Advertisements
Hi, I'm new here. My name is Betsy, I have 3 children (ages 5, 3, and 1) and am hoping to adopt a child from Korea. My husband(29) and I(26) have been married for 7 years, and have many ties to Korea. My husband lived there for a few years, speaks Korean, has tutored Koreans where we live, has an aunt who is Korean, and we both have fathers who have frequented Korea on business trips in the last few years. Through our many connections to this rich culture we have fallen in love with the people of Korea and are hoping to add another child to our family via Korea.
Here is my question. With our many ties to Korea I believe we can find a baby/child to adopt without involving an agency. But if we go this route I have no idea how to proceed to adopt a baby without an agency! :P I know it's done, but I just don't know how. I figure it will probably be a little more complicated, but cheaper.
Have any of you adopted a baby without involving a third party? Or do you know of someone who has? If you have adopted through an agency what exactly is their role that we would be stepping around? Would we still need to fill out paperwork and have a home study or is that the agency's requirements?
I understand that there is some talk about closing the adoption going out of Korea, so we must act. Looking forward to being apart of this online community! :)
Like
Share
You cannot adopt from South Korea without using an agency, it is their requirement. If your husband is a citizen it may be different. South Korea is working towards ending intercountry adoptions all together and promoting in-country adoptions and/or single parenting and has new conditions applied. [URL="http://korea.adoption.com/foreign/korea-adoption-factsheet.html"]http://korea.adoption.com/foreign/korea-adoption-factsheet.html[/URL] Kind regards,Dickons
Advertisements
Yes, you need to look for a National Agency. I would recommend that you take the time to read in-depth on both of these sites to understand adoption and how to ensure ethics are front and center so you don't have any regrets. Note they cover many countries but also have specifics for prospective adoptive parents, processes, rights, concerns, etc. They may also be able to point you in the right direction in regards to an agency. [url=http://pear-now.blogspot.com/]Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR)[/url] [url=http://www.ethicanet.org/]Ethica An Independent Voice for Ethical Adoption[/url] Kind regards,Dickons
Korea is the only country in the world that limits you to working with an agency that has a contract with its government to place children in your state of residence. Korea wanted to encourage agencies to remain in contact with families to ensure that families completed requirements to adopt in the U.S., make the kids citizens, etc., as well as to help with counseling and support, as needed. Korea felt that working with local clients would encourage this kind of contact.
There are slightly looser requirements regarding agency choice if you are willing to accept a child with special needs.
Sharon
You may have to be open to minor medical special needs to adopt with an agency not working in your state. Sometimes these SN are very minor, like low birth weight or prematurity. And you get to pick what you are comfortable with.I'm going to PM you the name of our agency. They have a long standing reputation w/ S. Korea, and everyone I know who has worked with them has had quite a smooth process.From the time we sent in our very first paper (the pre-application, Dec 23, 09) to when our daughter came home (Jan 8, 11) was just a few days over one year. And besides that, we requested a girl, which usually adds time to the timeline. Pretty much unheard of nowadays in int'l adoptions.Good luck!
Advertisements
Well, thank you all for the information. I've started looking into the different options. From the beginning (we've been considering adoption for a few years now) we decided that we weren't going to hand pick our child and request a lot of things. You can't do that when having a biological child, so why do it when you adopt? Whether it's a boy, a girl, a healthy, or SN child we will welcome them into our home with as much love and attention as we give our other children. The thought of having a serious SN child scares me with how much attention (medically, financially, and emotionally) they can need, but having a baby biologically I have a chance of having a SN child without a say, so why should it be any different through adoption? Either way if that child is meant to be in our home we will step up and take care of it. So, whether there was an agency in our state or not (it's looking like there's not) we would be open to a SN child, so I guess it doesn't really change our end goals. Just a more crooked path to get there.