Making Choices

THE FIRST and most overwhelming steps of the process involved very important choices: from which country should we adopt, which agency should we use in the adoption process, and which home study agent or agency should we use to conduct our home study? Here's how we made our choices; every adopting family chooses using different criteria.

The Right Country
We considered most important the long-term political stability of the nation and of the adoption process in that country. We learned about different countries' adoption processes and histories by conducting Web searches and by talking with adopting parents about their experiences. We learned, for example, that a friend of a friend who started the process of adopting a child from Vietnam had to start the process over again after a year's effort because either Vietnam or the United States or both changed their policies on adopting from Vietnam. We wanted to avoid such instability. The process is difficult enough without surprises like that!

We narrowed our country search to Russia, Guatemala, and China. Each has an exemplary record for maintaining a stable adoption process over time. However, as we continued our research, we discovered that a disproportionate number of orphans from Russia suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome. And we learned of one parent's difficult experience adopting from Guatemala While the research we conducted did not reveal symptomatic problems among orphans or the adoption process in Russia and Guatemala, these issues gave us pause. As we researched China, we discovered few parents who encountered problems with their adoptions.

In traveling to Japan, Korea, and Singapore, we had fallen in love with East and Southeast Asia. A friend who lived in Japan at the time offered us free board each time we visited, so we had the opportunity to travel to Asia four or five times in the years leading up to our decision to adopt. We learned as much as we could about the history and culture of the countries we visited, and we started collecting decorative "chachka" to give our house an Asian flair.

We knew we wanted to adopt a little girl, and we also knew that we did not mind if we received an older baby who was no longer an infant. Our research online and in person, our visits to Asia, and our desire for a girl led us to adopt from China. Once we selected our country, the next important decision was to select an adoption agency.

The Right Agency
Once we knew we wanted to adopt a child from China, we could start researching agencies and comparing apples to apples, as it were. We (and by this I mean Deborah) started that research on the Internet and by following word of mouth. We considered local agencies in the Washington, D.C., metro area, and we considered agencies throughout the United States. We narrowed our selection criteria to a successful record of placing children from China, a long-term commitment to placing children from China and to maintaining appropriate connections to the Chinese government's adoption policy-makers and orphanages, and positive reports from families who had worked with the agency in the past.

We also reviewed the total cost of adoption and compared those figures; we discovered to our delight that, at the time of our research, adoptions from China cost less, overall, than adoptions from Russia and Guatemala

After talking to people by email and by phone, we selected an agency that deals exclusively with Chinese adoptions. Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI) is based in Englewood, Colorado, and maintains full-time staff in both the United States and China. They are well-equipped to handle the adoption process, they came highly recommended, and they maintain non-profit status so the adoption costs remained lower that other agencies. We have been entirely satisfied by our experience with CCAI and we recommend them without reservation to parents wishing to adopt from China.

The Right Home Study Agent
Different states require different degrees of thoroughness in their home studies, but every state, and certainly China, requires that a licensed social worker conduct a home study assessment in order to be approved as adopting parents. Some agencies have social workers on staff or have formal business arrangements with social work agencies, while others allow adopting parents free reign in selecting a social worker. Since we do not live in Colorado, we were able to choose our own home study agent.

Rather than reveling in our freedom of choice, however, we found ourselves wondering how to conduct a search for the "right" social worker. We contacted CCAI and asked them for referrals or recommendations; they gave us a name and also gave us the names of local CCAI adoptive parents who had used this social worker in the past. We contacted some of the families and received glowing reports; we then contacted the social worker directly and discovered her to be laid back and friendly, open and energetic, and entirely the kind of social worker we wanted to conduct our home study. So we contracted with Barbara Slaton at Forever Families Adoption Services.

We met with Barbara and knew we had found our social worker. She conducted the home study in a thorough but warm and inviting way, and she gave us loads of information and advice on what to expect throughout the adoption process. In the early stages, Barbara was our human connection to the process. Later, once our adoption petition was accepted, the folks at CCAI became the human connection. But those early days are difficult, and a good social worker makes a huge difference in handling the long wait to come.

The Second Time Around
For adopting Emily, our second adoption, we made similar choices. We remained committed to adopting from China, to using CCAI as our adoption agency, and to using Forever Families Adoption Services as our home study agency.

We had an opportunity to request that our second daughter be selected from the same orphanage as Sydney, but we chose against that. Although we loved the Yongning Social Welfare Institute (Sydney's orphanage), we knew that requesting a specific orphanage would likely increase the amount of time we'd wait for a match. We did not want to make Emily wait one more second than she had to!

The Next Step »