Internatinal adoption

[Lifeisshort123]

Has anyone adopted intentionally?
My DH has always wanted to adopt a child from overseas especially a child with special needs as we have a teenage son with Down syndrome.
Could anyone offer any good agencies to get in touch with?
Many thanks.

Ignore the spelling mistake of 'international' in the title.

Intentionally or Internationally ;-)

Can I ask why? There are lots of children in the UK that have special needs and struggle to be adopted.

I'd be happy to attemp to adopt a special need child in the UK however DH wants to adopt from aboard.

Attempt*

I'm curious as to why it has to be from abroad - is it your husband's culture? If not then i'm sorry but some of it comes across as him wanting to do a marvellous act of charity.
Whereas i believe (and i think a lot of others do) that if adoption is going to work it has to be because that person/couple have a massive need to have a child purely for the sake of having a child in their lives.
He has good intentions but i find it hard to understand tbh. So many children here and councils probably prepared to fund the additional care needed.

We adopted our 2 children from Russia but we live in Ireland and there is virtually no domestic adoption here so we had no choice really.
Intercounty adoption is difficult and expensive.
If you would adopt a child with SN perhaps look at China.

Lifeisshort123 whether you adopt internationally or domestically, adoption can be a brilliant thing, so do not be put off but I would suggest your husband and you find out more. The costs are pretty high and the number of countries you can adopt from is very small.

We looked into PACT, Parents and Children Together, as I was very keen to adopt from China. I had some vague connections and it just seemed right. In the end we went with domestic adoption and are very happy.

I have just read PACT are no longer involved in inter country adoption.

pactcharity.org/news-events/latest-news/pact-cease-intercountry-adoption-services

Just be aware with overseas adoptions as well as the costs there might be:

restrictions on your age
restrictions if you are not married
a long waiting list

I think adopting from overseas is a great thing to do, but I also think it is pretty hard, you do not necessarily get all the information you get in the UK, you may never have the chance to hear from your child's birth family, or for your child to ever meet them.

When we first looked into adoption (about 9 years ago) this seemed great to me! I did not want contact with my child's birth family or for my child to ever meet them necessarily.

But now we have a real (not imagined) adopted child, I know that I like the chance they may one day meet their birth parents again.

I think it would help you and your dh to have a lot of in depth discussions between yourselves about adoption. I know you may have already done so but the fact you are talking about what your dh wants suggests either you are not on the same page with him or you don't feel you need to be on the same page with him and will go along with what he would prefer.

The origins of your adopted child or whether you go for overseas or domestic adoption is really not the big issue IMHO.

In my option the bigger issues are:
How will a new child impact on your birth child (we have a birth child too so we had to think about this a lot too!)
How will the child impact on you and your dh, your marriage etc
Do you have room in your hearts, your lives, your home?

All key things, good luck and I hope it goes well.

I found this part of Mumsnet to be invaluable for advice and help when we went through this in the last few years ago.

Be aware too that adopting from overseas means you/your child won't automatically be entitled to the post-adoption support you'd get by adopting a LAC child.