The Diane Rehm Show

2Dogs: Most international adoptions involve extensive checking of the adoptive family, including a home study by a qualified social worker, reference letters, and a lot of information collected about your background, reasons for adopting, etc. I don't think it is less rigorous than domestic adoption, and I have friends who've adopted both ways. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with international adoption.

All adoptive children are in dire need of a home, and there are complexities that come with being adopted, regardless of your race/cultural background and that of your parents. Whether you're biological or adopted, there is some chance that your relationship with your parents will be complicated or that you will be less than fulfilled/happy.

People I know who chose to adopt internationally (including us) did so because we were told it was difficult to impossible to adopt a young child (baby to a year old) domestically. In our case, we were told it would be especially difficult because we had one biological child. Whether or not this was true at the time, this is what we were told. You ask a good question about how domestic adoption can be made more possible in this country, in a way that still protects everyone's safety and rights.

I do think open adoption can be a great thing, for the child and for both families, and that such adoptions are easier to maintain domestically.

My husband and I are in the process of adopting and while we haven't gotten to the hard work of actual parenting yet, we have been given the mixed blessing of five years to gather resources, learn about potential challenges, and gain the support and friendship of some wonderful people who are walking this road with us.

Choosing a path to adoption for us wasn't that difficult. Like many who face their infertility with disappointment, we naturally wanted to share our love with a child from the earliest possible cuddly moments. We knew what would be best for a child was to have us protecting him from early abuse or neglect. Domestic infant adoption was, we thought, the easiest and quickest path to family.

Despite many, many hours of training and reading, we were completely unprepared to handle the complicated, high drama of an open pre-adoption experience. We were also unaware that 50-percent of birth mothers who make an adoption plan change their minds.

Our domestic adoption was not completed, and while I will not burden you with the details, the thought of those days in 2006 makes my cast-iron stomach nauseous with pain.

Through this, we decided as a family that domestic, open adoption was not for us. Closed adoptions happen rarely, and we were already past 40 years of age.

Research revealed a good fit for us to adopt from a beautiful country where the orphanage care is simple but affectionate. We had further screenings, did more paperwork, went to more trainings, paid more money.

We hoped the wait would be short to adopt an infant or toddler or young sibling group. What has occurred since then has been an ideological and bureaucratic nightmare. Governments debate international adoption while the innocent baby we gladly agreed to adopt in 2008 grows daily toward legal voting age. Now he, daddy and I are all waiting. Waiting for justice.

Adoption ain't for sissies, and we haven’t even gotten to the hard work of parenting yet.

I am an adoptive parent of a 6 year old from Russia and live in France. My son is a dream come true...I am so proud of him. I consider that we are very fortunate or blessed to have become parents of the most incredible son ever. This doesn't mean he or we are perfect, in fact there are moments that aren't always easy. So, I can imagine that not everyone has an easy situation.

Considering, many people have been impacted by this story including future adoptive parents in other countries. I want to thank the talent, producers and the guests for participating in this show as it sheds a great deal of light on how extremely tricky adoption can be. It also gives a very unpolished and realistic look at the story.

I have forwarded the link to this broadcasat to many future and current adoptive parents as I think it should be a mandatory part of learning about whether we are ready to be parents of an adoptive child and how others handle the situation when they are in it.

We adopted two girls from Russia. The first was a 16 month old in 2000 and the second was 4 1/2 years old adopted in 2004. They are both thriving, well attached girls, doing well in school and socially. At about 100 lbs my 11 year old daughter still loves to be picked up everyday and held, hugged and kissed.

I've seen posts both positive and negative about those adopting from Russia as well as the adopted children. Yes, some children do have problems. There are also children adopted domestically as well as those who have their own children by birth that have problems. To paint adoptions from Russia with such a broad brush that they have problems and alchoholic parents is certainly unfair. It is the same to say these children receive poor care. I’ve seen different.

One comment stuck out to me. Unless you've gone through it, don't say they don't do much checking on the adoptive parents. I'd like to see some birth parents go through what we went through before they were allowed to give birth. The birth rate in this country would go down 70%. Nobody comes to question you for hours before you give birth to determine your fitness to be a parent, don’t do criminal background checks, don't ask for a copy of the deed to your home and how much money you make and they don't ask for an 8 doctor medical check before they allow you to give birth.

As far as domestic adoption, we tried it for more then two years before we gave up. We also watched news stories of a 5 year old girl from MN being dragged away from her adoptive parents screaming and crying because her birth mother decided she wanted her back after 5 years and found the adoptive parents forgot to dot an "i" and cross a "t". In the US, the court ripped this child from her parents arms and gave her back to someone who abandoned her and later changed her mind. This does NOT happen with Russian adoption.

Yes, I'm biased. I'm the proud papa of two wonderful girls who are the light of my life.

Don

We have two wonderful adopted children from Guatemala.

I simply have no sympathy for the mother in this case. Children are not a purchase to be returned if you don't like 'it'.

As I tell my son when he gets upset and threatens to run away to Guatemala - you are a part of our family and you're stuck with us forever.

I do have a great deal of sympathy for people feeling stressed at the beginning of the adoption. My greatest source of stress was all the people that insisted on telling us what we were doing wrong - our child should be going to sleep by themselves, we shouldn't let them have a bottle, and on and on. Many fellow parents assumed we were somehow less capable since we were adoptive parents. Many doctors failed to understand that an adjustment period was needed when we first got our children home.

We found our greatest support from fellow adoptive parents - I highly recommend connecting with local and web groups - they're great.

Finally, I don't know what the two guests were talking about regarding post adoption follow-up. We adopted our son while living in NJ and our daughter here in Virginia - there has been absolutely no follow-up (and with the clown that did our home study in Virginia, I couldn't be happier about never hearing from him again - he almost made us miss the deadline to be grandfathered in to the Guatemalan adoption process at the end of 2005).

WIth Russian adoption- APs are required to have at least 4 post placement home visits- 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 3 years. Parents are required to send a number of photographs as well as the social worker's report. Personally- while this was an added expense, I loved my social worker and looked forward to her coming each year and seeing my daughter's progress. Her support, encouragement and validation that I am a good parent was a real gift to me as a single adoptive mom.

Many of us (and I count myself in this group) are very lucky to have children who are healthy, loving and thriving- others have not fared so well... either by choice (special needs) or happenstance. The adoptive mom in question was one of these- certainly she was faced with challenges that many of us can't even begin to imagine, even having been educated about the possibilities. I'm sure she shared your dream of having a family. Can anyone imagine the stress she must have felt to have acted in such an irrational and seemingly callous manner?

Finally- for those who have watched a show or two about russian adoption and/or know a family or two who have adopted from there... do you really think you know more than those of us who have researched, read, travelled and lived it? Age does not equal wisdom.

We also adopted internationally because we worried about the birth family changing its mind. Someone I know went through that - their taken-back child was very ill, & they had to spend quite a bit of money over & above what insurance covered. After they got through that, they lost the child to its alcoholic birth mother, who had given up 4 previous children as well. They got no reimbursement "a child is not a commodity" you know...

We are fortunate in that our child is not mentally ill. There are significant learning disabilities, and believe me, the support has not been there. As our child wrote in an essay for English, "My mom knew what was wrong with me long before any of my teachers had a clue". And they fought me, tooth & nail. I'm on enough newsgroups to know that time-consuming as this has been, it's a walk in the park compared to what the parents of PTSD, RAD, OCD, ODD, and/or bipolar children go through. Still, if I did not have the education I have, I don't know how I'd have managed to educate myself enough to get our child the services needed to learn -- public school was yielding no progress whatever in reading or math.

For part of the process, we'd have been completely up the creek if one of the local pediatricians did not have an arrangement with a pediatric neurologist to travel here from out of state for a couple weeks 3 or 4 times a year - and luckily, he had a lot of experience with post-institutionalized children. And hasn't it been a miracle that we never needed an emergency consult? Not only are the services very lacking, it's hard to find out about them, and when you do, the waiting lists can be phenomenal.