Chris and Tina's Adoption Story

Congratulations on your decision to adopt. We are the proud parents of two children through adoption – one international adoption and one domestic placement. We sure hope our story helps you in your decision making.

After a few years of infertility and treatments, we decided to direct our attention and finances toward growing our family through adoption. As a multi-racial couple, I am Caucasian and Chris is a Trinidadian native of mixed heritage, we knew our hearts were leading us to adopt a child/children of color. 

We did some research on the Internet about adoption, and searched both for domestic and international agencies. We read about how a domestic adoption would be pricey – over $20,000 – and would likely take 18 months or longer before we were matched. We were also bombarded with stories about failed placements and heartache, and felt overwhelmed and scared by the idea of open adoption. 

So we started focusing more on international adoption. Since Chris is a Caribbean native, we focused our attention on adoption from a Caribbean country. Haiti and Trinidad were the first countries we researched, but Haiti had more established international adoption programs. We found a website for a Christian adoption facilitator with an orphanage in Haiti where photos of the children and a short biography of each child were posted. This facilitator boasted a $7,500 adoption fee and that our child would be home in about five months. 

We went to Haiti and met a 10-day-old boy who would become our son. We completed our huge dossier and sent it to Haiti in mid-December 2002. What should have been a 5 to 6 month wait for our son turned into an 11-month nightmare. About nine months into our adoption, the owner of the adoption facilitation company, after mishandling adoptions and adoption funds and mistreating adoptive parents in cruel and unusual ways, abruptly closed her Haitian orphanages and left 40 or so adoptive families – including us - with no more money in accounts to complete their adoptions and orphaned children in Haiti without food, care or rent for housing. 

We hurriedly traveled to Haiti, took custody of our son and took over our adoption, contacting Haitian adoption attorneys, US Consulate and INS (BCIS) offices in Haiti to find out what to do. But by the grace of God and a few good people, our stay in Haiti was only five days and we traveled home with our son. We were able to do in five days what our facilitator couldn’t do in four months. 

About two months later, the coup in Haiti halted all adoptions. Some folks, whose adoptions were started at the same time or just after ours, waited almost two years before bringing home their children.

A few months before Aidan’s arrival home, we started researching domestic adoption again. We realized that with the right agency and a very open mind, our wait for a child would not be as long as we had once feared. We have friends who were matched with a potential birthmother within one month of signing up with their agency, and they had their son in their arms just a few months later. They explained many things to us and provided us with more information on open adoption. Their adoption didn’t cost $20,000 but was significantly less than that. And, since we were interested in African-American or bi-racial infants, our wait, we were finding, would be even shorter than if we were waiting for a Caucasian child. 

We found the American Adoptions Web site and searched through their Available Situations page. We found a situation that piqued our interest and we contacted Megan for more information. Even though that situation did not result in a match, we kept in touch with her through the home study process. 

Then, on the last day of our home study appointments with our social worker in early February 2004, Megan contacted us about a baby girl, already born and in foster care and free for adoption. The birth mother wanted a closed adoption and was having the agency choose the perfect family for her baby. And Megan was calling us. Our son had only been home a few months but we knew this baby girl was going to be a great addition to our family. We called Megan the next day and accepted the match. One week later I was on a plane to meet my baby girl. We waited one day for ICPC approval and then we were on a plane home. We brought home our new daughter on Valentine’s Day.

So, in short, allow me to breakdown what our experiences have been:

International Adoption

What we were told/promised:
o $7,500 adoption fees plus $500 per month for six months for orphanage expenses
o Five or six months until child was ready to travel
o A relatively easy process with a Christian adoption service provider in good standing with Haitian adoption authorities

What we got:
o $35,000+ in adoption and attorney fees and monthly orphanage expenses, and travel expenses 
o 11 months of heartbreaking, agonizing, nail-biting waiting
o An extremely difficult and perilous process with an extremely unprofessional, very un-Christian-like organization which never once told us the truth about our adoption, and with a very volatile foreign country with corruption in the heart of almost every government office
o One amazingly handsome, smart, healthy, funny and entertaining little angel boy who turned 1 year old 9 days after coming home

Domestic Adoption

What we were told/promised:

o Match within one year
o $15,000 to $25,000 adoption fees (not including travel)

What we got:

o Matched before approval of home study with infant already born and free for adoption
o $19,500 in adoption fees (not including travel)
o One gorgeous, spunky, goofy, active little girl who is head over heels in love with her big brother

In the end, almost all of the reasons we chose to go international for the adoption of our son were negated by the domestic adoption of our daughter. What it takes – in any type of adoption – is the presence of a dedicated team of adoption professionals with a history of successful adoptions. Adoptive parents choose international adoption for a variety of reasons, and there are thousands of happy families formed through this type of adoption, including ours. In our case, for what we wanted – to be parents of an infant – domestic adoption through American Adoptions was the easiest, least expensive, most professional and by far the quickest of our two adoptions. In fact, we hope to add again to our family soon and we look forward to working with the American Adoption staff once more.

A few other things to keep in mind about international adoption:

o Although some children can be as young as five or six months old upon arriving home, most babies adopted internationally are about a year or older
o Working with a foreign country is very stressful and unpredictable, and adoptions from another country to the US can be halted by the US Government without warning
o US government offices (BCIS) in foreign countries can also be difficult to work with and unpredictable
o Dossier preparation for an international adoption is far more involved and can take much longer and be costlier than a domestic home study. In most international adoptions, the entire dossier, including government seals and notary stamps, must be translated into that country’s native language
o Conditions in foreign orphanages and foster homes can vary widely. Children can arrive home with serious and unexpected physical, mental, emotional and behavioral issues, such as RAD (reactive attachment disorder)
o Foreign adoptions can be disrupted for a variety of reasons, including the death of the child (In the 11 months it took for our son to come home from Haiti, at least six of the infants from his orphanage died before their adoptions were completed)
o There is usually no chance for an open adoption in international adoptions
o Little or no medical history is available for children adopted abroad
o The time adoptive parents are required to spend in a foreign country when bringing home their child can vary from a day or two to several weeks. Not all foreign countries allow escorts.

Chris and Tina