Need your help Please!

I just adopted 2 boys ages 8 & 9 and I know few families that adopted much younger kids. Which agency are you using?

We are in the process of completing the adoption of a 3 year old boy and a 4 year old girl. I have also known others that have adopted children younger from Poland.

We adopted 3.5 yo girl two years ago. I think if you search some older posts you will find links to some blogs. Once you have those you can find others who are in the process of adopting. Most of the adoptions I have seen are under 10 or at least one of the kids is under 10. It doesn't mean they are a majority, just what I have been paying attention to. However, if your agency is saying over 10, I would look for another agency to compare. It maybe that your agency specializes in 10 and older. Then ask for references. Talk to people that adopted through them and ask about the referrals, how closely they matched with the home study, timeframes, etc.

I agree with Menlo above. We adoped our son last spring who was 18 months when we received his referral. While in Warsaw, we met other families who adopted sibling gorups that were all under 6. I would be concerned with the information that your agency is providing. We lived at our son's orphanage and were amazed at how many children under the age of 4 were available. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

We adopted three children between the ages of 3-6, two and a half years ago. Since then I've known personally at least seven families that adopted children between the ages of 4-10. It really depends which agency you work with. One agency specializes in sibling groups. One agency specializes in younger toddlers. If the agency you are working with is telling you that the only children available are 10+, there could be a few reasons:Your age is 50+ (at least one agency claims you have to be less than 40 years difference between your age and the child you're adopting).You are looking to adopt only one child, and you may have placed specific requirements (boy or girl, or some other restriction).You requested to adopt within less than one year.Any of these would have an impact on what an agency tells you. Sometimes, the younger the age you request - the longer the wait.Sometimes, the least number of kids you want to adopt - the longer you wait.Sometimes, the older you are - the older the children that will be referenced to you by the Polish authorities will be.So it really depends.

There are three agencies that work with orphans in Poland. The Catholic, the private and the public. Orphans are divided between these three. Anyone can work with the public, and any accredited agency can work with the private, but the Catholic one is very selective and only works with a few agencies. In the last few years a lot more Polish people have been stepping up and adopting children, this has lowered the number available for foreigners. If your agency is only working with the public agency then they have access to fewer children. Also not every child in the orphanage is available for adoption. Many children in the orphanages still have parents who retain rights, they may be having financial issues or the child may have had some problems that lead the parents to place them. My son was abandoned at birth and it took four years for his parents rights to be terminated, by then one had passed away. It only happened then because a charity pushed for it. My son was six almost five years ago when we adopted him, but he was considered severely disabled.

I have been dealing with the "age" issue myself. My husband and I wish to adopt under the age of 4 and with some agencies..they "say" there are only children available 8 and up. I believe it is dependent on the agencies connections, their lawyers in Poland, and what status, like the previous responder wrote about their standing in Poland between public and private adoptions. Huminski's Anioly specializes in Polish adoption and will flat out tell you children 8 and up are available. Where others I have spoke to disagree. We have narrowed our options for an agency down and will be signing with one next month.

This is for momraine, or anyone who may be able to answer this who are or have adopted from Poland. Regarding children available for adoption I was told that rarely you will see a medical record that states the child as "healthy". Even stating they have disabilities. Then when I questioned my agency on this, she said that it usually does not hold true. Momraine, you mentioned your son was severely disabled, did this hold true? I want to be as cautious and aware to all that I can. I am a special ed. teacher, so my mind goes all over the place when I am told of their medical records are not always true? How can Poland place a disability on a medical record and then to find the child is perfectly healthy, but may have minor delays or mild Learning disablilities? Can anyone help clarify this misconception or what misleading information they have seen on referrals?

[quote=PolishGirl]I am currently working with an agency and hoping to adopt siblings. The agency told me that the only children available are usually between the ages of 10 and up. Thank you all of you who are replying on my post and PMing me. Your information has been very helpful. I am a single female, age 44. I was surprised when the Catholic agency gave me this parameter of age. I know that there is the 40 year age difference rule and i accept and respect it. I believe that I will have to switch agencies as I pursue my adoption. :love: :wings:

[QUOTE=momraine]There are three agencies that work with orphans in Poland. The Catholic, the private and the public. Orphans are divided between these three. Anyone can work with the public, and any accredited agency can work with the private, but the Catholic one is very selective and only works with a few agencies. Since adoption from Poland have to follow The Hague Convention rules (which happened sometime in 2008) everyone who wants to adopt from Poland HAS to use accredited agency in US. Also there is no way to use the lawyer, and try to adopt privately anymore. All accredited agencies in US can use all three agencies in Poland (the catholic, the public, or TPD). However, it appears to me, based on my recent experience of adopting children just few months ago, that agencies in US have their preferences on which agency they like to use in Poland. I personally met with all of them in the past the catholic one, TPD and public one, and I have the best opinion about TPD. The Catholic one is very strict and selective, the public one appears to be a little bit corrupted and disorganized (this is based on my conversations/meetings with them about 5-6 years ago, so maybe things have changed!), and the girls from TPD were very nice and helpful.

I am still in contact with people in Poland. The Catholic adoption center does not work with all accredited agencies. They are very picky. They often will not work with single parents, or parents who have been divorced. They change often which agencies they work with. If an agency attempts to get a family through that does not meet standards they will no longer work with that agency. Read more here [url=http://www.adopcja.org/e-index.htm]The Catholic Adoption and Care Center in Warsaw, Poland[/url]In Poland it is not about finding children for families, it is about finding families for children. Here is a rough version of how it works. (this is not stated officially, but I have been told this by the facilitators who work in Poland, some work for more than one agency) The committees meet, I believe once a month or so. They have a pile of files of children and a pile of files of parents. They pull from the children's files. Say the top file is a four year old girl. First they will look at any Polish families living in Poland and see if any of them are looking for a four year girl. If none of them are then they will look at Polish citizens living abroad, and then those of Polish descent who are citizens of other countries. Then there are unofficial things that they look for. The majority of Poles are Catholic so they have a preference for catholic families and then Christian families. I have not heard of any successful adoptions from Poland of homosexual couples and only one single parent adoption that I have heard of and that was an older child with special needs. A couple of things to remember. Poland is doing better than many of the other former communist countries, and so more citizens are able and willing to adopt. Also just because a child is in an orphanage or foster home it does not mean the child is eligible for adoption. My son spent four years in an orphanage with no visits or contact from family before his parents rights were terminated. When I was adopting him the nuns told me about his best friend, who was not transferred with him, but had to remain in the town where the baby home was because his parents still retained rights. He was going to have to move to a nursing home when he aged out of the baby home because his parents did not want him in the adult facility for the disabled in another city. Many of the children in his orphanage had parents that visited on occasion and still retained rights. As for the medical records, my son's main disability is that he was born completely without legs and without a left arm. This is not something they could hide. I was given minimal information before the adoption, but after I was given a handwritten medical record. They did not know about his RAD. There are two reasons for that, one is that they do not recognize it as an issue, and another is that many RAD kids do very well in orphanage settings, it is only in the intimate family setting that things go wrong. They did diagnose an eating disorder, though they seemed at a loss as to how to treat it. The actual medical issues seemed to be right on target and very accurate.