New Adoption/Private Adoption

International adoption is not difficult, if you choose a country with a well-organized and ethical adoption system, a relatively short time frame, reasonable fees, and so on. Adoption from many countries can take less time than domestic adoption and have fewer chances of fall-through. The basic process involves a homestudy (one is also needed for domestic adoption), approval of you and the child by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a dossier that meets the requirements of the foreign government, and travel to complete the adoption overseas and bring the child home. (A few countries permit escort, but it's not all that common.) Private adoptions are allowed in some countries, forbidden in others. They are not necessarily cheaper, and tend to be more risky than adoptions through licensed, non-profit U.S. agencies for a number of reasons. For one thing, if the family winds up using a foreign facilitator, the family may not know if this person is in good standing with the authorities of his/her country, understands the foreign and U.S. adoption requirements, understands the health issues affecting adopted children, and so on. There is no oversight of foreign facilitators, so a family has no recourse if the facilitator takes money and the family comes home without a child or with a child who has medical issues that he/she failed to disclose to the parents. Remember that the adoption has to be valid under the laws of the foreign country, so or your facilitator had better be familiar with such laws. The child must also meet the requirements of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, or you will not be able to secure an adoption visa to bring the child home. If you cannot get an adoption visa, you will have to live overseas with the child for two years and apply to get a regular visa; obviously, you are unlikely to want to do that. One of the requirements of the INA is that the child qualify as an "eligible orphan." A child being placed by a two-parent family will not qualify. Many times, children in foreign orphanages do not qualify, and it is important that the child you select is eligible for immigration. In general, children cannot be brought home until they are around six months old, and sometimes considerably older. The reason is that many countries want to be sure that the children will not be adoptable domestically; international adoption is seen as a last resort. They also may have a legal process that is lengthy, and the U.S. immigration process may be a trifle long. You have to be careful, if you use a facilitator, to choose one who is honest in representing the ages of children available from a particular country. If a facilitator tells you that he/she can provide you with an infant and ensure that he/she comes home in a month, and the country does not place infants for adoption or has a long adoption process, you could wind up either adopting an older child whom you are not prepared to care for or losing your money and your heart. Remember that the countries from which people adopt generally do not have the standard of living found in our country. Pregnant women may not have good nutrition, and may not know that smoking and drinking can affect their developing fetus. And those children who are placed in orphanages or foster care may not receive much medical attention. Further, conditions in the orphanage or foster care setting can contribute to emotional problems. In addition, the diagnoses that are given to the children may or may not be the same that would be given in the U.S. Therefore, it is very important to select an agency or facilitator that understands both local medical issues and the things an American would look for in a child. Even more importantly, the agency or facilitator should be selected because of his/her honesty in reporting information to a family. Too many families have come home, not realizing that their child's medical history includes something like abuse, prenatal alcohol exposure, seizures, etc. A good place to start looking at the situation with regard to adoption from Hungary is the website of the U.S. State Department at [url]http://travel.state.gov/adopt.[/url] If you scroll down, you will find a list of countries, and can click on "Hungary" to check the adoption rules. Unfortunately, one of the things I learned at that site was that only 6 children from Hungary came home on adoption visas in 2001. Compare this with almost 5,000 from China. This usually suggests that it is very difficult to adopt, either because few children are made available or because the process is too difficult. One thing I learned from surfing adoption websites is that infants and young toddlers are rarely available in Hungary, which may be the reason for the limited numbers of adoptions. Most sites said that the available children are generally between three and six years old. Most often, they are not of ethnic Hungarian origin, but are Roma (Gypsy) or of mixed ancestry. Another good place to look at countries and -- if you should choose to go this route -- licensed, non-profit agencies is in the "Report on Intercountry Adoption 2002", published by International Concerns for Children, a non-profit parent support organization. This book includes a list of agencies working in each country that is open for adoption. For each agency working in a given country, it lists the types of children available (age, health status, ethnicity), the requirements for parents (age, marital status, etc.), the estimated time frame, and the estimated fees. I hope this is helpful. Sharon

We had a wonderful experience in adopting our two children from Hungary. I do understand that the rules have changed since we adopted ours and it is now difficult. However, I don't think it would be impossible. Additionally, Both of our children were toddlers when we adopted them and adopting an infant in Hungary is probably next to impossible. You can see each of our two adoption stories on our family homepage if you are interested. The homepage is listed in our profile. Best of luck!

Dear Phil, I read about your adoption story on one of the internet forums and wanted to contact you right away. We have been trying to adopt two children from Hungary for two years. We have a facilitator but he keeps running into one road block after the next. We are just about at the end of our rope and are considering switching countries. This is a hard decision for us since I am of Hungarian descent and we really wanted to adopt from my birth country. Can you tell me if you had assistance with your adoption of your two kids? If so were you happy with them. Can you refer us to them? We are completely paper ready and some of papers are going to expire soon. Please provide any information you can to help us. Thank you,

Hi All! See my new thread under Hungary! Kate