To marry or not to marry - how will it impact getting started?

The United States signed the Hague Treaty in 2010, and currently International Adoption is either 'backlogged' or alot of countries are closed. Both of the United States Immigration or countries do not look at how long you have lived together. It's when you are married and or started filing Joint Income Tax Returns. In the early 2000s, you used to be able to go anywhere and Adopt a Healthy Infant. Infants are about 5-36 monthes in age. I have yet to see a Newborn Adoption Internationally!! Basically what is available, for anyone Adopting International is either 'Pilot Programs' or Special Needs Orphans. Alot or a ton of Special Needs are minor and correctable. Alot of Countries have way different Health Advocacy. Than we do here in the United States as well also!! If you still want to pursue International Adoption? I would then recommend going to a Free Placement or Home Study Agency Orientation, and at least getting 'your feet wet'? Personally, I would also Advocate United States Foster Care or Domestic Adoption. There are a Ton of Awesome Preschool Aged Kids out in the World no matter where you Adopt from also!!

I must respectfully disagree with the poster who stated that ratification of the Hague Convention has caused most countries to close to adoption or to have a big backlog.First off, many countries are still open to adoption There are adoptions taking place in countries within Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and so on. Not all will accept older parents, but if you go to the website of the U.S. State Department, you will see a dropdown list of countries. If you click on ones that might interest you, you can see if they are open and if you meet the age requirements.Second, most of the countries that closed did not do so because of the Hague. Russia closed because it worried about stories it has heard about American families abusing/killing adopted Russian children. Kazakhstan has not been welcoming to Americans because the government of that country was not receiving the required post placement reports from some families and their agencies. Cambodia closed to Americans because our government saw a disturbing pattern of visa fraud, misleading of birthmothers about the finality of adoption, and so on. Our country also stopped allowing Americans to adopt from Vietnam, for the same reason; however, now that Vietnam has RATIFIED the Hague Convention, the U.S. is allowing adoptions of children considered hard to place, such as those with special needs, school aged children, and sibling groups (non-twin). Guatemala also closed because corruption was considered to be extensive; efforts are being made to correct problems, but has not been reopened to Americans yet.As far as slowdowns, the main country with slowdowns is China, and only for healthy infants/toddlers. Families open to mild to moderate special needs, and families open to school aged children can generally adopt in two years or less. Again, with China, the Hague is not the issue. China is enjoying surprising prosperity in recent years, which means that fewer children are being abandoned or placed for adoption due to poverty. The country is also seeing the effects of the easing of the one-child policy, in that fewer families abandon children to avoid losing their jobs, paying huge fines, and so on. Additionally, as China has become more Westernized, it is seeing more families who are willing to adopt domestically; in the past, many people wouldn't adopt because they felt that the "blood tie" was important, and that it was improper to raise an unrelated child.On the other hand, Korea -- the oldest formal international adoption program serving Americans -- has not closed, and while there are slowdowns, the situation isn't all that bad. Korea is NOT a Hague country, so the situation isn't related to the Hague treaty. Even more than China, Korea has become amazingly prosperous in the past two decades or so. Many people, as a result, don't feel that they need to make adoption plans. Also, Korean teens know more about sex, contraception, and so on; they don't have as many surprise pregnancies, and have more options, ranging from parenting their children, to aborting, to turning to domestic adoptions. And domestic adoption is being actively encouraged by the Korean government. In most cases, you CAN adopt from Korea within two years, and especially if you are open to some special needs.Yes, the Hague has meant more paperwork for families. And, yes, it has sometimes meant higher fees, as agencies have had to pay to go through the COA accreditation process, have had to buy professional liability insurance (to prevent huge losses if sued for anything), have had to spend lots of time rewriting policies, and so on. But international adoption is still a great option, and older couples can still find countries that will place children with them. It may take a little more work to find a country and an agency that will work with you, if you choose to go international, but it's not at all impossible, especially if you are open to children with special needs.I adopted from China when it was possible for singles to adopt healthy infants and toddlers, even if the prospective parents were past the normal childbearing years. I was 51 when my daughter came home at 18.5 months of age, and am now the very happy 70 year old single Mom of a college student who is soon to turn 20. I know that I didn't have an "easy" time, even back in the 1990s. Many agencies tried to discourage me from applying for a young child, or pointed me to countries other than China. But I hung on, through all of that stuff, as well as through brief suspensions of adoptions and reorganizations of the Chinese adoption system. You may have an even tougher time, but if you choose the right country, have some openness to a child over three or one with special needs, and work with an agency that is open to non-traditional families, you should be able to adopt internationally without waiting ten years.Sharon

One more point.Ethical international adoption, with or without the Hague, cannot be about bringing home a newborn. Adoption is a complex legal process, involving the laws of your state, the U.S. government, and the foreign country, all of which are designed to protect children, birthmothers, and adoptive families. It takes a long time to satisfy all these laws -- and possibly Hague requirements, as well. In most cases, a child cannot be referred to a family until he/she is at least three to six months old, and won't actually have a finalized adoption until he/she is at least a year old.A woman, whether from the U.S. or any foreign country, cannot make a formal plan to place a child for adoption before that child is born. EVERY woman in the world has the right to see and hold her baby, and recover from the strain of giving birth, before agreeing to relinquish her child for adoption. Some women will change their minds. As a result, the adoption process cannot actually start until a child is born and the birthmother has officially relinquished the child. One of the reasons that I'm not too comfortable with the U.S. domestic adoption system is that it refers pregnant women to potential adoptive parents before -- sometimes months before -- a child is born. The prospective parents get used to thinking of "our birthmother", when, indeed, the pregnant woman is neither a birthmother nor "theirs". When she gives birth, the woman should not be pressured in any way to relinquish at all, or to the prospective parents (who may be present at delivery and have a sense of entitlement). In my opinion, a child should not be referred to a family, at least until shortly before birth, and preferably not until a relinquishment period of a month or so has passed. The adoption agency through which I adopted my daughter from China also did domestic adoptions, and its approach to domestic adoptions was that, even if there is an early referral, a newborn goes into private foster or cradle care with an agency-approved family for a month, until the relinquishment period is past. The child is NOT given directly to the prospective parents upon delivery, to avoid giving them pain if the birthmother decides to parent. Certainly, open adoption is good; however, taking four or five months for prospective adoptive parents to get to know a pregnant woman is not really in the best interests of anyone.With international adoptions, most of the children are legally free for adoption before they are referred. And in most countries, children cannot be referred for international adoption until there is a period of time during which domestic placement of the child is sought. Usually, this time frame is three to six months, and during it, the child may be placed on a list that is made available to prospective adoptive families in the country. In general, good adoption practice considers placement with domestic relatives or members of the community to be optimal, if a child cannot remain with his/her birthparents; intercountry adoption is the next best option, and foster care or orphanage care is the least optimal solution.Unfortunately, most international adoptions are closed, not open. In a lot of countries from which Americans adopt, there is a stigma attached to both relinquishing a child and adopting a child. As a result, records of domestic adoptions are often sealed, so that the identities of the birthparents and adoptive parents are protected. As an example, a female Russian adoption judge told me that, in her country, many infertile women still pretend to be pregnant and then to go away to a 'hospital" to deliver; in fact, they are adopting, and come home with a baby that they claim they bore. The children are referred only to parents who "look like them". There is a tendency to try to carry over this practice into the international arena. Many adoptive families, however, do a search for their children's birth families, and at least a few are successful at finding them.Once a child is referred to an American family, the prospective parents have some time -- usually about a week -- to have their referrals reviewed by an American doctor before accepting them. Once they have accepted referrals -- which can be a year or more after they have begun the adoption process -- they must wait until the foreign government is ready for them to come and finalize their adoption. In some cases, there may be two or more trips needed -- for example, if the foreign country wants a "bonding" visit of a month or two before it even gets the finalization onto the court calendar. Thus, even if a child is referred at three months -- and that's pretty rare, nowadays -- it may be six months or more before finalization can occur.Also, after referral, the process of preparing for immigration begins. While most prospective parents get USCIS approval of their plan to bring an orphan to the U.S. very early in the process, the USCIS must also approve the child as eligible for immigration, and must do an updated review of the prospective parents' qualifications. In addition, the USCIS wants to be sure that the foreign adoption process was followed, and that the foreign paperwork is genuine. All of this takes time. Interestingly, although getting more parentless children adopted is a good thing, the more families and children are in the system, the longer the time frame gets. Foreign courts have non-adoption cases to process, foreign orphanages are usually understaffed and busy with child care, rather than paperwork, everything must be translated, and so on.Yes, there were countries that were referring children soon after their birth and sending them home at four to six months of age. But that was NOT a good thing, and most of those countries have now closed or created temporary moratoriums to fix their system. The problem was that these were the countries with the most corruption in the adoption process; the speed of the process meant insufficient oversight to protect children, birthmothers, and adoptive families. Birthmothers were coerced into relinquishing. Babies were bought or stolen. Foreign officials were bribed. In Guatemala, the U.S. had to insist on DNA testing of birthmothers and babies they were allegedly relinquishing, because the birthmothers occasionally turned out to be child traffickers who had stolen or bought the children, and were not their parents at all. In Ethiopia, some children were listed as orphans when, in fact, they had living parents who thought they were just sending kids to the U.S. for an education. In Vietnam and Cambodia, visa fraud was a problem. Unfortunately, while some of the corruption involved primarily foreign facilitators and government officials, some U.S. agencies and facilitators were also implicated. As an example, two Americans, who happened to be sisters, were convicted of money laundering, visa fraud, and other crimes related to their work as adoption professionals -- one as the head of an adoption agency, and one as an adoption facilitator who tarnished the reputation of many respectable agencies that did not realize what she was doing and contracted with her for help in identifying adoptable orphans.Certainly, we'd all like to see children who need new parents placed in loving, safe homes as quickly as possible. But cutting corners risks putting some children into the hands of traffickers, depriving some women of a chance to raise their babies, and taking advantage of prospective parents who have already experienced the grief of infertility.Sharon