The Long Road Home - adopting children abroad

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Dec, 2000 by Catherine Siskos, Erin Burt

Your agency may be based anywhere in the U.S., although one in your own state must do the home study, a detailed evaluation of prospective parents. Check with the attorney general's office in the agency's state to make sure it's licensed, and ask the agency about other parties, such as orphanages, involved in the process.

You want an agency that has lots of experience with the country from which you want to adopt--but that works with more than one country, so that if problems arise with your first choice, you can transfer to another country's program at minimal cost.

Each agency has its own style and personality: Some take parents under their wing throughout the process, while others maintain a businesslike distance. The La Joys first chose a local agency but found it impersonal and uncommunicative. "We would ask for updates and they would take days, even weeks, to get back to us," says Cindy. After the home study, they switched to a smaller agency in Kansas, but lost about $1,000 in non-refundable fees.

The paper chase

ONCE YOU'VE SELECTED an agency, you'll be asked to sign a contract, which should disclose the total amount and itemize the cost of each service. Agencies bill for services as they're rendered, with the heftiest charges at the beginning and end of the process. Most fees are nonrefundable. You can drop out at any time, but the further along you are, the more money you lose.

The home study, which takes a few months to complete, ranges in cost from $400 in Salt Lake City to $3,000 in Los Angeles. Then you must supply birth and marriage certificates, provide references, get a physical, undergo a criminal-background check, and submit a recent tax return.

Often foreign courts want all these documents notarized and even certified by state officials. Assembling a dossier can take weeks, and attention to detail is vital. If you use a notary whose license expires before the adoption is completed, for instance, a court may consider your paperwork invalid.

One of the most important documents is the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Form I-600A, in which you apply for permission to adopt a foreign orphan. It costs $405 to file the form, and local INS offices can take months to send back the slip of paper that allows you to adopt. "In many cases, you can't send your application to the foreign government until you have all your documents," says Kaufman, who recommends filing the I-600A before completing the home study so that the process doesn't get held up.

The moment of decision

WHAT THE La Joys dreaded most wasn't the paperwork but the moment of decision--choosing a child from among the videotapes of children that met their criteria. It may sound like baby shopping, but, says Susan Cox of Holt International, an agency in Eugene, Ore., "adoption is intended to find families for children, not the reverse." Cox was adopted from Korea by an American couple in the 1950s.

The La Joys agonized over the first videotape of a Russian brother and sister because the couple suspected the little boy had fetal alcohol syndrome. "You think about the odds of a child's getting adopted," says Cindy. "I may be the one chance that child has for a family." The couple turned down the referral and, at their agency's suggestion, switched to Islamic Kazakhstan, where alcoholism is less common.