving Sarah in limbo. To make matters worse, the agentís replacement had no adoption experience, had never been to Vietnam, and knew almost nothing about the situation in Ho Chi Minh City or what Sarah was going through stateside. ìI had no one to talk to about what was going on with my case, so I made the decision to switch agencies and to forfeit around $3,000, half the money Iíd already paid. That was in the contract.î With a second, smaller agency run by a husband-and-wife team, Sarah had ìa wonderful experienceî and a few months later returned to the United States with her new son Jonathan. Americans adopted more than 16,000 children from overseas last year, and the numbers have been steadily increasing over the last decade. Although there are many different reasons, the majority of families who choose to adopt a child do so because of infertility issues. The U.S. government requires adoptive couples to be married for at least two years, or be at least 25 years old if unmarried, and the household income must exceed 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. Additional eligibility requirements usually include a criminal record check, a child abuse clearance, and an FBI fingerprint check revealing no felony record. However, simply because a person has a criminal history does not necessarily prohibit them from adopting internationally. In addition to federal requirements, the foreign country may have some age and other limitations. These may be written laws, but often they are unwritten policies enforced by local or regional officials. Although children through age 15 are eligible for adoption, a large majority are younger than 2. Most are from Latin America, Asia or Eastern Europe because most African and Middle Eastern nations do not allow foreign adoption, and children are not available from Great Britain, Canada, Ireland or most of Western Europe. Foreign adoption can cost from around $12,000 to more than $20,000. The least expensive are adoptions from countries that do not require the adoptive parents to travel to complete legal formalities. Some can exceed $20,000 if a lengthy stay or repeated visits are required. ìI wanted to adopt a child from Vietnam because at the time they were offering the youngest babies and direct relinquishment by the mother so they wouldnít have spent any time without a primary caregiver,î said Sarah. ìIn the U.S., direct relinquishment is too expensive, and the mother might change her mind at the last minute or come looking for the child later.î She learned that different countries look for different qualities in an adoptive parent. ìIn Russia they focus on your financial situation. They want their kids to have the best of everything. In China, itís education.î After deciding on an adoption agency, the first step is hiring a licensed social worker to perform a ìhome studyîóan evaluation of you as a potential adoptive parent. This becomes part of your adoption ìdossier.î Normally an agency advises on both the necessary legal requirements and what different countries expect from a parent. Jody Sciortino is the executive director of the Frank Foundation, a nonprofit relief services agency that also serves as the child placement arm of the Frank Adoption Center. The center and the foundation specialize in placing children from Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan. The Frank Center has facilitated some 7,000 adoptions since 1994. Sciortino is also the mother of three adopted children, including a 13-year-old daughter she adopted from Russia when the girl was 12. ìItís important to remember that the U.S. government is the gatekeeper,î she noted. ìThe dossier is tailored to the legal requirements of the U.S. and the INS, as well as those of the birth country, as well as cultural differences,î she explained. For example, Sciortino said that Chinaís home-study requirements are more cultural than Russiaís requirements. ìThey want to know how the parents met, how long they courted, that sort of thing. In Russia itís just the facts. Weíre all bound by the same legal parameters emotionally and financially, but itís like translating a book: You have to change some words to make sense in different languages.î In addition to the home study, the dossier must include the parentís birth certificate, three years of tax returns, and any other specific documents the agency, the government or the country of origin requires. Once the dossier is submitted to the country, said Sarah, ìyou wait.î Her adoption fee was around $15,000, but Sarah said the paper work and travel add to the cost. Everything in the dossier must be notarized and certified by the secretary of state, she said, then translated into the native language. ìIt was around 25 documents at $100 each. Then you have the added cost of traveling to the country,î she said. ìMost agencies charge around $25,000. You hear $15,000, but anyone who has adopted a foreign child will confirm this. Here in the states it costs around $10,000, but there are very few infants available, and most of them tend to get adopted by couples with money.î According to Sciortino, the cost of adopting a Russian child, plus expenses, averages between $25,000 and $27,000, with an additional $3,000 for travel costs. It typically takes from five to nine months from start to finish, and Russia now requires two visitsóthe first to meet with the child and then to adopt, usually two to eight weeks later. ìIt took about one year from the time my home study was conducted until I brought Jonathan home,î said Sarah. ìMost overseas adoptions require two trips. The first time I went I was allowed to spend about 35 minutes to an hour with Jonathan, then I returned to the states while they processed the paperwork. Eight weeks later I flew back to pick up his visa and bring him home. Once you are back to the states, itís suggested that you re-adopt, which I did. In Virginia, where we live, they issued him a new birth certificate listing me as his mother.î Sarah said parents adopting foreign children typically receive very little information about the infant in advance, except their medical profile, which often is far from comprehensive or accurate. ìBut neither can you believe everything you hear and read about the health of foreign orphans,î she said. ìThey say Russian children are sickly because alcoholism is so bad in Russia, that all the orphans have fetal alcohol syndrome. But like most generalities, this isnít trueójust ask the adoptive parents.î Unfortunately, there are no accurate statistics on the prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in Russian orphans because most of the data gathered and reported are anecdotal information obtained by medical clinics from the small number of children who were treated at the clinics for serious problems. Recent statistics suggest that alcohol consumption in Russia is 10 times higher than in other countries, according to the Frank Foundationís Sciortino. However, only a small percentage of adopted children have serious problems of which the parents were not aware, she said. Nonetheless, she admits that some Russian and Eastern European children do suffer from FAS and fetal alcohol affect (FAA), a less serious condition. ìIt truly is a concern, but the incidence is fa r lower than one is led to believe by all the media reports. Unfortunately, FAS is often the entire focus of some adoptive parents. Iíd say 99.9 percent of our clients ask about fetal alcohol risk. There are about 25 medical experts in the U.S. who review pictures, videos, medical charts and background information about foreign children who are up for adoption and their mothers, looking for blatant signs of FAS and FAA.î Of far greater concern are the economic conditions most Russian and Kazakhstani children have been born into, she noted. ìItís the rare orphaned child or infant in Russia that has had any prenatal care. In older children, we tend to see attachment disorders, and emotional, academic or developmental problems depending on the level of trauma a child has experienced. About 8 percent of our children are between the ages of 3 and 8. Most are less than 2,î Sciortino said. ìMost infants are relinquished voluntarily by their Russian mothers, but among older children, many come from families where parental rights have been terminated because of abuse, neglect or family violence. Some children are very resilient while others have more difficultyóone will be an honor student and the other may have emotional problemsóit all depends on their psychological makeup,î Sciortino explained. ìThe decision to adopt has to be made with the head and the heart,î she said, ìand thatís where a professional consultant can helpóto help keep both the head and heart in balance.î Sarah has this advice for anyone considering foreign adoption: ìPick your agency very carefully. Talk to as many people as possible who have used it in the past. There are several great Internet sites where you can talk to other parents. Also, be patient. Things change daily in foreign adoption and you never know what might happen next. The process can seem like a yearlong pregnancy without the physical anguish. But like natural birth itself, adoption is a labor of love, and there are no money back guarantees.î Kurt Samson is a freelance writer in Annapolis, Md.