I am not sure if it is okay for this community.

Hi...welcome!:) I think internationally, there are a lot of waiting children who are deaf. A lot of countries have a social stigma attached to handicaps so I do know there are available children there. You might also find available children to adopt through the foster care system. My recommendation would be to start researching everything you can about adoption in general first. Check out the kinds of adoptions there are and that you might be interested in (infant, international, if yes international, what country?, foster care etc.) Learn about things specific to each kind of process you are interested in. After you do that and are of an age and time in life where you are ready to adopt, I would contact local agencies and tell them you are specifically looking to adopt a deaf child. They can be a great asset to you in telling you where to find the specific children you are looking for. You might also check into this Yahoo group for more resources and information. [url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DeafHOH-Adoption/]DeafHOH-Adoption : DeafHOH-Adoption[/url]

I'm not deaf, but my daughter Lillian is. She is adopted from Liberia where there are a lot of deaf orphans waiting. I think this is pretty much the case worldwide like Crick said. There is an agency that has a lot of waiting children and they also have a subsidy to help with the cost of adopting children with specific "special needs" and deafness is one of them (I say "special needs" because I don't really view deafness as a special need, but it is classified that way in the adoption world). If you PM me I can give you the agency info. I don't have any personal experience with them. I've just heard about them from other families. I have specifically heard about a larger number of deaf orphans in Ethiopia, China, Russia and Kazakhstan. I know that there are deaf children in the foster care system as well, but they are often hard to locate. Like Crick said above you may have to contact individual agencies or social workers and tell them that you are looking for a deaf child. Hope that helps.

I think it's great you're thinking about this. It shows great maturity on your part. It sounds like you and your family would be a great asset to a deaf child.I can't offer anything with regard specifically to adopting a deaf child. Our kids' disabilities were in other areas. But I do think you're in the right place for research about adoption issues in general. Deafness would probably not be the only issue you would need to cope with in an adoption.FWIW, we started looking into adoption when we were about your age. We adopted two sisters ages 4 and 6 from Korea when we were 23, after waiting the obligatory five years after marriage required by our agency at that time. Good luck in your pursuit.

I am late responding as things have been crazy at my house. Because my husband is hoh we looked into adopting a deaf child. (Lillian's photo is in my prayer journal as we considered her, but she was meant to be yours!) You mikght PM whit, because Lillian came from an orphanage for the deaf and they have many children available for adoption and they teach them ASL in that orphanage. I also was looking for a child with a specific disabliltiy. I now have two kids with limb differences so my next child will probably have limb differences too. My method will be, when we are ready to contact several large agencies letting them know of my interest. They will let me know if they do or do not currently hae waiting children of this type. Also I searched websites like rainbow kids and some other ones. By the time you are ready to adopt there will probably be many more resources available. Most countries will not allow you to adopt until you are 25. The US government requires a certain level of financial security as well. Good luck with your search and stick around.