New and looking for advise

February 13, 2006

Hi all,

I am new to this board and already I have found some good information. First I will introduce myself.

My name is Diana and I am Dutch, my husband, Dave is AD AF and we are stationed in the UK. I know agencies that do adoptions for overseas couples but I believe that hearing from other adoptive parents will help us a lot deciding who to go with. I understand that us having two nationalities will narrow down the countries we can adopt from and also the agencies who will deal with us.

Can any one give us some feed back on agencies they have experience with, good or bad.

Also, can any one tell us anything about the cost. We have received information on cost for different countries but we are wondering if there are a lot of hidden cost that you did not expect when you started this journey.

And one more question, we were going to adopt from the Ukraine but they are closed at this time. (may possible be open again by the time we have our home study and BCIS procedure completed, keeping the fingers crossed) but can any one else advise on some other countries. I know that China is really populair now as it is very dependable. Can any one give some information on Latin American countries, the process, the time frame and the cost.

Thank you so much for all the input you can give!!

Diana

jaymo

February 13, 2006

Hi Diana,

We are currently adopting from Guatemala. All I can tell you is that the price varies greatly depending on the agency that you use .... our will total about $56,000 (we are adopting twins so it is double the cost!!) but the average is about $25,000-35,000. The main reason that we chose Guatemala is because it is one of the only countries that we both do not have to travel. The process in Guatemala is a little harried right now because they do not have a "set" procedure for international adoption. Another reasonthat we choose there was because the children are placed in foster care and are usually the only children there (at least with our agency).

If you ahve any other questions ... please feel free to email me either privately or on my own email address.

I am not sure if I answered your questions at all but I will try :flower: .

Oh, the wait for an infant from Guatemala is about 6 months for a boy and, I think, 6-9 for a girl. We started our process 7 November 2005 and will be receiving our "official" referral this week.

Ok, I think that is it .... let me know if there is anything else that you are needing/wanting to know. I can talk to my social worker and see if she can find out more about the process because you live in the UK ... the process may be different but I an not sure.

Good luck!

Maura.