For several years, Americans have adopted more children from China than from any other country. Agencies recommend China to their clients as having a stable and predictable adoption process. Well, the good news is, it’s still stable and predictable. The bad news is, the time families wait for a referral is now measured in years instead of months.
In December 2006, I wrote about China’s imposition of new requirements for adoptive parents. Most notably, these stipulated that singles were no longer eligible to adopt (China had been a popular option with single mothers until that time), and neither were people who were overweight and had “facial deformities”. Other health, financial, and educational criteria were imposed also.
The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption treaty imposed new requirements on adoption agencies as well. Some adoption agencies simply stopped working in China due to all the new requirements.
Children’s Home Society and Family Services, one of the oldest adoption agencies in the U.S., advises prospective parents, via their website, that the estimated time between submission of a dossier (packet of completed adoption documents) to China and referral of a child is three and a half years, and may become four or five years. Americans Adopting Orphans is saying three years, and Colorado-based agency AAC, which concentrates on placing children from China and Korea, is now estimating four years. On adopting parent forums, some prospective adopters are saying they are looking at six years.
Agencies hasten to point out that this applies to healthy Korean infants and toddlers in their regular China adoption programs. Waiting times will be much shorter—often a few months or less—for children in the Waiting Child programs. These children may be older or siblings, or are infants and toddlers with special needs. However, many of these needs are minor or correctible, such as a cleft lip, heart murmur, or webbed toes. I always encourage families to look at the Waiting Child listings before ruling out all waiting children. In most agencies, it is possible to remain on the wait list for the “regular” program while also reviewing the case history of a “waiting” child.
China has recently taken steps to open its “waiting child” lists so that clients of one agency will be able to see all waiting children regardless of agency assignment.
Why have the time frames suddenly become so much longer? In addition to fewer American agencies partnering with China, one big reason may be that the China program has been flooded with adoptive parents who want a girl. Many other agencies will not allow prospective parents to specify gender, and some will not allow first-time parents to specify it. China’s regular adoption program is ninety percent girls, so parents who want to almost ensure that they will get a girl are often steered into agencies’ China programs. (Americans Adopting Orphans says that healthy boys are available, however. Some other adoption agencies see boys mainly in the special needs population of the Waiting Child programs.)
For a 2006 blog that is still relevant for general country information and the reasons children are available for adoption, click here.