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People who have adopted internationally are often asked why they went overseas when there are so many children available for adoption in the United States. It is a legitimate question.
In the case of my family, we decided to adopt internationally because we did not have fertility issues and we did not want to compete with domestic couples hoping to adopt infants. We also didn’t want to disrupt birth order (although we did that with our second adoption… bad idea…) which meant we needed to adopt a very young child, because our birth children were quite young when we began pursuing adoption. I remember my husband commenting that at least domestic children available for adoption were already in the United States, whereas children overseas in need of parents didn’t even have the advantages the United States could offer. (We were young and naïve and mistakenly thought the foster care system in America deserved more credit than it probably should actually receive…)
Children come into care in foreign countries for many of the same reasons they do in America. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, those reasons include abandonment, poverty, illness or death of the parents, or family issues such as substance abuse, child abuse, or neglect. Children often have health problems related to these reasons.
I once watched a presentation comparing the photographs and histories of children in American foster care with children adopted from Eastern Europe. It was impossible to tell the difference. All the kids had similar histories, similar behavioral issues, and similar appearances. The presenter was making the point that at least the kids who came from the American foster care system came with subsidies and Medicaid cards, while the internationally adopted children did not. (The truth is, Medicaid cards don’t often cover attachment therapy or the other extensive interventions these children often need, but that is a topic for another day…)
I will continue to explore the reasons why some people choose international over domestic adoption…
Question: Can you explain about the birth order comment and where I can get more info on this? We’d like to have a baby (biologically), God-willing next year, and, in a couple of years, adopt a toddler or young child (as it seems there’s lines for babies but many slightly older children are harder to place and need families)and need to understand these issues better. Thanks.