Just a quickie -

I just found this amazing list of books on Amazon that will surely be of interest for people adopting from Ethiopia: click here.

I am assuming the woman who created the list is intimately involved in adoption from Ethiopia - or at the very least has a keen interest in the subject. How wonderful that there are so many resources out there.

Now someone needs to write one that's adoption-specific... more

Since our Guatemalan adoption blogger seems to be on vacation from blogger-land these days, I'll hop right in and send interested parties to a good article in the New York Times about adoptions from Guatemala.

Go here to read the full text. You may or may not have to register or see an ad before you read the article.

Now, I am not an adoptive parent of a child from Guatemala,... more

I heard rumors that Bulgaria was closed to adoptions by foreigners and while this is not technically true, it is true that the past year has seen remarkable slow-downs and limitations in adoptions from that country.

Here's the statement JCICS has on their website about adoption from Bulgaria:

Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, there is no moratorium on Bulgarian intercountry adoptions. Last year, the U.S. Embassy in Sofia issued 29 IR-3 and IR-4 visas to Bulgarian orphans adopted by American families, and is currently... more

This is from the U.S. Department of state. It looks like things may change in Haiti, or they're at least going to reassess the current situation.

October 2006

The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince has reported that a new director was appointed on Tuesday, October 3, to lead the Haitian social services agency, “Institut du Bien Etre Social et de Recherches” (IBESR). Prospective adoptive parents should expect adoption processing to be temporarily slower as the director settles into the position. The Department of State and the U.S. Embassy continue to monitor the situation... more

It looks like India is moving in the right direction by providing benefits for its citizens who want to adopt. In this article in the Hindustan Times, it reports of an amendment that a large organization has passed in their employment guidelines to allow for adoption leave:

According to the amendment, a female employee of Mahila Samakhya with less than two surviving children, may be granted leave (similar to maternity in terms of pay and medical due and balance without production of medical certificate, if required) if she adopted a child till such time the latter turned three years of age.... more

Here is part 1 of this blog entry.

Some agencies permit travel to India, some don't. India is a challenging country through which to travel and I imagine it can also depend on the region where your referred child is located. From what I can tell, parents only travel when it's time to get the child: travel at the time of referral does not usually happen. (If you've been through the process and know differently PLEASE let me know. I looked at some agency sites in addition... more

The grandmother of all information sources for adoption from India is IChild. That's where I've gotten most of my information for this blog post.

As with all other international adoptions, the prospective adoptive parents will first complete a homestudy, apply for the I-600A, and complete a dossier for the Indian government. You must use an agency to adopt from India; they partner with an agency in India who will locate a child for referral.

Once you receive your referral then you will have several more... more

It was with excitement that I googled "adopting from Kyrgyzstan." I read someone recommending it on a message board and I wanted to investigate it further. Adopting from Eastern Europe still remains a possibility for us and I'm interested in any and all of the programs available.

Unfortunately, it looks like adopting from the Kyrgyz Republic is neither easy nor recommended at this time. According to the state department's website, only 5 children were adopted from the Kyrgyz... more

For the past 5 years about 300 children a year were adopted from Colombia. Here is what the JCICS says about adopting from Colombia:

Colombian law allows for adoptions by a married man and woman and common law spouses of more than three years. Single men and women are eligible to adopt children over the age of seven years only and on a case-by-case basis. In practice, newborns are assigned to younger couples, and older children are assigned to older couples.

Both parents are required to be 25 years of age and capable physically, emotionally to adopt. The... more

I am very surprised that more people aren't adopting from Haiti. From what I've been able to find out, Haiti is one of the simpler and least expensive countries to adopt from and there are many children who need homes ranging from infants to older children. In some cases and with some agencies the adoptive parents do not even need to travel to the country, but if they do the time in-country can be as little as 2 days. Children are adopted from orphanages, so if an older child is adopted there will probably be developmental delays because of institutionalization (depending on how long the... more