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I am totally new to mums net & this is the 1st thread I have ever left after reading only 1 other! Basically I have 2 boys 9&4 years & my husband & I would love to adopt, possibly from China & my question is where do you start??? I would love to hear from others going through the process now or those who have done it already etc etc.....
I have not adopted a child but I think this past two years or so China has made the adoption process from other countries extremely difficult. I don't recall all the facts but you have to be married a certain number of years (established solid relationship) and both have to be professionals of a certain age or under. You have to have other children...not sure on that, might be an adoption history. I would check with an established adoption agency...check the background first. Maybe you could talk to some of their successful adoptive parents? I know it is easier to adopt from Africa than from China. If you consider other countries you will have to consider the same for their particular requirements. Whatever you choose usually entails a lot of redtape. Adopting from your resident country is easier but can still take some time. It is usually easier to adopt a child rather than a baby or newborn. I hope that helps you.
Also, if you are headset on adopting from China please try to find out what if any the ratio of males to females is. It may be easier to adopt a female child than a male. I know about 20 years back or so China was doing what they could (this is putting it extremely nicely) to make sure first borns were male. Now there is an imbalance of males to females at adulthood. SO do your homework as the government isn't always open to inquiry on such subjects. You will have to be very diplomatic...maybe you could brush up on the countries culture? That would help as you may have to go there to receive your child once you have done all the paperwork and everything else you need to. When you do please make sure you have all the paperwork (passports etc.) all in order.
One of my colleagues is in the process of adopting a girl from China. The process takes about 2 years, and you generally get a toddler (2-3 years old). It seems a fairly well co-ordinated process from what I have heard, as there are agreements between China and UK, so getting visa, passports etc is fairly easy.
you need to be approved by a Uk adoption agency, usually the local authority who cover your area ( if you are normally resident in teh UK). then your papers are processed by various government agencies then passed to the chinese authorities
China is now very slow and you shoudl be prepared for the process to take at least 3-4 years
Thank you so much, some really good advice & things I hadn't thought about. You are right about the 'girl' thing, I have been told that there are a higher number of girls for adoption because of the 1 child only rule & families wanting boys! I have contacted so many agencies in the UK only to be told we have no chance , mainly due to the fact that they give priority to couples wanting to adopt sibling groups, special needs & ethnic groups.....They don't want to waste their time on us!!!!
Your local authority Adoption and Fostering team is obliged to assess you for a foreign adoption, but they will charge you for this. Also, be prepared to be made to feel like a total shit for wanting to adopt a child who is not ethnically that same as you. Hopefully that won't be the case for you but we had a horrible stream of abuse from a SS team leader for daring to consider adopting from India (despite DH being ethnically Indian). I hope she was a one-off though.
Well thats not what they led me to believe! I will call again tomorrow although they never answer the phone & take at least 3 days to get back to you!
I will get the abuse as we wont be ethnically matched, my mother in law is a social worker & we have not told her we are considering adoption for that reason. I know she would have that attitude & it sucks!
You might be better off trying to find an independent organisation who will do the assessment for you. If your local authority is dead against international adoption then it might be more trouble than it's worth to force them to assess you. They may make you wait for months/years before starting the assessment, they could even find you not suitable to be adoptors.
some prospective adoptive families who have already been approved for China have been withdrawing their papers and changing to another country as the wait is now so long
I'm not sure of the cost of the home study - i thinks its now about £3-4K. AFAIK all adoption agencies will charge you, even LAs
no not come across any china adopters on here. Kris for a first time adoption home study costs are running at £3-6k now. PLus all legal/translation/courier/medical costs, donation to orphange, travel and guides costs.
China is still the largest "sending" country to the UK - my guess about 200 adoptions a year out of a total of around 300-350 overseas adoptions per annum in total.
You just have to be very very determined and want it more than you've wanted anything in your life and not give up until you have acheived it. Oh and 95% ofchildren placed are girls and you may be placed with an older chil (I know one 3.5 year old placement) even if you specify a baby.
Adoption from China is limited to married couples, made up of a man and a woman, who fit the following criteria:
They must have been married at least two years. If either person has previously divorced, the couple must have been married at least five years. No more than two divorces are allowed.
Both partners must be between the ages of 30 and 50. Those couples who apply to adopt a special needs child must be between the ages of 30 and 55.
Both partners must be physically and mentally fit, with none of the following conditions:
a. AIDS; b. Mental disability; c. Infectious disease that is actively contagious; d. Blind in either eye; e. Hearing loss in both ears or loss of language function (those adopting children with hearing or language function loss are exempted from this requirement); f. Non-function or dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incomplete limbs, paralysis or deformation; g. Severe facial deformation; h. Severe diseases that require long-term treatment and that may affect life expectancy, including malignant tumors, lupus, nephrosis, epilepsy, etc; i. Major organ transplant within ten years; j. Schizophrenia; k. Severe mental disorders requiring medication for more than two years, including depression, mania, or anxiety neurosis; l. Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or more
At least one member of the couple must have stable employment. The total value of family assets must be at least $80,000 (about £40,000). The family’s annual income equals at least $10,000 for each family member in the household (including the child to be adopted). Annual income excludes welfare, pensions, unemployment insurance, government subsidies and the like.
Both prospective parents must be high school graduates or have vocational training equivalent to a high school education.
The family must have fewer than five children under the age of 18, and the youngest is at least one year old (those adopting special needs children are exempted from this requirement).
Neither partner may have a significant criminal record, and both must have a history of honorable behavior and good moral character with no evidence of: a. Domestic violence, sexual abuse, abandonment or abuse of children; b. Use of narcotics or any potentially addictive medication prescribed for mental illness; c. Alcohol abuse, unless the individual can show she/he has been sober for at least ten years.
those egtting referrals this month (to travel and meet their child next month) logged their papers into CHina in Feb 2006 so around 2 years 6 months. Assuming it takes about 18 months in teh UK to get from Application to log your papers in, that makes current wait times 4 years start to finish - no-one knows if this is going to increase/decrease/saty same.
Avergae non-china country wait is probably about 3 years depending on how good your LA/VA are and how "efficient" the country.
my good friend has one daughter from China. it took them 3 years for their DD to join them in the UK from first application. So the immediately applied again DD is now 7 and they have been told the offices are dealing with people who put their papers in 1 year before they did.
It is expensive and I believe in the last year they have changed the internal chinese adoption laws and they are trying to place more children within China before internationally.
Of 356 applications for an overseas adoption in 2007
127 China 46 Guatemala 37 India 32 Russia 23 USA 22 Thailand
All other countrie were less than 10 each and most less than 5 per year. Therse figures include ALL adoptions ie include children being adopted by family member not stranger adoption which probably pushes the India figures up.
Thanks so much for all that info- hoe did you find all that out? My biggest gripe is the length of time!!!! 4 years !!!! I thought 2 at the most- I am getting on a bit now-lol- & that means DS1 would be 13/14 & DS2 8/9 !!!!- lots of big age gaps .
It will take you at least a year to 18 motnhs to get assessed in the UK whichever country you chose to adopt from. Adoption isn't a quick fix these days and isn't seen by social services as a fix for your family but as a solution for a child needing a family.
I appreciate the age gaps are quite big but on the other hand adopted childrne can be very time consuming and larger age gaps can actually mean your other chidlren are much more able the deal with the potential issues you may face.
Christ- a quick fix, thats not what I'm looking for- I am aware that age gaps can be great, thats why I have 5 years between my 2 sons. I am after facts not opinions! Thanks anyway.
Not so much an opinion as a (pointless) attempt to put the difficulties in a positive light.
I'll stick to facts in future but you'd be better off joining OASIS as someone suggested and talking to them if you just require the logistic detailsn or contacting the Overseas Adoption Centre (details on the web) as they produce fact sheets on all major sending countires
If I might venture one tiny weeny opinion before I go. If you have difficulty with a reasonably innocuous statement from a stranger about the possible benefits of a bigger than average age gap, you might find the intrusiveness of a home study challenging. Though to be fair many of us do.
Long time lurker, I just signed up so that I could give the OP some information as I have a lovely daughter who we adopted from China. However, after seeing her rude reply to Kew, I shan't bloody bother!
Forget it, OP, with an attitude like yours you won't survive several months of being interrogated, lectured and patronised by a Social Worker.
To anyone else who might be interested in ICA I would not recommend China as there is such a huge backlog of people waiting to adopt (over 20,000 couples) and fewer children being abandoned or released for ICA - the wait is going to run into several years.
As someone suggested, OASIS are an excellent source of up to date information and advice.
LOL at Hauschkahels not wanting opinions and firstly posting on Mumsnet (because this is a site consisting entirely of people with opinions who come here to express them) and secondly considering adopting an ethnically different child (just wait until you have a child who doesn't look like you or your DH, there will be a veritable onslaught of comments, opinions and general staring).
Thank you, Bran. Been lurking for about a year, just waiting til I was sufficiently opinionated and stroppy to post on Mumsnet. Now I must get on the AIBU board so that I can yell "yes, you are being unreasonable, you crack whore!" at all and sundry
How old is your DD Mulan? And vagueley where in the country are you? And have you seen my lovely boys montage (not that I'm pushing it down anyones face or anything!)
Hauschkahels - my situation was a little similar to yours as we had two birth sons and wished to adopt a third child. SS were not particularly interested in us and the assessment process took a long time, but because we were able to take on a child with medical needs, we got ourselves matched quite quickly post-assessment, with a little girl of 2.8, from our local authority.
It's true that there are not many healthy babies up for adoption, but perhaps the fact that you want to adopt rather than have another birth child suggests that you would be open-minded about children who are in foster care in this country and who would thrive in your well-established family.
Just get yourself on the preparation/assessment path at this stage and as time goes on you will get a clearer picture of the best way to go to be matched with a child.
Many thanks for all the information I really appreciate it.
I have a very thick skin & the catty remarks made me pmsl , how funny that the people who wrote them think they are so witty- you all need to get out a bit more & don't forget to leave your soap boxes at home
Bran & Mulanmum you sound like really nice people!!!!!
I can only speak for Bran and she is indeed a very nice person. (Mulan I quite like the cut of your gib, but can't really vouch for you!) hauschkahels I'm assuming you have the information you need now? Not much chance of geting these particular posters to share their experiences with you, I fear. Adoption threads are generally the least bitchy and most supportive of threads I have ever come across on MN. It might be good practice for your home study to reflect on why this one didn't turn out that way.
It might be worthwhile you learning to pretend that you have some interest in learning from others who have adopted before you, social workers are generally more pro people who appear to want to understand the potential (and myriad) issues in intercountry transracial adoptions.
None the less I'm happy to have been of some limited help to you, though you could have just googled all the "facts" given without actually having to deal with any real people's input.
Adoptors have gallows humour hauschkahels, if you go through the adoption process you probably will too, it's the only way to keep sane. (And at the suggestion that I only think I'm witty BTW.] If you do progress down the adoption route various people will say truly annoying things and you will bite your tongue and promise to re-think your attitude because they have all the power and you have none. You may want to start practising now by pretending to laugh at my jokes.
I looooove you too Kew, you willfully irritating person you.
Me neither. You are all so amazing going through it.
We'd love to adopt a baby from India but have been frightened off at all of the negative stories of late, corrupt officials/orphanages/couples being ripped off and left heart broken.
Because Americans can go through the American adoption system even if they're living abroad, and thus completely bypass the UK system, an American adoption is recognised in the UK. The American system has a much quicker assessment process, and money does buy speed and 'better' children there. Americans can also go through the American system even if they're living outside American and adopting from another country also outside America, eg Madonna. Anyone adopting a UK child must go through the UK system if the child is looked after though, even if it's an adoption by a relative living abroad.
In the UK, rightly or wrongly, there is no way that Angelina Jolie would have been approved to adopt children from so many different countries, particularly if she was also planning to have subsequent birth childen.
Madonna would have to have given clear evidence of how she would help her adopted son make sense of his heritage, keep links with his home country and not feel like the odd one out in his new family. I am not sure that the American assessment process takes such issues into account.
Like I say though, rightly or wrongly - there is also an argument to say that the children adopted into these very wealthy, celebrity families are given unquantifiable opportunities. I'm sitting on the fence
Sorry if someone's said this before, but I have a friend of a friend who's just got a 2nd adoptive child from the Philippines - took about 2 years, and the children were both about 8 months old (one boy, one girl)
I was goig to ask the same thing Mulan, that sounds exceptionally fast particualrly gibem the philiines announced a slow down in April this year with an average 2 year wait for a match, which a UK process on top I can't see how you could get a child home in under 3-4 years.
Anyone out there who has actually managed to adopt from China??!! I would love to hear your story. 
at the suggestion that I only think I'm witty BTW.] If you do progress down the adoption route various people will say truly annoying things and you will bite your tongue and promise to re-think your attitude because they have all the power and you have none. You may want to start practising now by pretending to laugh at my jokes. 
