Adopting from Ethiopia: General questions and confusion

[DynamiteA]

Hello,
We have been TTC for two years but always knew we would like to adopt one day in addition to bio kids. We are now feeling ready (and VERY excited) to move ahead with adoption.

We are looking at several countries but quite interested in Ethiopia at this time. I have looked at the sites of many agencies dealing with Ethiopia, but they all seem to have widely varying info on some very basic questions!

If you (or someone you know) adopted/is adopting from Ethiopia, what was your experience? How old are available children, usually? How long was the wait? How much travel time/country stay time did you need (and how many trips)? What was the cost? Any especially strict requirements of adoptive parents?

Really excited (as I said) and looking forward to learning more. Thanks!!

[Dandelionkid]

Hi,
I only know a tiny bit from a colleague adopting a child from ethiopa. She has specified for a girl baby and all I know is that after the prelim paperwork and social work visit was squared away they gave her a 15 month max waiting time until she finds out the identity of her baby (child could be up to 1 yr old I think). I believe she is in month 13 right now. After finding out the a baby is waiting for her it takes another 6 months of redtape before she will be travelling to get her. Sorry I don't know anything else!

[annethcz]

DS2 was born in Ethiopia and joined our family almost 3 years ago. An important thing to know in regards to international adoption is that regulations, rules, and the general status of programs tends to change constantly.

If you (or someone you know) adopted/is adopting from Ethiopia, what was your experience? How old are available children, usually? How long was the wait? How much travel time/country stay time did you need (and how many trips)? What was the cost? Any especially strict requirements of adoptive parents?

Keeping in mind that we went through the process 3 years ago, here are my answers. There tend to be either babies/toddlers available, and then older children. IN GENERAL, babies come into care when they are abandoned or when a mother can't care for a baby. There usually aren't as many toddlers or preschoolers in care, but more older children. Once kids get to be school age and it becomes obvious that parents aren't going to be able to educate their children, they are more likely to come into care. Of course, when we adopted DS he was 4 (almost 5), so obviously there are some preschool age kids available.

Our wait: we started the homestudy paperwork in January, finished our dossier and signed the placement agreement for DS in May (he was a waiting child, so we didn't have to wait for a referral), had to wait until after the courts reopened in October for the adoption to be complete in Ethiopia, and travelled to bring DS home in November. We chose to travel to get DS, although escorting was available.

I believe that our total cost (again, 3 years ago) was around 16,000 including homestudy, placement fees, legal fees, immigration fees, and travel expenses. At that time there weren't any especially restrictive requirements for adoptive parents.

When I was researching, I found the EthiopiaAdopt yahoo group to be very helpful. It's a good place to start to find out more info about the process and about the agencies. Since the time we adopted, I know that there are several more agencies operating in Ethiopia, and I'm not sure how good some of the newer agencies are. At the time I adopted, the general wisdom was that if you stick with the 4 agencies that have been operating in Ethiopia for the longest time, you'll be in good hands- AFAA, AAI, CHSFS, and Wide Horizons. We used AAI and were very pleased with the way our adoption proceeded. The people at the agency knew what they were doing and were ethical.

ETA: EthiopiaAdopt yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EthiopiaAdopt/

[lamamax3]

I don't have any info on adopting from Ethiopia, but I thought I'd jump in .

Since you are researching your adoption options, I just wanted to point out that the US is one of (if not the only) Western nation that adopts its babies out to people in other countries. Those babies are African-American. We are in the process of adopting a minority baby, and I can tell you from my own research and from speaking with the social worker that there aren't enough families out there willing to adopt an AA baby. We will be adopting a healthy newborn in the US hopefully within the next year.

I'm not judging or trying to discourage you about international adoption. I wanted to give you another option you might not have looked into. I guess I'm an advocate for the baby I don't have yet .

[Natalie12]

Our family has adopted two children from Ethiopia. Ds was adopted in December of 2005 and dd was adopted in December of 2007.

My experience was different than the poster who stated that there aren't many toddlers and preschoolers available. I saw children of all ages there, including infants. My own children were 15 months and 21 months old when we brought them home. But, as she stated, things can change very quickly in international adoption.

The wait time for ds was seven months, from the first paperwork to our trip home. This is incredibly was and I wouldn't expect it again. It took a little over a year to bring dd home. We used Wide Horizons, and I believe that there current wait time is up to 18 months after you submit a dossier for an infant, and I'm not sure about older children.

We did have an escort option but chose to travel both times. In Ethiopia, you can often meet the birth family, so that was one of the main reasons that we chose to travel. We stayed about 10 days for each child, and only needed one trip for each.

The cost was about $20,000 for everything.

Good luck. Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions. I can easily say that I'd adopt from Ethiopia again in a heartbeat! The culture and the people are wonderful.

[queenjane]

I'll preface this by saying i dont know much (or have any experience) about adopting from Ethiopia, but i fell in love with a little girl named Rekek on a photolisting years and years ago, and have wanted to adopt from Ethiopia ever since (and Rekek is still in Ethiopia last i heard...she must be a teenager by now. )

But, its my understanding that because Ethiopia has become a more popular place to adopt from that there is more of a wait for babies, and that waiting kids (older kids) are placed fairly quickly. In fact, WACAP has a program in which older kids (i think boys five and older? though i think i remember that the age may have been reduced to three or four for boys) have their entire fee *waived* in order to place those kids. So there is a definite need for older kids! And in international adoption "older" often means three or four years old! Check out www.wacap.org for more info, their program is called Promise Children.


Katherine

[SpringRain]

I did a whole blog post about this WAAAAAAY back when we first started our adoption. Some of this info is out of date - I know that the wait for referral and the time from referral to travel has lengthened due to the growing popularity of the program.

Hope this helps!!

[grantskismom+1]

We are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia right now! I've fallen in love with the country and the culture. Such an amazing and under-appreciated group of people.

Our experience has been great. I can't say enough good things about it. We started the process in March, completed the home study in May, and had our dossier in-country in June. We'd be traveling right now if it weren't for the court closing (the courts close from August and September for the rainy season). Our court date is October 15th and we should be traveling 4-6 weeks after that. :

Our adoption went fast because we are adopting a waiting child. If you desire a younger child the wait can be as much as 6-9 months. If you would be willing to consider a younger child with HIV the wait is much less. AHOPE, the orphanage that care for HIV+ orphans, actually has parents waiting for referrals now, which is awesome!

The travel time is roughly 1 week (2 weeks for HIV+ children, but that's changing soon) and you don't have to visit prior. Our cost with travel expenses is going to be around $14,000. As someone else mentioned, WACAP has a great program and I think we'll be going through them for our next adoption. As for restrictions, we didn't find there to be many. Some agencies have particular restrictions but Ethiopia is pretty reasonable in what they expect.

Good luck!! I'd love to hear what you decide.