Resources for international and transracial adoption ..

[ilovemygirl]

I'm looking into adoption. I am heavily leaning towards Ethiopia or Rwanda. Where is the best place to start? There is so much info on the internet which is great but also kind of overwhelming. Is there a book, website, group, etc. that everyone loves and has found helpful?

[MovingMomma]

I'm in a similar place...also leaning towards Rwanda or Ethiopia. I feel like I keep going around in circles trying to find information & not getting anywhere!

[ilovemygirl]

It's the first time ever that I'm having trouble finding info and support on the web. Other than this forum and some yahoo groups, which I find really messy and overwhelming I can't find anyone to talk to online. I literally just discovered this morning that adoptive families magazine has a page where you can find local support groups in your area. I'm going to call some of them today to see if they have any meetings or anything just so I can connect with someone.
Good luck movingmomma and PM if you want to talk.

[SpottedFoxx]

Adoption.com has forums for country specific adoption. I adopted my son from Guatemala. Their forums were an amazing resource.

[annethcz]

When we were in the process of adopting our DS from Ehthiopia, I found the EthiopiaAdopt yahoo group to be really helpful. That helped me to understand what to expect and gave me info I needed when choosing an agency. Once I chose an agency, I was able to join a smaller yahoo group that was just for the agency's clients who were adopting from that country. I found a lot of comraderie from the smaller group, whereas the larger group was so active that it was hard to really get to know other parents.

[ariahsmum]

Welcome and blessings on your journey ahead. I was interested to read the responses to this thread, as I just adopted ds from Rwanda a few months back and am also looking for good resources on transracial adoptions and families.

I guess I wonder what types of information you are looking for that you have not been able to find in the format you were hoping for?

If you are looking for country specific adoption process/requirement information on Rwanda I do not think you will find too much out there. Adoptions form there are very very very new and few to date, altho this year alone has been a record year! Your best bet is to stalk blogs and talk to those who have btdt.

Looking forward to hearing more,

[tiffani]

Congratulations on your decision to adopt!! If I were in your shoes, I'd definitely look into Rwanda. You can adopt independently from there, saving money and sometimes time as well, and the gov of Rwanda actually prefers to work directly with families rather than through agencies. It seems overwhelming in the beginning, to gather all of the needed documents, etc, but you have to do all of that when you're with an agency anyway. Blogs and yahoo groups will give you all the information you need, support, etc.

There is a yahoo group for Rwanda adoptions and it's fairly active, I think. I don't receive emails from them anymore, so I'm not sure, but I just had a quick peek and it seems to be chugging right along...

I was the moderator of that group for a short period of time, and I started a blogroll section, so hopefully there will be a few blogs listed. In the database section I think there was information about what documents you need, etc.

good luck!

[sbrinton]

We're looking into adoption from Ethiopia. I really enjoyed reading "There is No Me Without You". This book is written by a woman who has adopted four children from Ethiopia, focuses on the story of an Ethiopian woman who runs an orphanage in Ethiopia, and does an elegant job explaining the history of the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia. An amazing book! The author's blog is helpful too: http://thereisnomewithoutyou.com/blog

I found that reading blogs of people who are adopting has been helpful too.

The other bit of advice I'd give (although we're still very new at this!) is to find a few agencies you like and ask them for resources. We live in the Seattle area and there are five agencies we're considering with offices here in the Northwest. YWAM's Adoption Minitry, All God's Children International, Adoption Advocates International, Bethany and WACAP.