HELP-Single women wants to adopt from abroad.

[violetbeth]

Hello, my friend would like me to put this post on here. She is 35 and single and is looking to adopt. She owns her own house, has 2 jobs (cinema and playgroup) and will drop cinema once the child arrives. She ideally wants a baby or young child, she is also looking at sibling groups. She has not started the adoption process yet, she has looked and found lots of information on UK adoptions but not much on adopting abroad (other than US sites) She has not decided which route to go down yet and is just looking for as much information as possible on foreign adoption. If anyone knows of any good sites, agencies, have been through it themselves and could offer some advice, which countries are good for single women to adopt from (she is thinking China or Russia maybe) then any help will be very gratefully received, thank you in advance.

Hi Violet

Foreign adoption can be very confusing, and there isn't a lot of information simply because it's not a common route to go down. Most people do domestic adoption, even in the US the same holds true.

The requirements for foreign countries are all different , so she needs to look up the requirements set by the countries. She can do that via US sites as well (though stick to sites like the state department website, not agencies who often have out of date information), because the requirements set by the sending country (eg. Russia) are the same for all prospective parents no matter where they come from. She also needs to have a limit of how much money she could spend - countries really differ in how much it costs. For instance, Russia is usually a very expensive country, others would be cheaper. UK domestic is free.

As a single woman, some countries will not be an option for her. Single woman can only adopt special needs children from China, but there is no special needs UK program open, so China is not an option for her.

When it comes to babies, she needs to be aware that in most countries, she will not get a baby under a year old. Many countries have the young babies on domestic adoption lists for at least 6 months to ensure they have the best chance at a domestic adoption, before they become available for international adoption. Then the length of time before referral and travel is complete, mean that she should expect to get a child between 12-18 months at the youngest. Also, there are some countries which restrict singles from adopting young children, so they go to married couples instead. One thing that is true the world over, is that there are not very many babies who need adoption.

She also needs to be aware that with young children in foreign countries, the medical reports can be very scant on information, or even misleading. Certain countries expect parents to travel knowing very little actual information about the child. She needs to be open to more uncertainty than a UK adoption, where she could expect a lot more information about a child.

The good news is, lots of people have happily adopted internationally, including a single adopter on this board :) (She adopted from Kazakhstan which is closed for adoption now though). It just involves some extra and different considerations than domestic does. Your friend can get information from OASIS here www.adoptionoverseas.org/ or the Internountry Adoption Centre here www.icacentre.org.uk/

tries again

OASIS here

IAC here

Basically what Insanity and Maryz said - its not a good time for single adopters wanting to go abroad. The only countries I know currently open to single adopters are Russia and the USA and neither is very cheap.

In order to adopt overseas you need to be approved in the UK first and your local council will assess you via the same process as if you were adopting domestically - the big difference is that they can charge you for this. Not unreasonable however the amounts have become somewhat unreasonable in recent years and I understand that £6k just for the UK assessment isn't uncommon. You then need to add costs of legalisation, notarisation and translation of your dossier - all that will probably add another £4-5k so £10k+ before you start to add the costs of the other country, donation to orphanage, costs of living in another country for a number of weeks and going to court there (interpreter, driver, housing etc) and of course the cost of getting there and back, probably several times.

I'm not very up to date with costs but I would think £20k would be spent very quickly these days.

Which all sounds a bit pessimistic but intercountry adoptions do still happen ust less often though your friend needs to decide that she has the financial and emotional commitment to see the process through otherwise she may as well just flush the money down the toilet!

Concurrent adoption has been a succesful option for single paretns to adopt childrne in this country but that does come with major risks attached but may be worth her considering.

I assume she has also considered DI and giving birth herself?

I am sorry, DI? x

Oh right :) You know, I don't know, I'll ask....... x

Hello, have spoken to friend and she says she had never really even considered DI. For as long as she can remember she wanted to be a mother and thought adoption was the only way but she actually quite likes the idea of DI and is going to look into that further but not sure how family/friends would react, she has no idea where to start on that one and has no one that she knows that could be a donor. Would it be best to start a new thread for that topic do you think? X

TBH I don't think there are many adoption agency's that would agree to do the home study on her until she had totally closed the doors to becoming pregnant herself, by any means.
Our social services are very adamant that you are totally ready for adoption and will often ask people to come back in six months or a year.
Your friend has a lot of thinking and soul searching ahead of her before she can make the decision to adopt.

If she's worried about what people will say if she uses donor sperm then I should tell her to brace herself now, adoption or birth - single mother by choice isn't the easiest path in the world to take!

Most fertility clinics will treat single women using donor sperm in just the same way as a woman whose partner has an insufficient sperm count.

India allows single women to adopt btw in case she's interested. It isn't easy adopting from outside india though, any more than it is from china or anywhere else.

It is very difficult in practice to adopt from India in the UK unless you are of indian origin and have good local contacts. China is closed to singles but for couples it is open and although long and time consuming has an established process which is govt to govt and doesn't rely on any local contacts.

No experience of international adoption but I am a single adopter. My experience was that UK social services were very open to single adopters. This may not be the case for all LAs but mine were supportive (as well as challenging!). They were VERY interested in my finances and not having much in the way of savings gave them cause for concern (them, not me) but it was an issue we resolved during the lengthy application process.

My daughter was approximately 2 and a half when she came home. I'd initially thought I wanted a much younger child but after much discussion with SW, I came to the conclusion that slightly older was better for me and my circumstances. I was approved for 18 months - 5 yr old. Being matched with my gorgeous toddler daughter was the best thing that's ever happened to me (and I hope to her).

This is a zombie thread btw people :)

Doh! Thanks pockets that'll teach me to reply to a thread without reading the date first!!

We got some very inappropriate spam which bumped it up the list of active :-(

But you gave such a lovely reply poppy