the international adoption rant

From my previous post, it stirred up why I was annoyed with this girl in the first place.

Originally, this girl popped up in the adoption forum and mentinoed wanting to look into adopting from the Ukraine, possibly an older child. Obviously, her and her partner quickily changed this since a few months later they are pregnant. Needless to say, it was a forum on adoption so I mentioned that the foster care system is an option for people looking to adopt.

Her response was I don't like people telling me what to do. WHAT??? Umm, I was merely mentioning that the foster system is an option for people looking to adopt.

I didn't get into how I have mixed feelings on the international adoption trend and that my wife is strongly against it all together. I just thought I'd mention the option for anyone reading the board.

A lot of people don't think of adopting in the u.s. Because international adoption is so popular now, it's actually a lot easier to adopt an infant in the u.s. with shorter waiting times than ever before.

But people say, oh there's no babies in the u.s. Babies?!? I've never seen a 2 day old infant come off a plane from China or Guatamela. By the time these children are adopted, they're most likely a toddler.

I'm definitely not pro foster care, in fact I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. However, if one is thinking of adopting an older child from abroad, why aren't they looking in the u.s. first? There are plenty of children available for straight adoption.

There's this false impression that if you adopt internationally, the kids don't have the problems that kids in the u.s. have. They do! But most likely, you're not going to know about them until you've spent $25,000 to adopt them and they're living in your house.

It's also a complicated situation when you're gay because you have to work with an agency that is willing to lie for you (since no country allows gay people to adopt) and find a country that will let one of you adopt as a single parent.

Others may think if they adopt outside of the u.s., there's no chance that later they'll have to deal with a bio relative. Internationally adopted children may still want to look for relatives especially if they look in the mirror everyday and see that they're a different nationality than the parents that raised them. Unfortunately, for them, it may be a more frustrating process since they'll have to navigate a system in a foreign country. That foreign country, being one where they were conceived, birthed, and cared for during their early life.

Is it better to give an ethiopian girl a chance at a good life or an abandoned black girl from the u.s.? Of course, it's a good thing either way but I don't want the excuse that children or babies aren't available in the u.s. because they are!