, there may be legal complications as well as state and provincial adoption law matters as well as foreign immigration laws to deal with effectively, which gets further complicated with additional issues like language differences and cultural aspects that also need to be considered in order to make the adoption a successful one. Due to these reasons, an International adoption process comes with added tension for some and fees for this type of adoption process may be quite high, including travel overseas.

Even though babies are aplenty in countries like China, Columbia, Russia, Romania, Vietnam and Korea and thus, the waiting period considerably less for American and Canadian couples looking to adopt, the legal processes are different from those in their native countries and require many expenses such as hiring a suitable and expert foreign adoption agency, going through pre- and post-adoptive formalities, clarify the age-group, sex, race and health conditions for their preferred adoptive child. This freedom is curtailed a bit in China as most children given up for adoption are girls but, other countries do allow prospective parents to select a child based on a series of photographs after going through various applications an agency or the central registry of the child’s country of origin that has these records.

However, these are not the only concerns involving an International adoption: among the major drawbacks a couple considering foreign adoption are the series of cumulative expenses on their shoulders. Fees for foreign adoption range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand dollars and since adoptive parents are requried to bear legal as well as administrative costs, just attending to the costs of translating documents, using the services fo a notary, travel and living besides medical needs brings the expenses up considerably. All of these costs depend on how much time is spent in the foreign country finding a child to adopt and these figures may differ, based on this factor.

But, all is not lost for those couples looking at foreign adoptions and willing to learn about a different culture while using their valid passports to build their family; getting a child is quicker through International adoption as many children may be abandoned or brought up in orphanage that the hurdle of a birth mother backing out on her decision doesn’t exist. Besides, there are children available for adoption at all times and the rules and eligibility criteria for American couples is easier overseas than it is in North America.

Once, couples have armed themselves with proper, updated information and laws regarding International adoption and have the time and finances resources to travel and stay overseas for finding their adoptive child, cutting through the red tapism, language barriers and eliminating the fraudulent intercessors comes naturally if they keep their eyes and ears open to these existing challenges.



Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for contributing this article to our Adoption blog:

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