The Research Begins...

When Sam and I returned from Haiti, we still didn't have a good idea of the adoption process. Then when we decided we were going to adopt, we had this grandeur idea of looking at a list of children who have been waiting for homes and overlooked by others, and pick out our children...

HA! What an idea! We quickly found out that's not at all how the process goes. There are only two countries who put their list of available children out there before a family extends their desire to adopt - China and Bulgaria. Every other country waits for a family to submit their paperwork, then they choose one of their available children and pass it on to the family. So, we were told we first needed to pick a country and go from there.

There are 185 countries listed on the Adoption.state.gov website. I would say 75% of them have either had no adoptions ever documented from there, or a very small amount (usually indicating those adoptions were relative adoption only). So, because I have a difficult time making any decision without thoroughly evaluating all my options, I went through all 185. I first evaluated the number of adoptions they've had in recent years, and eliminated those with little or no adoptions in 2011. After countries made the first cut of having enough adoptions to even legitmately consider, I then looked at the requirements to adopt from that country.

Boy is this a whole new world. The requirements are broken up into sections:
1. Age of adoptive parents
2. Length of marriage for adoptive parents
3. If not married, whether or not singles are accepted
4. Number of times adoptive parents have to travel to the country in the process.
5. How long the adoptive parents have to stay in country during the process.
6. Cost of adoption from that country
7. Age of children available in that country
8. Length of time it takes from start to finish to adopt from that country.
9. Income requirements
10. Religious requirements

So, I went through and evaluated each country left, eliminating based on the following criteria we had within the above requirements:
1. I'm 28, Sam is 31 - this eliminated just a few countries - China (have to be 30), Haiti (have to be 35), and another (have to be 40).
2. We have been married for 4 years, and will be married 5 years in May. This didn't eliminate too many, although some did require marriage of 5 years, and Haiti we know requires marriage of 10 years.
4. We didn't have a preference for the number of trips, but the more times you have to travel, the more costs are incured because of extra plane tickets, housing while you're there, etc. There is an up side to that of course though - while you're in country, you have guardianship over your child and he/she can stay with you in your guest house or hotel, allowing for some very good bonding time.
5. Travel time length eliminated a lot of countries. There were a shocking number of countries who required several weeks, or even several months, in the country before you could proceed with your adoption. Sometimes it was because court proceedings were delayed, or could reschedule without warning. Other times it was because the countries wanted you to live with your child for 30 days to make sure it is a good fit before proceeding. While this makes sense, our jobs won't allow for that length of time away, and since we have to have jobs to support the children we're bringing home...kind of important. Here are some examples:
Hungary - requires 2 trips - 1 trip is 30 days, the next trip is 15 days - can be combined to stay in country the whole time.
Ethiopia - 2 trips, 1 week each trip.
Japan - in the country for 18 months before you can adopt....
The list goes on and on. So, we eliminated any country who required us to be in the country for longer than 2 weeks at a time.
6. Cost came into play some, but most countries are around the same price. Russia and Kazakhstan are considerably more expensive, so we vetoed them since we weren't partial to adopting from there in the first place.
7. Age we didn't care a lot about because we were aiming to adopt those kids who have been waiting...so we didn't eliminate any based on this. But to give you an idea, some countries didn't have any children under 5 because so many people want to adopt infants, to give you an idea of where age groups come in with countries.
8. Length of program - Bulgaria is 2-3 years. China is close to 3 years unless you're adopting a waiting child (waiting could mean older, a sibling group, or special needs). We weren't interested in starting our family in 3 years. It's kind of like when you decide you want to start a family and you want to not only be pregnant immediately, but you want that baby to hurry up and get here. So we eliminated some countries who were just too long to wait. Sometimes the wait times were long because they have a lot of adoptions going through them, and sometimes it's because they have a process in country that doesn't allow for it to go any faster.
9. Our income disqualified us for some countries, but most didn't have income requirements - they just wanted to see that you could support a child/ren.
10. Some countries required you to be Muslim...so we don't qualify for those.

Some of the above information wasn't readily available on every country, so after narrowing down what we could on the above criteria, we came up with 15 countries we were ready to research further:
Armenia, Bulgaria, Columbia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Lithuania, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, Uganda, Hungary, Ukraine, and Hong Kong.

We looked up more about the adoption programs, the children available, the agencies who work in these countries, the costs, the travel time, etc. We vetoed the countries for the following reasons, and were down to 4 countries:
Armenia - Too long of travel (2 trips, second trip is 3-6 weeks)
Bulgaria - Too long of program (2-3 years)
Columbia - Too long of travel (3-7 weeks)
Ethiopia - adoptions are slowing down there, and wait time was getting longer
Ghana - due to the recent arrests there, agencies are recommending all adoptions hold up until they can figure out what's going on. Suspect of child trafficking :(
India - Too long of program (2-3 years)
Poland - Too long of travel (4-5 weeks over 3 trips)
South Korea - Too long of program 2-3 years)
Taiwan - Both parents have to be 30
Uganda - Travel time is unpredictable (3-7 weeks first trip, then 2 weeks second trip)
Hungary - too long in country (45 days)

We were left with Lithuania, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

From here it was purely prayer, and where God was compelling us to adopt from. Here's why we chose DRCongo:

**There are over 5 MILLION orphans in DRCongo alone. Agencies call it the Orphan Crisis.
**The DEATH RATE for children under 5 is 50%. Half of all children will not make it to their 5th birthday.
**The WARS in Africa are claiming lives every single day - either by raiding villages and making young boys (6 and up) kill their families and kidnap for them to become soldiers, or kidnapping the girls to be sold into sex slavery. These kids need out.
**SICKNESS is plaguing the country, and more children are abandoned due to parents dying from not being able to afford or get any medicine.
**Some orphanages hold over 200 children, with NOT ENOUGH FOOD to feed them. So, the kids eat one meal every other day. When was the last time you went 48 hours without eating?
**DRCongo is the 2nd POOREST country in the world.
**If the above reasons aren't enough already, it's a shorter program (12-18 months), sibling groups are available and need adopted, and only one trip is required for only 7-10 days.

There is a need everywhere - even here in the U.S. While it's hard to say where the need is greater, we KNOW these Congolese children need us. They are dying without help, and the growing number of orphans can't possibly decrease without families pursuing adoption. The biggest difference for us between domestic and international adoption was simply the difference in circumstance for the children. Like I said, there is a need for adoptive parents here in the U.S., but here there are foster homes and a family type setting for most children who are without parents. I KNOW the system isn't perfect, and children are still hurting here. But we don't have orphanages. We don't have children sleeping 25 to a room with no windows in 100 degree heat. Our children are fed three meals a day (in theory - I know there are awful circumstances even here), and our kids live in a place that at least has food and clean water available. Our bare minimums are far beyond what a country like DRCongo has on their best day.

So...this is why we chose to adopt from the Democratic Republic of Congo. We feel drawn there, and know our children are waiting. We will persevere through any trials that come our way. Because if your child were living in those conditions, wouldn't you too do everything you could to bring them home?