{62/365} The “safe” option

When talking about how they choose international adoption, I have heard more than one person say “I picked international adoption because it is the safe option.” What do they mean by that statement?

Well some mean that there is typically no birth mother to worry about coming back to “claim” her child. With domestic adoption there is a period of time after the birth that the birth mother has the right to change her mind and choose to parent the child herself. There are statistics that say a family adoption domestically in the United States have at least one failed adoption prior to a successful one. Some families feel they could not handle that and turn to international adoption as the next option but you need to research the country you choose carefully. In Korea, until the child boards the plane to leave for the US, the birth mother has the right to choose to parent her child and terminate the adoption process. While I have not heard of many people experiencing this I have seen it happen recently, it is heart breaking for the family who then has to start the whole process over again. I believe this is the case in other countries as well.

Some may think that since the child is already born they will have better access to medical information or the information will be more accurate than they may receive here in the US. Except for Korea, the countries where these children live do not have the same standard of medical care that we have in the United States. In most countries medical testing cannot be 100% trusted. I know of more than one family that believed they were adopting a child that had tested negative for Hep B only to get home and learn their child has Hep B. Some things that we test for in the United States cannot be tested for in some countries where the medical field does not have the same equipment. While a potential adoptive family receives all of the medical information available (or they should at least) there is still a lot of information missing. There is the potential for over diagnosis and under diagnosis of issues. Many times issues are not discovered until the child is home with their new family and proper medical tests can be performed.

As for the child’s family medical history which in the United States can be unknown, false or completely there. The same holds true with international adoption. In countries like China, where willingly giving a child up for adoption is a crime, those children have absolutely no family medical history unless they are very lucky. This can mean that the child may have to endure more medical tests if a problem does arise to rule out possibilities that could have been tentatively ruled out with a family history. In Korea, typically some family history is available but just like the US it cannot always be trusted. Some birth mothers are simply unaware of issues that may be important later in life, some are afraid that if the whole history is given then their child will not be adopted, and some just want to protect themselves and their family or may just be to embarrassed to admit that some thing is in their family history. Remember this history is being asked for when they are highly emotional and trying to do what they believe is best for their child at the time. They want their child to be loved and not judged. I would say this is the hardest decision they have made in their whole life and in some cases they are being forced to make by family, culture, boyfriends, their own beliefs or something else to give the child they really want to keep, can you imagine being in their shoes and trying to remember everything at that moment? I can’t.

Others may believe that they will then never have to worry about a birth family showing up on their doorstep someday. While this tends to be true in international adoption, think about this situation ~ a child, your child, looks into your face and says “do I look like my mom?” or “what does my dad look like?” and so many more questions you cannot answer because you choose “the safe option.’ Yeah you may not be able to answer these questions if your child is adopted domestically and the tough questions are part of adoption no matter where your child is from but consider if you want the option to try to find and contact a birth parent or family if your child needs that to be secure and you feel it is what needs to be done.

There is no “safe’ option ~ there are children in need of families period. They may need a family temporarily and they may need a family forever but they NEED a family, one with love and hope, one that shows them what family really means. Someone to call when they achieve something big, or fail terribly ~ a place to spend Christmas, and Thanksgiving and all the other holidays ~ someone to call and send gifts on their birthdays…EVERY CHILD deserves love.

The loves of my life:

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