To want to adopt a child from Haitai?

[booyou]

Well....just that really. We have discussed adopting a child in the future and there are up to 1 million oprhans or one parent has died.... would like to help....

'but I think that looking to adopt here would be a good starting base for anybody looking to adopt before looking abroad as there are children here in need of a family too.'

We have no idea if people who do end up adopting internationally have in fact done this.

And really, it's not for everyone to adopt from the UK.

It might be for you, but I don't think it's fair to judge someone who doesn't and claim it's because they want a 'perfect' child.

Because unless we know their innermost thought, we really don't know why they are doing what they do, but anyone who goes through the harrowing, expensive process that is international adoption is obviously very sure of their decision.

Oh, Kew I do understand, it's just the knee-jerkery that makes me bristle.

I understand on a human level wanting to clutch orphaned Haitians to my bosom, but adoption from any country is surely not done on a whim. Surely anyone seriously looking to adopt would look within their own country? I thought adoption agencies recomended inter-cultural adoptions where ever possible.

Some acquaintances of my mother spent 18 months adopting a girl from china. On their first night in the hotel after it was all finalised, the couple decided they couldn't bond (child had been terrified when "dad" gave her a bath), so they sent her back! Still makes me cross thinking about it. She wasn't perfect, so they sent her back.

I'm not sure about this but wondering if there is something to be said also for staying in the country where there is a "common memory" of the disaster rather than being uprooted to a completely new country and environment where there will be no common experience of having lived this nightmare. The Haitian community in Miami could probably partly fulfil this, not many other places could?

YANBU to want to, certainly, but perhaps you might BU to actually do it. I think they need donations, etc, more.

I just want to go there and help. Can I, do you think?

Again, I did not assume nor say that they didn't, but for people looking at adopting for the first time I think that they should start looking closer to home before looking elsewhere.

And I didn't judge people for the 'perfect child' thing either; that was part of my own experience with adoption when potential parents decided that they didn't want a little girl who had mental health problems and all they judged her on was a bit of paper from a doctor who had met her once and was put in a room with her and a social worker who she never knew.
What truly disappoints me though is that so many families around the UK registered interest in her when they saw her photos (white blond haired and blue eyed little girl) but turned away when they realised that she had mental health problems.

As I've said before, I do not think that adopting from abroad is wrong, however I do think it is better to look closer to home first. I have never doubted commitments to adopting from abroad (because it is quite obviously a huge commitment) but I still think that looking here should be a first stop, even if nothing comes of it. It is stupidly difficult to adopt here which is an issue raised earlier on by other posters and it's a heartbreaking issue as there are so many people looking to adopt but can't because of laws and regs which make little sense.

crankytwanky: please say that you're joking?! That's disgraceful!

That's awful cranky! Who could do such a thing?!

But seriously, I want to go to Haiti.

Kew my DD's just arrived home from school and asked me why i was blubbing my eyes out and i showed them your little film and now they are too!

What a beautiful story and what a beautiful boy Daniel is. I have an 11 month old lovely boy too and i cant imagine what i must have been like for Daniel without a Mummy at that age (although you started the process of adopting at 11 months right?) I am so happy for you all, what a beautiful family, bless you all.

I would be worried, that in the total state of chaos, that many children would be indentified as orphans who are not.

Adopting from abroad is one thing, adopting from a disaster area is another thing altogether.

cranky, do you think they were just twas or were they suddenly overcome with the enormity of what they were doing and chickened out (in a twattish way)? The best that can be said about that is that they realised quickly before the baby was aware that she'd been adopted, ergo less of an upheaval for her.

While it's a lovely, utopian ideal to always adopt kids in their own culture/with extended family etc, some of the posters on this thread seem a bit deluded uninformed about the situation in Haiti in general (not just post-earthquake).

It's the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Average wage is less than $2US a day, and life expectancy is 60, 20 years less than in the UK. Violence is very common, medical care is almost non-existent. The main industry, agriculture, has been completely destroyed by a variety of political and social factors. Corrupt goverment has taken a massive toll over the past 30 years as well.

People in Haiti are so desperate to get themselves and their children out that they will take insane risks. We get Haitian refugees where I live in the Caribbean all the time. A huge number of them die trying to get here. A few months ago a boat full of refugees here hit a reef and sank in the middle of the night. One of them had a phone and called the emergency number. The lifeboat (including my DP) launched but they couldn't find them. All the while they were on the phone, getting more and more hysterical, saying that there were children and babies in the water. They never found them until the next morning, when a few of them made it to shore. Dozens died, including all the children, and their bodies were never found.

Can you seriously suggest that they are better off living and dying like that than being adopted out of their culture?

A few weeks ago (pre earthquake) there was a news report here where a woman in Haiti who had just had a baby was interviewed. She was completely despondent, saying she had no idea how she would feed another child. She got the wrong end of the stick somehow and thought that the (white, non-Hatian) reporter was going to take the baby and adopt her. When she realised that wasn't going to happen, she got completely hysterical, hanging on to the man and BEGGING him to take the baby. It was hideous.

Sorry for the rant, but some of the responders on here about extended family and in-country adoption just don't seem to have a clue when it comes to Haiti.

Sigh.

Still the assumption that everyone who adopts wants a 'perfect' child an anecdotes about people who reject the non-perfect child . . .

I can only imagine what people who do adopt internationally go through sometimes here, but I feel for them!

btw, Kew, how your boy has grown! that hair! i remember before you went. so many of us were waiting on tenterhooks for news.

what a beautiful son you have. thank you for sharing.

Sadly true, pixie.

Duchesse, my mother tells me they are twats all the time.

cranky that actually reminded me of something similar. My Nan took in a girl about 8/9 years old a while ago. She'd gone into foster care relatively young, been adopted by a family with at least 5 kids already (I'm pretty sure she was their 7th child) and a year later they decided that they didn't want her anymore and put her back into the foster system.

She had a very disturbing past which I think had something to do with it, she was very sexual and made my cousin (he was a young teen at the time) extremely uncomfortable in the time she stayed with my Nan. Not that it's a good excuse or anything as the family knew this before they adopted her and still chose to take her in.

Nan becoming a foster carer made me realise very quickly that the world isn't as innocent and friendly as I had always thought as a child

& I must agree with the others, Daniel is a cutie

& expat, I honestly do not think that adopters are all after the perfect child, in my baby aunt's case it seemed so though and the potential parents could not look past her so-called 'faults'. She is a very very beautiful little girl and ended up getting a large amount of people inquire about her based on that and her age at the time (as that is all that was in the catalogue thing they were given). Only one family wanted to go through the adoption process and they were told that they were unsuitable as they had an older child and they 'wouldn't be able to devote enough attention to her' (a load of crap if you ask me).

I know many many intercountry adopters - I don't know a single one, not one single one, who didn't look at the UK first. NOT ONE. Of course there may be one.

The prevailing attitude in this country is that adoption for other countries is not quite right and that you should be doing something differnent. Adopting form UK, adopting older child, not adopting, fostering, having fertility treatment, staying childless - IME almost anything is seen as a more acceptable option than an intercountry adoption. The result of this attitude (both general public) is that the UK has about 300 intercountry adoption a year. 300. Spain with an equivalent population does about 3,000 France I believe even more.

In the US, anyone's response to a proposed adoption is "Great". In the UK, people feel the need to comment on whether its the right kind of adoption.

One comment I got on Ds's adoption was "Oh how selfish"

I have developed a thicker skin but we are an odd country when it comes to adoption.

Oh and one of the reasons that adoption from disaster zones are discouraged is because the are very bureaucratic and the authorities have more pressing matters than process paperwork for a fairly small handful of children - however beneficial to that handful.

And I have been talking about those who look to adopt from abroad first before looking at adopting here.

It's not selfish at want to adopt at all, it's the complete opposite, to adopt is to want to give a child a family who will love them and support them throughout their life which imo is definately not selfish.

The demand for children under 5 in this country is extremely high and if you want to raise a child from infant/toddler age then adopting from the UK is very difficult and is not made any easier by adoption laws and restrictions that are in place.

Personally I don't think it more acceptable to do one thing over another, if somebody wants to adopt then let them, however I still feel that looking closer to home first is preferable to looking abroad first (which, as has been mentioned, is how most people do it).

Either way, there are children who need loving families everywhere and not enough people willing to take them in and that is more of a problem than where the child has come from.

I am coming from almost the polar opposite side of adoption as Kew but strangly meet with the same sort of responses.

I suppose that neither of us are what is thought of as 'traditional' adopters.

I adopted a child from family. I have been told I am selfish because he could have gone to a nice couple who really wanted him and could afford him. I am selfish because I already had kids so should have let someone take him who didnt. He could have gone to a family with a big house and more money etc.

So I do have a lot of sympathy (if that is the right word) for international adopters because there is are an awful lot of misconceptions around. I have yet to meet an international adopter who hasnt put their whole life into raising their child and doing the very best for them.

My reservation about adoptions from countries in such chaos is that I do not think that proper checks and monitoring can possibly be undertaken. The children need to be safe and cared for as a priority but fast track adoption to do this would worry me a lot.

The breakdown rate for adoptions is very high as it is. Thats with all the checks and waiting and the absolute conviction you have to have to get through the process. Its not something that should be done as an emotional response (however understandable that response is). These children are traumatised. They may have seen their parents killed in front of them. They will probably suffer from degrees of PSTD. It takes a certain type of person to be able to care for them and see them through that.

I dont think anyone its unreasonable to want to help these kids. I wish I knew the best way though.

On whole Porph, those who say would like to adopt from overseas in fact rarely adopt at all. It's a nice idea that in practice (understandably) most people don't have the stomach for the endless bureaucracy, serial disappointments and intrusive questions that are part and parcel of the process.

'In the US, anyone's response to a proposed adoption is "Great". '

I guess that's where I'm coming from then .

It just would never have occurred to me to think anything else but that, or what that parent's motives are, or what they tried first, or 'my nana did this or that' or 'they should try fostering' or 'they just don't want an older child' or any other permutation.

I'd figure they came to their decision after a great deal of thought (and time to think) and a good deal of hardship considering the cost and paperwork and what have you and this was right for their family and themselves.

And really no other thought about anyone else's situation.

Having known a good many people who did adopt from abroad in the US, from all walks of life and circumstance, well, they never found anything but support for their decision and their family.

Those children who came from Haiti to the US were already matched, already in the process, some had been in the orphanage for years (like the little girl in the press).

All they did was get them out of there because the orphanage cannot feed them and keep them hydrated and the country they are in has become very, very dangerous.

Don't suspsect for a minute that there will be an easy ride now they're in their new homes.

Their parents are committed to finishing things, but there will still be loads of paperwork hurdles.

They'll get there in the end, though. Because their families will see to that.

I'm happy they survived, and happy they've been able to come home.

Having been through domestic, infamily adoption and all the stress and red tape that involved, I cannot imagine having the stamina to get through an international one.

Its hardly the easy option.

My SIL was adopted from foster care when she was 6.

"And I have been talking about those who look to adopt from abroad first before looking at adopting here".

Then you're talking about me, Porph. As far as we know, DH and I are not infertile, we adopted from China because we wanted to become a family that way. We did not investigate a domestic adoption. And I don't see why a Chinese orphan is less deserving of a home and family than a British child. It's like saying people shouldn't donate to disaster funds abroad because there are plenty of UK charities in need of money.

By choosing inter-country adoption we made the right decision for us and the child who was to become our daughter.